Right before school started we took one last vacation to DeGray Lake, Arkansas so that Daddy could run in the triathlon there. We made the 4+ hour drive after meet the teacher on Thursday and arrived fairly late. The next morning, we awoke to a beautiful view.

After taking a little hike around the resort (and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) the kids wanted to swim in the pool.

They were showing off their stroke skills. Carter went the entire length of the pool doing the butterfly.

We ate lunch at DJ’s Drive-in, over in Bismarck. It was a tasty little place that offered a little bit of everything.

After lunch, we rented a boat and headed out on the lake.

Raine and Carter could not get enough of the tube, they stayed on that thing for hours! They went flying off and still got back on.

DJ found a pair of water skis in the boat and gave it a whirl.

I was forced onto the tube at one point, but spent most of the time on the boat! It was a beautiful day and a beautiful lake.

Daddy turned the big four-oh this year so we needed some party decor to celebrate. I put it up while Daddy and the kids were in Utah. They came home to black balloons and streamers all over the house.

Daddy didn’t appreciate some of my signs as much as I did — I thought they were hilarious!

First thing Saturday morning, Daddy opened presents. Since this guy is so old, he doesn’t need any more “stuff.” Instead we gave him activities to create memories while he is still young enough to enjoy them!!! But first, he opened the “Vintage 1977” t-shirt so that he could wear it the rest of the day.

Carter gave Daddy an outing to the archery range that they can use together. Raine gave Daddy an outing to a local rock climbing gym so they can climb together. I gave Daddy an escape-room outing that we were all going to do that evening.

We had an early dinner of Latin food at Gloria’s.

Then we headed to the escape room where we attempted to escape from prison. It was so much fun! We all loved it, even though we didn’t quite make it out.

After that, we had pazookies (with trick candles).

The next day, a bunch of Daddy’s friends came over for cake (or peach pie) and ice cream.

Evan Eastman brought Daddy an awesome old-man gift complete with reading glasses, magnifying glass, ensure nutrition shakes, prunes, and 40 candybars.

Brad Grubbs brought him a pink My-Little-Pony card with an outing to an old-school arcade!

Daddy was a good sport, despite all our (my) teasing about how old he is! He still has at least another 2x 40 years of life left so in comparison, he still a young gun!!

We made our annual pilgrimage to Utah on August 4 this year. It’s such a routine “vacation” that I forget to take photos. Here is the random assortment that we managed to capture (and some from Aunt Karin).

Raine loved playing with Uncle Geoff’s dog Mya at Grandma Dewey’s house — I don’t think Mya thought it was a much fun as Raine did until Grandma gave Raine some strawberries to feed Mya.

Daddy had a lunch date with Groby in Farmington, so the kids and I tagged along. We ate lunch at Johnny Rockets and then explored Station Park.

That evening Raine and Daddy went on a daddy-daughter camp-out with Uncle Sterling and his girls.

Rachel, Camille, Raine

Here is a photo of Raine with the snake they found while camping.

Carter and I went with Aunt Karin and her boys to the nicklecade to play video games.

Carter, Bryce, Parker

On Sunday, August 6, John blessed their new baby, Jacks. This photo includes three of my four brothers (Ryan, Jed, and John) and our kids.

I flew home on Monday, August 7 while Daddy and the kids stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s house with Aunt Katie and her girls. Before I left, we had a family dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Carter spent the night at Bryce’s house and went to soccer practice with him.

On August 10, they spent the day at Park City with Aunt Katie, Bella, and Tessa.

Tessa, Bella, Raine, and Carter

Little Carter turned 7 years old on July 12th. The entire day was full of Carter’s favorites. First, breakfast with Belgium waffles, maple syrup, strawberries, and orange juice.

Carter was so excited for the Lego Ninjago set that he “knew” he was receiving that he convinced me to let him open one present in the morning.

He then proceeded to build until it was time to go. This was the completed dragon. The forge was a lot more complex and took a couple more days.

After lunch at Chick-fil-a, we went to Hawaiian Falls and spent the next several hours swimming in the wave pool…

…and riding water slides.

There was a slide where our entire family could fit in the tube together so we rode it a couple times, even though it was super scary to some of us (or maybe just me)!

After a pizza dinner, Carter opened the rest of his presents.

Raine gave him a fidget spinner with changing LED lights and a bluetooth speaker; it was pretty cool.

Carter wanted a chocolate cake with a small circle on top of a large one and white frosting. He is a very literal kid and so I’m sure this was what was in his head:

…but this is what I managed:

He was pretty happy with it!

Carter’s current stats:
48.8 lbs = 40%-ile
50.4 inches = 90%-ile

Carter is a tall, SKINNY kid who loves to play with figurines — his current favorite is Ninjago. Carter is sweet and cuddly but a little quick-tempered. He is shy and cautious and prefers to be at home with his favorite toys and favorite people. Carter doesn’t like anything that he “HAS to” do but is a great helper when you need an assistant (especially when he is trying to earn money to buy something that he really wants). He loves comedy and says some of the most hilarious things, generally when I’m trying to be mad at him. Carter doesn’t like to be alone, especially at bedtime. He can always be found in either my bed or sleeping on the floor of Raine’s room. Carter always challenges our thinking and wants to know “why”; he needs to experience things or see them in order to buy-off that you’re right. One day he didn’t want to clear the table and was arguing that we didn’t really need to clean up, that no one would die if we didn’t. Fortunately, I was preparing for a trial that started out as a dirty house case and had photos of the house where nobody cleaned up. I showed those to him and explained that that was what happened when nobody cleaned up; that was all it took to convince him!

