Bliss.

Did you ever know that my favorite flowers of all were peonies? Pure Bliss.

Bittersweet

What a bittersweet day it was... Bella has graduated from preschool. It was a beautiful day, and we had so much fun at the family picnic and ceremony! I can't believe that the last two years of preschool went by in a flash. I tried not to cry as I dropped her off for her last day. Thankfully, Lincoln will be there next fall, so it wasn't a "goodbye". Not so thankfully, though, Lincoln will be there next fall... :( Congratulations on your graduation, Princess! We're proud of you!

Whooooooohhh...

In honor of Mark, his 10-year-old-52-mile-per-gallon Jetta TDI (that's Turbo Diesel, though I'd say it's more diesel than turbo...), and our favorite commercial, I thought I'd post this for you all. I can't get enough of it! Hee, hee... Enjoy, Honey! (And I'm sorry in advance if I stepped on anybody's hybrid toes...) Oh, and don't forget to pause the playlist below too. It's not near as funny with Brad Paisley singing a ballad in the background. I tried.

Just a Few More...

I just wanted to post a few more pictures of the River Walk, since it was so lovely there. What a great place to capture some memories! :)

Tell me that this wouldn't freak all of you mommies out!

Mommy and the babes under one of the many bridges.

This walkway was so neat! The water flowed through the stepping stones from a waterfall into the river.

I love this shot with huge American and Texan flags in the background that were hung from one of the historic buildings.

Taking a breather...

Roaming the River Walk

I'm finally getting around to getting a few San Antonio pictures up! It's been a month since we've been there, so I guess it's probably time to let up on the suspense a bit. :) Here are some of the River Walk. We were able to go on two separate days and loved the beauty and vibe of it. It's so peaceful, yet buzzing with activity thanks to the restaurants and shops. Letting the kids walk so closely to the water scared the snot out of me, but luckily Daddy and I were able to corral them well enough that I only had a few "freak out" moments!

We did get to take a cruise on one of the many tour boats.

Bella means beautiful!

I love this picture!

People were very friendly, asking if we would like a family picture taken as they passed by. We got a few taken... Yeah!

Hold on tight, Daddy!

Lincoln is THREE!

Lincoln turned 3 on May 9th, and I just can't believe it! (Does it not seem like I was just posting about his Bob the Builder 2nd birthday party!?) Out of all three of the kids, he's the one that seems should still be my "baby". Maybe it's part of the whole "middle-child" curse, and I'm missing half of his life or something... Well, anyways, his birthday fell while we were in San Antonio so we actually got to have a bit of a special day for him. We headed downtown to the Riverwalk in the morning for some exploring and then lunch at Rainforest Cafe. The atmosphere there is so fun for little ones and actually quite enjoyable for adults too. (Not sure I can say the same for Chuck E. Cheese for Bella's last birthday... *wink*) We sat in a huge booth where the kids happily bounced around while drinking their special smoothies and munching on dino-shaped chicken nuggets. After eating Lincoln was quite embarrassed as the staff made a singing-clapping-whooping big deal, but didn't seem to mind when they sat the sundae in front of him! In the evening we grilled hot dogs and had a picnic at the resort at one of their picnic areas. The day was wrapped up with an Oreo cake presented with an unlit "3" candle. (Seems that we didn't think of not having a lighter or matches when the candle was bought. Mark, being the resourceful guy that he is -keyword guy- tried lighting it from the stove with an ashen paper towel. This was unsuccessful, but thankfully Lincoln didn't mind...) In the end, I think our birthday boy had a great day! :)

Waiting for Rainforst Cafe to open

Enjoying his birthday sundae!

Our evening picnic

Yummy Oreo cake with a "special" birthday candle ;)

Happy *3rd* Birthday, Lincoln Noah!!

busy, Busy, BUSY!

Oh, my! A month has gone by without a single post! How. could. this. have. happened? Time has flown so quickly this past month that my head spins some days. I have a lot of new pictures and hopefully a few substantial posts from our last month. Stay tuned and many apologies for my lifeless blog. :(

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to share this picture that Isabella made a few days ago. Have a wonderful and blessed Easter!

Look What I Can Do!

It finally clicked. In Brigham's little fuzzy head, something finally clicked. You see, he's been holding out on really sitting up well by himself until just a couple of days ago. Our happy little almost 8-month-old baby just didn't really care to sit up much. I've been helping him practice his balance here and there a bit just knowing that he'd have so much fun playing upright instead of rolling around the floor endlessly. Well, during one of our practice sessions a couple of days ago, he just stuck it! He actually seemed conscious of sitting up instead of just bobbling from front-to-back and side-to-side, eventually head-planting into the floor or my arms. He's such big stuff now! These are his actual first pictures of sitting, taken this morning. (If you look really closely or enlarge the first picture, you might be able to see his two cute little tooffers too!)

Another "rare" picture of the three together. Lincoln actually asked and wanted to be in the picture. (Huh, looks like it...)

Bella wanted to take a picture. A little fuzzy, but not bad!

Congratulations, Mark!

Mark took his GRE exam yesterday and did amazing on it! (I knew he would!) It's not a pass/fail test, but he had a score in mind that he needed to get in order to be competitive for or get into anesthesia school. Well, he blew that score away, and coupled with a 4.0 GPA for his bachelor's nursing courses, any anesthesia school in the country should be happy to get him. We'll now need to make some decisions and start the application process. I know that this post will probably stroke Mark's ego, but he deserves it after all of his hard work and preparation for this!

*Side story* The GRE is for graduate school, not to be confused with the GED. A sweet library employee that Mark befriended the last few weeks while studying there was always so supportive and impressed that he was going back for his GED. She would tell him that, "It's the minimum that society accepts today." She didn't get his one gentle correction that the test was for graduate school, not his diploma. Oh well... Either way, she'll be very proud of him next time he sees her! :)