Hello!

What did you do at 9:00 tonight?

We had ice cream cones. outside. on the back porch.

I asked Maddie to turn around so I could take her picture. Her reply...

"Um, I'm a little busy right now, Mom."

so help me...

Lyndon is our bug watcher. He protects us.

doesn't this just make you want to run to Sonic right now? ...or get the kid a wet wipe?

The kids LOVE to chase and scare each other. (we like it too. except for the high pitched scream they both have on impact.)

Maddie just jumped out to scare Lyndon.

(excuse our ghetto cabinets. When we first moved in we were super motivated so we sanded and restained our top cabinets a darker color. They look great. But unknown to us at the time, sanding and staining is time consuming...and it sucks. So THREE YEARS later we are FINALLY getting around to the bottom cabinets. Pathetically we've only gone so far as to take 2 drawers off. Who knows, we'll most likely finish it just in time to sell the house. FYI: we have no plans to move any time soon.)

Here's a Wednesday night confession for ya...I was too lazy too put the kids in the bathtub to wash off the ice cream so I just wiped off their bodies with a wet wipe.

okay, one more confession...I was also too lazy/tired/tuckered out (choose the excuse) Saturday night to bath the kids for church the next morning so before I put their church clothes on I rubbed them down with fragrant baby lotion. They smelled clean. (that's what matters, right)

Sunday we had an awesome BBQ at our friends house. Maddie and Lyndon had been in separate parts of the house doing their own things for about 20 minutes or so. Lyndon was with us in the family room when Maddie came in. Here was their interaction :

Maddie: "Lyndon, how are you? I missed you!"

Lyndon: "ya-ya, hi ya-ya!" (he calls Maddie "ya-ya")

Then they ran to each other with open arms and gave one another a tight embrace. It warmed my heart.

Lyndon came into the computer room saying over and over, "tanks, Mom! oh, tanks!" (thanks) As he got closer to me I saw what he was thanking me for. It was a picture of my friend, Mallory, who Lyndon adores. He held up the picture and said, "Mawee, oh, Mawee." I haven't broken the news that Mallory will be going off to college soon. I think I'll make her do the honors.

Some of our friends invited us to watch "Bolt" on a big screen outside in their neighborhood. It was a lot of fun. The kids were quite entertained throughout the entire movie. But toward the end Lyndon felt the need to go explore other people's blankets and chairs. He quickly made friends with this woman who was just about the kindest person I have ever met. In about 5 seconds Lyndon had made himself right at home sitting next to her on her fold out chair, putting his arm around her etc. We knew he had her completely wrapped around his finger when she kindly asked the group in front of her if they move over because Lyndon wanted to sit on their Dora seat and it was too short to see over them. (I'm pretty sure this kid is gonna run for office sometime in his life.) Then the next thing we know this sweet lady has the Dora seat...with Lyndon in it...sitting on her lap just so he would be able to enjoy the Dora seat AND see the movie.

I wish I had half of his charisma.

Yesterday at the pool it was almost time to leave so I said to Maddie,

"We're going to leave in about 5 minutes but we can come back again. Won't that be cool?"

To which she replied,

"Um, it would be even more cool if we just stayed actually."

oh boy.

Some of Lyndon's favorite words are

"Cool!" and "Hoppy!" (happy)

Just about everything is "cool" and when he's really psyched about something or just plain elated he says "hoppy", in kind of a deep voice.

Like tonight when the woman was handing me the ice cream cones through the drive through window, I heard Lyndon in the back seat..."hoppy." "ha ha hoppy."

or

when he wakes up after an especially great nap he'll hug me and say, "hoppy."

Some of Maddie's favorite saying lately have been...

"I crack myself up!" and "silly you" or "silly you, Mom."

It was a proud moment when we heard Maddie singing along to one of Jonathon's songs as we were driving. (they're extremely catchy...just you wait.)

So Jonathon and I went to a Round Rock Express game last Friday evening. We had a blast. I took our point and shoot and actually got some pictures of us. I'm always the one behind the camera so we don't have many of us. Here we are trying to do that thing the "kids" do these days...you know hold it out yourself and take a self portrait. (yeah, I realize that made me sound pretty old.) It took Jonathon and I about 8 tried to get a decent picture. It takes some practice to know where to hold the camera. :)

We were right in the front. ahhhh, it was a perfect view.

However...

We had to be aware of this:

Except, to out surprise this guy...#6 on our team, had a case of the butter fingers. During WARM-UP, before the game even started, old #6 missed a ball and it came FLYING like a bullet out of a gun straight toward us. I'd like to say that I took no thought of myself and shielded my dear husband from the bullet...uh, ball, but no. I'm a coward. My first instinct was to look out for myself and duck. Luckily, I have a selfless husband and he made sure the ball was no where near me. I owe ya one, sweetie. :)

Right after Jonathon grabbed the ball some idiots from the stand yelled, "throw it back!" But good old #6 sheepishly motioned for Jonathon to keep it. It was the least he could do for just about impaling us.

Here's #6 in action...

I liked the way the team was lined up in the dug out leaning on the fence. It was very "A league of Their Own" esque. uh, expect for the fact that it was men leaning on the fence. anyways...

One blurry picture taken by our new friends who sat next to us. They had been married for 30 years and were from Katy, TX. :)

The killer ball. (and handsome hero.)

One last thing...

Literally 3 minutes before I took this picture Maddie was downstairs pleading her case that she "wasn't tired" and was ready to get up from her nap and "play quietly".

I wasn't buying it.

Look how well I know her. :)

and yes, like me, she sleeps with her eyes partially opened.