jack.

I had 4 photo shoots (plus one tomorrow morning) and 4 Halloween parties this week. (Can imagine what our house looks like right now?) I don't have time to post about all the festivities yet but I had to get this one up.

It's all Lyndon. He cracks us up every day. Halloween was no different. He just had new material to use.

Jack Skelington.

Day to Day

I'm back to the blogging about our day to day stuff! (exciting, I know.) The summer trips are over and my FAVORITE time in texas is in full swing. FALL. Fall means cooler temperatures, cozy pumpkin candles burnings, Halloween parties and it's the gateway to the CHRISTMAS season. Yes, life is so right.

First of all, our family has some very blog-worthy news!!!!!
Jonathon has made it on the GRAMMY BALLOT in two categories!!

Best Rock Song: "Defined"
Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group: "Someday" and " Defined"

The Grammy nominee show will be on CBS, December 1st, where we'll find out if he is nominated. I can't tell you how thrilled and proud I am of him. He deserves everything that is coming his way.



On to Maddie and Lyndon news...early one morning this week they just "had" to make Halloween puppets. They knew exactly what to make and how to make them. All I had to do was assist. Gotta love felt, googly eyes and hot glue, huh?

Then they, of course, had to put on a puppet show...

On THURSDAY I asked Lyndon to pick up all the shoes by the door and put them in the shoe baskets. So on FRIDAY I finally see this sitting in the middle of the floor:
3 things: 1) we need to get rid of some shoes 2) really does listen! And 3) but must just take him a day to process it and put it into action!

Port "A"!!!

We have lived here in Texas for over 4 years and I NEVER realized...until now...we only live 4 HOURS away from a beautiful beach! Thank you Christa and Matt for planning this trip and opening our eyes to the wonders of Texas!

A few weeks ago our family, Dana and Casey and Matt and Christa all took a wonderful little trip to Port Aransas, TX. It's a little island just off of Corpus Christi. We all stayed in a quirky little beach cottage just a block from the beach. It was perfect.


Here's the gang! Fun group! We got very well acquainted with one another because the beach house was set up so we would have to walk through each other's rooms to get to the one bathroom. cozy.

(Dana took many of these pictures you will soon enjoy...thank you, Dana! Remember Dana and her awesome sewing blog?)

The little kiddos. except for Brooklyn. They all loved playing together. It was awesome.

Doesn't Lyndon look so grown-up here? I love it. (and hate it all at the same time. He's supposed to be my little baby.)

Kids waiting for breakfast.

Lyndon took a strong liking to Lucy. She's such a cuite. I found quite a few pictures of them together. When I was loading them up on the blog Lyndon said, "OH, LOOK! There's Lucy. She's fun to hang out with!"

The happy twosome sharing a moment on the beach together...

The whole gang on the beach. We had a blast staying there all day long. We waded, looked for shells, flew kites, threw the football around and talked and talked and talked. Perfect day.

Maddie is showing me her shell she found.

Isn't that such a cool shell?

Nut.

You can see me in Maddie's reflection off her sunglasses. kinda cool. :)

Casey decided he was in the mood for popsicle's so he went off to the store in search for some. And boy was I glad he did. It was very tasty!

Dana pointed out in these next two pictures how Lyndon and I are making the exact same face.

(I'm waiting to catch the football. If you're wondering.)

Dana made this awesome sand castle circle. Quite the little builder, huh? :)

Our trip was pretty close to perfect. I think the only thing I would've changed would be that Jon and I used a little more sunscreen and that we stayed a few more days. I'm ready to go back SOON!

I love New England.

What a fabulous vacation. We had such a great time. Our trip started out in Boston. The kids and I flew in late Wednesday night. The late travel didn't effect them in the least. Actually Lyndon gets even livelier as the hour gets later. (If that's even possible.) In his excitement on the plane for about the last 20 minutes he sang a song over and over. Not only was it then stuck in my head but it was stuck in all the passengers heads who were within 3 rows of us. I know this to be true because as we were in the airport after landing some guy passed us and sang, "Gimme a map, gimme a clue, How do ya get to Timbuktu?!!" (The song Lyndon had all brainwashed us with. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. :)

We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel. Maddie and Lyndon couldn't wait for this part of trip! Their first taxi ride. As we exited the airport there were at least 15 white cabs all lined up waiting for passengers. We hopped into the first one and Maddie looked a little disappointed. I was surprised because I thought for sure she would be beaming from ear to ear. When I asked what was wrong she replied, "Well, I was hoping the taxi would be yellow." Our cab friver then told her she would have to go to New York City to ride in a yellow cab because all the cabs in Boston were white. I guess we know where our next trip is, huh?

We got to stay in a beautiful hotel righ tin the North End of Boston, my favorite part. It's the historic district. The next morning we woke up get on our walking shoes and I proceeded to drag those kiddos all over Boston. Unfortunately they didn't get as far as I wanted to go but that's okay. I'll bring Jonathon back for that. :) We did, however, make it to Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. And we JUST about made it to Paul Revere's house but they tuckered out. sidenote: When we got home the kids were watching School House Rocks. One of the episodes was on Paul Revere. Maddie said, "If only we could have seen his house while we were in Boston..."

Samuel Adams in front of Faneuil Hall

Isn't this such a cool picture? This is one reason I love THe North End...Old meets New.

The kids didn't see the beauty that I saw. :) They just wanted to be done with walking.

