Soccer and Bounce Houses

We spent a Saturday in Dallas visiting family and friends.  We went to Grayson's soccer game early in the morning.  He did great, scored a goal, and played hard core defense the whole time.  Reese and Harper played along the sideline, kicking the soccer ball and trading purses and necklaces.  At one point, Reese got mad because she didn't have the ball and her temper tantrum landed her in time out.  I love that Kristen put her in time out and immediately took a picture.  What a funny little girl!  After the soccer game, we went back to Kristen's house and spent a few hours going through baby stuff and organizing her closet.  The kids played and ran around and fought just like good cousins do.  

After lunch, we headed to my parent's house in Argyle to watch the A&M game.  We sat around the house and my dad and Carleigh played with Harper.  It was a rough game, but at half time we had to leave.  We headed to Jessica and Cory's for Cayden's first birthday party.  It was a great day, beautiful outside for the bounce house.  And I love spending time with Jessica and her family.  Harper ran around and played with all Cayden's toys just like she normally does.  He kept up a little with her this time because he is finally walking!  Sweet little boy!  By the end the three kiddos left were fighting over the mini coupe car so we headed out before Harper melted down.  It was a great day and I'm so glad we got to see our sweet friends on their special days. 

Welcome, September!

Fall has arrived.  I normally hate when summer ends, but so far, this fall has been beautiful.  We have had cool days and warm days and rain storms and everything in between.  Football has taken over our Friday nights, Saturdays and Sunday evenings.  I normally complain, but it's been an exciting year for  college football (more anxiety ridden for Aggies, but still).  Harper has fallen in love with football.  She is constantly asking who is playing and rooting for the Yellow Jackets, Ags, or Cowboys.  She can watch football for hours and loves to talk with Cody about who is who and how each play went.  Cody loves it!  

Harper is doing great.  We do preschool for an hour a few days a week.  She loves recording the weather, figuring out if sunny means hot or if it can be cloudy and sunny at the same time.  She loves to say the pledge of allegiance, hand over heart, flag waving in the air.  She loves to do the calendar, sing the days of the week song, and planning her week based on what tomorrow is.  We do letters and numbers and shapes.  She is learning to write and is doing phenomenal for just starting out.  She is so cute when she can't pronounce things right, it's hilarious.  She still eats great, loves eating just about anything.  She still gets dressed about 100 times a day.  She usually surprises me when she comes out from rest time with at least three layers on and 5 accessories.  And of course she thinks she looks amazing every day!  PS.  Do you see how cute Grayson and Reese are?  They are so precious and big going to school everyday.  And now Reesey has a new backpack, just like Harper and Grayson, and she is so proud of it!  

Harper started dance classes this fall at Dance Xplosion downtown.  She is in a class with about 6 other little girls doing jazz, tap, ballet, and tumble.  She loves it!  She gets to wear leotards and twirly skirts.  She likes to walk around in her tap shoes and make noise.  She loves the tumbling, although she is really only learned to somersault.  And she loves that all her dances are set to Frozen music - her teacher was smart!  

Cody and I have both had a great month.  We actually had a date night this month, only a mere 6 months after our last one.  But it was fun and we had a good dinner and dessert.  I also got to have a girls night and we all made pumpkins and I made some craft stuff for a friend having a baby shower soon.  I've been working out at the gym 4 days a week and am loving it.  There is a great childcare with a big gym for Harper to play on.  I have a group of girlfriends who all go and we have fun together.  I love how much better I feel and how much more productive I have been.  It starts my day off better and Harper and I are out and getting errands done instead of sitting at home and being bums.  I did get sick for a few weeks and had to miss but I have good friends who take care of me, so that always helps.  And Cody made it onto the DISD webpage.  He is such a good teacher - and a hottie!  I am so proud of him, he works hard, loves what he does, and I know his kids love him too.  It's really nice to see rewards for a job that is sometimes difficult.

