Bluebonnet pictures 2015

Hi! I do realize that it's been a very long time since I updated our blog . . . things are busy over here! I do plan to do an update sometime, but not today, ha ha.  Instead, here are some photos from our annual bluebonnet photo session. :-)  

Our summer (so far) in pictures

We've been having a great summer so far! I'm definitely enjoying the more relaxed days and not rushing from one thing to the next all day.  And I'm absolutely enjoying not having to wake Theodore up from his naps every day to pick people up from school!

Buttercup has started taking a new dance class, which she LOVES. She's the youngest in her class (as opposed to the other class, where she was one of the oldest) and she's learning a lot from the older girls. The girls are working on a cute tap routine for their summer recital, and the steps are definitely a lot more intricate than in her previous dance class -- but she's doing very well!




Buttercup loves for me to turn on the Swan Lake CD, and then she'll dance and dance in the living room. Sometimes she'll drag Oliver into it, too. She'll chase him around the house begging him to be her prince until he gives in. What a sweet big brother. :-)

Theodore also likes to dance, but mostly he likes to dress up. :-)


Another exciting thing that has happened this summer is that Oliver got his own library card! We went to the library last week (it's terrible how long it had been since I took the kids to the library, because Theodore + libraries = TROUBLE) and he was so excited to get his card.

Neatly signing his name:


Holding up his own library card! The librarian said he could check out 15 books at a time, and he ran off right away and immediately came back with 10 books all about snakes and dinosaurs. :-) 


In other Oliver news, his gymnastics coach asked him last week to join the level 4 boys' team! What's funny is that, after 6 months of appearing to be tired of gymnastics, I finally pinned him down and he decided that this was going to be his last month of gymnastics. So I canceled his lessons, and then 6 days later his coach asked him to join the team. Oliver said "YES!!" Ha ha ha ha ha. So now he's going to have gymnastics 4 hours a week instead of 1! 

Here are some other random summer pictures, enjoy!

Snowcone mustache!

Playing quietly (and mostly unsupervised) with Play Doh while I fixed lunches for the water park!

One of our many visits to Bull Creek:

Going to the "far away" children's museum:

Dr. Buttercup!

How can it be summer if there aren't any sweaty kids climbing trees? :-)

Running on the trail:

Riding the train downtown to the children's museum!

Jumping off the diving board:

And part of the reason for us having a great summer is that I've been bringing the kids to the Y childwatch a few times each week so I can get a good run in. Thankfully, they don't really seem to mind, and everyone is much happier when Mommy gets some exercise! Whoo hoo! :-)

Pictures!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks. :-)  

Theodore didn't want to nap in his bed one afternoon, so I drove him around for a while to get him to sleep in the car. He finally fell asleep about 20 minutes before we had to pick Oliver up from school. :-)

This is from Science Saturday at Oliver's school -- the kids drew on themselves with highlighters, and the ink  glowed under black lights. Pretty neat!

Oliver getting started on the biggest Lego set that he's ever put together (over 1,000 pieces!). It took him about 3 hours to finish. I would still be working on it, ha ha! :-) 

Theodore having fun wearing some old boots and squirting water into a bucket.

Hanging on a tree!

Washing his hands :-)

Playing in the sprinkler for the first time this year!

A bunch of pictures :-)

Here are a bunch of phone pictures from the past month or so. Enjoy!

Oliver proudly displaying his swim school graduation form :-)

Theodore stacking blocks! (I love his look of concentration!)

Theodore talking to the "psshh" [fish] at the Nature and Science Center. :-)

A person dressed up in a mechanized T-rex suit at the Nature & Science Center. It was pretty realistic, and some of the little kids were terrified! One little girl scrambled up the side of the rock overhang to get away from it, and ended up getting cactus needles all over her legs. :-( 

Rwar!

Trying to buckle his own helmet :-)

Anna and I went bowling one night! Beer and bowling don't mix (well, for me anyway)! She won by a lot!

Biking with me at the trail one Sunday afternoon

I love this picture not so much because of how it looks, but because of the memory of what was going on -- Buttercup was being very silly, Theodore was chasing Oliver with a giant pinwheel, and Oliver was dodging Theodore, laughing at Buttercup and trying to throw the ball to her.
One of those sweet moments when they were all having fun TOGETHER. :-) 

We had one of Buttercup's friends over to play one morning, and everyone decided to play dress up. :-)

This is one of my favorite memories! I wanted to go running one afternoon, but we really didn't have time to drive to the trail and back, so I decided to push Buttercup and Theodore in the stroller to the trail near our house, while Oliver biked next to me. When we got to the trail, Buttercup asked if she could get out and run. So I let her run the length of that trail, then she wanted to run more, so she ran the length of the next trail. We stopped for 30 minutes or so at a playground, then headed back home. Altogether Buttercup ran 2.8 miles! It was really awesome because 1) she got to do something she LOVES to do, 2) everyone got plenty of exercise, and 3) I only had to push 35 pounds of kid instead of 80 pounds of kid for those 2.8 miles. :-)  

Riding the carousel at the mall

The 5 of us went bowling last weekend, and Theodore bowled a spare on the first frame! Ha ha ha!

Storytime :-)

We went to a science show at the library, and Buttercup was chosen to be the first assistant :-)

Riding a hovercraft

Hanging around at the playground

Apparently they wore themselves out!

Oliver (in the middle) waiting for his turn at swim practice

Freestyle

Backstroke

Taking pictures of her big brother. She's so sweet!