Bugs!!!

The library has had lots of fun events going on for the kids this year.  Recently, Jungle Jim came to visit with all of his creepy crawlies.  I didn’t manage to snap too many pictures, mostly because we were sitting near the front and he had a huge snake hanging down in my face which I had to keep an eye on at all times.  Here are the two I did manage to take of Dalton enjoying all the insects and animals after his presentation was over.

Home Renovations

Blake and I have been talking about redoing the downstairs flooring pretty much since the day we bought the house.  We’ve gone window shopping for tile about a dozen times, talked to several contractors, toyed with the idea of doing it ourselves and then about two weeks ago finally took the plunge.  We headed down to the floor store, bought and paid for the tile only to come home two hours later to find that our A/C was on the brink of flooding the upstairs.  Thank goodness for home warranty insurance and the A/C only needing minor repairs so that the tile we just purchased did not have to sit in our garage for a few months before getting installed.  I really wanted to install the tile ourselves to save on the cost, but Blake finally talked me into letting someone else (who knows what they are doing) do it for us.  I have to agree, it was probably money well spent.  The two guys picked up the tile for us on Monday, got to work about 10 am, left around 5 pm to collect the rest of the tile, put in a full day of work on Tuesday, and it was all cleaned up and finished by Wednesday at noon.  If we were installing it, I’m pretty sure we would still be scraping up the glue from the kitchen flooring as I type.  Here are the before and after pictures of our new floor!

View from the front door with the old carpet.

View from the front door with the carpet removed.

 

View from the front door with the new tile.

View from the front door with most of the furniture in place.

Another view of the living room from the dining room half wall.

We forgot to take true before pictures of the kitchen before we started tearing up the old floor, but you can see what a mess it was getting the old floor out.  This is the view from the stove.

The kitchen during demolition viewed from the living room/dining room half wall.

The kitchen complete with new tile viewed from the stove.

New tile in the front entry way.  We decided to have the tile installed at a 45 degree angle in the living room and then straight in the kitchen area to give some separation to the two areas.  Blake came up with the idea of putting a straight border around the entire living room to inset the diagonal tiles.  It turned out great and really adds something to the room.  It also helped to make a smoother transition from the living room to the kitchen area.  Now I’m not sure I want to put my front door rug back to cover up all the pretty details.  We still have quite a bit of paint touch up work to do, but overall we are excited about the result.

Fun with Macca

We had been planning to make a trip to San Angelo to see all the grandparents the last week in June.  Unfortunately, the kids came down with a stomach bug and we didn’t get to leave on Friday after Blake got off work as planned.  It was probably a blessing in disguise though, because that Saturday evening our A/C went out.  Had we not been here to notice that the emergency drain over the back door had a steady drip of water raining down, we would have come home to a flooded house.  Luckily we were here and Blake was able to shut the system down before water started pouring from the ceiling.  The bad news was that it was 9pm on Saturday evening and was in the middle of a stretch of 10 days of over 100 degree temperatures.  We toughed it out that night with lots of fans, but decided the kids were well enough the next morning to head to Angelo anyway.  The kids and I loaded up early the next morning and made the 3 and half hour drive to Angelo to stay with Macca and Poc (Blake’s parents).  Unfortunately, Blake had to stay here to work and schedule the repair guys.  He spent the week at home, in the sweltering heat while we enjoyed the unusually cool temperatures in Angelo.  Here are a few pictures of the fun times we enjoyed in Angelo that week:

We were hoping to teach Dalton how to swim without the floaties this year, but he is a bit attached to them.  He did practice some without them, but I think before the next trip to Angelo, the floaties may need to magically disappear.  :)

A friend of Macca’s was kind enough to take the kids and I on a real buggy ride.  That’s Trix pulling the Buggy.  She is a 13 year old retired Amish work horse.

Mommy and Addie enjoying the ride.

Dalton just as we were getting ready to take off.

Trix working hard or hardly working compared to her days in the Amish community.

 

Stopping to admire some other horses in the neighborhood.

We also enjoyed seeing lots of family that week, as well as going out to the pasture with Poc to check on the cows and the bulls.  Dalton even got to drive Poc’s new truck.  Thanks for the fun times Macca and Poc!

