Cows? Really? (06-27-2010)

So we wake up Sunday morning to cows grazing in ou front yard!  Yup...not deer...we see those all time...these were cows.  The same 2 cows that I came face-to-face with when I went running a couple weeks before.  They were just chowing on the grass, leaving cow patties behind!  Matt and Cody couldn't get them back where they came from either time...they were too skiddish.  Finally that week, the county sherriff came by while Jace & I were mowing the yard, so I gave him these pictures and the kids had fun seeing the sherrif's truck.  I think they must have caught them because we never saw them again.

Happy Father's Day (06-20-2010)

We brought Matt breakfast and presents in bed for Father's Day.  All kinds of handy things like...

A lighter for his grill...we want you to get it up and running!

Some new bungy cords...now you can go pick up my piece of metal for my giant magnet board!

And a few other handy things like some mini screwdrivers that he asked for.

And then he went outside to head to church and found this little gem.  The pink flamingoes from Grandma's magically appeared in the yard overnight with a happy father's day sign on it (remember Kathi's in town)!  Ha!  I'm sure our neighbors thought that was awesome!

Happy Father's Day honey!  We love you!

Cody' 4-wheeler (06-19-2010)

So Jace got his first little job this summer.  Cleaning our neighbor's 4-wheeler.  But you can't just clean it, you have to take it out for a little test drive beforehand!  Matt took each of the boys out for a little off-roadin'.  They had a great time and then they got the 4-wheeler all clean!

They wish they could take it out themselves!!!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Last Hurrah

The last night Kat and Ryan were here, we got a sitter and came over to play a little Rummy Cube.

Here we all are

Kat, why do you make us take silly pictures like this?

I love this picture of Mom and Dad!  Having a good time!

Bye Kat!  We love you guys!  See you in December!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) The Beach

Here we are at the beach!  We headed down to Corpus to spend a day on the shore and getting sun burned.  Yeah, that's right, we ALL got sunburned.  Word to the wise, when the side of the sunscreen container says "wait 20 minutes after application before entering water", it means it.  Anyway...

Yes!  That's my mom!  In a swim suit!  In the ocean!  We could hardly believe our eyes!

Here's Grandpa, checking out the sand castle building going on...he's about to take over the task.

And this is how boys build sand castles.  Apparently, Grandpa, Matt and Ryan couldn't get the little castle molds to dump out the castles (I told them the sand they were using was too wet, but did they listen?)...so this is what they did...nice.

And here's Grandma, proving that you really CAN build a sand castle the right way!

Me and my boys, Matt and Brett in the water.

Bayli in the surf...cutie girl!  Love those goggles!

And Bronco was so willing to have his picture made!  These are my favorite attempts...

Jace and Brett in the surf...

There were several of these little guys to avoid...

And after a long day at the beach, some down time was in order!

On the way home, we made the obligatory Jewell family stop at Cracker Barrel for lunch!

Fun times were had by all (minus the sunburns!).  We would definitely do it again!

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Random Stuff

So, while Kat was here, she and Mom decided to order Dad a new camera for Father's Day.  It came while she was here, so she was able to covet it for a few days!  It's the newer version of hers (and mine) and came with all kinds of cool new features like Dolby digital sound and HD video capability and a dedicated video button (which would be so nice!).  Plus it's really small...can you tell I'm jealous???

Heather, Phil and fam stayed at our house for the first week of Kat's trip and I have only one picture!  We mostly hung out at Mom's until the kids had to get home for bed, so I guess i just didn't take any!  At night, after the kids were in bed, Phil and Matt would eat cereal, surf the web and play golf on the Wii!  And Heather I and would make fun of them until I was too tired and had to make myself go on to bed so I wouldn't fee totally yucky the next day!  Yeah, they made fun of me for being old.

Kat Comes to Visit (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) Vacation Bible School

Brett, Jace & Bayli got to go to Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the first week Bayli was here.  My friend Debbie is one of the people in charge at VBS, and we have been going since Jace was in preschool.  They all had a good time!  Here's a few pictures...

Here they are in the car on their way the last day.

Showing their donation money (each year VBS raises money for a good cause)

On the stage before opening assembly begins

Bayli in her row, waiting for it to start

Here's Jace with his friends Matthew and Ryan from preschool

Brett with his friend Jake from preschool

And the John boys...they are the fun ones in charge of assembly...it's quite a production!

