Visitors

Brendon & Stacy and the boys came in from Oklahoma for the weekend.  It was great to meet my newest nephew, Cody.  He is absolutely beautiful.  He reminds me of my boys when they were tiny, only with dark hair.  His hair is so cute.  Carter was enamored with him, no surprise there.  He would come up close and say sweet things to him, but tell me that he's being careful "not to share germs."  He wasn't sick, but still wanted to be careful.

`

The three bigger boys eating what they think are popsicles for breakfast.  But they are actually mini yogurts that I stuck popsicles in and then froze them.  They're a hit.

We took the families to the Wings Over Houston Airshow on the south side of town and had a blast.  The Thunderbirds were there, several fighter jets (not sure of the numbers, F-16 and F-18 I think), really cool trick planes, helicopters, etc.  The dads were just as excited as the kiddos.  And I was super impressed as well. 

Here is my favorite picture of Cole.  One of the trick bi-planes flew by blowing red, white and blue smoke and twirling in circles.  He was cheering it along.  And yes, I'm that neurotic as to put him in an airplane shirt for the airshow.  Thanks for noticing.

Blue Eyed Brady

Photo Op - I can never pass them up.

A picture of a weird looking NASA plane that they no longer use, but wouldn't let us on.  We did get a tour of the plane that they use to transport the shuttle when it flies back to Florida after landing in California.  It wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be. 

Cody was so good the entire trip.  He snuggled with Stacy in the Baby Bjorn most of the time just hanging out while we had fun.  He is super cute and I regret not getting more pictures of him. But he was just so quiet and slept so much that he was over shadowed by the bigger (and louder and more demanding) boys.

End of a long day

We went to the beach the next day and had another long but very fun day.  In hind sight we realized we probably should have just gotten a hotel room in Galveston for the night since we spent the day at Ellington Field on Saturday and turned around and came right back to the south and went to the beach.  Oh well, we have good kids that napped in the car for us :)

Brady in the sand.  I think this was his first trip to the beach.  He loved it. 

Brendon and Brady

Hey Sports Illustrated - I have your new swimsuit cover model!

Big gulp of salt water.  Not tasty.  Of course I'm sure there were several onlookers wondering why I was taking pictures of my kid choking on salt water instead of helping him or giving him a drink of something else. 

One of the few pictures I have of Carter.  He spent the entire time out jumping the waves with Brian. It was very windy and there were tons of good waves.  He had a blast, but I wasn't going to wade out in the ocean with my expensive camera to take pictures.  Oh, and the fact that I'm terrified of fish :)

Mud fight with Daddy. 



Beach bums

When you think of October you think of Fall Festivals, Halloween, the cooling weather, the changing of the leaves, but who in their right mind goes to the BEACH in October?  We do.  Brian got spontaneous last week and decided we should drive down to Galveston for the day and let boys play on the beach.  I thought he was crazy, but he had one of the best ideas ever.  The weather was amazing (only in Texas can  you go to the beach in the fall) - it was 78 with a great breeze and not a cloud in the sky.  The beach was empty and we had a blast.  Cole chased the sea gulls, and they chased after his food filled fingers.  Carter and Brian spent alot of time wave jumping and I sat there and enjoyed one of the best family outings ever. 

Cole putting sand on Carter (above picture)

Carter showing off his first hand picked sea shell.

My attempt at getting a picture of Cole and I while holding my camera.  It's a huge DSLR, you can see it in my sunglasses :) I need a smaller camera for times like this.

Field Trip and Fire Fest with Friends

Today's post is brought to you by the letter F.  For those of you that know Sesame Street, you catch my drift.  Anyway - this past week has been Full of Fun! Friday Carter took his First Field trip to the animal clinic. Mom watched Cole so I could volunteer as a chaperone.  It was selfish of course, I just wanted to take pictures of Carter :)

He is really coming out of his shell lately.  At the vet he was the first to ask or answer a question, or to volunteer to do something.  He's come quite a way from a year ago when his teacher asked me if he could talk :)

Here are some friends from his class last year.  All the 3 year old classes went to the vet today so he got to see some "old" friends.

Looking in the microscope - he was the first to ask to do so.

And a few of his classmates in a large breed dog kennel.  I'll leave out the obvious jokes.

Carter listening to the dog's heartbeat with the vet's stethoscope.

And when we go to the surgery suite, they asked for a volunteer to help dress the tech.  Turns out they dressed the volunteer!  And as I said earlier, he was the first to raise his hand to help out.  It's so much fun to watch him grow up.

We're missing 3 kids, but here is his class.

