Luke's Kindergarten Field Trip

Today was Luke's field trip to Old MacDonald's Farm in Humble, TX.


The students road to the farm on school buses and the parents followed behind them in separate cars. The kids were so excited as they got off the buses.


Each parent chaperone was assigned a group of four kids to stay with while we were there. Here's are group we got to hang out with. Elijah, Julia, Luke, & Annie.

Mom & Luke

They also had this huge hay barn full of hay and rope swings! The kids loved that part!

I want to say Caleb & I went to this same place when we were little because I remembered those rope swings when we saw them.

And of course...a petting zoo :)

And what is a field trip without pony rides????

Luke's favorite part of the whole trip! They had real Indian teepees which were really cool.

Elijah, Zachary, Julia, & Luke

Everybody say cheese!

The whole class at the pumpkin patch.

Before we left, Mrs. Soders wanted a picture with all of the moms who helped so we took a quick picture and we were headed back home!

It was a wonderful day on the farm!

Pumpkin Painting

A few weeks ago I saw an idea to let your kids paint their pumpkins instead of carving them. Since I am always up for a fun kid craft I thought that would be an excellent project for me to do with the boys. Here's what our pumpkins looked like to start with...

Look at Luke- I've trained him well ;)

Brady hard at work.

Note to self...Next time it is probably a better idea to do this project outside so we dont get paint all over EVERYTHING!

Finished product! The boys and I decided this would be our new tradition for the night before Halloween.

Brady's pumpkin

Luke's pumpkin. Notice he wrote Baylor on the top then underlined it in white.

- that child is exactly like his Daddy!

Book Character Parade

Luke's school had a book character parade for all of the Kindergarten classes last Friday. Each student was to dress up as their favorite book character and they got to go up on stage to show all of their guests.


Of course...Luke was Luke Skywalker from Star Wars and he held his favorite book "Star Wars ABC". This book goes through the whole alphabet and gives a character for every letter and describes their role.

Picture Day At MDO

Last Thursday was picture day at Mother's Day Out. If you haven't noticed I have my kids pictures taken about every 6 months, so I don't really "need" any more professional pictures, but I still can't pass school pictures up. So, I snapped a quick picture of the two younger brothers before they left for school.
FYI: these two are almost impossible to get a good picture of together- hints the not so wonderful picture but it was all I had.

The Most Wonderful Words I Have Ever Heard...

As you know, Luke is in Kindergarten this year. It has been a big adjustment for all of us. It's lots of school work, homework, waking up early, learning, learning, & a little more learning. All very good things- just a little different than our "normal" life.

So every day we work on Luke's flashcards. He is learning letters, sounds, and sight words. His teacher sends home a reader every Tuesday which we work on and send back to school on Friday. This is the fourth week she has sent home the reader.

Each day as I am cooking dinner, Luke gets out the reader and we go through it together as I cook. EXCEPT for today... Today he got out the reader and started reading right off the bat. No help from me, just got it out and spouted off the first sentence. This was not a sentence he had even memorized or anything- just a sentence full of sight words and a picture at the end.


"I see my cowboy boots"
I hope I always remember how his sweet little voice sounded the first time he read a sentence. By the way, isn't that a cute first sentence?


I think he could tell how proud I was. All of his hard work is paying off!

Pearland Homecoming

Tonight we went to the Pearland Oilers Homecoming game. We like to tailgate before the games to spend time with friends and tonight was perfect weather to be outside.

The kids were in full swing faces painted and all!

Our little family of future Pearland Oilers!

Owen finally got his turn in the Allen 18 shirt. I made this shirt for Luke when his Uncle Saw used to be quarterback for the Oilers. Since then, Brady & Owen both have had a chance to wear it too. Gotta represent!

It was a really fun night spent with lots of great friends and the Oilers won!!!

Owen's New Do

Sweet little Owen has been in need of a hair cut for a few weeks now, but I was trying to savor every little last second of babyness I could possibly save. Today it was time though- after so many times of tucking it back behind his ear I had had enough.

We headed up to our favorite little boy hair cut place Hollywood Hair. They have $5 boy hair cuts so you can't go wrong with that when your lining them up three in a row ;)

He did wonderfully! He stayed still the entire time which was way better than I expected.


