Happy Celebrations

Look who is 40!  Yes, he took that picture on purpose.  I do not think that he anticipated my putting it up for people to see, but oh well!  We had a surprise party, just a few people, at his brother's house.  As you can see below, we did have an awesome cake.  My friend, the amazingly talented Betsy Melton, is in the cake making business and she does not fool around.  Natalie is in this picure with Zachary and Ava, Andy's friend Mike's kiddos. 

I wish that I had a better photo for this one.  I am hoping that Inyaa's mom has some better ones.  She has a neat nice camera, so hopefully she will.  Inyaa and Natalie had their big performance of the Three Piggy Opera last weekend.  It was super cute, although at one point Natalie just kind of sat down on the stage. :)  Inyaa and Natalie have been friends for 5 years, something that is pretty impressive when you are only seven.  Her little brother just joined Matthew's class, which is fun!

School Carnival

The school had an awesome carnival this year.  There was a little bit of everything.  All three kids really enjoyed the foam pit.  It is basicly a big blow up pool with soap bubbles being pumped in.  You couldn't even see Matthew with all of the bubbles around him.  The lines were pretty insane, so some things we did not get around to doing.

Matthew loved getting to hop aboard the real fire truck.  You can see his little sticker on his sweatshirt.  Actually, that is something interesting too.  You see, this carnival was on May 3rd.  The fact that the kids were wearing sweatshirts is remarkable.  It could've been crazy hot, but it sure wasn't.

I realized that somehow I didn't get many photos of Meagan at the carnival.  If you look carefully, you can see her in purple on the left side.  There really were TONS of bubbles!  The kids were really cold afterwards, though.

Of course, Natalie had to pose with Matilda for a photo.  The two of them are just the cutest things ever.  Natalie has chocolate frosting all over her in this photo.  The kids went nuts at the bake sale.

At the NBC studios, kissing a huge Dwight bobblehead.

Some famous statue.  I have to look up what it is called. :)  We went on a neat dinner cruise so that we could see the Statue of Liberty, as it is still closed from damage from Superstorm Sandy.

Times Square at night.  There is simply no place like it.  We saw Spiderman on Broadway and walked around Times Square at night.  It is just so alive and oh-so-crazy.

Andy and I spent an insane amount of time on this trip eating.  This is at the Carnegie deli, it of the cheesecake fame.  My favorite treat there: the black and white cookies.  Insanely delicious.

On a more serious note, I am so sad by what happened this week in Boston.  I couldn't help but think about the fact that we were in such public places this weekend.  We can't not keep on living our lives in a normal fashion, but it is so sad to think that we can't just do things without worrying anymore.  Hoping that peace is brought to Boston.

Chewie

We just returned from a great vacation to New York City.  I don't have all of the pictures organized yet, so I will have to write about that later.  I had to post this picture of Matthew, though.  We all call him Chewy, so my mom bought him this Chewbacca T-shirt.  Chewbacca is wearing shades.  As you can see, he really likes it!

Another Natalie/Daisy Post

Natalie with her friend Matilda making boxes for books they are donating to Africa. 

Matthew's First Game and a Great Day at Uncle Brian's Ranch

Matthew's first game!  Whoo hooo!  It was very amusing.  There were no outs and definitely no defense. The kids just all cheered for each other.  Some kids had to be held by their mom or dad out on the field, and there were as many adults on the field as there were kids!

I am enjoying my new camera that has a zoom lens.  I didn't splurge and buy a SLR or anything, but my new little camera has a nice zoom that makes it so that I can get a close up like this one of Matthew on second base while being back at the bleachers myself.

Some of Matthew's new friends on his team, the Sand Gnats.  Best.name.ever.

After the game we headed off to the hill country to Brian's ranch.  It was great!  The weather was perfect.  The kids had a ball just doing simple things like playing tag or picking up bugs.  There were a ton of bluebonnets along the way, but not that many on the ranch this year.  We did get a few, though.

As you can see, Brian's land is very pretty.  The cow below was just chilling in the bluebonnets on the road near the ranch.  He was a happy little thing.

My pretty girls...

A perfect spring day

Happy, happy day last week when my "book club" (we don't really read books, henceforth the quotes) got together to see Zoe for the first time in way too long.  It was such a fun day that meant a lot to all of us.

This weekend we went strawberry picking out in Marble Falls. It is pretty out there and we got the best weather.  Meagan was the best strawberry picker, but Natalie did a good job too.  Matthew picked some interesting ones. :-)  All of the kids loved the goats.  These goats are extremely used to being fed by enthusiastic children, so they were very eager to see my kids coming with food in hand.

 Matthew's contributions

We had a day off from school on Friday.  My friend Jordan has a rather large pet turtle named Winston.  Matthew renamed him Dustin and insisted on feeding him a goldfish cracker.

Natalie lost a tooth the other day and wrote this rather funny letter to the Tooth Fairy.