More "F" fun was at the Cy-Fair Fire Fest.  We've gone the last few years and didn't want to miss it even though Carter had a soccer game that morning.  The kids were hot, tired and sweaty before we even arrived but they had a great time.  We met up with some friends there as well.

Carter, Luke and Awbrey on the Life Flight Helicopter

Cole on the helicopter.  He had a great time while we were there.  Whatever exhibit we were on, was his favorite and he wouldn't leave with out serious disapproval.

Caroline, Luke, Carter, Awbrey, Claire and Cole on the Fire Engine. They are all smiling, just in different directions.  I'll take all smiles any day since posing any number more than 1 is difficult, much less posing 6!

"Help! Carter and and Awbrey are in charge of the tools! Get me off this aparatus" says Cole.

Brian stood in a long line to hold a place for Carter to spray a real fire hose.

He's spraying out the windows, you can see has good aim

Cole was not happy that he didn't get a turn on the fire hose.

Soccer time!

Carter had his first soccer game today.  He was so excited.  He's on the Columbus Crew with other 3 and almost 4 year olds.  Man was it hot out there today.  The game was at 2pm and it was blazing hot.  I considered leaving and driving Cole around the neighborhood in the car so he could get some shade and air conditioning.  But he really enjoyed running around exploring.

Here's an action shot of Carter kicking. 

Here is the coach telling Carter not to use his hands.  He looks like he's paying attention.  But as we would find out after the first play, that rule is easily forgotten.  He and a boy from the other team were at the goal and when the goalie went to pick it up, so did they.  They dove at it like a fumble on a football field, both holding onto it like a jump ball in basketball.  The ref is blowing her whistle and neither would let go.  Finally, she got them to get up and release the ball.  She told them to shake their hands.  Both boys looked at each other, put their hands in the air and shook them like the sign language clapping sign.  They literally shook their hands.  I just wish I had it on video.  It was hilarious.

The is the "can it get any hotter look"

Cole huffing and pufffing, he was SO hot.

During the second "quarter" Carter had to sit out and take turns.  He stood on the bench the whole time just waiting for his turn.  He didn't want to sit out.  I'd say he enjoyed himself :)

Running through the parent tunnel at the end. 

Out and About

As you can imagine we are out and about around town all the time.  I love my digital SLR camera, but it is so cumbersome to drag along when you have to also control two little boys.  So I'm in love with the iPhone that Matthew gave me.  It has a much better camera on it than my BlackBerry did.  So I have a few pictures of all the fun we've been having lately.

Cole's new favorite thing to do - drive.

I actually didn't take this one, it was saved on my phone and when I imported my pics, it came over.  But I'm proud of it anyway.  This is the newest Shelton boy - Cody.  He was born on the 9th of September.  And Nan got to go to Oklahoma for the birth.  He is the first Shelton baby (of this generation) with dark hair.  And he has lots of it too. 

This is Carter sleeping on his floor.  He said he didn't want to sleep in his bed.  I told him he had to go to bed, so we compromised with the floor.  Of course, I moved him after he was asleep. 

Carter didn't want to go to school one day.  He had a hard time understanding he had a new teacher and not all of his friends were in his new class. He's doing better now.  But on this particular day I had to bribe him and distract him.  I told him he should spike his hair up and show all his new friends.  It worked to get him to school.  But by the time we got inside, the hair spray didn't last and his teacher just assumed he was having a bad hair day.

We were running ahead of schedule one day and I drove past Crave cupcakes.  Just too irresistable to keep driving.  So I treated the boys to the best (and most expensive) cupcake they'll ever have.

Cole doing another one of his favorite things, sliding down the big blocks.  Those blocks are one of the best toys we have.

Carter riding the hand pedal train at WonderWild.

Cole yelling at me to come get him down.  He can do it, he just prefers to boss me around.

The Jetta finally died.  Brian tried to drive it to work a week ago and it just wouldn't accelerate fast enough.  We knew this day was coming, as we've dodged the bullet several times.  But when the mechanic called and said the turbo needed to be replaced (around $2000) we said, "No way - we're buying a new one." So Brian is thrilled with the purchase.  And Purple Heart came today and took the Jetta. We decided to donate it and let them auction it off and get the money, we'll get the tax right off.   

After church on Sunday, we took the kids to Itz Pizza.  They have games, pizza, movies, all kinds of fun stuff for the kids.

Carter on the Monkey Jump.  I kinda wanted to ride it too :)

Cole enjoying his brownie for dessert.

Okay, I think that covers it.  I promise to update the blog more frequently.  Especially now that they fixed the upload photo feature - it's much easier.  Not so daunting.