Here's the new Owen! He is all clean cut and ready to go. Caleb and I joked that he had been growing his baby hair out for locks of love and that's why it had gotten so long.

He looks all grown up now, but just as handsome as ever!

Fall On The Farm

Today was Fall on the Farm at Brady & Owen's school.

They had a class about milking cows, a petting zoo, a vegetable harvest garden, hay ride, and bean bag toss.

What a fun day! Thankfully, their classes went out one right after the other so I was able to see both of them.


Brady- right before he learning about milking cows from "Mary Moo"

Owen wasn't really sure what to think of the petting zoo, he was ok with the goat though.

Owen's first pony ride!

Owen's class. His other teacher Ms. Gemma was out today.

Owen's favorite part of Fall on the Farm was the vegetable garden. He loved harvesting pumpkins!

The dirt tasted pretty good too ;)

Then it was time for Brady's class to come have some fall fun!

Ride 'em cowboy!

Brady liked this really cool donkey named "Brownie"

Brady & Brownie again...

Then time for a hay ride before they headed back to class.

It was a great day!

Finally Some Cooler Weather!

The past few days we have had our first cool front of the Fall! Finally, we can really enjoy some beautiful weather at the park. I have a feeling this will be the first of many trips to the park until it gets unbearably hot next summer.

I must admit though...today as we pulled up at the park, I felt so sad/guilty for being there without Luke :( One of his all time favorite things to do is to have a picnic at the park which was what we were going to be doing today.

Although that first part was a little sad, I was quickly reminded that this is now Brady & Owen's turn to have me during the day. It was really nice to see how excited they were to be there. Little Owen smiled almost the whole time we were there...which meant lots of photo ops for me :)


Owen's #1 motto in life is STAY HYDRATED. That little boys drinks more water than anyone I have ever met.

And Brady- well he is pretty much fine with just about anything. He is really easy to get along with and can pretty much play with anyone of any age at any time. He's a pretty cool kid! He enjoyed playing dump trucks in the rocks.

This picture I got just because he was walking in an open field and I wanted to get a full body shot of him to show how little he is. He has grown so much but I know this next year he is going to really grow fast.

It doesn't look like it, but he does have hands. We just transferred all of his size 18 month hand me downs into his drawers so they are a little big on him. No worries though- in no time it will be time to trade those out for the 2t size.

It was a great day at the park and we really enjoyed being out in the beautiful weather.

Stay tuned...tomorrow is Fall on the Farm at Preschool :)

Finally 5 1/2!

I guess now that Luke is in elementary school he has heard a lot about celebrating your half birthday. For the past few weeks he has been asking me when he will turn 5 1/2. Finally, today is the day. So, Happy 5 1/2 birthday Luke!

School Spirit Day- In His Steps Preschool

Today was Spirit Day at Brady & Owen's preschool. On Spirit Day, the kids all wear their school shirt and get to have Chick-Fil-A for lunch which is always a treat ;)
This was Owen's very first spirit day. I got a cute picture of the two of them right before school this morning. It was a great day and both of them had lots of fun!

Student of the Week

Yep, you're looking at last week's student of the week! Luke was featured in his class and got to bring some pictures to tell a little more about himself which were posted on the classroom door.

Here are the pictures he chose to include:
- him scoring a goal at his soccer game
- his "official" 5 year old picture
- him & Alex (his best friend)
- our family picture at Brady's party
- him, Daddy, & the Baylor mascot Bruiser at the Baylor game
- him, Brady, & Owen

He also had THREE lunch visitors last week! Uncle Saw came Monday, Wednesday Grammy came, & Friday Daddy & Brady came.

What a fun filled week for our favorite Student Of the Week ;)

A Weekend Away!

Caleb and I had the opportunity to get away last weekend and head to Dallas for the OU/TX game with Erin & Noah. It was fun being together without the kiddoes, these days anytime we see them we always have kids with us :)




The night before the game we had a lovely dinner out and had a great Italian meal.

Saturday was the game. This is the group we were with. The two other couples are some friends of Erin & Noah's which we had a chance to get to know. Both were really sweet couples.

Then, the four of us at halftime. Boomer Sooner! The Sooners won the game!