Hangin' with the Stephens/Hendersonses

Aidan loves his beep beeps! He makes the best sound effects with them too. His facial expressions are the best when he's using his imagination.

Lindsay gets into it too. I love this picture except for J9's giant foot.

Kellan dreaming of the day he can get in on the big kid action.

Biggest smiles ever. This is one happy kid.

Lindsay & Aidan were pretty fascinated by the decorations on my pants.

Lindsay had a pretty long discussion with me about my pants.

Guess who has the magic "put Kellan to sleep" touch?
Me.

We did a lot of shopping today to decorate J9's house, this included plenty of price checks.

Priceless!

California highways are pretty. Jeannine explained this is oleander, which is deadly. Don't eat it.

Plant nerd. She knew a lot about oleander.

Davis, the bicyclist capitol of the United States.

Jeannine and I had a hot date here... they have a lot of different flavored non fat yogurts with about 100 different toppings to choose from, including fruity pebbles. Pretty amazing. I had vanilla with strawberries on top. Not exciting. But we saw a girl wearing funny pants and a lot of butt cracks and sat there reading each other's minds for a bit while Kellan cooed at strangers and then left.

On the way home, pretty fields by her house. I almost ran this way during my run but was afraid something wild or rabid would jump out, so I stayed near the busy neighborhood roads and houses.

We had a lot of stuff in the trunk. But just about accomplished our mission! Now she just need storage baskets. I feel like a super hero. Well... I am actually. Humble too.

Dinner with the Berkowitzes

We drove down to San Antonio to have dinner with our friends and saw their new house (beautiful). Little Carley is not so little anymore, but still has those dreamy eyes!

I am so mad this picture is blurry!!!!!!!!!!!!
So mad.

We had salmon (pink chicken) and Sydney was beyond thrilled to see Mikey again. She talked about marrying him on the way to their house and when I brought it up briefly at the dinner table she got incredibly shy and changed the subject quickly, overpowering the conversation "nevermind Mikey, we were just talking about maybe when you're older your mom can get you a skeleton shirt!". Smooth move Sydney. It's okay though, Mikey doesn't know what "married" means.

He was a (clueless) gentleman and pushed her on the swing, and likely Sydney just fell more in love. I think this is just a stage for her as she has watched a lot of those "princess fairytale" movies lately. Hopefully this will pass. Poor Mikey. He just thinks in terms of pirates and adventures and Sydney will read into all of that any way she can as romance.

While us adults sat around the coffee table chatting, the kids (with their endless energy) played boggle (star wars edition). We had a great time!

Adventures

Sydney & Papa share the bowl after making cupcakes.
Swiper no swiping!

Kelli's favorite thing to do: jump around and play on our bed nakey!

Here comes trouble!!!

1...2...THREEEE!

on the count of 3 I grab her and throw her into the pillows. her favorite game. I love her look of mischief.

Took the girls for sno-cones the days before my California trip. Sydney got chocolate with cream topping and I got lemon. In true, recent fashion... she decided AFTER we sit down she wanted what *I* had instead. I said "too bad". She is queen of "changed my mind". Oh well... I let her go get a lemon anyway. I really wanted her to enjoy our girls day out together before my trip.

Back at home:
"my name is Sydney. this is my cool trick. COOL TRICKS COOL TRICKS!!! MY NAME IS SYDNEY!!!!! and cup-stacking is my cool trick!"
Yo Gabba Gabba, thanks.

She took this picture of me. One picture where I don't look... well, actually I do look tired. Nevermind. But it's a decent photo. A+

Kelli's 1st Visit to the Zoo

I can never get them both looking at the camera and smiling :::sighhhhh:::
Sydney is just "I'm smiling-see?-now let's go feed the goats and ride the train-BYE"
and Kelli is like "whatever, when was the last time I did something you asked? psh. I'm thirsty. Get a shot of this"

After I BEG them to pleeeeeease just smile and look cute, I get Sydney looking like an aged turtle peeking out of its shell and now Kelli is pissed because this has taken 30 seconds longer than she would prefer.

Kelli LOVED the monkeys. She had this expression on her face like "wow, those are real? like not just in books, but in real life for real?"... but then we moved on to the tigers. She had to get out of the stroller! She began squealing, then pointing at them and looking at me as if she was showing ME "look! tigers! look Mom!". I think we stood there for a good 8 minutes and tried to move on but Kelli wouldn't budge. Then one of the tigers ROARED and growled really loud, which really caught her attention. Sydney cried and crawled into the stroller and begged to leave NOW, but Kelli was laughing, stomping her feet and talking back at the Bengals. It was adorable. She's like "yeah I'll take you on, let me in there!"

"Nope. I wanna stay with the tigers"
I had to pick her up and carry her. Then she saw the lions.
And had another hyper attack, squealing and dancing and pointing.
Needless to say she loved the zoo!

Even the piggies! Oink!

This one was literally sleeping in a big pond of mud. Too cute.

She thought it was SOOOOO cool how big sister could interract with the sheep and goats and feed them. Kelli did more dancing and squealing here too and Sydney enjoyed teaching her about these animals.

Syd was disappointed we couldn't ride the train but we had a good time. It was hot as heck outside- 96. And hardly a cloud in the sky. But I figured after a week of being indoors and Kelli's illness etc, the kids deserved a fun trip outside and something fun.

July 4th

I got Sydney a ball and bat to play with out at the lake house and turns out she is not half bad! She knocked a ton out of the "park".

My tongue helps me throw a ball that weighs less than one ounce.

We didn't have any bases, but when she hit the ball she'd yell "YAYYYY!" then run in a circle and go "touchdown!". I had to tell her its a "homerun" a few times and she finally got it.

We don't have a fence and Kelli desperately wanted to go in the water... it was a bit stressful keeping up with her.

She's a mess. Sydney was never so "busy" as Kelli is!!!

Kelli says "I wanna play tooooooo". Kelli reminds me of that little cartoon of the kitten looking in a mirror and sees a reflection of a lion. Know what I'm talking about? Thats my 13 month old. That sums her up just about right.

It took 25 minutes of wrestling and screeeeeeeeaming her head off, but I finally rocked Kelli to sleep (she is not used to the lake house, it's still a 'strange' place to her). She doesn't go down easily there. Not very peaceful at all... or relaxing. Until I finally sat down. Think we're gonna have to remove that giant bush.

That used to be President Lyndon B. Johnson's property across the lake. It's since been sold off and seperated into several properties we believe. But very cool to have some history there.

I didn't get good pictures of fireworks bc I havent figured out my camera yet.

There were basically 3 fireworks shows right there at the bridge. We had the best seats in town!