Anniversary Weekend at Rough Creek Lodge

To celebrate my birthday and our anniversary (Clint calls it "running the gauntlet"), we decided to spend the weekend away at Rough Creek Lodge.  It was such a fun place and SO nice to get away.  We couldn't believe how relaxing it felt to be away from the house and our ever long to-do list.  And the kids really loved it.  Charlie was thrilled with the hotel (he told me over and over "I wuv our room"), the restaurant (they had a kids' buffet with lots of desserts :), the bounce house, and especially the pool/lazy river area.  

The weekend started off a little poorly.  Clint was supposed to get off work early, but ended up in surgery until 9:00.  At 4:00, the kids and I gave up on him and decide to head out early.  I had a gourmet dinner with the sweetest little dinner dates ever.  They were SO good at dinner.  We ended up having a great time, and I was so proud of them!

Evie was stunned by her new surroundings. :)

 Cheers!

After dinner, we headed outside to roast some s'mores.  I think I was the only one that actually liked them (Charlie couldn't quite get comfortable with the sticky marshmallows), but we had a great time.

Sweet girl was so happy all evening.

Tasting, but not sure he likes it.

After dinner, we wandered around the resort for another hour or so and then had a very late bedtime.  We had fun exploring and planning out everything we wanted to do on Saturday (our list, unfortunately, was much longer than our day was).  Charlie was particularly enthralled with the resort's collection of Rangers (like Papa's) and 4-wheelers.  When we arrived, the guy who was helping us with our luggage got a long, very excited talking-to about Rangers versus 4-wheelers (the gist of it was that Charlie drives both, he loves both, Papa has a Ranger, PawPaw has a Ranger, Charlie has a 4-wheeler, they go fast, they are bumpy, and they are so fun :).   Here's a view of the lake/creek in front of the restaurant.

The patio was deserted because it was so hot outside.  It would be so pretty out here in the fall.  

We enjoyed a gorgeous sunset when we got back to the room.  Poor Clint finally got to the resort at 10:30 on Friday night.  His dinner was a little cold, but he said it was great. :)

Pretty view the next morning!

There were so many fun things to do at the resort, but we ended up spending almost all of our time at the pool/lazy river area.  It is just too hard to do much else when it's 105 degrees outside!

Evie thought napping might sound a bit better than swimming, but she was a trooper.  She perked up quite a bit with a dip in the water (and a quick snack).

It is impossible to get both kids smiling at the same time, so here are two pics of them.  Luckily, Clint is smiling in both of them. :)

Hard to tell here, but Evie is floating on her back.  Her face is so funny when she does this!

This picture cracks me up.  I love my boys, but they both have the most hilarious fake smiles when you ask them to smile for the camera.  Unless I distract them and get them laughing, all of our pictures look like this. :)

The water slide was awesome.  Charlie and Clint did this over and over and over.  Every time they landed in the water, Charlie would pop up choking and sputtering.  But as soon as he could talk again, he would cough out "again!"  He was very clear with us, however, that this was a BIG slide, and he was too little to go by "meself."

Relaxing in the lazy river after some wild sliding. :)

After a LONG day of swimming and sliding, we got cleaned up for a dinner.  We had a little appetizer with the kids, and then, thanks to the resort babysitters, got to have a "grown-up" dinner on our own after they went to bed.  The food was incredible and it was so fun getting a night out.

What a fun vacation!  As Charlie would say, "we wuve it!"

Happy Birthday Papa!

We love birthdays.  Not really because we like celebrating others (although we do, a bit), but because of the cake.  And the fact that most of our birthday parties now-a-days come with jumping castles or swimming pools or petting zoos.  What is not to like about that?  So when we learned that Papa would be celebrating a birthday, we did everything we could to entice him to Dallas.  Luckily, we were successful and got to celebrate his birthday with him.

Charlie helped make the cake and was SOOOO excited to sing Happy Birthday, blow out the candles, and, most of all, eat the cake!

 "Mommy, I yove it!"  
[I love Charlie's habit of telling me when he loves something.  Usually, it is not a very surprising revelation. :)]

 We also like birthdays because they often come with new and exciting toys.  Although Papa didn't have a jumping castle or swimming pool at his party, he did have an awesome new toy: a Ranger!

 Charlie's new favorite vehicle.  We talk about the Ranger constantly.  Lots and lots of speculation about what it's doing at each moment of the day. :)

 Even Evie liked it!

 After riding in the Ranger, we spent some time climbing trees...

 ...and learning to pee-pee outside!

Birthdays don't get much better than that. :)  Thanks for letting us celebrate with you, Papa!

