Crawfish Sunday and Baby Birds

Yesterday we discovered a birds nest above the storage shelves in our garage. We've noticed birds flying in and out of the garage when we open the door to go to work in the mornings, so I'm guessing that was the "Momma" bird. This morning Kevin discovered this.....

Isn't this just the cutest and weirdest thing you've ever seen. And it looks like there's a ton of eggs in there, so I'm sure there will be more babies in the morning. We were careful not to disturb the nest at all, but I'm anxious to see how things will turn out...inside our garage:)
Later on today we had a crawfish boil with Kevin's family. This was the first time we've boiled crawfish this year, and they were really yummy. Kevin stuffed himself silly with the little critters, and the kids discovered they liked them too.....as long as they didn't have to peel them. It was such a beautiful day to sit outside and relax, and watch the kids play. I wish the weather would stay like this forever.....

I made a oreo layer pudding dessert that I'll be posting to the recipe blog right now. It was really good, and I'm about to polish off what little that was leftover right now!

Spring is in the air...

Here's a few pics of my silly kids enjoying this beautiful weather we've had lately. We've definitely been taking advantage of it by strolling around the neighborhood picking up flowers, pine cones, and whatever else they find interesting. I love this time of year!

Valentine's Day

The kids celebrated Valentine's this year with a fun party at school. They were so excited because this was their first time to make and exchange Valentine's with their friends...the last few years their party has fallen on a day they were not a school. I took off a few hours from work to help out with the party...I was totally impressed at how well behaved their class was. I expected a ton of chaos with all the extra "party" energy the kids had, but their teacher had a great handle on them. Each of the kids got a chance to pass out all of their Valentine's to each other...it was so sweet to watch. I have a great video of them singing Jesus Loves Me, if only I could figure out how to download videos! I had to sneak out right when they were starting to eat their desserts, so I'm not sure what happened after they consumed massive doses of sugar, but I'm assuming they were perfect little angels:)

Be sure to check out the recipe blog...I'll be trying to post some of the Valentine's treats I made!

Soccer

Hannah and Hunter started a co-ed indoor soccer program at the rec center last week and are loving it! I had no idea how entertaining it would be to watch a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds run around playing soccer....their first game was total chaos but so much fun. I decided to take Hannah out of dance for a little while, partly because I wanted her to try something new and partly because it was Hunter's turn to do something he wanted to do...and he really wanted to do soccer! They have practices every Friday and games on Saturday mornings. This past Saturday was their first game...they had a double header. To say the kids were exhausted after the games would be a major understatement. What made it very interesting, was that the second team they played they had to switch goals....this totally through the kids off and they were pretty much kicking the ball to the wrong side for the first half of the game. They won the first game and lost the second...the teams don't really keep score....but Kevin does:) Kevin has been able to help the coach a lot with the practices and the games so that has been really neat for the kids. Both the kids did great for their first game....Hunter really jumped in and wasn't afraid to get in there and kick the ball. Hannah (sweet, shy, girly Hannah) got out there and kind of froze up for a while...I don't think she expected there to be so many people in the bleachers. She also took a pretty good tumble and bruised her elbow at the beginning of the first game. She surprised me and hung in there though, and actually kept up with the kids following the ball for the next game. I'm not really sure soccer will be Hannnah's thing, but I'm glad she is at least trying it....and she loves her pink shin guards! We are very proud of both of the kids and can't wait for the next game!

We bought the kids a goal from Academy so they could practice at home...unfortunately we haven't been able to use it outside because it's been so rainy and wet, but the kids had a great time practicing their goalie stances and tough faces

before their first practice

right before the first game...notice Hannah yawning?

hunter hanging out with the boys on the sideline

huddling up with their coach, strategizing:)

my sweet boy

Christmas 2011

I'm still trying to catch up on blogging, so here's a few photos from the Christmas holidays. This year was pleasantly low key and relaxing....we went to my Dad's a few days before Christmas to see the family, then to my mom's for Christmas Eve, then our house Christmas morning and Dickey and Pam's for Christmas day. I know that doesn't sound relaxing, but it actually was! We scaled it down quite a bit for the kids this year which was nice....they still got more toys than they know what to do with though! The kids had a break from Pre-K for 2 weeks...I totally enjoyed having them home all the time. It made me realize how little time I have before they go to kindergarten...I am soooo not ready for it:(

Kevin surprised me with a new camera a few days before Christmas (I still haven't really figured out how to work it though), here are some pics in random order...unfortunately I had the camera on the wrong setting at my dad's house so all the pictures I took were a huge blur. Be sure to check out the recipe blog....trying to catch up on that tonight too!

Zoo Fun with Friends

I'm trying to catch up on my holiday blogging so I thought I would start with our fun zoo trip we took the day before Christmas Eve. Hannah and Hunter's friends Jackson and Jessica (also twins) and their mom Judy invited us for a fun day at the Houston zoo, and the kids all had a blast...so did the moms. Our favorite part of the day was watching the elephants...we walked up to see the one of the baby elephants playing with the big male elephant. The little one kept nudging the big one, I guess wanting it to play (or trying to make him mad) and the big male ended up rolling around on the ground and making a scene. It was pretty entertaining, especially when the zookeeper came to see and told us they haven't seen the big male down on the ground in a long time...he weighed something like 10, 000 tons!

Jackson, Hannah, Hunter, Jessica

crawling through the aquarium tube


elephants putting on a show