Rangers vs. Colorado Rockies

 On Sunday night, we took the boys to the Ranger game.  We had SUCH a good time!  Our tickets were on the very top row, but we were in the shade and there was a great breeze.  We had a great view, too.  The boys thought it was cool being so high up.  ;)

Our tickets included 4 hot dogs, 4 drinks, and wristbands to go in the new KidZone.  All the kids got free Josh Hamilton beach towels and posters.  It was also $1 ice cream night.  We chose a good night to go - lots of bang for our buck!  :)

Aunt Leigh Ann was kind enough to watch Owen for us.  I'm pretty sure that he would not have enjoyed the experience.  He had much more fun with his doting cousins mothering him.  Thanks Eddlemons for taking care of our sweet O!

I had to take a picture of all of my boys in their Ranger gear.  That is one fine looking crew, if you ask me.  Ha!  (I got the eye black tatoos at Toys R Us a few weeks ago.  That was a big hit!)

The boys LOVED the KidZone area.  We had to take a picture with the Rangers Mickey for Grammie.  She loves Mr. Mouse!  ;)

The boys joined the Jr. Rangers Fan Club.  They were super stocked about their duffel bag and rope necklace.  They were decked out head to toe in Rangers paraphernalia!  No doubt where their allegiance lies.  ;)

Clayton is at the age where in order to get a "normal" picture, I have to take a crazy one afterwards.  Silly kid!

I think that my Clay-boy is so handsome!  Even with his jack-o-lantern mouth...  he he!

This was Drew's first Ranger game, and he was in HEAVEN!  He smiled the entire time!

He ate a ton, too!  He guzzled his Coke, ate his hot dog in record time, and scarfed down his ice cream cone.  On the way to the car, he kept saying, "Mommy, will you carry me?  My tummy is hurting so bad!"  I wonder why???  The boy can throw down some food!  Notice his sticky ice cream ring around the mouth...

It just so happened to be our 12th wedding anniversary as well!  We have a picture of how we celebrated every anniversary, so we had to document this year, too.  :)

The Rangers ended up winning 4 to 2, so that was the icing on the cake of a super fun night!  :)

Adventures in Odyssey 25th Birthday Party

About a year and a half ago, our church invited Kurt Bruner to come and speak on building a legacy of faith in families.  His message was so inspiring and challenging - I took pages and pages of notes that I have looked back at several times.  It was awesome!  He and his wife shared lots of practical ways to grow our children in our faith.  One of the things that they mentioned was the Adventures in Odyssey series.  We went online the next day and ordered our first set of CDs.

Clayton started listening to them during his "room time" in the afternoon.  Before long, he was hooked!  He loves the characters and gets so into the story lines.  Wade & I love them, too.  We have ordered several more sets of CDs and listen to them as a family on road trips.  They are a lot of fun!

Several months ago, Wade was on the Focus on the Family website and he saw that Adventures in Odyssey was celebrating its 25th birthday.  They were having a live birthday party in Dallas and would be taping an episode in front of the audience.  He bought our tickets to the show on the spot.  We didn't tell the kids about the show until the night before.  Clayton was sooooo excited!  I think his reaction may have even topped when we told him about Disney World.  ;)  On June 16th, we headed to Irving Bible Church bright and early for our 10:30 show to ensure that we got good seats.

We met Whit & Eugene...

Then we found some seats on the 2nd row - yes!  There were 2200 people at the sold out show.  People came from all over the country - we felt a little guilty about only having a 30 minute drive.  The people in front of us came from Michigan and had to take 3 planes.  There was also a family from the Ukraine.  Wowsers!

About 30 minutes before the show, one of producers came up to us and asked if Clayton would like to come up on stage and blow out the birthday candles on their birthday cake.  There are no words for how excited C was to be chosen out of 2200 people.  Lucky kid!

They called him up on stage and asked him where he was from and how old he was, etc.  Then he blew out the candles with another little girl.  So cool!

As a side note, we went to Chick-fil-a after the show for some lunch.  A lady recognized Clayton and said, "Hey!  Aren't you the kid who blew out the birthday candle at the Adventures in Odyssey show?"  Clayton turned bright red!!!  She gave him a high five and told him that he did a good job.  When she walked away, he said, "It's like I'm famous..."  Ha!

c

The cast was so much fun!  You could just tell that they all loved their jobs and really enjoyed being together.  It was fun to put a face with the characters voices.  Clayton also liked watching the sound guys and seeing how they make the sound effects.  It was way cool!