Goodbye, Paci. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Charlie made a huge leap last week: he gave up his beloved pacifier (the "paci").  I had always planned to take this away when he turned 2, but it has been so hard for me to gear myself up for taking it away.  He LOVES his paci.  He was only allowed to have it in bed, and as a result, it made bedtime so exciting for him.  He loved to cuddle up with his paci, lovie, and a book before naps or bedtime.  But, I knew I had to do it at some point, so one day when my parents were in town, I decided to go for it.

We gathered up the pacis, loaded up, and took Charlie to his favorite toy store.  On the way over, I explained to him that we were going to trade in his pacis for a new toy at the toy store.  He looked very worried at first, but seemed to be working with himself on the way over.  He wanted to carry the pacis into the store himself, and looked SO adorable walking in with that little bag of pacis.  He was such a little man about it!  

Any reservations he had in the car were erased once we got into the toy store.  He raced around and could not believe that he was actually getting to pick a toy to take home.  He was shockingly decisive.  He first went crazy over a huge Bruder crane truck.  It was $120 worth of amazingness.  And HUGE.  We talked him out of that (he agreed that it was "just too big"), and moved on to other trucks.  He was hilarious as he went through the trucks.  He would settle on one ("I love the forklift!"), and then quickly re-shelve it when he saw something better ("I no yike the forklift.  I love the garbage truck!").  We finally got down to a logging truck and a garbage truck.  He decided on the garbage truck and was totally giddy over it, and then the sales lady brought out a big red fire engine.  The garbage truck was tossed aside with a desultory, "I no yike a garbage truck!"  Charlie was only too eager to hand over his pacis for the fire engine and has been playing with it constantly ever since. It spent the first few nights with him, but luckily, we've returned to just the lovie, stuffed animals, and a book or two in the crib.  Good thing, cause it was getting crowded in there!

Here's Charlie on his first paci-free morning...can't believe it was a success!

SOOO proud of himself.  When I walked in the room to get him up, he proudly (or nervously?) told me that "I not need pacis anymore.  I'm a big boy!"

The transition away from a paci was surprisingly easy at first.  Charlie was very excited about his fire engine and didn't seem to miss his paci too much.  He brings it up occasionally, but always seems ok with the fact that he's too big for pacis now (and totally leaves Evie's pacis alone, which is nice).  The only hard thing is that he's just not as happy going down for naps or bed as he was before.  We've had to let him cry a bit and he's been pushing harder and harder to stay up later.  I'm hoping that it's all just part of the transition away from the paci and that he'll get comfortable going down without it soon.  But overall, I am so proud of my big boy for being so good with this transition--once again, he surprised me!

A (Surprisingly) Jolly 4th of July

Although I was so sad to leave Seguin and all the family festivities down there, we returned to very happy news: Clint was given a day off on the 4!  When we woke up to two happy, healthy kids, we knew it was going to be a good day.  We (I) frantically searched my email for any Independence Day invitations that had previously been ignored, and set about crafting a fun day for us.

We started out with a quick photo session before the parade.  

Evie was a little drowsy, but you really couldn't tell she'd been sick.  I was so glad to have my healthy girl back.

Note Evie's bow--this is the first time I've actually gotten one to stay in her hair (which is finally coming in, slowly but surely).  I think she looks adorable, however, some kid at the parade yelled "Nice mohawk...I mean bow!" at her.  So random.  To make Evie feel better, I pointed out that his hair didn't look that great either. :)

My sweet patriotic little ones.

A close-up of the mohawk. :)

Then we met up with the Stoltzes and the Jordans for the Lakewood 4th of July parade.  I LOVE this parade.  It is so cute and feels just like a perfect small-town parade (it is missing the low-riders present at my small-town parade, but other than that, it's perfect :).

My kiddos watched very intently for the full 45-minute parade.  It was the perfect length, because they did not get bored at all.  The candy being thrown from the floats helped keep Charlie engaged. :)

Sweet Stoltz family.

Bethany and Palmer.

After the parade, we headed to an awesome swimming/bounce house/BBQ party.  It was so much fun.  I somehow forgot our swim suits, but we borrowed a swim diaper for Charlie, put an inflatable ring around him, and let him swim on his own.  He loved the freedom and was a wild man in the pool.  The rest of us were very jealous of him getting to cool off.  We had another swimming party after naps, then a fun dinner outside, and whisked the kids into bed.  We decided we'd wait another year for fireworks, as we were all totally exhausted by 8:00.  It was a wonderful day.  I missed all my Seguin family, but so glad that we got to spend a fun Independence Day with Clint!