Jack's Jumpoline Party!

We were lazy this year and did Jack's party at Jumpoline.  He was thrilled about it and that's all that matters right?  There was no theme.  He just insisted on a Hot Wheels cake.  

Jumpoline is so colorful that it matched my birthday banner and balloons perfectly. It almost looked like I coordinated everything.  Hooray!

I was worried some of the kids would forget their socks so they each got a new pair in their goody bag, along with some race cars and a slinky.  Like I said before, no theme.  It's quite liberating!! 

I couldn't get a picture of Jack that wasn't blurry.  He was running and jumping all over the place!!

Everyone was!!  

They all had a great time!

Those that didn't jump, sat back and admired Eliza.

I love Chase's face in this picture.  I think he does the same face every year at Jack's birthday parties.  Such an animated kid!

Lots of Legos, Pokemon, and Playdough for this kid.  He was quite pleased with his loot!

Eliza fell asleep right when the party ended and it was time to go home.  Right after Jack's party we had to rush the kids off to Avery's rollerskating party.  Jack ate so many Redvines, he puked pink vomit all over the street in front of our house when he got home.  Safe to say, this kid parties hard!!

A Muddy May

We couldn't get enough of the Brown Eyed Susans so we ventured out again after some rain storms to see if we could find any streams to play in.  I would drive by this field almost every day while leaving Circle C to run errands.  I always wanted to just pull over and run through these fields.  I know it sounds strange, but I've got a lot of Maria Von "Trappness" running through these veins.  Either that or Laura Ingles from Little House on the Prairie.  Sometimes a girl's just got to frolic!!

You can tell it had just stopped raining because the sun was peeking out to lighten up those flowers but the gray skies still remained.  I was totally overwhelmed by the beauty of the earth that day!

The kids weren't too excited about the possibility of "frolicing" through fields with me.  They think I'm weird.  But when we found some HUGE muddy puddles down the path, they changed their attitudes completely!!  Muddy puddles are the BEST!!

Some of these pictures remind me of the illustrations from my favorite children's book Each Peach Pear Plumb.  

Each tree, bush, gorge, I spy Georgie Porge!!  

We love our little adventures!! 

We continued searching for puddles as the rain kept pouring down.  

George and I love walking up to a nearby cul de sac where we always find puddles in driveways and potholes!  Here he is with his trusty old stroller again.  This stroller is basically a member of the family!

Then one day, a BIG storm came.  Bigger than any other we've had here this month.  It rained and rained and rained. It rained so much we got a swimming pool in the backyard.  Then all our newly planted sod was inundated and killed.  No more beautiful green grass!

We took cover in our homes and watched the news.  Downtown Austin was under water in many parts and people were needing to be rescued all over the place!  It was looking bad throughout Texas and especially the Houston area.  Their highways shut down and in our neighboring town of Wimberly, many people were killed by the floods.  A small family in a cabin was swept away and died. It hit a little too close to home this time.  

When the rained FINALLY stopped for a few hours, we ventured out to see the damage.  Our neighbor's thought it would be fun to check out the bridge where we had been a few days prior "frolicing" through the fields.  We weren't the only ones with this idea.  It was a viewing party at the Circle C bridge!!

Everything was pretty flooded!!  

Many of those pretty wildflowers, now under water. 

The boys wanted to check out more puddles, so we found them a safe spot where they couldn't be swept away!!

The rain brought out all sorts of exciting creatures.  One of our neighbors spotted a baby alligator near the veloway and if Chase and I went on scooter rides at night, we saw tons of big toads hopping around in the street.  Kind of sad, but during the day, George and I would drive around on the scooter to find all the toads that had been smashed in the road.  Those chubby little toads need to hop a little faster to get out of the way!!

Usually we feel guilty filling up our enormous bathtub while living in this normally drought ridden state of Texas.  But all the rain was to be celebrated with the biggest bubble bath of all.  Jets included!!

My heart in 4 quarters!!

3 months old!!

Three months with this squishy little bundle.  We're basically obsessed with her.  Everyone is!  The second Sadie gets home from school, she runs to Eliza and picks her up.  George is constantly up in her face saying  "hi wiza."  If I'm holding her and he can't see her, he'll say "I wanna say hi to Wiza.  I can't see Wiza!!"  And if she's sleeping, George will announce to Jack, "shhh, Wiza's sweeping. Be quiet Jack!"  Jack has always been the "playing it cool" older brother.  He wasn't very interested in George when he was born and is about the same with Eliza.  Then there's Chase and me looking at pictures of her when she's asleep, because we just can't get enough!!

She's still a pretty terrible sleeper.  I can get her to take a longer nap if she's swinging in her swing, but she's got a 3 am clock in her system that goes off EVERY NIGHT!! I guess that just means more snuggle time for me!!  The good thing about her, is that once she's been fed, she usually goes right back to sleep.  It's me that has a hard time sleeping again.  Once I'm up, I'm awake for a few hours.  It's really annoying.  At least we know it's temporary.  It better be.  But I know I'll miss our middle of the night snuggles.  I could seriously just stare at her little face all night long.  

Especially when she starts dreaming.  Sometimes she smiles and giggles in her sleep.  I would LOVE to know what she's dreaming about!!

This might be slightly x-rated, but Chase and I thought it was pretty funny that I leaked a heart for our little Valentine baby.  I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog anyway, so I don't really care if it's kind of gross.  Just human secretions here!  You're welcome nobody! 

When she isn't taking a shower with Dad, we try to remember to bath her!  She loves hanging out in her little sink bathtub.  That makes 4 kids that have enjoyed this blue piece of plastic!  I'd say we got our money's worth.

I looooove the way she smells after a bath.

She's still a snuggle bug.  I really dislike babies growing up and not cuddling anymore.  

Right now, I'm soaking it up!

Sadie wanted us to bring Eliza to her class for her birthday.  

You better believe she showed her off!! 

And then when she came home from school, she rocked that baby girl to sleep.  What would we do without Sadie?!

While the kids are at school, it's just the three of us.  We get along quite swimmingly.  George will sometimes take Eliza's pink bah blanket when his is missing, but she never seems to mind...for now.  

Basically the rest of us leave for church wearing whatever is clean.  Liza is a different story.  I can't even tell you how much fun I have dressing this little peanut.  She's wearing a dress that I wore as a baby above.  Big sis Sadie wore it too, along with the stripe one below.  It's like having a real live doll, that eats every 3 hours, poops, pees, and screams periodically throughout the night!  YES!!

Abs of steel! 

We love watching her big stretch after we unswaddle her after a nap.  Sadie always asks to get her out of the crib, just so she can watch Eliza's arm fly up and legs stretch out once she's released from the "burrito."

We've gotten her to laugh out loud a few times.   Jack turned his back to her and when he jumped around to face her, she couldn't help but giggle.  It's the best sound ever!! 

This baby is pure joy.  I love her so much.  It's been three month of heaven on earth (even if I can barely remember any of it:-). Never grow up sweet Eliza Jane!!

Totally and completely smitten!!