Sweet baby boy...  He was such a trooper.  He's outgrowing the Baby Bjorn - so sad! 

We had such a fun day!  I look forward to many years of having little boys that love listening to Adventures in Odyssey.  :)

Maggie & Sadie's Farm Party

The Hunts threw a super fun birthday party for Maggie & Sadie back at the beginning of June.  They had a petting zoo and pony rides right in their front yard.  Such a fun way to celebrate two of our favorite girls! 

Clayton was the animal whisperer.  :)  The bunnies weren't crazy about being held, but this little black bunny was pretty content to snuggle with Clay-boy.  Then the little piggy fell asleep in his lap.  He sure does love animals.

Drew loved the little piggies, too.  My O was content to watch through the fence.  ;)

All of the boys got to ride the pony.  Owen took a ride with one of the birthday girls.  He and Sadie Bug are pretty good buddies.

What a fun party!

Stayin' Cool in the Pool

I took all three boys to the pool last week and we had THE BEST time!  They all did so well - Owen was perfectly content in his float the entire time, Drew stayed close to me and was sweet as pie, and Clayton was super helpful with his little brothers.  We stayed for 3 whole hours!  It was the perfect pool day.  :)

I know that we are in for lots of not-so-perfect pool days this summer.  I'm certain that O will grow to hate his float, Drew will get braver and make me a nervous wreck, and Clayton will want to be off doing his own thing instead of entertaining his brothers.  So... I felt the need to properly document the perfect pool day.  :)

Two years ago, I bought a refurbished underwater camera for cheap and it has turned out to be a great investment!  (THIS is a similar one.)  We have submerged it a hundred times and it has done really well.  It takes pretty decent pictures, too.  :)

This boy is part fish - I swear he is!  ;)

Clayton asked to borrow the camera for a bit and promised to be super careful.  He came back with some lovely pictures, as you can imagine.  I especially loved his self portraits.  Ha!

An underwater view of the Nanny McPhee mouth.  ;)  I kinda miss that crazy tooth...

I have no words...

This is so typical for the Carpenter clan - Clayton being a goof ball, Drew looking on and making mental notes about how to copy what his big bro is doing, and Owen just trying to stay afloat.  Ha!

Hoping for many more fun memories at the pool during Summer 2012!!!

The Tale of Two Teeth

In the last week and a half, Clayton has gone from this...

to this...

to this (notice how wonky his top tooth is!)...

to this!

Ha!  He lost his top right tooth at Grammie Camp last Saturday (June 2nd) and he lost his top left tooth Wednesday night (June 6th).  I remember those big, huge teeth coming in within days of each other, and yet they looked so small when they came out within days of each other...

Last Saturday, he was at his last day of Grammie Camp (Wade's mom likes to have the kids for 5 days all by themselves to have one-on-one time with them in the summer.) and his top right tooth was really loose.  Apparently, Grammie offered him $5 if he would pull it in the next 2 minutes.  My boy is motivated by money these days, so he jumped at her offer.  Papaw tied some fishing line around his tooth, and C-man pulled it all by himself.  ;)

In the four days that followed, his other top tooth got looser and looser.  It started to hang diagonally and we teased that he looked like Nanny McPhee.  Ha ha!

On Wednesday night, it was barely hanging on.  Wade gave it one good tug, and out it came.  We were all standing in the bathroom looking at his new smile in the mirror.  I said, "Boy, your mouth looks like a jigsaw puzzle!"  He said, "Yeah, it looks like that game at Chuck E. Cheese where you shoot out the horse's teeth.  Ha!

I think that he looks adorable with his missing teeth.  Of course, his freckles are out in full force and that always makes me so happy.  The tooth fairy may go broke, but he sure does look cute!

Memorial Day Weekend

Better late than never, right???

