my weekend of bliss

have i ever mentioned how awesome my husband is? :) the two of us haven't gotten away from the kiddies for longer than a few hours in a very long time. i think the last time we went on a trip without our entourage was when mason was really little. so, curtis talked to his buddies at work and planned a whole surprise weekend for our anniversary all by himself! his parents came down to watch the kiddies and the two of us went to san antonio for 3 wonderful days. our hotel was right down town, walking distance to the alamo, the mall, and the riverwalk. i have always wanted to go to italy and i jokingly told curtis "you can't afford to take me to italy so you brought me to san antonio instead". i loved walking along the river with shops and restaurants lining the sidewalk. it was just like i imagine italy to be. we had wanted to take the kids to sea world down there last fall and visit these other places as well but i'm so glad we did this just as the two of us. it was very romantic and relaxing! on saturday we spent the afternoon visiting some of the historic missions around town. i loved it :)

 

dinner on the river walk...i had ducks right behind my chair quacking and begging for food like little puppies

one of the missions we visited. they were very cool inside but pictures cannot do those high ceilings any justice!

the alamo

 

so yes, my weekend was fantastic! i had a hard time facing the fact that i had to come back and work on my singing time lesson for next week, stress about our new song for choir, and come up with 2 preschool lessons for the week....oh and no more sleeping until 9 am :) i cannot thank tony and stephanie enough for watching the kids for us and for everything they did around the house while we were gone. i am so blessed to have in laws that treat me just like a daughter, taught my husband how to be the great person he is and are amazing grandparents to my children. thanks you guys!!

i am so grateful to have such a wonderful man to take care of me. our life together has been so full of challenges and twists and i know i couldn't do it without him by my side. i love that he still makes me blush and laugh and tells me how beautiful i am even though i look like a mess. he works so hard to support our family and makes sure we are all taken care of. i love him!! so, 6 years down...eternity to go :)

family life

just a little update on my growing-too-fast family :)

sophie is almost 2! at her 18 month check up we were a little worried because the only 2 words she was really saying at that point were "mama" and "daddy". we may have just been used to mason who was speaking full on sentences at that point and the doctor said give it til her 2 year check up and then we can start worrying. sure enough this girls vocab has taken off!! she is starting to string words together and even though they aren't all clear as a bell, you can definitely tell what shes saying (this morning she was looking out mason's window and said "i see a bird" and sure enough there was a bird in the tree!). her current favorites are "why" and "what". whenever i say something like "sophie get down please" her response is "why?". she cracks us up!

mason is still the smartest cookie on the block :) we have started working on sight words and reading chapter books together. he has a great imagination and loves to put it down on paper. he just started soccer and loves it (so far :). he is on the same team as a boy in his primary class who's dad is also the coach. its nice for him to have a friend to tag along with and for me to have someone to chat with on the sidelines. he is such a great help and i'm so glad he is my oldest child!

curtis is still kicking butt at work! he is always being told how great of job he is doing and impressing his bosses. he was recently offered a job in houston that had great potential but we didn't feel like it was the right thing to do so we are staying in dallas. he is such a great help at home and usually spends all his free time with a needy wife and kids :)

as for me i continue to be a soccer mom, a teacher, participant in a car pool, ward choir director, and my latest challenge is the primary chorister (which i love) all along with my daily household responsibilities and other activities during the week...my life is getting so busy and i don't see any end in sight!  i am excited for all the summer activities and cant wait to get to work on my yard and garden (and possibly painting the house!). i have also been making a ton of busy bag activities for the kids that range from bottle cap patterns (all the free bottle caps i want! thank you pepsi :), to clothes pin number wheels to super cute lds quiet books (i get the templates online then upload my own pictures).

one fun activity we did a few weeks ago was seeing sesame street live! they have ticket drawings at pepsi for various events around the dallas area, curtis thought the kids would like this and low and behold he got the tickets. i thought it was cool but as usual our kids were the least bit interested (this is why we never waste our money or time taking the kids to anything). sophie lasted about 10 minutes. curtis took her out and let her play with the different booths they had set up. just after the intermission, mason decided he was done too. it didn't cost us a penny (they even paid for our vip parking) so we didn't see the harm in leaving early. these are the pictures we got!