Kassidy and Bedtime Stories

I had a crazy day today! It was one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong at the same time! I won't bore anyone with those details. Needless to say, I was dragging by the time to put the kids to bed. Of course in line with the rest of the day, Kassidy had an extra hard time tonight choosing her bed time story. She finally settled on a book about a bear who had bees stuck in his ears, and the bear couldn't hear anyone speak because of the bees buzzing so loudly. Anyways, Kassidy made up a cute song about the bees go buzz, buzz, buzz, and the bear can't hear. It was so cute! We both started singing it and laughing with each other at our silliness. There is nothing like the cutest 4 year old alive to help melt away the stress of the day! Thank goodness for little children! What a blessing they are. I love my kiddos for all the smiles and happiness they bring into my life!

Matching Cuties

Thank goodness for Childrens Place! Such cute outfits. We rarely were able to find matching outfits for Candy and Kassidy because there is 5 years between them. Luckily with Kassidy and Chloe we can get them matching outfits! Plus it gives an excuse for Krissy to make the awesomest matching hair bows.

I just grabbed the camera and started shooting. They did the rest!

Daddy Daughter Carnival

Sooooo, I thought I had officially handed the reigns of the family blog over to Krissy, but not so fast my friend. I guess if Krissy doesn't go to an event, she doesn't really know what to write as captions for the pictures......ha ha ha.

On July 3rd, Krissy and Candy took off to a David Archuletta/Demi Lovato concert....whew, got out of that one....so my date was with Kassidy and Chloe out in the 100 degree evening at our community's July 4th event.


The main event was a movie out on the soccer fields, but there was no way I was keeping the little girls out that late.

So we took in the "booths" and other "rides:"

For some reason Kassidy was FREAKED out by the little carousel on a trailer...this is the two seconds that Chloe lasted.

The one thing that they did enjoy was the trackless train, because it was moving, and air was flowing.

I am usually the photographer, but since I was by myself I made do with the self snapshot. At least I got the girls to smile. They were so sad because the Culvers Custard I got them literally melted in the 20 seconds it took to get from the Culvers booth to the picnic bench.....sheesh!

Overall good times with the little girls. They are my sweet angels and love to be with me! And I guess I like them too! HA HA HA

Zoo June 09

I went to the zoo with all of my kids, my mom, her husband David, and David's daughter Emily and her two daughters. We also met up with Rachel Turner and her kids. We left early to try to beat the heat, but by 11 am we were already dying in the Texas summer heat. We saw what animals we could and then retreated to the splash pad. We were out of there by 1:30 pm and everyone slept on the way home from being exhausted by the heat!

Chloe and big sissy Candy at one of the Ape exhibits!

Here is Kassidy sitting with our friends Rachel and two of her kids Aubrey and Nathan.

Chloe is crouching tiger hidden water baby! She had so much fun at the zoo splash pad!

Here is a shot of all three of my bathing beauties! Kassidy about scared my mother and I to death when she took off with a little friend that she made at the splash pad to play hide and seek over at a different part of the children's zoo. Luckily I noticed her absence quickly, and was able to locate her with in a few minutes of her escape. When I asked her what she was thinking, she said that she just wanted to play hide and seek with her friend. As I returned with Kassidy and her friend back to the splash pad the friends mother had just discovered the girls absence and had started to look around frantically for her. She and I were both relieved together at them being found.

Candy's GS Day Camp 2009

So we have had a very busy summer with lots of activities. Our first part of the summer seemed to be dominated with swim team. Next was this GS Day camp that was for a week up in Conroe. These are some pictures that I took the day I went to volunteer. Kassidy got to come with me, because she was old enough to join the youngest girls there.

This is a picture of the girls when they first arrived at the camp for the day. It was crazy hat day, so Candy is sporting two hats.

Here is a picture of Candy and her friend Emily and the potato pig planters that they made.

Here is Kassidy ready to get going at the beginning of the day! You can see that she has already discarded her hat! Mommy knew that would happen. She does not like to wear hats!

Cowgirl Boots!

Kassidy and Chloe both have a common love, and that is shoes! They love to dress up in different pairs of shoes! Here they sporting their favorite pairs of cowgirl boots of course raided from big sis' closet! They are partners in crime! I can't wait to see how much mischief they will make together the older Chloe gets!

