It's Official

Stacey is a preschooler. Wyatt was VERY disappointed to find out he isn't but thankfully I packed him a lunch too so he thought he was big stuff. He carried it around all morning just like "Stace" and was more than ready to pose for his first day of school pictures.

III was VERY excited and ready to role this morning.

He got out of the car, blew me a kiss and smiled all the way to the door. Such a big boy.

I was all smiles too until I read this PRECIOUS little note that Mrs. Jerry handed out to all the Mommies with a little tissue pack (Mom I think FWCS may need to add tissues to next years budget - SO CUTE). But it did make me tear up for just a second thinking about my baby just home from the hospital FOUR years ago :).
Wyatt's crocodile tears at Stacey's departure were soon dry when I told him we were going to Gym Dandies with Haley. He kept saying "my Haley" in his deep raspy voice.
He had a ball and I'm looking forward to having a special activity just for him this month.

We are beyond blessed by these two boys and can't wait for all the fun things this season will bring.

Preschool!!

Today Stacey and I had preschool orientation. This year he will be attending Parkway Hills Baptist Church Weekday Preschool, which we are super excited about!!! They start the official carpool drop off on Tuesday and although I'm sure we'll take plenty of pictures that morning this was our chance for in the class pictures so we treated it like it was the first day.

Stacey wore his new tennis shoes that "make him jump high and run fast" (thanks Big & Nannie!!).
Only preschoolers get to go to orientation so Wyatt hung back with Nannie and I got to enjoy some one on one time with my sweet 4 year old!!!
Guess who else was there?? Miss Reagan. Along with Mrs. Jerry (Wendi's Mom) being the director, Shannon B. has sent Landon & Reagan here so we're thrilled to be at the same school and follow in their footsteps.
Then it was onto the classroom. Thank goodness they had a snack Stacey had already mentioned about 10 times that he was STARVING!! We'd been there about 30 minutes but I guess all that listening stirred up quite an appetite.

His cutie classmates.
Mrs. Carol his wonderful teacher (nervous smile from III).
What a great day. We can't wait for Tuesday!!!!

Cowtown Playdate

Yesterday we headed over to Fort Worth to hang with one of my best friends, Whitney, and her two cuties Brooklyn and Luke. We had a blast catching up and chatting while the kids played. If only Dallas and Fort Worth were a wee bit closer we would do this all the time!

Just a few days ago I was reading the boys a book (one that a sweet older lady down the street had given us - it used to be her kids) and it had pictures of a see-saw. I was asking the boys if they had ever seen or ridden on one and as I suspected they hadn't. You just don't see many see-saws or merry-go-rounds anymore. But wouldn't you know it the park we went to in FW had both.

I think there are probably good reasons why you don't see either any more - mostly because they are both potential death traps, but the boys love tempting fate and enjoyed them thoroughly.

Lake LBJ - Smith Style

Last weekend we got to enjoy the lake with the whole smith family. Because we are all in town we get to see a lot of each other, but rarely get away together for a weekend like this. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the time together. The weather and the company was perfect!!

Cousin Lovin'

Stacey is the odd man out in his family as the only only one without an August b-day. We celebrated the month of birthdays with the Smith's traditional Casa Linda birthday cake.

(Big, Sarah, Shelley and Truett arriving soon, & Nannie)
An early morning boat ride still in jammies.

(Brylie, Wyatt & Stacey)


Tic Tac Toe Three In A Row - Slip and Slide action.

More fun in the sun.

Watching Geoff ski after some backyard baths, another great thing about the lake.
So fun sharing one of our family's favorite places with some of our favorite people. :)

Y-E-L-L-O-W Yellow!!!

If you're not beaten down by our color days yet then dive in with us for YELLOW DAY!!

We started the morning with a yellow breakfast of scrambled eggs (a rare departure from the zombie nutrigrain bar that I'm usually giving out to buy me a little time as I slowly come out of the fog in the morning) bananas and pineapple/orange juice.

Then it was on to lemon paintings. We used lemons as our paintbrushes...oooo...ahhhh.

