At Last!

A post by Maya:

Yay! It`s summer! You know why I'm excited? Because it's summer and no more school! I've got good news and bad news. I'll tell you the good news first. The good news is that I don't have to wake up at 6:30 anymore. The bad news is that I won't see all my friends next year because I'm going to a new elementary school. But, I'm excited still. I can hang out with my family and hang out at the pool and do some exercising! Bye! See you next time!

Brothers

Here is a video I took to try and get Seth smiling. Luke came along and started acting like a T-rex. After Luke roars a few times you'll have to watch Seth's face when I pan back over to him. So sad and so cute at the same time.

Dance recital video

Here's a video of my favorite of the 3 dances Maya did. It takes too long to post all 3.

Maya is in the silver skirt, in the back row on the left. One of the girls in front of her kept getting right in the way from the angle I was at, but you can see Maya most of the time.

A lot to catch up on

It's been a busy week. We'll see how much Seth lets me get done right now. We got some more smile pictures. I love his little double chin in the first one.

A friend of mine came over last weekend and took a whole bunch of really cute shots of Seth with her nice camera. We're getting those ready and I'll post them as a slide show soon. If anyone wants a copy of any of those photos, I'll have them posted on Walmart.com and you can get them. When the slideshow is on here, they'll be posted there.

Maya had her dance recital last weekend. She did a really great job. Girl loves to dance. We have the dance music on CD for Maya to practice with. When she practices, Luke is right there next to her copying her every move (as well as a 3-year-old can). It's really funny. I'll have to try and get that on video.

On Monday, Maya got a really cute haircut. Here's the before:

and the after:

I love it! She loves her neck not being hot anymore. The only drawback is she doesn't have a ponytail to hold her swim goggles strap in place while she swims.

Yesterday morning, I was watching my friend's boys. One of them loves to birdwatch. Good thing too, because otherwise I never would have noticed the ducks in my trees. That's right. ducks in my trees. I can't recall seeing ducks hang out in trees before.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger. You'll see the ducks with the bright orange beaks. My camera's zoom sucks. Everything looked tiny and far away in the camera even though the trees in my backyard are not that far away from my house.

Tonight, Matt and I are going to see "Wicked" with a bunch of friends. I'm very excited, though leaving Seth caused a lot of anguish. Not because I don't want to leave him home for the evening. I'm just worried my babysitter will be miserable if he cries and won't go to sleep. I'm not sure if he'll take a bottle. Hopefully he'll fall asleep within an hour at his usual bedtime and she won't really even have to deal with him. I'm sure it'll be fine.

YAY!

Matt comes home tonight!!! Need I say more than - YAY!

SMILE

Trip to Houston

Matt's been out of town for almost 4 weeks now. He's been able to come home on weekends which has been great. I decided to save him a roadtrip and the kids and I drove to Houston to see him over Memorial Day weekend. Matt's apartment is a few minutes walk to the hospital he's been working at. It's kind of interesting to me that there are about 12 hospitals all across the street from each other in this one section of Houston. Right next to these hospitals is a great park with the Houston Zoo and gardens, and a natural science museum, etc. So we spread out the fun over the weekend with Matt's sister and her family who live in Houston just a few minutes away.

Saturday morning we hit the zoo.

I think the lion drinking fountain is a staple at all zoos.

Matt's sister got the kids tickets to ride the carousel. Luke chose the panda.

Maya chose a dolphin.

It was a lot of fun. We headed back to the apt around noon, which was nice because we avoided the major afternoon crowds at the zoo.

Here's Matt and Seth hanging out in the apt.

Matt's sister watched the kids and sent Matt and I on a date. It was really nice to be kid free for a couple of hours. Maya and Luke had a blast playing with their cousins.

On Monday morning we headed back to the park to check out the science museum and see a shark movie. While we waited for the movie, we checked out the exhibits.

Maya striking a pose next to the triceratops skeleton.

The T-Rex skeleton. Maya heard scared face and Luke heard scary face. Love it!

In front of the shark next to the IMAX entrance. It was a 3D Imax movie about all different kinds of sharks. Really cool. Felt like I was really next to the sharks, minus the cold ocean water and fear. Once again, Maya being scared and the boys being scary.

Luke was waiting all week to see the "Bruce" movie.

In the museum, they had a fun chemistry demonstration. I even learned a thing or too and a bunch of fun "experiments" we can do at home in our kitchen. In these pictures, the kids are learning how things expand and contract with temperature. They are holding a little glass tube that had colored water in the bottom. Their warm hands made the air trapped on the bottom expand and push the water to the top of the crazy straw type tube.





After the museum, we decided to walk to some playgrounds on the otherside of the park. At the halfway point was this great splash area near a pond with paddle boats and ducks. Luke had fun getting his feet wet in the heat.

It was a fun trip. Seth even slept through the night! Maya and Luke loved playing with cousins and getting to see Dad. The 3 hour car ride wasn't even that bad. Any longer and it might have been. It was a fun Memorial day weekend.

1 more night and this whole ordeal will be over. Matt will be home to stay! YAY!