A Total Flop!

The weekend before school started, we decided to take a day trip to Austin to see the 3 million Congress bridge bats. We called Mike and Kim to get their opinion on where to have dinner, we loaded up the kiddos and we were off to the Salt Lick. Or so we thought. When we arrived at the Salt Lick (that used to look something like this), all we found was an empty building with "For Lease" signs in the window.

I guess we wouldn't be getting our Jalepeno Bacon Gravy after all. We ended up at our second choice restuaraunt, Chuey's. Although it was great food, it wasn't the Texas BBQ we were geared up for. After dinner, we headed to the bridge to wait for the bats. We waited....

and waited,

and waited. But no bats. (Well, we saw two or three, but NOT three million).

If I didn't think our night was a total flop at this point, it was confirmed as such when we pulled up to the gas station to let the boys go potty and saw this:

No Salt Lick. No Bats. No Banos.

At least we had that "quality family time" on the drive home.

Back to school blues

There are some milestones in my kid's lives that I look forward to, like seeing them crawl or walk for the first time. Some milestones I can't wait for, like when they start sleeping through the night or when they are finally potty trained. Then there are the milestones that I dread, like the first day of Kindergarten or when they move away to college. Yesterday was one of those milestones. No, no one went away to college- but this cute little guy started Kindergarten.

I thought I was ready for this. I really thought sending my second one to school would be much easier than sending the first. But for the last couple of weeks, every time I thought about Kindergarten I got a big lump in my throat. I got teared up at meet the teacher night, I bawled when Colby gave Carter his back to school blessing and, you guessed it, I cried on the first day of school. But Carter and I both survived the first day (barely). This is the conversation we had when I picked Carter up from school:

Mom: "Cart, how was your first day?"

Carter: "It was howible. It was my wost day evow."

Mom: "Buddy, why was it so bad?"

Carter: "I don't want to talk about it."

Mom: "Well is there anything I can do to help you have a better day tomorrow?"

Carter: "Ya, you can let me stay home."

Needless to say, I did not let Cart stay home today and he had a much better day.

This guy started second grade yesterday. I can't believe he is growing up so fast. Even though this is year 3 of having Ammon gone all day, I still had a hard time seeing him go. This is what Ammon had to say about his first day:

"Second grade rocks! I didn't even pick up a pencil today."

(Fabulous, right?? Just what every mom wants to hear!)

I am so grateful that these two are going to the same school and can watch out for each other.

Abbi was a little lost soul without her brothers. She walked around the house all day saying, "guys?, guys?, GUYS!" and "AAAmon, Caaarrt." She also insisted on wearing her backpack all day and kept talking about the bus. Sorry sis, you'll have to wait a while!

I'm sure after the initial shock of having both boys gone wears off, I will be able to see the positive side of having them be in school all day. But for now, we all have a case of the "back to school blues."

Celebrating Summer

For weeks I have been saying that I "couldn't wait for school to start" and that I was "ready for more structure and a better routine." Yet here I am, on the last official day of Summer, wishing that I had a couple more weeks to sleep in, and swim, and take daily trips to the park and splash pads and eat dozens of otter pops and just play with my kids. This year I am even more hesitant to say goodbye to Summer than in past years because tomorrow I will be dropping two kids off at school. I'm not sure I will even know what to do with myself. We have had a busy, and fun, Summer and amidst all of the moving, traveling and unpacking we also found time to just enjoy ourselves.

We went to the rock climbing wall (and although Cart doesn't look thrilled to be there, he had a blast)

My boys made climbing look so easy, I was surprised at how much I struggled up the wall.

We baked. (and licked LOTS of beaters).

We did art projects.

And we swam, and swam,

and swam.

On Friday, we had a party to celebrate the end of Summer. We invited some of the boy's friends over for popcorn, cookies, watermelon, snow cones and water games.

And I thoroughly enjoyed having our first outdoor party in our new backyard,

and, as you can see, our lawn needed all that water from the sprinklers, slip and slide, and water balloons.

I am sure that in a couple of weeks, when my house is easier to keep clean, and I have two less little people to drag to the grocery store, and I can enjoy a quiet naptime, I will be happy that school is back in session. But tonight, I am already missing Summer.

Shoes!

Our little Abbi loves shoes! She recently grew out of all of her shoes so the two of us went to the outlets and went shoe shopping. Not only did she LOVE it, but she was very particular about what shoes she wanted to buy. She finally decided on these sparkly, pink, slip-ons. I mentioned to her that they were "Rocket Dogs," and now whenever we are getting ready to leave the house she says, "get my dogs, get my dogs." Here they are, Abbi's new "dogs."

Ammon also has some shoes that he loves. When I tell him to get his shoes on, he ALWAYS chooses these ones:

His OLD church shoes, with the long white socks. You've gotta love this kid's sense of style!

Thank you vimeo

After multiple failed attempts to post this video on blogger, I had totally given up. But thanks to Vimeo.com and Uncle Mike for suggesting vimeo- here it is.

jabber jaws from Shauni Frost on Vimeo.

Little Miss Jabber Jaws

Our little Abbi has the funniest personality. She is 100% girly girl. She loves hair bows, sunglasses, purses, shoes, shoe shopping, babies, etc. Recently we had a major milestone occur...

Those of you who know Abbi very well may have noticed that something is missing in all of these pictures. That's right- her BOO (aka binkie). I recently took her binkie away (although I still let her have it at night). Since we got rid of the boo, Abbi has been talking up a storm. Seriously, she will. not. stop. It is so fun to hear what Abbi has to say, although there have definitely been times that I have questioned this decision. What is that saying, "silence is golden??" I attempted to catch all the jabbering on video but like the boys, she refused to perform for the camera, and then I couldn't get the video to download (I'll keep trying!). So you'll have to just take my word for it, our quiet little girl has turned in to a little jabber jaws.