What? 3rd Grade?? Already?!?!?!

Today, my little boy started THIRD grade!! Wasn't he JUST in Kindergarten??? I was able to get a few pictures of the event, however, VERY few because I was specifically told what was and wasn't allowed so as not to embarrass him this year. He has never let me forget about the first day of 2nd grade so I had very specific guidelines that I was required to stay within. First, any hugging in the car (before we enter the school) was acceptable, granted, there were no other kids looking. Second, I was to get all my "I love you's" and "I'll miss you's " out before entering the school where his friends would, in fact, be. Third, If I MUST say goodbye while he is in his classroom, there is no hugging or TOUCHING, just a goodbye and then LEAVE. And above all, do a quick check around the room to make sure no other kids were looking before attempting anything!! So here is the "on the way to school" picture...... Here he is waiting to go to the classroom. The other kids were all talking and destracted so I was allowed to take this photo.

When we got to the classroom, he went and found a seat right next to his best bud, Kaden. And proceeded to empty his backpack. Now, he WAS with me when we bought all his school supplies, but apparently paid absolutley NO attention to what I was putting in the cart, because he opened up his backpack full of the supplies and it was like Christmas morning. He was so excited and surprised at everything he pulled out of there, you'de think he'd never before seen a pencil case, or index cards.........silly kid!

I asked them to both look at me and smile for the picture and they, of course, were too cool for school so this is what I got. But, hey I guess I should just be happy with I did get, because this was, in fact, an unauthorized photo outside the designated "picture time" window. My, how kids change right before our eyes!!!!

Dallas Or Bust, Baby!

So my sister in law, Marqae, and I spent a week in Dallas for the annual Mary Kay Seminar and we had a blast. It was awesome just to spend a week of "Marqae Time", but the seminar was very good also. We learned SO much and they had some really fun entertainment, like for instance, the "man angels" as shown below. Aren't they graceful??? He he he! Marqae and I all dressed up for Awards Night. Sure wish I was one of the lucky random winners from the audience who won the trip to Disney World or the $1000 cash or countless other prizes.

This is Day 1 and we got to tour the Mary Kay corprate Office. It is HUGE!!! and super NICE. We even got to see Mary Kay's office.

This was taken on our tour of the manufacturing building where they make all the products. It was actually a very intersting tour, and of course so fun. It probably would have been better if we didn't have to be in skirts and heals the ENTIRE time. Needless to say we both have very tight leg muscles now....Thanks Marqae for an awesome time!!! It seems like it went by too fast though.

A Day With Uncle Clint

Our brother in law, Clint got to come from Korea to Alabama for a few days for some training, so we of course made the 4 hour drive up to Huntsville to see him for a day. It was so good to see him and hang out for a while. We just wish we would have been able to see Katie and Morgan too. We went out to eat and swam at the hotel. It was a lot of fun! Below is Braydon eating his steak. This kid thinks he's too big for kids meals anymore so he got to order a big meal. He ordered steak and LOVED it! Ambria wanted in on some of that action. She grabbed the steak off Jason's plate and started nibbling on it. She would just suck on the meat, I guess she really liked the flavor.

It was so CUTE how both the kids took to Uncle Clint right away. Ambria is usually a little picky who she goes to, but she would just come to Clint and just hug him and snuggle with him. I was lucky enough to get this picture of them after she went over to him and just layed on his shoulder for a while. So cute!! I didn't get a picture of it, but Braydon did the same thing to him.

Here's Braydon and Clint. And yes Jason made a camio in this shot, can you find him?

Thanks for hangin out with us, Clint. We miss you guys!! Can't wait to meet up in Washington. (hopefully)

Fun and Fireworks

On Saturday Fort Benning had their 4th of July Celebration. They usually do it a week before the 4th cause a lot of people go out of town. This is one of the things that the military is just great at. They DEFINATLY know how to celebrate. Nobody does the 4th like the Army! They have a huge celebration with food, a live band (usually someone famous), games, a whole bunch of the big blow up bouncers and slides (which the kids could play on all they wanted free of chargs), and of course a big fireworks show. And the best part is, it's all FREE!! (Except for the food, of course). Here's Ambria LOVING the fireworks, she was cheering and clapping the whole time. Braydon with his friends Kaleb and Kaden. We had to force them to look up from their

game boy DS's to smile for this picture. Kristin and me. Let's keep in mind people that it was extremely hot and humid and any makeup I was wearing had smeered and sweated right off my face. Kristin, of course looks great!

