A day in Katy

No trip down to Houston is complete without seeing the Colemans and Bodines. We went to the Katy Museum with them, had a picnic lunch at a really fun park, the kids swam in the Colemans' pool, and the night ended with an impromptu talent show where Dane did his kata from tae kwon do and Graham spelled "N-o" and "z-o-o" for everyone. 

This is a random picture, but it was so cute how Graham immediately latched on to Aunt Kaylene and was calling her "Grandma Kaylene" and wanted to show her everything in the museum. 

Dane and Lily are good buddies. 

I love that our kids know their second cousins!

Lucy and Mango are good friends. 

The Houston Rodeo

We went wild and crazy and took Dane out of school for a day to go down to the Houston Rodeo with our friends, the Hawkses, who are Houston Rodeo experts. We see their pictures every year and have been jealous for years of how much fun it looks, and this year we made it happen so that we could go with them. It was absolutely a blast and I couldn't believe how much we managed to fit into one day: seeing baby animals, riding on tractors, Dane doing mutton bustin' (that was probably my favorite part of the day--he was AWESOME!), a bunch of different fair rides and games, deep fried foods and BBQ, and of course, the rodeo itself at the end of the day. We got there at 8:30 or 9 and were practically the first people in the whole park, and we stayed until 9 at night. It was one of the first times we have managed to spend all day somewhere without worrying about naps and having it turn out so well. Lucy and Graham both just fell asleep in the stroller for 45 minutes and were able to last pretty well until we got back to the Hawkses' house super late at night. I had a great time, especially being there with friends and watching my kids' faces on the rides. 

Nothing is cuter than Lucy with little animals. 

Except maybe Dane with his mutton bustin'... 

Or Graham on the monster truck ride, which he talked about for DAYS afterwards and was so thrilled by. 

It was definitely a successful day. Making memories, one day at a time!

February pics

Is it just me or is time flying? I can't believe it's mid-April already. It's hard to stay on top of everything these days!

Dane has been learning lots of new chores. It's amazing having a child who is actually old enough to help out around the house! He can vacuum the whole house now, although it still takes some instruction to make sure he gets everything thoroughly.

Graham and Lucy are my little buddies. I love my days spent with them.

Everyone doing push-ups with Daddy one morning.

Dane moved up to orange belt in his taekwondo!

Lucy is an amazing climber. She got up here to the top of our playground climbing thing by herself.

The boys set up an impromptu picnic for their animals one Saturday morning. I love that they still do this... Dane has been doing this for years.

I also love them playing under the trampoline. They've taken some extra bricks that were in our garage and have been building all sorts of things under there.

THIS GIRL. Does it get any better?

Also, these three kids. I love them.

And I love this guy too.

Graham's Joy School on Valentine's Day. We had a cute V-day party with all the kids and exchanged valentines.

And a Valentine's Day dinner with the family!

We went to the temple one Saturday and Tommy and I switched off going inside and hanging out with the kids. We wanted to give them a chance to visit the temple.

We got new lights put in our kitchen! It looks amazing!

Dane had a couple of days off school around President's Day weekend and we went to the mall one day for them to play there, and then we went to a nature preserve by our house and the boys rode their vehicles while I ran behind them with Lucy in the stroller. I got to exercise, the boys got to ride their bike/scooter, and the weather was awesome. Everyone was happy!

These are three of Dane's best friends from school at a friend's birthday party. So cute!

Five little kindergarteners.

Dallin and Krystel were here for a few days looking for apartments! We didn't get many pictures with them because they were apartment hunting most of the time, but we had a great time talking with them each night late into the night.

We also celebrated Kurt's birthday!

Look at Graham's face in these three pictures with his birthday hat slipping over his face. Haha!

As a birthday surprise for Kurt, the boys made an obstacle course for him. They laid out about 15 picture books and they said that you had to read each one as part of the obstacle course. Hahaha.

I am on our Relief Society activities committee right now, and we planned a great activity at the end of February. It looked beautiful!