Visit from Angie and Hadley

Over Columbus Day weekend, we were lucky enough to have Angie and Hadley come visit us in Texas.  What a treat!!  They had not met Ryan yet and the kids were excited to get to spend time together.

The day they arrived, we picked them up at the airport and went to lunch and then the Dinosaur Park.  Evan had a soccer game so it was just Caitlin, Ryan, and I with the two of them.  We had never been to the dinosaur park but had heard it was neat and was one of the things Hadley wanted to do.

First off, we stopped for a picture with the T-Rex.  Share Kitty came with us on our adventure (a stuffed cat from Hadley's school that they take on trips and write a short book about). Caitlin became quite obsessed with share Kitty.

The dinosaur park is a walk through the woods where there are dinosaur exhibits set up as you can see behind Caitlin and Hadley.

There are informative signs so we learned a lot about the dinosaurs (although I was impressed with what Hadley already knew!).

Caitlin and Hadley pretending to be afraid of the T-Rex

It was actually a pretty hot and humid day for October so the kids were pretty tired by the time we finished.

Ryan was there too!!

The one dinosaur they could touch.

I don't have many pictures from the rest of the weekend because it actually was VERY rainy.  After being in a drought for a couple years, we have been getting a lot of rainfall lately. I'm just sorry it had to coincide with Angie's visit.  Still, the kids had a blast playing together and I loved being able to catch up with Angie. We even got to go out one night just the two of us - leaving Bryce in charge of 4 kids! What a great hubby :)

We of course had to go to Rudy's though...

Thanks again for coming to visit!!

Fall Soccer 2013

This fall both Evan and Caitlin are playing soccer.  Evan has moved up to the Kinder age group so they are on different teams (although same uniform!). 

Here's a picture of Caitlin's team the Avalanche- it is all kids from our neighborhood which is pretty fun.

There are a few kids missing from the picture - we had a couple who just did not want to be in it!

 The kids lined up before the game saying the pledge

Caitlin is kind of hit/miss with soccer.  She seems to enjoy practice and the games but she can be off in la-la land during the game where she just doesn't pay attention. And she doesn't really show that sort of killer instinct where she wants to get in there and get the ball. But, maybe it will come in time!

Evan is on the Impact with all kids we also know (most have been on our soccer team in the past). It's fun to be able to keep the kids together and see them progress and become friends.

My soccer players!

Evan's team - I'm sure you recognize a lot of the kids from past teams. I think this is Bryce and Travis' 5th season coaching together!

It's a lot of fun to watch them play since it's all 5/6 year olds so it is pretty competitive. This weekend is our last game!

Pumpkin Patch 2013

Every year I love to take the kids to the pumpkin patch. It's always kind of strange to do it in Texas where it might still be 90 degrees outside, but we still have fun.  This year with Evan being in Kinder, he did not get to go :(  But, it made the entire trip a little easier just having Caitlin and Ryan!

We went with a few friends over to Sweet Berry Farms in early October. The weather actually was pretty nice that day and we had it mostly to ourselves.

My best picture of the 2 of them

Ryan didn't really nap that morning so he was a little fussy for the picture taking

Caitlin and her two buddies AJ and Will - they kept playing Jake and the Neverland Pirates in the boat... it was pretty cute.

We went over and let them do the barrel ride which is always fun.

They had the ride to themselves!

The three of them on the hayride which we did next.

And the beautiful flowers with my beautiful girl

They all enjoyed feeding the goats - thanks for sharing your goat food!

Overall another super trip to the pumpkin patch! We brought home a few pumpkins which we carved later in the month. I asked Evan if he wanted to go to a local one later but he wasn't really too interested (so no pictures of him with pumpkins).  Oh well! 

The End of our Hawaii Trip

Our Hawaii trip finally had to come to an end.  We had such a great time it was hard to leave!  Saturday we spent the day just relaxing at the pool and doing some shopping (and watching college football).  It was a nice way to end the trip. Our flight was not until 8:30pm so we really had the entire day. 

The beautiful pool

Daddy throwing Caitlin in the air

Waterslides!

Ryan enjoyed the beach pool

Mommy and Ryan

The kids (especially Caitlin) were fascinated watching the Hula girl.  I think Caitlin wants to be one when she grows up :)

And saying goodbye to Mema and Papa who were on a different flight. We are so glad that we got to take this trip with so much of our family.  We had a great time and there is NO way we could have taken 3 kids without them all helping out. I'm already looking forward to going back in a few years :)  I hope you've enjoyed all the posts about it.  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Ryan Turns 7 Months!

I know this is kind of late but I've been trying to catch up with all the things we did before Ryan turned 7 months!  But, here is the update. I hope I can remember everything.

Again, there was no doctor's appointment but I'll make a guess at stats (based on last week's visit):

Weight: 17lbs

Height: 26.5 inches

He definitely sits just fine all by himself. He is usually content to play with toys for awhile. At some point, he usually falls over and then will roll all over the place trying to reach toys.  It's actually kind of funny!  I'm not sure he'll start crawling anytime soon because he just rolls everywhere. I need to get this on video.

As soon as we got back from Hawaii, we started him on vegetables. We started with sweet potatoes, then carrots, squash, peas, and green beans. He will take his cereal in the morning and then have a vegetable in the evening. Soon we will introduce fruits.  

Ryan still takes about two naps a day although it's hard to count the morning one. It seems to just be whenever we are in the car from activity to activity. The afternoon though we try to be home so he can get a good 2 hour nap in. At night, he still gets tired around 7:30pm so we do bath and put him down. For the most part, he sleeps through the night although every now and then he'll wake up around 4-5am for some reason. Otherwise, he's not up until 6:30 or 7am usually.  And even when he does wake up, he usually is content to just lay there and coo for awhile.

He is such a joy! We all love him very much and can't believe it's going so fast.

And comparison photos!

The Big Island Hawaii - Part 7

After spending the day at the National Park, we drove back through Hilo and went around the north end of the Island so we could see Akaka Falls.

Arriving at the park

What a change of scenery! Once we left Hilo, it was like entering a rain forest.  This is what you think Hawaii looks like... very lush and green with beautiful flowers along the path. It even felt like a rain forest as we had lots of it (fortuantely we got our little hike in mostly rain free).

Uncle Will joined us for the trip to the falls (you can see it the background there).

Family photo!

And here we were at the falls - this is as close as you can get

The falls are actually twice as high as Niagra Falls at 422 ft.

After that very long day, we headed home. Friday was spent around the hotel and then we went in search of a beach to swim.

This is the area just outside our room. The kids had a great time running around and chasing each other.  I thought, photo op!

The girls

After lunch, we finally found a beach - a little disappointing. The surf was very rough so we didn't stay too long since the kids couldn't really play in the water. But they enjoyed the beach!

After that, we all went to the beach to take a few family photos. We didn't get to the beach as early as we should have (the sun set really fast) so we were kind of rushing through the photos. But we did get some good ones.

The ladies

The Matz Family

Happy family!

Stacers!!

Me and my hubby

Mema, Papa, and the grand kids admiring the view

Turn around and say cheese!

My babies

And then I couldn't resist snapping a few of the other two just being sweet

They were best friends on this trip

Don't be surprised if your Christmas card has one like this on there ;)