Houston Zoo

During our trip to Conroe, we decided to take a trip to the Houston Zoo to celebrate Jacob's birthday with him. Despite the heat, it was a highlight of the trip. Bright and early we loaded our family of 4, Gigi, Mr. Don, Taylor, AND Jacob into our van. We also took lunch, coolers, and 2 strollers. We were packed in there!

We got there right after they opened and the first stop was the dinosaurs. My boys had been talking about this for days in advance after seeing them on the internet. Jacob was a little scared of the first guy but quickly warmed up. My Jonas LOVES dinosaurs so this was right up his alley. They even moved and roared.


This last guy caught us by surprise and spit on us! It was a welcome cooling off.

We were really impressed with giraffes since the SA zoo giraffe exhibit is kind of disappointing. This zoo had 7 of the tall guys, and you could get very close. Jonas and Reef keep telling me that "the giraffes were about to poop!" Not sure what that's all about, but Reef explained that he knew this because the giraffe had a "funny bum".

Checking out the baby elephant.

Poor Lachlan was so hot! He looked pretty miserable most of the day!

Look how cute that baby elephant is!

After the elephants, Reef, Lachlan, and I got separated from the group. There are only 3 bathrooms in the whole zoo, and the we headed for one while the others stayed at the animals with plans to meet us in a few minutes. Well, they headed for a different one! After wandering around for 30 minutes (I didn't have my phone), we had to contact guest services! Luckily we were reunited for lunch, and Reef and I enjoyed some zebra viewing on our own.
Lachlan perked up after lunch and enjoyed some play time in the children's zoo.

After the children's zoo, we were all VERY ready to leave, except for Jonas who HAD to see the monkeys. Don and I decided to go with Jonas while everyone else headed for the car. I had no idea how long it would take to see all the monkeys. Jonas thought it was worth it though since he got to see the baboons (he said,"they have cheeks and a funny bum") and this orangutan.

After a long day at the zoo, everyone crashed in the car. All in all, a great day!

Conroe Trip

During Troy's first week in Brazil, the boys and I took a week-long trip to Conroe. I was nervous about this trip for two reasons-first road trip on my own with 3 kids and we haven't been away from our beds and routine for this long since Jonas was a baby.
The trip there couldn't have been more perfect, except that no one really napped. But, there was no crying from anyone, and we only had to make one stop to feed Lachlan. We made great time and arrived in Conroe just in time for a big family feast made by Grandma. That first night was rough as we all adjusted to new beds, and there were many fits the next day as a result of too little sleep. Other than that, the boys enjoyed kicking off the visit with a trip to the taco shop. We spent that first day at home, and it became obvious to me that we would need activities to fill the days and prevent boredom.
The next day, we did this activity from Notimeforflashcards.com. We made paint and painted these tennis balls. Then we bounced them to see the patterns they made.

That was a messy activity that led to some sprinkler time to clean up.

Lachlan missed out on the fun but enjoyed some grapes for lunch.

On Friday, we also had a nice dinner with my dad. Here's the first picture of him with all 3 boys.

Saturday, we took a big trip to the Houston Zoo. There's a separate post for that.

Cousins playing together. Considering they don't see each other often, these guys played very well together.

After church and naps on Sunday, my mom and Don and I took the big boys to the splash pad in the Woodlands. Lachlan stayed with Gma and Gpa since we thought he'd like that more. Turns out he cried most of the time :(. Despite a few injuries, Reef and Jonas always enjoy this place.

On Monday, I took the boys to the park and the doughnut shop while Lachlan napped. Reef told me, "I'm going to have a big doughtnut with a hole in it, not a half." This was a big deal since I usually make them share. Can you see the love here?

We loved it so much, we went the next 2 mornings too.
I decided to buy a slip n slide for some cheap entertainment. They loved it even though they didn't really get the hang of it. They especially liked it when I helped them slide really fast.

Even Lachlan got in on the action.

Jacob came over later in the day, so we showed him how much fun it was too.

The best picture I got of all the cousins.

We also enjoyed 2 evenings swimming at Gigi's house but I didn't get any pictures. The whole week was a very nice visit. It was nice to not be so rushed and have time to really enjoy everything. It was also nice to have my sweet grandma cook, clean, and do our laundry for us. Another highlight of the trip was having so much time to spend with my sister and Jacob. I really do miss seeing her.

All in all, a perfect trip, though we did miss Troy immensely! The trip home, however, was not so perfect, with Lachlan throwing up all over himself and the car seat, and lots of crying from all 3 boys.

Trashmen

A few weeks ago, the boys decided to play trashmen, complete with gloves and goggles. Jonas even wore his to VBS one day!



He added a hat to the get up on the 2nd day!

