I promised to catch up..

I did promise to catch up but I think I said something about "soon" and that was in July lol.

Here goes.. 5 months of fun starting with May :)

End of May, my Dylan graduated from kindergarten and look how cute he was doing it! I'm proud! Other than that, I don't think anything too exciting happened. Check out my three cuties below.. Happy, Cowboy and Braelyn.. love 'em!! :)

In June, my two cuties enjoyed the beginning of summer with lots of swimming.. they are expert posers!!

And my niece, Alyssa, turned 8 years old!! When Jeff and I started dating she had just turned 3 years old a couple weeks before. The years have flown by!! She had a rock star party.. she is adorable!

 And just one of my favorites from June.. Braelyn Grace and Brylee Faith... :)

And in July, Lauryn Bailey turned 3 years old.. how cute is she? Love her to pieces!

My sweet newborn baby girl, Braelyn Grace, also turned 4 years old on the 27th. Seems like just yesterday she was born. She is the sweetest child and she loves everybody. The world is a better place because of her (and I tell her sister that, too). Jeff and I are so blessed!

 She wanted a pink pirate/skull party.. and it turned out cute. I ordered custom plates, banners and party boxes with her sweet little picture on them and we all met at the Eastland Water Park for a perfect summer day of swimming!

 And then my favorite holiday of the year.. 4th of July!!

 Nothing too exciting happened in August but we did go to Dallas for the weekend. Jeff and his parents and sister, her husband and kids all stayed at a hotel in Arlington for a night. The girls got to swim and watch a night movie by the pool and the next day we all went to Hurricane Harbor. It was really fun! I didn't take too many pictures since it all involved water but I did get these two at the hotel.. aren't they so sweet? I am loving their summer tans in those bright dresses!!

In September is one of the events I wait for every year.. The West Texas Fair and Rodeo.. so fun! It's a small town thing, I will admit that, but we love going! The girls think they have died and gone to heaven with all the rides and junk food!! :)

 Also in September I got a call that Braelyn got in to preschool!! It was a very bittersweet day for us. The same little baby that just turned 4 years old is now a school girl and she is loving every second of it! She is doing so well and is very advanced for her age.. I couldn't be more proud! She got to pick out her outfit for her first day of school and she was flawless. I am in love!

 Sweet Happy's room is now being turned back into a nursery so we did a room makeover on Braelyn's room so that they could move in together. They are looooving it and it turned out so cute!!

Things have been busy but busy is almost always good for us. I say it all the time but we are so blessed with great family, friends and children. My cup runeth over!!

Happy, Flu and Fair

Kristie bought this outfit for Happy at Old Navy last weekend. If you know my baby.. it's funny :)

Precious Braelyn has been fighting the flu.. still.. all week! It has been a looong past few days! Lots of high fevers (think 104), lots of TamiFlu, Motrin and Tylenol, lots of Lysol and hand sanitizer and very little sleep!! So far, so good today.. I know she is past the bad part and she might even be healed.. time will tell.

No word on if we are going to make it to the first night of the Fair tonight. Just going to have to wait and see how Braelyn does all day and if it doesn't rain some more. It hasn't hardly rained all summer here and then the week of the fair we have chances of rain every day! Bummer.. we will make it though.. several times, I'm sure! :)

5 kid FUN!!

Last weekend Jeff and I agreed to watch our nieces, Alyssa and Lauryn. It was sounding fun already with 4 girls and then my nephew Dylan came by too.. 5 kids ages 7,5,3,2 and 1! We had a blast though! It was non-stop laughing, running, screaming and jumping! :) I don't believe that I sat down one time in almost 5 hours but it was so worth it. Braelyn and Brylee had so much fun with their cousins and we enjoyed spending time with them too! I kept counting to make sure we knew where everyone was.. haha! At one point, I told Jeff "wow, there are a lot of kids here" and he said "it's a lot more fun this way!" Don't get any ideas, Jeff! :)
Sorry I have been a bad blogger this week. I have two sick kids and we spent all day yesterday at the hospital with Braelyn getting some tests run on her kidneys.. I will blog about all that soon! Hope yall have a great weekend! :)

The gymnast and Happy :)

August has proved to be a rather peaceful month at our house, so far. Our definition of peaceful might be a little different than yours ;-)

Braelyn has started back to gymnastics last week except this class is for "big girls". Since February, Braelyn and I did the "mommy and me" class and now that she has turned 3, she is on her own. It was a hard first day for her.. she cried a little because she wanted me to come out there with her (which, of course, made me tear up too) but she ended up doing great and this week, she was a pro! I am so proud of her! Sorry the pictures are blurry from gymnastics.. they have a "no flash" policy so this is the best I could get. She has the same teacher from Mommy and Me class, Braelyn loves her!

