Day-to-Day (sort of), October 23

Some pictures from lately...

A couple weekends ago Eric and I took Eli and Jacey and Cooper to a place called Yesterland Farms in Canton, along with Kelly and Phil and their boys.  The kids had a BLAST at the "fall festival," despite the fact that it was 90 degrees and 80% humidity!  :)

The tractor "train:"

So many blurry ride pictures!  There were lots of fun little rides, all of which were ridden repetitively by our kiddos!  

Tractor ride:

Obligatory fall pumpkin picture (hot and hungry):

Post face-painting (batman and a tiger):

I love this one.

More rides.  (Spinning around in circles on rides after eating frito pie and pizza for lunch is something only kids can do!)

All the kids in the corn maze:

Eli's school has chapel once a week.  This week it was the primer class' turn to lead chapel, and they chose to act out the story of the Good Samaritan and sing some songs.  It was adorable.  Here they are waiting for everyone to come.  (Eli is down on the far end.)

Eli's part was to be one of the robbers who beat up the man (girl, in this case) and stole his money.  We are so proud!  :)

The other two girl who were robbers with him blanked on what they were supposed to do, so here is Eli pointing out where they are supposed to go next.  :)   

Lined up and ready to sing.

This song was "Keep Your Tongue From Evil," so they're holding onto their tongues.  

Last but not least, here he is in his "cowboy costume" before the Awana fall festival yesterday.  Cute, eh?  

Have a great week!

Day-to-Day, October 8

This isn't really a "day-to-day" post, but with our new school and work schedule, I don't really take many pictures on "normal days!"  I need to get back to doing that.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from the Texas State Fair and from our camping trip last weekend...

RIDES!!!  This is what the boys (Eli, Timothy, and Charlie) were most excited about. 

Eli's face here is so funny.

More rides...

Of course, Eli wanted to play the game where he could win a stuffed animal.  He LITERALLY has about 50 on his bed already- he is a hoarder of stuffed animals!

He won a ball, too.

We took a food break and then scrounged up the last of our tickets and let the kids ride one more ride.  We all had a blast at the fair!

Last weekend we went camping at Lake Ray Roberts.  On Friday afternoon it was 90 degrees, so Eli played in the water and sand...

And then a cool front blew in early on Saturday morning and it was suddenly 55 degrees- Texas!  :)

Building a fire:

My favorite people.

No camping trip is complete without fishing!  

And this is just a random photo, but it's so cute...  Timothy and Eli were playing outside last week and called me out because they had a surprise for me.  They made me close my eyes, and when I opened them, I saw this:

It's a flower garden.  :)  They built up a border and then "planted" flowers they had picked from the side yard, and they watered them REALLY well, too.  It was so cute and made me so happy.  They were baffled the next day, though, that the flowers they planted were dying and not thriving.  :)

Have a great week!

Destin!

We got back yesterday from a short trip to Destin, Florida with Eric's uncle and aunt, who so generously invited us to tag along with them during their annual trip.  We couldn't have had a better time if we tried- it was PERFECT!!  

But first- one of Eli's drawings from school.  Every day they "journal," drawing a picture and then sounding out words to explain the picture.  This is one of his- two people (and that thing on the bottom right is a "tank full of starfish that they are pumping out," go figure! :) ) and the sounded-out-all-by-himself-with-no-help word, "PEPL."  I am amazed at all he has learned in just two short weeks of kindergarten!  His teacher is absolutely amazing.  

And now on to some Destin pictures...

We left Dallas at 3:30pm on Wednesday afternoon and got to Destin at 4am on Thursday morning.  Needless to say, we were all very tired!  My sleeping boy the next morning:

I love this picture- running into the ocean on Thursday morning.

Surfer dude.

He was determined to stand up on the boogie board and "surf."  Of course, that didn't work so well and he learned to just ride the waves in with his belly on the board.

Family on the beach!  This is a picture of pure HAPPINESS.

There was lots and lots of sandcastle building.

More sandcastles.

We went hunting for crabs at night- we found a few big ones and TONS of little tiny ghost crabs.  It was a really memorable night, one I hope Eli will never forget.

Sunrise on the beach right outside the condo.

On the balcony of the condo.

This kid is a beach bum!  He played in the water from dawn until dusk for each of the three days we were there.  

The water was so clear and pretty!

And of course, no vacation is complete without a lot of good eating!  Obligatory tourist photo at the Back Porch, home of the best fish sandwich I've ever eaten!

This is just a small smattering of the MANY photos we took.  :)  We are SO thankful for this little trip to the beach and for the time we got to spend with Uncle Albert and Aunt Kathy.  We came back relaxed, happy, full, and tan- all the hallmarks of a good trip.  :)

Now we are just counting down the days until we get to go back!

First Day of Kindergarten!

I can't believe it, but today Eli started KINDERGARTEN!  He's attending Poetry Community Christian School, a place that we prayed so much he would get into.  It just seems like the exact environment we want for our little guy.  We are super excited for him, and I can hardly wait to pick him back up in a little while and hear all about the first day.

He hasn't been at all sad about this- just excited.  We got to meet all the students and their families a couple weeks ago at a class party, so he was just happy to see his new friends again today.  My super late sleeper even woke up HIMSELF at 6:30am today (a good 2 hours earlier than his usual!) because he was so excited.  :)  

Here he is in his little uniform.  I couldn't love this boy any more if I tried!

And here he is walking into the building with his little teacher gift and his tote bag.  By this point he was SO sick of me taking pictures and was just ready for me to leave already!  :)  Neither one of us shed a tear this morning- it was a really happy day.  (I think I cried all my tears out on Saturday night when the realization of the reality of this hit me hard! :) )

And now we have a kindergartener!  We're so proud of our Eli Dane!

Day-to-Day in MAINE!

A few pictures from our trip last week to Maine!  These are just a few from my phone, but it's just so much easier to upload phone pictures to the blog than the regular camera pictures, so these will have to do.  :)

Right after we got to Maine we went to have seafood, and Eli chose lobster claws as his dinner.  Smart boy!

We drove to Bar Harbor for a few days.  Our first stop was the Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park, where we ate the famous popovers.

Climbing trees on the lawn at the Jordan Pond House.

Hiking around the Jordan Pond.

Being goofy (and cute).

We ate giant bowls of ice cream each night in Bar Harbor.  Perfect vacation memory.

Sand Beach in Acadia National Park!  This is one of my favorite places in the world.

Overlooking Camden, Maine from the top of Mt. Battie.

We wore poor Eli out!  :)  This is a sleeping-in-the-car picture on the morning that we all woke up at 3:45am to go see the sunrise at the top of Cadillac Mountain.  He was so sleep-deprived, but so very cheerful nonetheless!

Running to the beach at Pine Point.

Shell hunting.

Burial at sea.

Pine Point.

We ate so much seafood and lobster in various forms on our trip, but Eli kept saying he wanted "a whole thing lobster."  So that's what he got on our last day there!  Of course, Eric did all the work and Eli just got to eat!  :)

11:00pm on the final plane back to Dallas.  He just couldn't handle being awake any more!  :)

It was a PERFECT trip that we will never forget!!