Carter Elizabeth Sissi

I love to tease this white blonde, blue eyed girl!  When I was little my grandmother used to let me wear this long pink nightgown when I stayed the night with her-I loved it! I felt like royalty when I would wear it and she would call me "Madam Queen!" It is one of my favorite memories with her-so it slipped one day and I called Carter "Madam Queen" to which she promptly responded "No! It's Carter!" So now,  it has become a game to call her the wrong name just so she will correct me and say "No, it's Carter Elizabeth!" Recently she had a playdate with a friend where they were playing sisters. I guess she took away from that playdate that her name was Sissi. So now when I call her the wrong name she tells me "It's Carter Elizabeth Sissi!"

First day of 1st Grade

 Davis rocked right into First grade-no problems! He is loving it and had no trepidation whatsoever about going into the first grade.

Last year we started the tradition of starting off the school year with a nice dinner-we went to a good steak house and enjoyed a great meal. We thought it would be fun to continue the tradition this year by turning our formal dining room into a "restaurant" and allowing Davis to pick the menu. He picked crab cakes for an appetizer and then steak, mac n cheese and green beans for the main course! He was so cute-he really wanted to invite his Nana and Papa. He saw Nana at work and told her that she needed to "dress nice" to come to his restaurant!!!

I ran to the fabric store and found some VOE colored fabric and sewed up a table runner for our event. We used real plates (instead of the plastic ones I normally serve their dinner on) and real glasses!

I hung both their backpacks on their chairs as the name tags. It was such a hit and I know we will continue this every years as a great way to start the year off right. Davis loves school and so I know this just reinforces his love for it.

 We served a special bottle of wine with our dinner. Jason's Aunt and Uncle gave us a case of wine with these "Davis" labels on them the day he was baptized. This was the first time we pulled out a bottle to enjoy. He certainly makes life worth celebrating.

 Our restaurant guests dining on the back to school dinner~

 In true Davis fashion, he was up at the crack of dawn talking his head off on the morning school started. He chatted non stop all morning and was just SO PUMPED that school was back in session. I forced him to wear a collared shirt (although it is under armour so it wasn't a huge battle) for the first day. I purchased one of the chalkboards that has gotten so popular, it is going to be fun to take his picture with it on the first day every year. This year at six he is starting first grade and wants to be a golfer-great with me!

 Walking in like a big kid with no reservations

 Sister started a new class at her school so they both got to wear new school clothes for the first day:

 My favorite photo of the entire day because this says it all-hey bubba, do you think this is fun? Because if you are smiling and think this is cool-then I think it is fun and cool too!

 My favorite thing about Davis' school is the community. Walking into the first day and seeing everyone is just as fun for the parents as it is for the kids. Everyone has been all over the place during the summer, so it's great to see everyone back together. We found David, our sweet neighbor who Davis adores, and had to snap a photo.

 Davis and his buddy--in typical fashion--giggling, sharing some secret, and then laughing some more. Boys! Excited that these two are in the same class this year, they really love each other.

 Davis and his sweet teacher

 This is the first year for real desks! They sit in pods and it is four kiddos to a pod. Ironically, Davis sits next to a cute girl whose parents went to high school with Jason. The boy next to them in the same pod, also had a parent that knew Jason in high school. What are the odds!

 Double trouble! This should be interesting...wondering how long Davis' teacher lets him stay near one of his BFFs!

 After the above photo he was kicking me out. Such a big, independent kid ready to enjoy school.

And on our way out of school we ran into one of Carter's BFFs!

I couldn't believe how much Davis progressed last year so I know I am going to love to watch him grow and thrive this year!

Carter

Poor second child--I was so good about updating with Davis and I seem to loose track of time with Carter. I love being able to look back on Davis' posts so I need to get better about these updates. So what's up with Carter:

Carter wants to be in on whatever we are doing. My very favorite thing she does is pipe in "I go, I want to go!" whenever we are talking about doing something. Every.Single.Time. You can count on her saying that and it makes Jason and I laugh every time. It usually happens when we are all driving in the car together, Jason and I will be talking about some upcoming event or activity and we won't even realize she is listening until we hear from the backseat "I go!" 

Every time I drive her to school she points to Davis' school and says "there's Bubba's school" then she waits until we see her school to say "And there is Cater's school!" 

While she wants to be in the middle of whatever we are doing, if she feels like someone is hurting her brother she HATES IT. So, naturally, she hated the game Pie in the Face. She screamed the whole time and we had to quit the game. 

