Adventures in Austin

We took a family trip to Austin with Casey's side of the family last weekend.  This was a special trip because it was Landon's first trip with us!  Isn't he the cutest?!?!

We spent all weekend by the pool and on the lake.  We even ate by the lake...at The Oasis!



Tubing makes for some fun pictures!

  These two girls had some fun together!

  

Graham's got tricks!!

 

 No mercy on the ride with Casey and Graham!

Landon was definitely the star of the show!

 

We stayed for a long weekend, and we took advantage of the sun!  We hung out at the pool and rented a boat on the lake.  It was a fun, relaxing trip!

Thunder Soccer

Graham's soccer team went undefeated this season!  It was amazing to see how far the team has come from the days of everyone chasing the ball around the field!

They entered the tournament as the first seed, and after a very tense championship game, the Thunder was victorious!  

Graham played goalkeeper, and I'm certain the stress of watching him in the goal cost me a few years of life!!!  

You can see (most of) him diving for the ball!

He played awesome and blocked a ton of goals.  Oh, the excitement!

We were so proud of him, and during the trophy presentation, his coach called him the MVP!  I think everyone should be the MVP at least once in their life!

Watching the video almost makes me tear up every time!  There are so many good lessons to learn from sports, and I'm so thankful that Graham has a great group of kids to play with.

Let's Party!

Here is a look at the birthday parties from this season of parties!!  Back in December, Jane and Sydney celebrated turning 11 with an Amazing Race party.  

The girls opened bandanas to reveal their teams, and then set off to complete a variety of tasks!

They had to find a quarter with a certain year on it, make basketball shots, unscramble a word puzzle, and sort a bag of 16 kinds of beans.  The bean sorting took them forever!!!

The final leg involved transferring water from one station to another.

In the end Jolene and Brianna were the victorious team!

It was a fun day!

For Clare's 13th birthday, she had her friends come over on a Friday night.  

We took the girls to get their nails done, and then they came back to our house for pizza and time to hang out.  

Parties at this age are much easier....they just want to be left alone!

We celebrated Graham's 8th birthday last weekend because the kids had a 3-day weekend.  

We got a big bounce house and invited all of his buddies over to celebrate. 

He got so many nice gifts!

 Thankfully the weather was nice, and the boys played outside for the entire time!  They were wiped out at the end!!

Fun parties for all!  And now a few months off of party planning!

Something About Everyone!

Jane and Sydney won their winter volleyball division,

and they moved up to a competitive league for the spring.  It's fun to watch them play!

Jane is our first one in glasses!!  

Clare went to her first middle school dance.  She looked beautiful, but declared the dance "so boring!"

Graham was feeling left out when we went to get hair cuts.  He decided he needed to get his hair washed just like the girls do!  Thankfully, our hair person was willing to make it happen!

Teenager Room

 For Clare's 13th birthday, we redecorated her room.  We took it from this...

 ...to this!

This was when we revealed the room to her! 

She loved it, and I loved doing it for her!  

Clare is 13!!!

Clare turned 13 last Saturday!!  We had a fun-filled weekend, celebrating with friends and family. We will celebrate with friends in a couple of weeks!  We have to work around busy teenage schedules!!

 

On Friday afternoon, a bunch of neighborhood friends came over and surprised Clare as she walked home.  We had a cake and a mini-party!

On Saturday, we celebrated with family! Clare loves Landon, and he was ready to party!

LoLo was super appreciative that Clare allowed everyone to watch the Tech game during her party.  Thankfully, they won!!

 

Landon was a big help while Clare unwrapped her gifts! 

Our teenager was super excited to receive AirPods.

In my mind, she should still be this big!

But here she is now, in all of her teenage glory!! This has been a great year for Clare, and I am so thankful for the front row seat I have to watch her grow up!