Bayli had such a good time that she told Kat that they HAVE to come to Texas next summer for VBS!

Kathi Came to Visit!!! (06-12-2010 to 06-27-2010) At our house...

So Kathi got to come visit in June.  We had so much fun while they were here.  Heather and her family got to come up the first week and then Ryan got to join us the second week.  I'll split the posts into themes, so the first is Bayli and Bronco at our house.

Bayli got to spend the night the first Sunday they were here.  We meant to let them have lots of time to play but we ate dinner at Grandma's so all they really had time to do before bed was a little DDR!  Bayli, Jace & Brett all went to Vacation Bible School that week, so we had to get to bed to be up and ready to go the next morning.

One day after VBS, Kat, Bayli & Bronco came over for a visit.  The kids had a snack in the tree house...

except for Bronco...the tree house is not really safe for a 3-year-old, so he had to hang with the moms in the air conditioned house...we let him play out on the balcony...here he is trying to get back in!  It was hot out there!

Slip N Slide at Grandpa's (06-04-2010)

OK...so these looked much better on my computer screen than uploaded to the blog and I'm too lazy to edit them so you can see the boys better.  So, the next day (day after school was out), we headed back to Grandma's to test out the new slip n slide.  The kids had a blast being fancy and doing tricks on the slide.  Grandpa even sprayed them with the hose a little, which they thought was great!  The only bad thing was that we forgot the you-need-to-move-the-slide-every-10ish-minutes-or-you'll-create-a-mud-hole-in-your-yard rule.  Other than that, it was great!!!  Sorry Grandpa!!!

Swimming at Grandpa's! (06-03-2010)

The boys love love love to go swimming!  They couldn't wait to get in the water on the last day of school.

Jace's last pack meeting of the year (06-01-2010)

I never get very good pictures at pack meetings.  I guess the lighting is just really bad in there.  Even my friends with fancy cameras don't get very goo pics.  But I got a few...

Here's Brett with his friend Jimmy, waiting for the meeting to start.

And here's Jace getting his awards from hid Daddy.  Jace was able to earn all his ribbons for the special 100-years of scouting patch.  We are so proud of him!

Toys just ain't what they used to be (05-28-2010)

You know how they just don't make things like they used to?  Like how Hungry Hungry Hippos used to be already put together and in a box big enough to store it that way and had real marbles instead of plastic ones?  Or how the pieces in the game Cootie used to really stay on?  Well, my mom has these Play Skool building blocks that were mine when I was little.  They are by far the most consistently-played with toy at her house (at least by my kids) and Brett's most favorite toy anywhere.  He just loves blocks!  My little set of blocks had about as many as you see in this picture, so Mom and I decided we wanted to get some more to add to it.  Well, you can't just buy these blocks any more.  They've been downsized in size and number and Play Skool doesn't exist any more so we were on an Ebay mission to find the same ones so that the sizes would be a good mix with the ones we already had.  She ended up buying 3 sets of blocks from the same era and then went out of town, leaving Brett the responsibility of checking out the new blocks as they came in!  He was thrilled to have that job!  And here he is with one of the new sets right after it came in the mail, "testing it out".  He loves building temples out of blocks and now he has plenty at Grandma's to build whatever he wants!  Aren't grandparents great?

Off to Houston for Memorial Day (05-28-2010)

Lindsey invited the boys to come spend a weekend with her in Houston, so Matt and I decided we could go, too, drop the boys with Lindsey and get a hotel room!  So that's what we did.  While the boys were playing with Linz, we spent the day at IKEA and had a nice dinner and a restful night.  It was a good time!

First stop, before Lindsey's, the Lego Store at the Galleria.  Brett knew exactly what he wanted...a cup of Legos so he could build stuff right then.  Jace took a little longer with his choice...and spent a lot more of his money!

Presleigh, Linz & Jace in her giant poof chair!

They loved the poof chair...

Mostly because Linz let them do things like this:

And on the way home, the boys were being silly...that's Brett's "I'm a goof" face

And we had to stop at Buc-ee's...Matt has this thing about it...so here's flat stanley with Brett's Buc-ee's cup (Buc'ee's is a glorified truck stop...it's not that great!  But EVERYONE stops there, so I guess we had to!)