Candy's GS Bridging Cerimony 2009

This was Candy's 2nd year doing girl scouts! They have had so much fun! I took over as the Troop leader half way through the year, because our leader at the time was feeling a little overwhelmed. Needless to say it has definitely been a learning experience! I think this next year will hopefully be a lot smoother, because I will actually know what I am doing as the leader. These pictures are taken from our troop bridging ceremony/end of the year party! Our little girls are moving from Brownies to Juniors! We had a lot of fun at this party held once again, you guessed it at Jumpin Joey's! The girls jumped for an hour, and then we all ate pizza and had this really cute cake that Wal-mart came up with. The girls did great with all of their parts, and had a lot of fun crossing over our make-shift bridge. The bridge was made out of an overturned card table that we attached streamers running from the legs down to the floor to make it look more like a bridge. It was the best we could do for a portable bridge. The girls earned 9 patches this year. We were pretty excited about that considering that we only really started meeting at Christmas Time.

From left to right: Brooke, Madilyn, JaNay, Candy, Reese, and Emily. In the back are me and Jamie Kieffer who is now the co-leader. Aren't they a good looking group of girls?

This is all of the girls participating in our ending ceremony of the friendship circle.

Close-up of our own GS cutest ever Candy Cotten!

Kassidy's 4th B-Day

So I am definitely behind in my blogging! I am going to try to catch up before I go back to work! Here are some cute pictures of Kassidy's 4th B-day party at Jumpin Joey's! Ya we did Jumpin Joey's again. We loved it for Candy's party we thought we would do it over again!

I'm not sure we really needed to go to all of the trouble of having a B-Day party for Kassidy, because we couldn't peel her away from one of her friend Marley's baby sister Camryn! We should have just borrowed Camryn for the day. Kassidy refused to jump for the majority of the party, because she wanted to sit and play with Camryn. Who could blame her with a cutie pie like that! Kassidy is such a baby magnet she tells me everyday, that she wishes we had lots of babies at our home. I always tell her that we will have to borrow other people's babies for now, because we have our hands full already!

Jumpin Joey himself was a huge hit with all of the kids except for Kassidy of course. She was still content to sit and play with Camryn. Here is a picture of Chloe and Kade admiring him from a distance.

When we got to the party room Kassidy finally started enjoying her party and hanging out with her friends! Here she is chowing on some pizza!

Kassidy loved her Fairytopia Cake!

Mommy photoshopped an invitation to match the theme!

Looks like Kassidy is getting brain freeze from her ice cream and cake!

Of course Chloe always enjoys her cake too!

Kassidy got lots of presents that she liked, but this pink, princess, pillow pig was her favorite. Try saying that 10 times fast!

My Surprise 30th B-Day Party

I had a fabulous 30th B-Day! The weekend before my B-day we had a family party for both mine and Ryan's birthday that was outstanding! My family made Ryan and I fajitas! On the actual weekend of my B-day Ryan and I were away by ourselves for our anniversary. We got a room at the Hilton down by the Galleria. While away for the weekend Ryan scheduled a surprise B-day lunch at a Brazilian steakhouse named the Angus Grill where we had the most amazing food. My favorite was the pineapple that was coated in a cinnamon glaze and then roasted over an open flame.

Now to top all of that off my sisters schemed and surprised me with a surprise B-day party with all of my girlfriends and of course the other wonderful women in my family. I knew that we were having a girls night out, but I thought I was just going to meet a few of my friends up at my favorite Mexican food place. My sisters planned a full out celebration at my sister Jenny's house! They got it catered from Los Vega Mexican Restaurant.

I could not believe how many family and friends came to my party. It was really quite amazing. One of my longtime friends from high school (Kate Zollinger) even drove all the way from Katy to be there. My other friend Ruth who makes the most amazing cakes, made me my favorite cake! Just the devine smell of the cake would have been enough to last me a year, but actually getting to eat it is amazing! Everyone made fun of me for how excited I was to taste the cake. I think they were actually worried that I might lick it before they cut me a piece. After dinner those of us who are night owls went to see the movie My Sisters Keeper. Everyone cried their eyes out! Definitely a chick flick!

I really appreciated my sisters being willing to go to the extra effort to make turning 30 so special! I feel so blessed to have so many great friends in this area now! Of course I have always had great family! I love y'all!