Callaway Beach

On Friday we went to the beach with Kristin and her family. It was Kaleb and Kaden's (Braydon's Best Bud) birthdays. So we decided to head to the lake and have some fun. They had big blow up slides and trampolines on the water that we got to play with. It was a little hard to climb up those things, but way fun to slide down. I felt a little old when Braydon climbed right up the tall slide and made it look easy and I struggled to get up. Haha. By the way, sorry Kristin for falling on you!!! HAHA I just think this is cute......

Here we are. We could not get Braydon over to join in the picture, he was having tooo much fun with his friends.

Braydon and his best buddy, Kaden. Jason calls them the "A-dens"

Baby Bria Is Not A Baby Anymore!

Yesterday, little baby Ambria went to Nursery at church for the very first time! I can't believe she is old enough for that already! She did so good in there too. She didn't really care that we weren't there at all. I am in the Primary presidency so I had to go down to nursery for a while and I got to peek on her for a little bit and it was so cute to see her sitting up to the little table eating her snack like a big girl. Jason went in and checked on her a few times, I think. He has a hard time letting go with her. She is DEF a daddy's little girl. She had a lot of fun in there though and it was really nice to not have to chase her around church anymore, since Jason and I both have callings during church. *An Update.......We got Ambria's results back from the Genetic Specialist. We had some of her DNA sent up to Seattle for testing for genetic diseases like Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease). Anyway, they tested her and she showed no mutations for either if the tests they ran. So that's good news! However they said there are other possibilities of things she may have, but they just dont have the technology to test for it right now, so they are gonna keep her DNA for a year or 2 and then run some more tests in a years time. But otherwise, Ambria is a healthy happy 18 month old. She is doing so many new things I can't even keep up anymore. The most recent things are: she flushed the toilet for the first time 2 days ago (I was really hoping that one would have waited a little longer) she can now climb into the bathtub and turn the water on, so I sometimes catch her in there soaking wet. (she can't plug the tub so it doesn't fill up) She can open the top drawers of everything so she reaches in there and takes everything out, her favorite is my toothbrush and makeup. She climbs up EVERYTHING. She likes to climb into her highchair all the time. She jumps on the trampoline and can go up the ladder and down the slide all by herself. She says so many new words and phrases and communicates really well. She hasn't had her 18 month check up yet, so I don't know her measurements but will update that when we do.

So we are officially a product of our environment. We were sitting in our lawn chairs, Jason is drinking a "root" beer...(it really is root beer), and the kids are in a little plastic pool in their underwear! What can I say, I have no excuses! But, just to clear some things up, our kids don't usually wear their underwear in the pool, they really do wear bathing suits, and we were in the backyard, not the front yard. haha

This was just too funny, I had to get a picture. Ambria had her little baby bum showing through her little undies! So funny!!

This was Braydon's brilliant idea to put the car in the pool. Okay so maybe we really ARE hillbillies!! Haha

Sleepy Heads

This was just too cute not to get a snapshot of. Ambria just climbed up on Jason's lap and fell right asleep. If you look closely you can see her chicken nugget still in her hand. She fell asleep before she finished eating it.

Flat Rock Park

We took a litte trip to Flat Rock Park with some friends on Monday. It was so fun! Thanks guys for going! I don't know what I was thinking, but I only snapped 2 pictures that day and believe it or not this was the better of the 2, so Kristin I am gonna have to steal some pics from you! I know you got some good ones!

Bowling---Spoiler Alert, Braydon won!

Our bowling trip last week. Braydon is getting really good at this! We put the bumpers up for him, but he doesnt really ever hit them anyways. Braydon broke 100 both games, and both games he did better than me. The kid is getting so big, it's really hard to believe! Ambria was totally fascinated by the ball coming up out of the hole. It kept her occupied and happy for a long time!

This is Jason doing what he loves the best. Drinking his "giggity juice" also known as Monster Energy Drink. That boy has one of those just about everyday these days.

I just though this was a really funny picture of Ambria. I have no idea how I captured that look, but that is a "Dirty Bria"!

This is an awesome pic of the Braydster! He is such a good lookin kid!!