Independence Day 2017 started off with the Ward breakfast. Daddy cooked pancakes with the old men.

The Young Women set up games for the Primary kids.

That afternoon we went to the movie theater to see Despicable Me 3.

Then we drove up to Lake Grapevine to watch the fireworks. Raine still hates fireworks and made sure that her earmuffs were securely over her ears the entire time. Carter, however, kinda likes them now.

This summer we decided to try a couple new sports. Carter has been begging to play flag football for months and I finally backed off my strict no-football policy and let DJ sign him up. My hope is that allowing him to play flag football now will satisfy the need to play football that every male Texan seems to have, before he gets old enough to play contact football. He is NEVER going to play contact!

The team he plays on is brand new, so the first game on 6/10 was pretty rough!

But the second game… well, what a difference a week makes!

The video captured it all. Carter forced a turnover by pulling the flag before the little guy on the other team crossed the half-line on the 4th down (they get 4 downs on each half of the field). Then on the very next play he ran down for a touchdown. His very first touchdown! The next bulldog possession he ran the full length of the field for another touchdown.

“Seriously Mom, a photo?”

Earlier in the morning, Raine had her first volleyball game. Raine was not begging to play volleyball. In fact, I forced her to play! She attended a three-day camp the week after school let out, and she decided that she still hates volleyball. So I “encouraged” her with the promise of some praying mantis eggs if she gets 400 good passes or serves this season (that breaks down to 25 per practice and 25 per game). So far, we have had to practice in the backyard after practices and games in order to get the other 20-24 good ones — this sport definitely doesn’t come naturally to Raine!

First day of volleyball camp June 5.

At the game, I volunteered to be a line ref and the last words I said to DJ were “make sure to take some pictures.” Well, once again Raine has no photos to document her athletic endeavors!!! Maybe next game.

May 17, 1st grade field trip to the Dallas Arboretum – Feaster’s Firsties

Carter is on the back row, on the left, in the blue hat.

May 25, Fun Day (aka field day)

Raine playing hyper-ball. Right after I took this photo a big boy came and stole the ball off her cone and she chased him down and pulled his flag. She is a serious defender!

Carter’s class doing the tug-o-war.

Carter and Raine’s class doing the tug-o-war.

Carter’s class went undefeated in the tug-o-war among the four 1st grade classes. (It was all thanks to those girls up front, they were fierce!) Here they are doing their class cheer.

Raine playing tube-tug.

Carter lining up for the 100m dash.

Raine during the water battle.

I skipped work for a few hours so that I could hang out with them.

June 1, Start of Summer party
The last day of school, the PTA has a big party with an inflatable water slide, bounce house, dunk tank, and other games. They also grill hamburgers and have a DJ playing all their favorite elementary school dance tunes! I didn’t take many photos but here is Raine waiting to be dunked…

…and Carter playing baseball on one of the inflatable games.

Originally, we thought about spending the long weekend in Austin. But Carter wanted to attend his friend’s birthday party on Saturday, so we stuck around town. It was a rock climbing party and Carter loved it.

Raine and I went rollerblading while Carter was gone. I found a pair of blades in my size for $5 at Academy Sports so I couldn’t pass them up.

Later, we went swimming.

The water was a little chilly.

Sunday afternoon, DJ left to Austin for his triathlon. The race has been rained out each of the past two years that we have gone so when I saw the 70% chance of rain in the forecast, I told DJ that the kids and I would skip all the driving and cheer from home! We made posters and sent these pictures via text the morning of the race.

The kids and I roller-bladed to the park Monday morning.

Bunny ears

We went swimming again that afternoon. Carter has decided that he loves the watersides now. He goes down over and over. His favorite position to be in as he comes out of the slide is his meditation pose — although, more often than not, he ends up backwards and upside down when he tries to do it.

Fortunately for Daddy, his race went on as planned and he had a great time.

My cute family . . .

My cute babies . . .

The B.E.S.T. Mother’s Day present, an original song written by my three babies . . .

Carter made a card listing some of the reasons he loves me . . .

Raine made me a scarf . . .

Daddy “helped” them make a photo card and buy godiva chocolates . . .

Daddy also “helped” them make a chocolate cake from scratch . . . yum!

I was going to eat my cake on this plate that Raine made for me, but when I washed it, the designs came off a bit so I decided to use it for decorative purposes only.

The Sharks, U7

Coach Paul, Conner, Branson, Owen, Austin, Blake, Carter, Coach DJ (missing: Luke)

The Peppermints, U9

Grace, Amber, Hanna, Greysen, Leighton, Eugenia, Madelyn, Raine (missing: Madison, Lexi)

2/18

2/25

This is the one and only photo that we have of Raine playing soccer this season. (That’s what happens when the family picture taker is coaching your team — you don’t get any photos!)

4/29

Cooling off at Baskin Robins after a hard-fought game.