She is not a good napper. She can now push through a nap if we want her to-although, she is still known to fall asleep in the car when we are running around.

 She is still my shadow. Where I go she goes. But she will also follow Davis. She copies whatever he does and says and thinks she is hilarious.

 She loves bounce houses. If she could spend her day going in between the pool and the bounce house it would be a perfect day (which is why she had a blast at July 4th, pool, bounce house and her BFF Ryan).

 She doesn't cry as often when I drop her off for school. I can usually distract her by getting her to take her waffles to be microwaved.  She loved splash days at school and loved to tell Bubba that she had splash day. The first day it was scheduled when we walked up she immediately asked "where is splash day?" she did not like that it wasn't already set up for her.

 dressed to golf:

 This girl loves her food and loves her sweets. She will eat anything and everything. I've caught her with chocolate up in her room multiple times. She is much more independent than Davis. She will go to her room and play by herself for long periods of time. She is also a human tornado--where Davis plays and keeps things fairly neat, she destroys everything. It is actually comical to watch, everything in her path is subject to her touching, moving or destroying. When I go to her room to check on her, she has often pulled the sheets out of her drawers to use as blankets for her babies. There will be clothes off the hangers and her pink chair will be pulled up to her closet shelves so she can reach her shoes.  She is also my fearless one--Davis will often enlist her to go with him to his room because he is the one who is scared to go by himself. I heard her yell back to him one day last week "what do you want Bubba?"

She also is VERY independent. I hear "I do it" about a million times

 She will not sit still for her hair to be brushed but she will to have her nails painted

 And she still LOVES babies. All of her babies are named Jack or Mallory.

 She is pretty patient on the golf course. She loves to ride in the basket while we play. She doesn't show much interest in playing but she just doesn't want to be left behind.

As of this week she is now paci free! She has done pretty well--although she sobbed when we walked away from the store without her packs. She has only asked for them a couple of times and we have just reminded her that we left them at the store.

Summer 2016

I'm back for a little summer update! I realize that I love to look back on the blog and see what we have done as a family and so I need to get better about keeping this blog updated! 

We celebrated the end of the school year with a family dinner to Taste of Texas. Davis LOVES ordering the steak and it makes him feel like such a big kid. We also let him pick the dessert! A snickers cheesecake!

Davis has loved his after school program. Unfortunately, they are ending the after school program starting in the fall. I had to document this silly group of boys that have been together for two years now! Davis LOVES his after school buddies--

 Davis on his last day of Kindergarten (Carter insisted on getting in this photo):

 Last day of school party--Carter jumped right in and thought that she was there to be a part of the party! She will have no problem heading to school when it is her turn!!!

 We left the end of school party and headed straight to Frisco to see Amy and family. I miss my friend terribly, and wish that their family lived closer to us. We enjoyed a night at the ballpark!

 The boys, of course, fit in a round of golf:

 And then we got to see our friends the Phelps! We crashed their pool and enjoyed their amazing hospitality:

 We started the first week of summer off by bringing Reid back with us to Houston. The two boys enjoyed golf camp together out at the club. My favorite part about the week was the evenings, the boys would come home go outside and just play! I love the fact that we can go a short or long time without seeing each other and it is like no time has passed...

 We celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary! Time has just flown, it is hard to believe we are old enough to celebrate 11 years!! Anyway, we had a PERFECT day! We spent the morning at the Farmer's Market as a family. This wore out a few members of our crew

 We then headed over to the library and checked out a few fun books.  One of our favorite things to do is for the four of us to crawl up in our bed and read a big stack of books as a family. It doesn't happen often enough but I am hoping that we can do this more often with our new library membership!

 Davis then spent a week at T Bar M and LOVED it.  They had such great themed days including Star Wars and Pirates.

Davis then competed in the drive, chip and putt competition. I was so proud of him because he was so brave, he wasn't nervous at all. He had to compete in the 7-9 category so he was much smaller than most of the other competitors but he seemed shocked when he didn't win the whole thing!

 We spent July 4th at the club with our friends. It was so much fun to watch the kids all run around together. Carter and Ryan spent the entire time going between the bounce house and the pool.

 we've gotten in some snuggles....

lots of golf

 lots of ice cream

and of course a slip n slide!

I'm so ready for a break from the heat but we are making the most of our summer!