Ahhhhh. And this made it all worth it. Mikes' Pastry. A VERY well-know pastry shop in the North End.

Doesn't that look like every kids dream cupcake?

Lyndon couldn't decide what to choose. He ended up choosing Gelato but then pretty ate my whoe chocolate covered macaroon. To those who will be going to Mike's the next time you're in Boston...Try the canoli's and the cheesecake. Ahhhh. So so so good.

After our escapade in Boston I took a little pity on the kids and we took a cab to the train station. (It was only 4 blocks away but I think I already pushed them to their limit.
Here are our tickets from Boston to Maine...

This was priceless...During our long walk I saw a Claire's Boutigue downtown. To cool down and to give them a little break I we went in. Claire's was having a big clearance sale. $10 for 10 items! They had some cool stuff that Maddie loved so I let her pick out 10 items. She had an abosute ball. SO after while we were at the train station I said to her, "Maddie, what was your favorite part of Boston?" Without a pause she said, "Claire's. Definetely shopping at Claire's." Note to self: Maddie would be just as happy at our local Mall as would be in a new big city. :)

Excitement on the train. This was their first train ride ever. It was perfect. It only took about 2 hours and the views were beautiful.

The train stopped right at Old Orchard Beach. So Denise came and picked us up. It was dark but Maddie was so excited to see the ocean that Denise took them straight to the pier. It was beautiful at night.

Let me back up...I've known Denise and her family since I was a Senior in high school. (That's almost 15 years people!) I use to go and visit every summer during college and then I went out and did my internship while I lived with Denise. Then right after I was married, Kristie (Denise's daughter) got married and I got to be in the wedding. I can still remember when Kristie asked me to be one of her bride's maid. I had just gotten home from my mission and I went out to visit them. Kristie and I were sitting on the beach at their beach house here in Maine when she asked me. I love them family like they're my own family. In fact, I always call them my East Coast family.


So here is Denise, my kids and Kristie's kids heading to the beach. Our Maine daily routine was get up, eat breakfast then head to the beach. We would stay there most of the day then when we got back to the house the kids would crash. Quite the life. I now want a beach house of my own.

Their beach house is literally right on the beach. You walk out the back door, walk across this sea grass and you're there. On your own private stretch of beach.

This is Kristie's oldest daughter, Ella. She is Lyndon's age. Krsitie also has a son who just turned 2, Zack. And a new little guys who was born this summer, Noah.

Okay, how could I not have gotten any pictures of Zack in here? Here he is in the distance with Kristie. Zack is a BALL OF ENERGY. I thought Lyndon had a lot of energy... Zack puts him to shame. He has this deep husky voice that cracks me up every time I hear it. I knew before the trip that Lyndon was a bit stand-off-ish when it comes to kids who are younger than him. It's like they are too unpredicatable and he doesn't know what to do with them. But I didn't realize just how bad it was until we were in Maine with Zack and another little boy that was there, Nathan. Every time either Zack or Nathan would even start approaching Lyndon he would let out an ear piercing scream. Yeah, fun. It kind of got better over time, but not by much. good times.

Denise (Sittoo) and Maddie

Every summer I see this plane flying over the beach advertising something.

Here's a picture of the beach house facing the ocean.

This picture is kind of humorous. now. Not when I was trying to take it though. This is underneath the pier at Old Orchard. I had envisioned this picture months before our trip. I wanted a cool picture of the kids under the pier walking in the water. So we finally get here and Maddie and Lyndon all of a sudden develop a phobia of the water! The WOULD NOT walk down to it! I had to beg them to even get that close. I also didn't get any pictures of their faces here because they just had looks of disgust. Oh well, maybe next time I'll take someone else with me! :)

After their "terrifying" photo session under the pier we walked up on top. Lyndon got a corn dog. His all time favorite. How can you not get a crispy greasy corn dog when you're on a pier?

Here's most of the crew at the Beach house. What fun people!! (Denise is taking the picture. )

Right on the water's edge is an amusement park. Very cool.

Ahhhhhh, the Pier fries. Okay, these fries are so GOOD. I'm sure it's because they are probably still using the same grease to fry them in for 10 years. (just kidding.) What's makes then very "New England" is that after you get your hot fries they provide salt and vinegar to douse all over them. The soggier they get, the better. Am I a "frequent Fryer" you might ask? Not yet, but I should be.


Along with Pier fries one also cannot leave Old Orchard Beach without getting some fried dough. (ANd it has to be covered in cinnamon and powered sugar.)


All in all our days spent in Maine were Heavenly. I dream about that place. I'm already lanning my trip back.







After 6 days in Maine we drove back to Denise's house in Massachusetts. I love spending time there. It really feels like home. I walked in and immediately recognised the homey smell. I miss it.

I got to take some baby pictures of little Noah. Here's one...

Here's Denise's house. Isn't this just a perfect New England house?

The kids had SO MUCH fun in the toy room at Denise's. Holy cow. I didn't hear from them for hours while they were in there. They loved it.
Here is poor Lyndon getting his fair done by Maddie and Ella.

Lydon and Ella playing photographer.

Here are all of Denise's grandkids...Ella, Zack, Noah, Meghan and Andrew. very sweet.

The trip was so wonderful!!! I can't wait to go back. This time Jonathon won't let me go without him! He missed out on way too much.
Denise and Kristie...THANK YOU for such an amazing time. I love you and I can't wait to see you soon!!