Walking on the balance beam.. she is great at this. She can practically run it.. super for a barely 3 year old! :)

Learning cartwheels.. not her strongest point but we are working on it :)

And just because Little Happy doesn't get to do gymnastics yet, doesn't mean I could leave her out of this blog post! :) She will be starting Mommy and Me classes when she turns 2 but that is still 7 months away! Here she is looking so cute this morning.. I could just kiss her all day!!

Can you believe how big she is getting?!?

Pink Converse :) Love them!

Look at this precious ponytail.. love, love love!

Here's Happy last week in her red overalls. This outfit was Braelyn's when she was 1.. I love all the precious clothes that I get to use again!!
One special prayer request for Braelyn Grace, also! Next Thursday (the 27th) Braelyn is having a couple tests run on her kidneys. She has had recurrent UTI's, which can be fairly common in toddlers, but we are checking to make sure there isn't a problem that might be causing them. Please join us in praying for good results! Thanks soo much!

San Antonio and Sea World

We are home from our mini-trip to San Antonio. It was a long car ride to SA with 4 kids but we had fun! The first day we spent around San Antonio and the Riverwalk area.

All 4 girls at the Alamo

Riding the glass elevators Braelyn and her JampaJeff and AlyssaOn the Riverwalk boat tourWeston and LaurynJampa and his 4 girls on the RiverwalkSaturday night, Shanna and I took the "big girls", Alyssa and Braelyn, to do a horse drawn carriage ride. It was really fun and Braelyn was so relaxed (and exhausted) that she fell asleep! Sunday, we got up and got everyone ready to go to SeaWorld! The kids were SO excited!

Lauryn and AlyssaBraelyn and BryleeIt was REALLY hot.. here is Happy getting cooled down by DaddyLauryn in the buggieBraelyn and Alyssa were big enough to do the Shamu Express! It was funny to see them get so excited! Braelyn loved it but was scared too!

Shanna and AlyssaMe and BraelynI was telling her to lift her hands up :)Look at her face! She was scared! LOLThankfully, there are spots in the kids area to cool down! This was a life saver when the kids were getting fussy because they were so hot! I will admit I ran through all this water fully clothed! It felt so good.. I was burning! HA! Happy really loved this wheel.. she played on it almost the whole time! Sweet Braelyn GraceAlyssa Taylor My kids playing in the water Happy always pretend to be a dog! It's so funny.. she crawls around saying "woof, woof" and telling me "dog". She is the cutest puppy ever ;)
Next we headed over to the penguin exhibit.. really cool! You stand on a moving belt (like at an airport) and go through the exhibit. The penguins have a climate controlled home.. it was even snowing in there! So neat.. we could see them swimming under water and the kids loved it! Braelyn and Alyssa with their pink penguins

So hot that we bought an umbrella for Happy's stroller and then she was good to go :)

I was most looking forward to the Shamu show and it was well worth it. There was tons of people packing in there. It was amazing to see the tricks they can teach these whales to do and how the trainers can climb all over them! I thought it was such a cool bond they make with these animals.. and what trust!! Braelyn loved it as much as Mommy! :)

Do you see the trainer laying on the whale's belly?! AMAZING!!

Happy loved it! You know it is good if it caught her attention because she is such a busy body!! :)Trainers surfing on the whales

After the Shamu show, everyone was starving and ready to eat. Happy fell asleep on Daddy while I was getting food. He thought this was funny.. :)

Our last stop at SeaWorld was to the water park in the park.. Sea World is incredibly huge and I probably walked more in one day that I ever have but it really is fun! The kids got to swim and cool down before we headed home! Sorry, no pictures, from the water park :(

It was such a fun trip! I can't begin to tell you how crazy it is with four kids ages 7,3,2 and 1 but it was so worth it! The little ones had more than a few breakdowns from exhaustion (lol) but we survived and had a great time! I was amazed by the amount of people everywhere.. the riverwalk was packed and SeaWorld was super packed! Crazy! Guess I have been living in my Abilene "bubble" too long! :)