We had a ton 'o fun over Memorial Day weekend.  We squeezed a lot into 4 days - traveling all over East Texas.  We had several fun adventures!  :)

Adventure #1...  Ziplining

Wade's mom has talked about how much that she wanted to go ziplining for well over a year.  She has mentioned it in conversation and sent us youtube videos - always saying how much fun she thought that it looked.  For her birthday in April, Corey & Leigh Ann and Wade & I all got her a ziplining adventure!  A ziplining Grammie - isn't that fun???  :)

We went to New York, Texas Zipline Adventures on Saturday to let our crew do some zipping.  The boys and I stayed behind to watch, while Terry, Marsha, Leigh Ann, Corey, and Wade zipped through the trees.  They had a great time, and we really enjoyed watching them.  The place is owned by a family that lives onsite.  The lady and her teenage daughter were so sweet to my boys - playing with them and getting them popsicles.  I'd highly recommend them for all of your ziplining needs.  ;)

 

 Wade zipping through the trees  :)

  

The grounds were so pretty - lots of trees and elevation changes.

Adventure #2...  Kimi & Joe's Lake House

Wade's Aunt Kim & Uncle Joe have a lake house that was only 30 minutes away from the ziplining place.  They spent Memorial Day weekend there, and were sweet to invite us to come for the day.  We had a fun afternoon with them on the lake!  Wade, Clayton, and Drew had a blast riding in the boat and on the jet skis.  I chatted with family and got to hold Audrey Girl a bit, and Owen napped the whole time.  We all enjoyed ourselves immensely.  Thanks, Kimi & Joe for letting us spend some time with you at your place.  :)

Adventure #3...  Fun on the Farm

There is a sweet family at our church that owns a blueberry & pecan farm in East Texas.  They were camping on the farm over Memorial Day weekend and were kind to invite us along.  We didn't camp, but we were thrilled to join them for the day on Sunday.  :)  Grammie & Papaw were sweet to keep the baby so that we could spend the whole day without worrying that Owen would get too hot or need a nap.  Thanks, Grammie & Papaw!

The boys had a ball fishing, catching frogs, tromping around in the woods, going on a "hayride" (minus the hay - due to allergies), and just being boys.  It was so fun to watch them in their element.  I don't think that they have ever been as dirty as they were that day.  Ha!

Clayton caught several fish, and he was so proud!  He finally got to the point where he could bait his hook, cast his rod, and reel in his fish all by himself - a self sufficient fisherman.  Wade was pretty excited about him reaching this milestone.  ;)

Teeny tiny frogs that Clayton thought were way fun...

Even Drew caught a couple of fish.  He was not nearly as willing to touch his fish as his big brother.  Ha!  He is definitely my cautious child.

Cute kids fishing off of the deck

I think Wade got approximately 2.5 minutes to fish by himself before the boys were asking for help.  Bless his heart - he is such a good Papa.  :)

The Harris' have a garden (separate from the pecan trees and blueberry patch) for squash, beans, blackberries, etc.  They were so kind to send us home with lots of fresh, homegrown fruits and veggies.  Soooo yummy!!! 

Hayless Hayride - a good time for the kiddos  :)

 We picked lots of blueberries! 

My friend, Stephanie, is a preschool teacher and she comes up with the best activities for the kids.  She froze a bunch of trinkets in ice and had the kids hammer and chip away at the ice until they got the toys out.  What a fun way to cool off!

Our boys were worn flat out by the time that we left.  They fell asleep so fast and slept hard the whole way back to Grammie & Papaw's house.

Adventure #4...  Fishing in Papaw's Boat

We spent Monday having fun at Grammie & Papaw's house.  Wade & Terry took Clayton fishing on the boat in the morning.  Wade texted me this picture of Clayton's first catch of the day.  He said that Clayton caught it and reeled it in all by himself.  Pretty cute.  :)

Drew and I met them on the shore after they finished fishing, so that we could take a spin out on the boat.  Drew was determined to wear his crazy sunglasses that he got as a prize at the farm.  He looks quite 80s in these pictures.  Ha!

It was such a fun weekend!  We did not, for one second, however, forget the meaning behind Memorial Day.  We had several long conversations with Clayton about what Memorial Day means.  We are so grateful for those who have given their lives for our freedom.  Having a close friend that fought in Iraq has given me a whole new appreciation for our soldiers.  Hearing him talk about his time in the Army gives me chills - I cannot even imagine...  Those men & women put their lives on the line to ensure that America remains the land of the free.  Their families wait for them and pray for their safety as they are literally living in a war zone.  We could never thank our military (past & present) and their families enough!