Now that we live in Texas, Joshua refers to our house as "The Texas House" to distinguish it from our last house. We love our "Texas House," but we especially love our backyard! Here's a conglomeration of pictures taken during July and August in and around our "Texas House."
(Most of these pictures were taken with my phone since our camera broke while we were in Roswell. I think it had something to do with the aliens... We do have a new camera now, so we can take better-quality pictures again!)
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| There are several parks in our subdivision, which we enjoy playing at despite the summer heat! |
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| Ryan has a special study loft above the boys' toy room, so he needs a 9' ladder to access his "office" where his books and desk are. Turns out the little boys are quite good at climbing ladders, which resulted in a few scary moments for me, until we got a wooden ladder and Ryan wisely removed the second step. Now they can only stand on the bottom step (as Ben is demonstrating above). One foot above the ground is much better than 8 feet up! |
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| Here's Sam in the "Toy Room." We love having a room just for "playing toys," as Joshua explains it. I also love having just one place to keep toys instead of having them everywhere. It's so much better, even if we have to put all 3 boys in one room for sleeping. It has been working out quite well so far. They've learned to sleep through each others' cries, chattering, and snores, which I think will be good training for the rest of their lives! :-) |
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| Joshua loves Buzz Lightyear and so loves these PJs! He wants to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween, but he has explained to me that he needs wings so that he can "fly and get a balloon." I'm afraid he's going to be disappointed with the flying capabilities of the blow up Buzz Lightyear wings we just bought for him, so I'll have to get him a balloon with a weight on it to still make his dreams come true. |
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| Here are Joshua's Buzzes "taking a nap" after having been lovingly tucked in by Joshua. Joshua takes care of his many Buzzes like I take care of my many babies. He often changes a Buzz's diaper even. These Buzzes are named (left to right) Daddy Buzz, Mommy Buzz, Joshy Buzz, and Baby Buzz. (We have since gotten a second Baby Buzz so that Ben or Sam won't feel left out of the Buzz family.) |
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| Here's Sam "going to work." |
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| And here's Ben practicing his walking. He no longer needs to hold on to anything these days. |
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| We sweep A LOT around here, so it's a good thing I have such good helpers! |
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| The boys love climbing in and on... anything really. Here they are in our always-empty entertainment center. Often Ben and Sam will each get on one of these shelves and Joshua will get in the shelf-less cupboard to the right. I guess I can't say the entertainment center is always empty then, since it is sometimes full of boys. What else would we put in there? |
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| And here the little boys found their way into the broiler pan area under the stove. And, yes, I do have a lock on this now, so they can no longer play in this sometimes-very-hot drawer. The goofs! |
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| Speaking of goofs... Joshua thinks that the more underwear the better, so he often puts on as many as he can. I can't blame him. I did the same thing when I was his age. |
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| Here's Joshua and Mommy at the beautiful Riverwalk in San Antonio. I'd heard about how nice the Riverwalk was while I was on my mission there, so it was fun to see it and walk along it for the first time with my family so many years later. |
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| Here are all the guys at the Riverwalk. |
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| Here are the guys you couldn't see in the last picture. Ben and Sam were there too, of course. |
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| We even got to eat lunch at the original waterfront restaurant, the first one to set tables out along the river's edge. We loved it! The little boys loved watching all the ducks while they ate. |
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| The Alamo! I actually did see this while on my mission, but it was fun to see it again and tour it with my family. Still a cool place with a lot of history behind it. |
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| The 3 boys defending The Alamo. Ben and Sam make a great barricade, especially in those small aisles at stores! |
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| Father and son enjoying the shade of the old trees surrounding The Alamo. |
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| Here's Joshua in his backyard. He loves it so much! During the first week we were here, I woke up one morning to find that he'd gotten up and gone straight outside and was just happily wandering around out there. Thankfully, he only did that once. He comes and gets me first now. The backyard is completely fenced in, but still! |
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| We inherited this table from our neighbors and have had many picnics on it already. Joshua absolutely loves "picpics," so it's so convenient that we have a perfect "picpic" spot right outside our back door. |
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| Look how cute those brothers are! I prefer to shop at stores that have carts with these amazing double seats since that allows me to actually put a significant amount of food in my cart's basket. I've had to bury Joshua with cereal boxes one too many times when I had a baby strapped to me, a baby snapped into the single baby seat, and he was confined to the basket, which the cart's informational cartoons show is prohibited anyway. Our favorite grocery store has double seats for the babies and a little car attached to the front of the cart that Joshua happily "drives" around the store. Who knew I would ever care about the configuration of grocery carts?! |
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| More backyard fun! |
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| These little guys are playing in our turtle sandbox's lid, the turtle's shell. It was full of water and was so much fun on a hot Texas summer day. |
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| Before we bought a new dining table, (we sold our old one in San Diego) this is how we ate our meals: on the floor either cross-legged or in a little high chair or activity seat. It was fun, but I really like having a dining room table. There's a reason those were invented. |
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| Texas has these cool things called "splash pads," which we really love. It's like turning on the sprinklers in your backyard, but a whole lot cooler. The boys have a blast running through and under all the fountains. |
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| Ben and Sam weren't sure about the water spouts at first, but now they love all the spraying water. |
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| Look at that happy wet Benjamin! |
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| Joshua loved the splash pads from the first time he set eyes on one. We have one right in our neighborhood, but we've visited quite a few others and they are all fun. |
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| It rained a ton when we first arrived in Texas and it rained a lot really quickly, so our sand box got filled up with water a couple times before we could get the lid on it. |
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| I love our van! This is what we would have had to do all the time if we hadn't gotten a van before the babies arrived. Yikes! Too tight! |
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| The little boys like using their big brother's step sometimes and I have found them sitting in the bathroom sink a few times. |
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| Another great thing about our "Texas House" is that we are close to cousins! Here's Joshua chilling with his cousin Blake. |
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| Joshua loves to "read" books and will often peruse the pages of his books on his own. |
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| Here he is "reading" in his special chair. |
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| Stylish Sam after getting his hair cut by his mommy. |
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| Beautiful Benjamin with his new do. |
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| Joshua looking handsome with his freshly cut and styled hair. |
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| Benjamin loves to ride on things. He always wants to climb on those bouncy animals and teeter totters they have at all the parks around here. He loves to ride this rocking bug we have and he climbs in this Lightning McQueen car as soon as he sees it. He can even push the button to make it go, which is so funny because both he and Sam can only hold it down hard enough for a few seconds at a time, so they get a nice jerky ride, but they can get it to go. They'll get better at it soon. |
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| Here's Joshua holding a rocket his Pa made for him. Joshua got some tape out and adhered this new rocket to his wall alongside some other special things he put on the wall above his bed. |
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| Here's cute Joshua getting ready for church. He loves picking out his clothes these days and he does a pretty good job... different than what I would pick, but pretty nice all the same! |
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| There's a beautiful park here in Houston called Hermann Park that we like to walk around. |
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| Joshua is feeding the ducks in this picture. I think that is one of the hospital buildings in the distance where Ryan works. The medical center is right across the street from Hermann Park. |
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| Here's the cutest elephant you'll ever see... according to his mommy. :-) |
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| Joshua put on these two pairs of sunglasses and then came over to me and said, "Mommy, you like me?" How do you respond to a question like that?! |
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