Then we got on our yellow clothes (III asked me if we were going to church :) Nope we just don't have a whole lot of yellow) and made yellow collages. This was probably my favorite activity today, it was easy and held their attention longer than most things. Because of the boys ages I had already cut out lots of yellow stuff for them to pick from, but they chose what they wanted and glued everything on with a glue stick. They were both very opinionated and particular about what they chose and where they wanted it. Stacey also picked out the letters Y-E-L-L-O-W for both collages.

The night before I had hidden six yellow pears around the house for the boys to find. This was no doubt III's favorite activity all day. He wanted to hid and find them over and over and over. You just never know what they are going to like. He kept saying, "Where are dos pears, they sure are tricky." Later he told me, "The reason I am so good at that pear game is cause I love it." Um, and I love you!!

When I was picking up a few things at the store for this day I spotted these yellow marshmallows. My boys are CRAZY for marshmallows so I figured I could incorporate them somewhere. We made a marshmallow and pineapple skewer snack (reminiscent of our fourth of July ones). They had one for a snack and I made some to save for lunch.

you are my sunshine's...my only sunshine's...

Lunch consisted of the pineapple & marshmallow skewer, applesauce, a grilled cheese sunshine sandwich and Squirt - aww refreshing.
I had thought about renting Ol' Yeller, but figured I might scar them for life so we went with the less rabiesish, but still yellow, Wow Wow Wubbsy instead.
We couldn't have yellow day without making yellow cupcakes, I mean it says yellow right on the box!!
We iced them with lemon icing and turned them into sunshine cupcakes with candy corns, followed by a deep dark sugar coma
I printed out a Yellow Things Booklet just like blue day as well as a connect the dots for III.

Clearly there is NO career for me in food photography, because this meal really didn't look as bad as it does in this picture! We had mac & cheese (we do occasionally feed our children things other than macaroni and cheese - occasionally), corn on the cobb, pineapple flavored jello jiggler stars and lemonade. The lemon garnish in the boys cups proved to be very distracting so don't try that at home.

We finished the night fishing for yellowtail snapper (is that a real fish?) in our color day appropriate yellow bathroom. Who knew that the yellow tile bathroom that was on the, "Oh we'll just re-do that immediately" list when we bought the house, yet sits untouched four years later, would be the perfect finale for Yellow Day :)!

Stacey will start preschool after labor day so I'm not sure how many more color days we'll be squeezing in this summer, but you just never know when I'll get the hankerin' for all things green, or purple, or orange or... :)

You knew it was coming...

(tune of If You're Happy & You Know It)

Y-E-L-L-O-W, yellow

YELLOW (shout it)

Y-E-L-L-O-W, yellow

YELLOW (shout it)

Like the Early Morning sun

when the day is just begun

Y-E-L-L-O-W, yellow

YELLOW (shout it)

The Secret Life of Bees

My sweet friend Wendi, who I have blogged about before, that resides in Doha has been back in Texas for the summer. And we have been soaking up as much of her and her boys (Brooks & Barrett, affectionately the "Bees") as we possibly can before they head back to the desert in a few weeks. We also got to see Nick while he was in town - as well as all these fun folks: Kristin & Kieth, Shannon & Brad, Me & Stacey, Shea & Eric, Wendi & Nick.

One night Shannon hosted us for dinner and the crowd pleasing build your own sundae for dessert. Here is the whole posse.

Brooks stuck with plain vanilla while Stacey threw the less is more theory to the wind and created this. Yikes!

Then, last week we got to keep Brooks and Barrett one evening. It seems like our boys are usually keeping us on our toes with the same interests, milestones or mischief so it was especially fun for us to have them all four together. And, after several play dates the last few weeks they were finally buddies instead of strangers.

We did a little painting. We were technically using the trucks as the paintbrushes and leaving tracks, but it was really more of a freestyle.

Stacey was in his I'm so excited and I don't know how to express it other than to be loud and act weird mode for the beginning of the evening, I think this picture says it all. He eventually reigned it back in. I'm hoping by high school the loud + weird = excited will have somehow been resolved. If not it may be a rough 4 years. :)

Then we hit the sprinklers.On your mark, get set....GO!! Big brothers Stacey and Brooks were always a little faster out of the blocks then their slower shadows Wyatt & Barrett.

We pulled out all the finest in culinary cuisine for the distinguished pallets of our refined guests.

We are going to be missing us some Bees when they're gone :(. But, we'll be looking forward to their next visit to big D!!!