River Time

One of our favorite parts of the summer was some of our amazing family coming down for a long weekend with us. Brian's sister Lisa and her family, and also his brother Chris and his family all came down in June. I absolutely LOVE it when we all get together, because it means that most of the cousins all get to hang out and have some good quality time. We did a whole lot of swimming, eating, talking, and just about everything else we could cram in! Here's some pictures of our time togther:

One of the most fun things we all did was go to Hammonds. Its a spot on the river that is not too far from where we live, so we all decided it would be a fun outing. It was Brady's first real time being in a big river, and he had a great time! The kids enjoyed looking for crawdads, and then once the got one, building it a house :) Brian used to go to Hammonds when he was a kid, and I got a kick out of thinking about him learning how to swim there!

Chaise and Madison

Getting ready to step into the COLD Blue Spring water!

Brady enjoyed the hike it took to get to the spring

Alyssa doing a crazy jump into the spring

And Mackenzie doing the same!

Jolee testing out the water in the river

Brady getting his feet wet

Uncle Chris showing the girls a crawdad

Brady and Chaise hanging out

The crawdad had a home!

Pretty girls!

Brian and I

Brothers Brian and Chris

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Last Friday was Brian's 38th birthday, and we celebrated as only we know how...a crazy keg party! Actually....we did our usual birthday routine: homemade b-day cake and presents. Its about as crazy as it gets around here!
We got some BBQ, had cake and ice cream & Brian opened gifts. I will say though, that I got totally outdone in the gift department. A pilot T-shirt, a book about different types of architecture, and a desk calendar with pictures of the kiddos every month. Not bad, I thought!
However, we were so happy when he opened his present from his mom: a huge photo album filled with photos of Brian! She had never had the time to organize all of her pictures of her kids, but apparently she's had time recently! Brian had a great time enjoying the flashbacks that the photo album brought with it!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

First Day of School 2011

Before I start filling everyone in on all of the exciting things we did this summer, I'll begin by telling all about the start of the school year!

Jolee started the 4th grade at Richards Elementary this year. She got a really good teacher this year: Ms. Schrader. She had been a special needs teacher for the last few years, but decided she wanted to get back into 4th grade this year. Jolee may not have several of her good friends in this class with her, but she does have one of her best friends with her, Madi! The girls haven't been in the same class since kindergarten. Nana made her a really awesome bag for school, and she found the perfect lunchbox. Here's some pics from her first day as a 4th grader :

The first of many pictures on her way into school

As you can see here, she was already getting a bit tired of all the picture taking. This is her fake smile ;)

Jolee with Daddy and Brady outside of her class

Jolee and her friend Kaylynn. They're in different classes this year...booo!

Taking a quick family picture while trying not to make Ms. Schrader mad! LOL

Meanwhile, Brady has his first day of pre-school for the year on the same day as Jolee. He had been going one day a week, but he is now going to be going TWO FULL DAYS!!!! He got to get a brand new Lightening McQueen backpack so he could kick off the school year in style. He's also telling everyone that he has a best friend now (Luke). It's so sweet that he has his own little life away from home now :)
Here's a couple of pictures from his first day!

Here's To Tomorrow!

I would like to apologize to the small handful of people that actually check on this blog from time to time. I completely let updating everyone on our lives slip during our very busy summer. I have so much to catch everyone up on (and a few pictures to share)! I promise that I will be a much better blogging mommy from now on ;)

Plus, it will be MUCH easier to find time now that Brady goes to preschool 2 days a week now!

Starting tomorrow, let the blogging begin!

Girls Night Out

Jolee and I had the pleasure of taking a girls night out and seeing the Missouri Contemporary Ballet perform at the West Plains Civic Center. We had a fantastic time and loved the dancing. We even to to wear our matching dresses! :)
Afterwards, Jolee got to meet all the dancers and get autographs and pictures with them. It was so refreshing to get to see some culture in West Plains!

"Turn Around, Don't Drown!"

As most of you probably know, a ton of our region had massive flooding during the last couple of weeks. West Plains had lots of damage from one partcular night (so much so that my favorite fabric store won't be able to recover!). Several propane tanks and debris got washed all over town. The kids got a couple days off off school since the busses can't travel well on water covered dirt roads, so I suppose it wasn't all too bad! Our pond overflowed, but that was about it about our place thankfully! I didn't get many pictures, but heres just a few:

This is a picture of one of the dirt roads that you can take to get to our house. Pretty much any dirt road in the area got seriously flooded and lots of people were not able to get through. When Brian and I got out to see it all, we were able to get through about 75% of the flooded spots. This is one that we decided NOT to go through! LOL

Here's a picture of the same road, only from the other direction. It washed alot of it away. It was like this all over the area. It's funny that it looks like a creek running next to the road, when there is never any water there!

Here's a picture of what the water looked like coming into our pond. There is usually no water coming out of those pipes, so after several days of that much water, our "cup runeth over" LOL LITERALLY!!!

Yep, My Cat Is THAT Cool :)

I seriously caught my cat hanging out like this the other day. Too funny to pass up!