Meet in the Middle

We recently had the privilege of vacationing with our Texas Besties! We loaded up the kiddos and headed south to Dallas.

Here's Noah, our champ car rider. It's a good thing we don't have to make nine hour trips anymore because baby girl is NOT a champ car rider. Noah was so confused the whole time. He thought we were going to Katy and kept asking if we were in Katy yet.
We arrived Saturday night, checked in to our hotel and went to visit Brandon's sister and her family. My camera died so I didn't get any pictures, I was so bummed. Just picture Noah standing next to one of those giant marble racer toys the entire time. He loved it! I would love to get him one, if only I didn't have to worry about baby girl ingesting all the marbles.

Sunday morning, we got to go to Denton Bible Church. Brandon loves listening to Tommy Nelson's podcasts on his way to and from work so we were excited to hear him in person. SO refreshing to hear someone teach the word! For some reason Brandon thinks it's too far to drive the nine hours to Kingsland every Sunday, but he thinks he might be able to swing the 4+ hours to DBC. :)
Sunday afternoon, we arrived at the Gaylord Texan and were anxious to meet up with Brad and Erin, we hadn't seen them in seven months, an eternity!

The hotel was SO beautiful! They had Summerfest going on while we were there and it was all decked out in Alice in Wonderland motif.The indoor San Antonio River Walk.Noah loved watching the train.Can you believe this picture was taken inside?!The Alamo.'Da boys. Brandon and Brad eating pizza at Fireside Pies.
We made a stop at Grapevine Mills Mall.
Again, so confusing for Noah. He asked me one hundred and fifty two times if we were at Katy Mills. I can't blame him though, even I thought I was at Katy Mills. They had the same little train. Noah was never willing to ride it in Katy, but seven months later, he couldn't get enough of the thing.
Forgive us, but we'd never heard of Joe T. Garcia until Brad Paisley sang about him in Better Than This. Of course, we had to give Joe T's a try. The majority of their seating is outside, too bad it was 400 degrees and we didn't get to enjoy it. We checked it out after dinner though. Here are the guys next to one of the fountains.
We went to the stockyards one day and watched the "herd" walk down the street.
Caroline and Noah tried on Cowboy hats in one of the many cowboy hat stores in the stockyard station.We also got to go to the Dallas Arboretum. Again, so hot. This is Erin and her sweet baby boy Bennett. Yep, we share the same maiden name!
The boys pretending they're in the "Sooner Schooner".
Noah loving the fountains at the Arboretum.
It was exhausting to vacation with two kids, but it did my heart good to see our friends. We decided unanimously that our next vacation would be sans kids! :)

Red, White, Boom

The weekend of the Fourth was filled with fireworks...and Noah didn't like any of them.

Ryan and Lindsey came to town and we watched fireworks at the high school with memaw and pappaw. They were way too close for comfort for all involved and we busted out.

Here's Noah and pappaw in their matching t-shirts.
Daddies and their girls.

Before the fireworks:Another night we went to a sunset concert and had a wonderful evening until they started the fireworks.

Noah got to throw rocks in the water:

We had fun people watching:

The Oklahoma sunset was beautiful:

But, then it was time to go:
On the Fourth of July, we went to a great party with my parents. Two families from their Sunday School class combined their resources and had a progressive party (is it a progressive party if you just go to two houses?).

The boys got to swim:

Elli and I just watched from the sidelines:
Noah got to hold a brand new baby kitten:
Brandon got a workout wrestling all the little boys in the Jupiter jump:

The kids had a mini-parade over to the other house:

Little Miss Liberty ready for the parade. One of the other mamas gave these little crowns to all the girls:

"Do I have to take a picture with sister?"
Through the pantry and under the staircase...Noah found the coolest playroom in Miss Susan's house:
We had a fun and happy fourth.
Especially after Noah discovered watching fireworks from the quiet and safety of inside the house!

Reach for the Skyyyyyyy

We took Noah to see Toy Story 3 last weekend. It was his first time to see a movie in a theater. We'd been talking about it all week and he was so excited!
We got him popcorn and ice water and settled in. We were worried that he'd think it was too loud or too dark, but it didn't seem to bother him. He was ready to leave halfway through the movie, but after a brief bathroom break and seat swap he was good to go. He wanted to move down and sit in the front row, of course there was nobody up there so he was able to roam around in the first three rows.

He ate SO much popcorn!

And loved the movie!

Ladies' Lunch

We took advantage of Noah's last day of summer preschool and had a fun girl's lunch date.

We went to this cute little place called The Pecan Porch. The weather was beautiful and we were able to eat outside on the patio.

We had chicken salad sandwiches and sister did all she could to get a sip of our peach tea.

I had to include this picture just because I love the goofy expression on Ellianna's face!

I think we found a new favorite lunch spot!

Creepy Crawler

We have a crawler! Ellianna started crawling on Monday, June 28th. It's so fun and exciting for us since Noah skipped crawling in favor of walking and then decided to crawl at 17 months.


She's so proud of herself and loves her new independence!

I only thought I knew what baby proofing meant with Noah. This girl is gonna give me a run for my money!

Nana and Pawpaw's Visit

Last weekend, we were blessed with a visit from Nana and Pawpaw. We all ate WAY too much, had fun at the Parade of Homes and visited church #768. Nana and pawpaw got addicted to Wii bowling and laughed 'til they cried trying to figure out how to drive the Wii monster truck game with Noah. I didn't take as many pictures as I did when we were in TX and our visits were few and far between. But here are a couple cute ones I got before they left.