Artworks Fundraiser

A few weeks ago, the owner of Artworks (an art studio for children on up) was kind enough to host a fundraiser for me to help raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  She set up about a dozen art stations around the studio for the kids to enjoy.  We had about 14 kids show up, which was just the perfect number.  Dalton always loves this little studio, but it was Clayton’s first time to get to go with us.  I’m pretty sure he had a great time making some of the projects on his own, but I think he enjoyed getting to kinda be the “boss” and helping the smaller ones out too.

Clayton making his dad a Father’s Day card.

This is by far Dalton’s favorite station.  There were lots of things to do, but Dalton spent most of his time here.  It’s just an old salad spinner with a small paper plate in the bottom.  The kids use eye droppers to drop a few drops of each of the primary colors on the plate, put the lid on, give it a few spins and then like magic, you have a plate filled with a rainbow of colors. 

These are the neighbor’s and their kids enjoying the art projects.

I am still fundraising for LLS, so if you would still like to make a donation, here is my website:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/stx/rnrsa09/clacyh

I am just over 75% of my goal.  I am hoping to be to 100% by the first of August.  Thanks to everyone that has helped out so far.

Zoo time fun!

School is out, so that means with three kiddos at the house all day long, we try to find something to get out of the house for a few hours each day.  The San Antonio Zoo has a great little river/beach area that is deep enough for Clayton to enjoy, but not too deep that I have to worry about Dalton and Addie.  A few weeks ago, we packed a lunch, grabbed our swimsuits and some towels and headed out to enjoy the animals and some water fun.

In all our trips to the zoo, I don’t think I’ve ever taken the kids picture on the famous lion statue.  Now that Addie is a bit bigger and can sit for a few seconds on her own, we managed to snap this before she started scaling up to the top of it.  Getting her to actually look at the camera….well we will just have to save that for another trip.

Clayton being a monkey!

Dalton is checking the map to see where we should head next.

Enjoying some water fun at the zoo!

The boys enjoying the water.

Sitting in the waterfall.

Relaxing in the sand.

Building sandcastles with a friend.

The kids seemed to really enjoy this area.  It was well shaded, large enough to have fun, but small enough for me to keep an eye on all three.  We can’t wait to head back to this spot again.

A day on the river

We often head down to Landa Park on weekends to feed the ducks and enjoy this fabulous park.  We, just as often, forget to take Dalton’s fishing pole.  This last trip we went down just for that purpose, to finally let Dalton use his fishing pole that Macca and Poc got him for Christmas.  It was a warm day, so we made a quick stop to enjoy the water and paddle boats before heading down to find some shade and bait our hook.

Addie kept putting the hat completely over her head to block out the sun.

Dalton loves riding the paddle boats.  He is counting down the days until his legs actually reach the paddles though.

Some of the local wildlife seeking refuge from the sun.

Enjoying some shade (well at least one of us)!

Heading back to the dock so that we can go catch some fish.

Waiting patiently for something to bite.  We never did catch anything that day.  We decided that our hooks were a little big for fish here in the river. 

Birthday Party Fun!!!

A few weeks ago, we headed down to one of the pizza places to help a friend celebrate his fourth birthday.  Here are a few pictures of Dalton and Addie enjoying some of the games.

Dalton loves this place.  It also has an indoor putt putt course, race cars you can drive, mini-bowling (perfect for the little ones), bumper cars and tons of arcade games.  Not to mention, having a birthday party there is probably one of the smartest and easiest things for the parents to do.

Who knew rope could be so much fun?

The nearby library kicked off their summer reading program a few weeks ago by inviting a local cowboy to come show off his rope skills.  Addie didn’t seem to impressed, but the boys had a grand old time. 

The start of the show….Dalton and Clayton enjoyed every minute of it.

He did an excellent job of making sure all the kids got to be a part of a trick.

“As long as you are still, this won’t hurt a bit.”

“Stand close together now.”

Addie making a run for the door.

Dalton’s job was to hand the cowboy uncooked pieces of spaghetti.  He would then place the spaghetti in his teeth and use the whip to break it.  Pretty impressive.

Dalton even got to hold one of his whips during a trick.

Dalton was the last man standing. 

The camera wasn’t quite fast enough to capture the picture, but he actually just jumped through the rope.  He was pretty talented and the kids seemed to really enjoy it.  It was a great way to get Dalton and Clayton excited about joining the summer reading program.  Since the start of it, Dalton and Addie have both earned some really cool prizes including free circus tickets.  We figured Addie wasn’t quite old enough to enjoy sitting through a two hour circus, so we took Dalton and a friend of his this past weekend.