Hurricane Ike

Well we survived Hurricane Ike with some damage to our house and no power for almost 2 weeks. My parents and brother's family came to our house to ride out the storm Thursday night. We were ready...we had the windows boarded, food, water, generator, etc. We did ok until the power went out about 11:30pm Friday night...that sucked! It was scary waking up to stuff pounding on the windows, one of the boards came off a window and freaked me out in the middle of the night with the rain and who knows what else pounding on it. The crazy part was witnessing the eye of the storm. It was super calm and we were able to go outside and fix the missing board. We made it through the rest of the storm with some sleep. The next day was horrible...it was so dang HOT! My house became a refugee camp for 6 adults, 4 kids under 4(2 of them babies), 6 dogs, and 1 cat. It got super hot and was getting miserable. Rebecca and I drove the boys around for a little bit just to get some A/C from the car. We left Sunday after the storm and spent a week with Nick's dad in Abilene and then a few days at my parents house in Friendswood(an hour south of me). It took us 13 days to get power!!! But, we are now finally getting back to a normal schedule thank goodness.

Preparing for the storm by putting boards on our windows. Go baby!

Lightsaber fun with no power! Kaiden loved running around in his underwear!

Our roof damage-missing shingles

Neighbor down the street

Tree at community pool


Look at this tree. It is bent but not broken yet. House in our neighborhood.

Silly Kaiden
Kaiden is always acting silly when I pull out the camera and try to take an actual picture. I actually got one good one of him smiling right at me!

7 Months
Zachary turned 7 months on the 6th. Can you believe it? He is a mover and a shaker. He eats about 3 times a day and pretty much loves it all! We should be trying some table food this month besides bread and puff stars. He is crawling everywhere and pulling up onto anything and everything he can reach. He really enjoys getting around and I know he will be walking before I know it. Here are some pics of Zachary helping me do the dishes...what a good little helper. Yes he loves to smile every time I pull out the camera. What a camera hog.

First Day of School
Today was our first day of school. I am teaching the 3 year olds at our church Child Development Center (CDC) and Kaiden is in another 3 year old class. Michele, my co teacher and I have been working really hard on trying to get our room ready for school. I think it is driving our hubby's crazy that we have not been around enough and always busy with school stuff. Our class is called the Marvelous Monkeys and we have a wonderful class!
Before we walked out the door Kaiden said he had to go to the bathroom and when he did I realized that he is actually sick, tummy bug. So I was in a panic at first but was able to get my dad to come and get him from the babysitters house where Zachary goes. Kaiden was unable to attend his first day of school, but he will go Thursday!
Here are a couple of pics from our classroom, I will take more Thursday and post those too. It is really cute. Sorry there are no pics of me and Michele it was a little busy today!

Daily board and prayer box

Front door. The kids find their names and post them on our barrel of monkeys inside our classroom. This is our way of taking roll, plus helps the kids with name recognition.

Bible Verse Funny
So we have been learning our bible verses at K-House. Kaiden goes to his own "bible school" while I am teaching the large group bible story and music at our church. Our bible verse for this week and last week has been "A Friend loves at all times" Prov. 17:17. Well Mr. Kaiden was saying "A friend makes at all times" I tried to tell him that it is "love" not makes." Saturday night on our way home from Nana & Pops house I asked him if he remembered the bible verse he learned at K-House. He told me he did and proceeded to tell it to me. Ok so here is his version of it, not sure what he meant by it. LOL "A friend makes love at all times" You think he got confused or what? I was dying laughing but trying to keep it inside.

Future Nephew
My brother Erik called today to tell me that him and his wife Cindy found out that they will be having a baby boy at the end of January. We are very excited to add another boy to the family. My parents will have 5 grandbabies running around under the age of 4. 4 boys(Cameron, Kaiden, Zachary, baby boy Jones) and 1 girl(Maggie)! I wonder if Maggie will be spoiled being the only girl? Can't wait to meet our new little man! Congrats Erik & Cindy!

Brave Zachary
Zachary is getting more and more brave! Here he is pulling up onto things. He pulled himself up on Kaiden's chair all by himself today. He tried pulling up onto the coffee table but he is a little too short to reach the top to pull up. But, with my help he can do it and stand there unassisted. I swear he will be walking before we know it.

On the Move!
Watch out cause Zachary is on the move!!! He started crawling on all fours last week and has gotten better and better everyday. He is getting more brave because now he is starting to pull up onto things. I sat him down in the living room this morning while I was cleaning up in the kitchen and the next thing I know he has crawled in there and was trying to get in the fridge while Kaiden had the door open. He even crawled through his exersaucer. He has also started going from a crawling position to a sitting position. I am noticing that he does not like baby toys, he LOVES big boy toys. He is always bypassing his toys to try and go after Kaiden's toys like his train set.

