March

Alex was excited that I could join him on his field trip to a little theater in Houston to watch a Junie B. Jones play.

After the play, the kids all had lunch and played around in a big courtyard.  Alex and his buddy Ryan loved every minute!

We kicked off spring break a day early to catch up with the cousins at Grammy and Grumpy's house.  Unfortunately, our spring breaks didn't line up this year but we were happy to at least spend a day together!  All the boys rode their ripsticks to the park.

Abby was very interested in the new lizard friend we brought inside.

We took the big boys on a cool trail at the back of the neighborhood and they had a blast getting dirty in the creek.

Their favorite part of the day was finding "furry friends" along the trail.  Thankfully, we did not bring any of them home!

All the cousins together!

Alex found a cake recipe in his Stampy book and insisted we make it together.  It actually turned our pretty darn good!

To have a little fun before baseball season kicked into high gear, Ben's coach organized a scrimmage between the parents and the kids.  It was fun for all of us and cool to see the kids playing on the same field together.

We spent half of our spring break in Alabama and Casey enjoyed an East Texas sunrise on the way there.

City dog became a country dog and ran through the woods and the mud with us.

I think the kids' favorite part was driving the old blue truck in the pasture.

Casey's least favorite part was sharing the house (and the laps) with Holly.

The kids had plenty of puppy love to go around, though!

 The boys had fun shooting stuff (mostly ant piles...ha!) with their BB guns.

Back home, this cracked me up.  Alex gave fair warning to anyone trying to enter his room on a grumpy afternoon!

Trinidad and Tobago

Matt had a work trip to Trinidad and, with the help of all the wonderful grandparents watching the kids, I was able to join him.  While he was working, I wandered around Port of Spain to see the sights.

The pool at the hotel wasn't too shabby, either!

I had a great time seeing the animals at the zoo.  It was small but well done.

Haven't seen many anteaters in my life!

This would have been the kids' favorite exhibit - a huge cage full of parakeets.

 When all of Matt's colleagues headed back to Houston, we took a 15-minute flight over to Tobago for a weekend of relaxation and fun at this lovely resort.

 

 The view from our porch was perfect!

A short taxi ride took us to a beach with a nice surf break for Matt.

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This got our attention!  And naturally, we were standing under the tree while we were reading the sign.

By far, the coolest thing we did was a nighttime paddleboard tour through a lagoon filled with bioluminescent plankton.  It was intimidating at first because the instructor said it was 6km roundtrip, mostly in the dark, but it was so worth the effort.  The water looked like it was full of lightning bugs every time it was disturbed and we even hopped off the boards and went swimming in the sparkling water at one point.  It was incredible!  Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to capture on film, but we did get a group shot afterward to remember the evening.

The rest of the time, we snorkeled and relaxed on the private lagoon at the resort.

Soaking in our last sunset in paradise!

February

 We started February off with another trip to Monster Jam, this time with the Hesters as well.  The boys were all so excited!  Mostly about cotton candy, but also about the monster trucks.

 

 The grown-ups had a pretty good time, too.

I loved how absorbed they were in engines, gas fumes, and flying dirt.

Even though Casey is small, her attitude is pretty big.  I made her a great sleeping bag (which she loves, but only when it's really cold) but she learned that the forbidden human blanket and pillow were much softer.  She wouldn't even look all the way at me while I was taking the picture.

February means baseball season at our house!  Lucky for us, the weather was fantastic so most practices were in shorts.  No complaints here!  We'll have a Pirate and a Yankee this year.

Alex lost his first tooth at school and came home thrilled with his new hole.

 We enjoyed our local rodeo again, especially the skit by the rodeo clowns.  They did a hilarious gag with that tiny firetruck.

Turns out that tiny firetruck couldn't make it out of the arena on its own power (NOT part of the show), so one of the cowboys pulled it out on horseback.   Matt told Ben that was a one-horsepower firetruck and Ben thought it was the funniest joke he'd ever heard.  Not often we get to see him laugh like this!

January

 We kicked off the new year right - with the Hesters out on their family land doing fireworks and eating fajitas!  The kids loved the private fireworks show and all the sparklers, not to mention climbing trees and running through the woods with walkie talkies.

 

 

Alex had tons of fun creating new marble races with his Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa.

Ben enjoyed squeezing onto the neighbor's tiny bike and pedaling around like a clown.  What is it with this kid and tiny cars and bikes?

Alex came home from school one afternoon and decided to start a lemonade stand.  I would only allow him to accept tips but he learned that our neighbors were very generous!  He then decided to do one every single afternoon until I convinced him that the generosity wouldn't last long if he was out there every day.

Ben loved strumming around on his guitar and making up his own songs.  Still waiting for him to get interested in learning some real chords, though.

The Dulaneys came to town for a weekend and we had a fantastic trip to NASA.  I absolutely loved seeing the original Apollo mission control but I was so sad that Ben was at school because he would have gone crazy over this.

We got in a few games of bowling with the Dulaneys and Armstrongs as well...always good fun!

The whole gang!

We got to do some puppy-sitting for Miss Holly, who was growing by leaps and bounds.  Casey enjoyed having a playmate...sometimes...

...but definitely not when she was trying to nap and Holly would come in Casey's crate to play!

Ben competed in his first science fair and won fourth place in his category!  He tested the parakeets to see if they'd learn to go through mazes and he did nearly all of the work on his own.  We were so proud of him!

Alex also presented a project but was too young to compete.  He used his cool new marble maze to see if marbles had equal chances of falling through each exit.  We were also proud of him and his hard work!