Get Away

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to have a weekend get away. Troy had hoped to surprise me with a get away the weekend before, with my mom coming to stay with the boys, but her doc said her knee wasn't ready for that yet. We also decided to homes for Haiti that weekend anyway. Lucky for us, though, Theresa was sweet enough to offer to stay with the boys so we could go! It was so sweet of her to take on our 3 balls of energy for a full 24 hours. We are sad and sometimes frustrated by the fact that both families are so far away, but we are continually amazed at how God blesses us with our church family.
On to the trip....We dropped the boys with Theresa Friday afternoon and zipped downtown to stay at the Marriott Plaza. We stayed there several years ago and really enjoyed the nice courtyards, shaded pool, and peacocks roaming around. It's not right on the river but only a short walk away. After a small room mix up (the first one they gave us didn't have a bed!), we were changed and headed for an afternoon by the pool. Oh how I love to lay by the pool! Then we had dinner on the river and did a little shopping, had ice cream (another thing I love!), and watched our favorite show, Flashpoint.
The plan was to sleep in late Saturday morning, but we were up at 7:30! It worked out perfectly, though, because we were able to have breakfast at the highly recommended Guenther House. We were not disappointed. Then it was back to hotel to read and lay by the pool until it was time to go back to the boys.
Theresa said all the boys were great and even offered to do it again next month! Wow! I really didn't expect that and look forward to another get away after Troy's Brazil trip.
This is is the only pic from the weekend...This guy was roaming by the pool.

End of Year Program

Here's a quick video from Reef's end of year program. He loves this song but looks a little shy doing it on the big stage.

This was a great year at preschool for Reef. He LOVED his teacher Ms. Theresa, and we're lucky enough to see her throughout the summer too. He really came out of his shell and learned so much. He's already talking about what he'll learn in Ms. Berta's class and preparing Jonas for Ms. Kelly's class. We're so lucky to be in this program!

9 and 10 months

I didn't post a 9 month update last month; not because there was nothing to report but because I just wasn't feeling the blog. Now that I'm back, though, this will be a long update!
At 9 months, we visited the pediatrician for a check up and shots. He was 19lbs 2 oz (25th %) and 29 3/4 inches (90th %). I think the weight was a little low because he didn't eat much that week battling a sinus infection. Don't worry, though; he's really chunked up this last month!
9 months brought lots of milestones, including the army crawl and pulling up, and those videos are posted below. I loved the army crawl! The other boys never did that one! It also brought sleeping through the night, finally! I am feeling much more rested without that 3am feeding.
Ten months is also promising to be an exciting month, with lots of cruising and an increase in table foods. We're anticipating walking very soon; Troy hopes to see those first steps before he leaves for Brazil.
Here's what I want to remember about 10 months:
-Finally, we're sleeping through the night! You still wake up once for a pacifier fix most nights but go right back to sleep after that until 7 or 7:30 usually.
-Bedtime is still a breeze. All it takes is changing into PJs and a quick feeding, and then you're off to dreamland.
-You love your food! At lunch you eat 8 oz of baby food plus finger foods and at dinner, it's 10oz!
-You're really starting to love feeding yourself, and that's a big thing for this month. We're getting braver at sharing whatever we're eating with you, and you love it!
-With this new eating, I need to be more careful about food getting dropped on the floor. If it's found, it WILL get eaten!
-Favorite toys right now: ball popper (and anything that fits in it), ping pong balls (you love the way they bounce), the train table.
-You still love those big brothers of yours. When it's time to get them up in the morning, you start squealing and kicking your legs. It's so cute.
-You've really started cruising a lot this month and even let go and thought about taking steps on your own. Any day now...
-We've started bathing you in the big tub with your brothers. You're not a big fan of the bath in general so it's usually a pretty quick affair. It's tough to get you washed since you insist on standing the whole time and frequently try to climb out.
We're excited to see what comes next!
I've been really bad with pics lately but here are a few...
A rare sitting, smiling in the bath.

Three boys playing chase around the chair. It's a new favorite game.

Spagetti for dinner. It was love at first taste!

Failed photo shoot with the blue bear.

50 homes in 50 hours

In the midst of a very busy Memorial Day weekend, we were lucky enough to have some time to help out with this amazing project that I heard about on K-Love. A church on the other side of town was running a project to build 50 homes for Haiti in 50 hours. Volunteers would build the pieces of the houses and then they'd be shipped to Haiti and constructed on sight. I REALLY wanted to do it, and the Chapmans were nice enough to watch the boys during our 5 hour shift AND let us go out to dinner too!
Mark and Melynda were able to join us so it was a good day of service and hanging out. We started out the shift building "wall C". I'm not good with a hammer and banged my thumb A LOT, but it felt good to actually help with the building. In 2 hours, we completed 8 walls and were told to stop because we were going too fast. Then they shipped us out into the sun where we helped stack the walls and band them together for shipping.
It was a long hot day but well worth it! We were able to exceed our goal and ended up building 75 houses! God is good!

Peach Picking

We kicked Memorial Day weekend off early with a trip to Marburger Orchard on Friday morning. I've really been looking forward to this since we haven't been since Reef was a baby. We had a good time, but, let me tell you, it was a lot harder with 3 kids than it was with just one! Troy started off with blackberry picking, which is hard because the vines are prickly, so the boys quickly grew tired of that. We had a quick lunch in the van while Troy topped off our box. Then we were ready for the fun stuff-peaches! The boys had a hard time not picking EVERY peach they could reach and thoroughly enjoyed taste testing them!

I forgot Lachlan's lunch, so he thought this peach was the best thing to ever happen to him. Pictures can't really capture his love.

Troy did most of the picking, so I was in charge of the kiddos.

Final count: 4.5 lbs of blackberries, over 100 peaches! Number of peaches eaten by Reef and Jonas that day: 4 each! And they still ask for at least 2 a day. At this rate, these peaches won't last long, and we're hoping to make one more trip before the season is over.