Space Center of Houston
Sunday after church we went to the Space Center of Houston with Nana & Pops, Bobo Chris, Aunt Becca, Cameron, Maggie, and some friends from my brother's church. We all had a lot of fun because they had the Daredevil Island exhibit up with bungee jump, trapeze, bungee climb, and maze. Here are a few pics from our adventure. Sorry I do not have any pics of me doing the trapeze. I actually did really good as opposed to my brother Chris who fell off as soon as he started. It was hilarious, I think someone got it on video. We got a membership so we will be going back again and again this next year.

Zachary hanging out in the pouch!

Kaiden jumping on the bungee jump.

Zachary & Pops at the Star Wars exhibit

Zachary & Kaiden at the Star Wars exhibit

Daddy & Kaiden going fast!!!

Maggie Moo & her bow
This is my neice Maggie and her big fluffy bow. this was too cute and I could not resist putting it on my blog.

Smilebox creation

Check out my creation that I did using http://www.smilebox.com/. This website is so awesome! i can not wait to make more stuff with it. This is my kind of scrapbooking. LOL Press Play

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Fun at Nana & Pop's
After church Sunday we went and spent some time at Nana & Pop's new house in Friendswood about an hour south of us. The had some friends from my brother's church over for dinner thanking them for helping them move in. The boys had such a great time playing in the pool. Kaiden found his new favorite toy, the jet ski with a watergun. Kaiden played hard with his cousin Cameron and the other kids there. Zachary was going to town in the jumper. I swear he jumped nonstop for 20 minutes. He is going to have some strong legs cause he does the same at home.

Visit with Kristin & Kaydence

On August 2 we got to visit with my best friend from college, Kristin and her baby girl, Kaydence. Kaydence was born the day after Zachary and is already a couple of pounds bigger than him. LOL They were so cute together because Zachary was trying so hard to get her bow out of her hair and she was fascinated with his toes. It was so great to see Kristin & Kaydence again because they live so far away and we do not get to see each other very often unless she goes back home to Mansfield and I go visit family there too. We try to plan that anytime she comes into town I go back too so we can see each other. She just recently moved to LA from Seattle. We are hoping that we can one day take a trip to go visit her.

Vintage Clothing
This was an outfit worn by my brother, Erik when he was a baby, 28 years ago. I thought it would be cute to take some pictures of Zachary in his uncle's old baby outfit to see what he looked like. Zachary looks like little doll, especially with those long eyelashes, just like his Uncle Erik & Pops. This outfit was super thin and had these old buttons on them . I was trying so hard to be careful and not rip the buttons. Not really an outfit we will be wearing because I would be too afraid to get it messed up. I must say though, the outfits for little boys back then were a little on the frilly side with the stitching down the front and the belt but I guess that was the style back in the day. I just can't get over how precious he looks in this.

3 Years
Kaiden went for his 3 year check up on Friday and Dr. Smoot said that she loved our boys eyelashes. Both Kaiden and Zachary have SUPER long eyelashes. Kaiden came out to be 24.7 lbs and 34 3/8 inches. Did I already say that we have small children? :) He is really healthy and doing great. I think Kaiden has way more energy than Nick and I put together. He is starting school this fall two days a week at our church and hopefully getting into some activites now that he is 3. We are going to try and put him into gymnastics to show off all his skills. We are working with him on getting his handstand, but he can already do his forward roll with no problem.

6 Months
Zachary is now 6 months, can you beleive it? We took him to his 6 month check up Friday. He is now 14.9lbs and 24 3/4 inches. He is growing good, we just have small children. :) Zachary is eating solids now and loves everything that I have given him so far. He is also on the move! He is actually army crawling and even trying to really crawl on all fours. He will get up on all fours and rock back and forth. Watch out when you are holding him because anything and everything that looks interesting to him he will reach out for. His grip is super strong too cause he has ruined a few papers and pulled some of my hair out! At 6 months he is already so active and I know he is dying to be able to get down and run aorund with his big brother.

Bath Time
Now that Zachary can sit up and can use his bath tub seat we decided to let Kaiden and Zachary take a bath together. They had a lot of fun together and it was actually easier to bath them both at once. I love this bath seat! Zachary just could not figure out how to get those toys out of that toy bag in the background.

Kids In Action

Friday we went to a place called Kids In Action. This is an indoor playplace where they have all sorts of things for them to climb on, hang, balance, etc. They also do gymnastics there. Kaiden had a blast on the trampoline. Here he is swinging form the bar. Do you think he needs gymnastics?

Cute Zachary
Zachary is having so much fun playing on the ground. I laid him down in Kaiden's room and he was trying his hardest to move around and get those trains. He pushes up so hard and then just falls back down. Every now and then he will actually scoot by army crawling a couple of inches. He can push himself up onto all fours but has not mastered the moving part. I know we are in trouble once he knows how to be mobile! Watch Out!
Yes he almost always has a smile on his face.

Curious Kie

So our new cat Kie was very curious about Kaiden and his bathtub today. I don't know if it was the fascination with the animals in the tub or the water itself. Kaiden got a kick out of Kie wanting to get in the tub. At one point Kaiden goes, "I think Kie wants in." And attempted to try and pick Kie up to put him in the tub. I was like oh no, don't touch him. It did not scare Kie away, he was still very interested in what was going on in that tub!