We Love Breakfast at Bubba's!

Brothers: Shared Room and Playtime

These two are sharing a room in our new house. After a few nights of adjustment they have done well and don't bother each other too much. This room used to be garnet red and I am so glad that Grant painted it blue for the boys. It is a spacious room and such a nice blue color. Once he grows out of his crib, the plan is for Colton to move to the bottom bunk.

JR loves his top bunk and has slept in it since the first night in the new house. He scrambles right up to the top and doesn't have any issue getting out at night to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. Colton moved around a few places including the laundry room and our room, but he seems to do best in the boys room. He still has his little white crib because his bigger crib is at the Mimosa house (along with most of our furniture) for staging until it sells. He doesn't have a ton of wiggle room in his crib, but for now we just call it cozy.

The boys have also been playing together more and have the beginnings of wrestling which mostly involves falling on top of each other and rolling around on the floor. They also both like cars, boats, mud and water. I sure do love my awesome boys!

Playing boats in the kitchen sink.

Digging a hole in the backyard and making a pretty great mud puddle. I think Colton took a little taste of the mud. 

Both boys loved it when I brought the little fisher-price slide inside the house on one of the blazing hot July days. We needed something new to play with and they went up and down the slide for at least two hours until they started to get tired and fall off. 

Chicago: Erin Work Trip

Our team had a meeting in Chicago that was some work and some fun - my favorite kind of meeting. I work on an awesome team (of mostly women right now) and it was fun to be together in beautiful Chicago.

Back Row: Alli Warfield, Adrianne Wright, Loran Moran, Jen Dema, Rose Tse, Brittney Haseloff, Amana Watkins
Front Row: Sarah Walavich, Anne Sims, Renae Slaughter, Denise Roche, Erin Walsh

The Sears Tower Skye Ledge definitely left me feeling queasy. 

Enjoying the architecture tour from the river.

Me and my former boss, Arlene Green. She is a great person and was a great boss.

Miss Lowry Camp

July 28-31 both Cadie and Jack Ranger went to "Reading is Yummy" camp with Miss Lowry. Her motto is "play, laugh, sing, imagine, create, grow" and she is basically a female Mr. Rogers. She is a fun and special lady. They sing lots of songs, read books, good, play games, tell stories and use their imaginations. They both enjoyed it and it was Jack Ranger's first ever camp!

Books:
- Cook-a-doodle-doo
- Blueberries for Sal
- Dragons Love Tacos
- Green Eggs and Ham
- Strega Nona
- Stone Soup: Jack Ranger got the magic stone! "When we ate the soup, one lucky townsperson found the magic stone in his soup: Jack Ranger proudly walked around to let the rest of us touch and smell."

Here are the kids from the camp:

Thorsten Schoen

Jack Ranger and Cadie Walsh

Reagan Vowell

AnneMarie Thomas

Indigo Brookner

Isaiah O'Keefe

Kenneth Verven

Sloane Massey

Abby Bruce

Harry Stoops

Landon Sexton

Eli Yaffe

Landon Campbell

Ada Grace Ross

Brooklyn and Kennedy Smith

Clare and Ansley McGahee

Bryce May

Happy Birthday to Me!

I very much enjoyed celebrating my birthday amidst the chaos of moving. Our long-time, sweet friends Jamie and Chad treated us to dinner at Patrizios. A cool front came through Dallas on Friday morning and we were able to sit on the patio for a few hours, drink bellinis, laugh and catch up. After dinner, we went to Sol Therapy and all got massages. It was a fun and relaxing evening and we need to do it more often!

My birthday weekend also included sprinkles cupcakes with Cadie, flowers from my boss, sleeping in on Saturday since DD and Big John kept all three kiddos Friday night and walking to church pulling the kids in the wagon! I am so thankful for my family and the beautiful life God has blessed us with.

Chapman's Visit

My brave sister made the 2-hour drive to Atlanta from Athens, GA and then flew from Atlanta to Dallas with her 5-year-old and 5-month-old boys so that she could visit us for a week. All that to arrive to chaos here in Dallas because we moved from Mimosa to the yellow house on the Saturday she arrived (more about the move in a future post). Courtney picked her up from the airport and they met us at the new house. B and her babies did great traveling and those boys are so stinking cute! Samuel is a charmer and Josiah could not even be more of a doll and he has the most sweet and calm nature.

Night one at the new house didn't go super and since it was also our first night in the new house our kiddos were unsettled as well. At about midnight I took a distraught Colton back over to Mimosa and even there he had a hard time calming down. We revamped our approach for Night 2 and Bethany and her boys relocated to the Mimosa house. They slept great there and we had beds for all of them still at Mimosa since we left quite a bit of furniture there for staging. Since that system worked so well Bethany and her boys stayed at Mimosa for the rest of their trip.

Bethany was so flexible and helpful! She helped me pack and clean at Mimosa and unpack quite a lot at the new house. Even amidst all the packing activities we managed to fit in a few fun things including church on Sunday and then lunch at DD and Big John's house, sisters (plus Josiah) birthday lunch for me at Banditos, CJ and Bethany took all the kids to the Perot Museum on Tuesday (I had to work) and they had a great time, dinner at a hibachi grill on Wednesday evening - the boys really liked eating steak and shrimp and watching the cooking right in front of us, and plenty of play time including Cadie, Samuel and Ranger staying all afternoon at DDs on Monday.

We managed to throw the kids together on the couch late on our final evening together so we could get at least one cousins pic and it turned out so cute! I sure wish my sister and her family lived closer, but I am so thankful that she made the investment to come and visit. We had a great time and my kids already want to know when we are going to Georgia to visit them.

Happy Independence Day!

July 4th was packed full of fun - as always. We sat in DD and Big John's front yard to watch the Highland Park parade and loved seeing friends Miles, Bigelow kids and Benjamin Settle. We also ventured down to the Lee's and played in their treehouse and on their bounce-house waterslide. Then we ate tons and tons at the Walsh family bash before heading home for naps. After naps, we decided to be a bit adventurous and Grant and I took the kids to Six Flags to ride a few rides and watch fireworks. Six Flags was packed, but the kids did the log ride and a few small rides in the kiddy area, and then we got a decent spot on a bridge to see the fireworks. The drive home was also fun because we probably saw 10 fireworks shows along I-30 on the way back to Dallas. The kids loved seeing how many fireworks they could find along the horizon. Happy Birthday America!