We miss seeing my family as often because we are so far away.  But my sisters are doing so good at school this year.  Taylor is a senior, working on the newspaper, got a job at the HobLob, and doing college visits.  Carliegh is a junior, taking a few too many hard classes, working at the Fro Yo stand.  They are so cute and I love seeing them when we are down visiting.  Harper tells me all the time about how she misses them and how they are her best friends.  We spent the day down there and had fun just goofing off. 

We are loving our church and bible study.  Our group is doing a marriage study right now and it's been great for us to see all these different marriages and how God is working to sanctify us all through them.  Harper loves her friends and gets excited to play with Camilla, the only other girl.  Sadly, they have a love hate relationship because they always seem to want the same thing (they are girls).  So sometimes it's a struggle, but I know they love each other in the end.  Part of the reason they fight is over baby Clementine, but I can't blame them.  She is so stinking cute and such a good baby!  We all fight over her.  :)  We celebrated Camilla's 3rd birthday and Harper was so excited for her and all the new toys she got!

And this is just a sweet picture of dear Kevin who came to visit.  Harper had to show him how to put her Doc McStuffins puzzle together, and of course explain who all the characters were.  She liked hanging out with him and definitely did not want to go to bed that night. 

Happy Fall!

Small Town Sports

One of the things that I have come to really like, is that there is only one school for Denison, Texas.  Everyone in the community roots for the same kids and no one is split based on schools.  We are all yellow jackets, and it's nice to see the whole town cheering them on.  Cody likes to support his students too, so he tries to go to their games when they invite him.  So we went to some of his girls' first home volleyball game.  We saw the end of the 7th grade game and the whole 8th grade game.  He has 6 of the 10 players in his classes and it was fun to hear him tell me about them while they were playing.  Harper was a trooper, it was definitely a longer game than we expected.  She just climbed around on the bleachers for the first half and then got somewhat bored.  We took a short walk and she talked me into letting her have a sucker.  I am not usually the parent that just pays for all sorts of stuff, but she had been pretty good and it was just a ring pop.  So she was seriously excited.  She couldn't figure out how to eat it without getting it everywhere, so Cody helped her in the end, but she was still stuck with a blue face.  She had a great time though and it was nice to visit with Cody's work friends.  They are all so kind and love us so well!

We also go to all the home football games.  We sit with Buddy and Serena at the top of the stands on the 50 yard line.  Supposedly great seats as Buddy has been waiting for them for awhile.  We like to get to the game early and watch all the pre game festivities.  Since Harper and I leave the game around bedtime, we like to watch the teams enter and the girls do their pre game dance.  She loves watching the cheerleaders and the drill team.  Loves listening to the band.  Loves watching the Yellow Jacket mascot dance around.  She has a blast.  We sit near the the Spiegel's and Robert and Kita so Harper gets to see Julianne and Tessa too, which she loves.  The last week, we went to dinner at Watson Burger before the game.  They didn't end up having enough food Harper could eat, so we went to Braum's for dessert after.  Not sure how it makes sense that she got dessert because she didn't eat dinner, but it happened.  She loved it!  She is always talking about the ice cream place that has the pink ice cream (on the sign).  She wants to go all the time now.  I love that Cody does a good job of keeping us in check with money and also enjoying life from time to time.  It's fun!  

Babysitting Brennan

Our friends from bible study, Jenn and Ryan, have two sweet boys.  She works part time and her mom watches them a few days a week.  Her mom went on vacation for two weeks, and we offered to watched Brennan for a few days when they needed a sitter.  Brennan is a sweet, sweet baby who doesn't really complain, unless he is tired, hungry, or wants to be held.  He naps pretty well (I forgot how fun two naps are!) and eats great.  I mean, look at those thighs!  He did great and we had a great couple of days. 

Harper absolutely loved having him there.  She did everything she could to be a helper, getting stuff for me, bringing him toys, checking on him at nap time, and always talking to him.  I am so proud of her - she is going to be such a great big sister!  We will have to work on her bossiness though.  A few times if she didn't like what he was doing or the toy he was playing with, she simply took it away and put it out of reach.  We'll figure it out.  We loved playing with him and can't wait for him to come back!