My Texas Trip

This beautiful little baby bundle was one of the reasons I left my husband and kids and flew to Dallas at the crack of dawn :) My cousin Kris and her husband Justin are the proud parents to Olivia Rose... only 5 weeks old in this photo. I just had to see how my oldest friend was adjusting motherhood and love on the baby for a few days plus the added bonus is all of her family is there in TX and I got to see my Godmother too! She is doing amazing and created such a cutie!!It didn't hurt that this is her backyard either ;) wink wink ;) We spent one evening in the spa with some drinks and good conversation. It was a great end the weekend.
I was also there to take baby portraits and family portraits but those will follow in a separate post. She took me to she her horse Pecos. He is a beauty! I dragged along my camera, of course, and took his portrait as well.
Here's Kris with her oldest child Ronan. Ebi is standing behind him wondering what is going on. He must stand at least 6' when he's standing like this. BIG dog but very gentle and loving... well he tries to be gentle. With feet like his you're bound to get under them. When I got home I was looking at my foot and wondering what happened that I had a big bruise on the top.... Duh! Ronan stepped on my foot :) LOL
and here is Kris and I and Olivia. We've know each other since she was in her mom's belly. We grew up together camping and holidays and in each other's back pocket some of the time. We always didn't get along, me throwing her Hot Wheel cars under a cabinet and in high school we grew apart a bit. But we've come full circle... she is the godmother to my child and one of my dearest friends. We don't live close by but I think of them often.

beauty

Breana's College and Greg's High School Graduation

Look at how wonderful she looks! I can't believe her four years have gone by so quickly. We didn't get a chance to go to her graduation from Dominican because there were a limited number of tickets allowed per graduate but we thought about her all day and send her some flowers to let her know that. She did get a job working at a PR firm and she is also portraying Wonder Woman at Great America on the weekends. Pictures of that will come in July :)
I can't believe that chubby little baby is old enough to graduate high school.... and I was still in high school when he was born!! Damn I'm old!
Anyway my Dad, the boys and I went to the ceremony for Greg. It was nice and short, unlike my graduation at 400+ people. Here he is getting his diploma from the Bishop of Rockford.
Very happy about it too.
The proud parents :) and that they don't have to drive to Woodstock again unless they want to :)

Nice tie G!! Hayden and Jax just love him so much and I'm happy they have a wonderful young male role model. If they are anything like G I'd be one happy Mama.

I can not believe...

I'm the mother to a second grader!?!? When the heck did that happen?? This year flew by so incredibly fast. 1st grade was a learning experience for all of us. Hayden learned what it was like in a real classroom and to have a teacher that really cared what the student learned and how they behaved, unlike kindergarten. He excelled in Math and Reading, beyond even our expectations. He even learned what it was like to get a referral and have a parent teacher conference about something other than grades. :()
So on the last day he made a card for his wonderful teacher, who would not be returning to teaching thanks to a school district heavy in debt. We also planted a little plant and gave her one of her most favorite things, a monkey :) Here's Hayden with the card and monkey. Very proud of his handiwork.The plant for her home to remember Hayden by...
and finally Mrs. Martinez. She was very caring, stern, and wonderful to Hayden. Just the kind of teacher I wanted him to have. She made things fun but was darn sure the kids were learning what they needed to learn. She reminded me of my favorite teacher form school, although not as wacky :) I am very sorry she was lost in the district crisis and wish her all the best that the world can offer her right now.
Hayden and some of his friends from this year and last. :)

KiD rOcK

Jaxson has been taking Kid Rock classes for a year now and he really enjoys it! He loves the music and the instruments and the teacher, Mr.Dave. Every session it's something new like shapes or like last session was colors. Here are a few pictures from class. Excuse the blur in some... it's a fast pace class and I had our old point and shoot. Didn't want to scare the other Mom's with my big camera and set up :)

The kids just love this parachute game. Bouncing balls or whatnot around and watching them fly off.
Getting a ride on the chute :)
The end of each color class is dancing with balloons... as you can see today's color was blue :)

Really??

All those wonderful toys and he plays in the box?? Give me a break!

Rockford Reunion

Tim's friend Dawn was in town over Memorial Day, from Maine. He hasn't seen her in 5-6 years and I haven't seen her in 12 years. It was a great day with Shelly, Dan, Sabrina (Taegan), and Dawn. We had a nice BBQ and enjoyed the nice day and good times.

The king

We are slowly redecorating our living room since the last time it was painted was in Jan 2002 and these sofa covers are part of that transformation. We put them on to see how they would look and the King immediately took to them. I think his little brain thought we bought him a $60 big new bed :)

the student becomes the teacher

Hayden has started letting Jaxson sit with him while he plays on the computer. It's kind of cute how he's showing him around the computer. By Jaxson's age Hayden was playing Star Wars Lego all by himself. :) I guess it's time to introduce Jax to the PC.

And away we go...........................

Strawberry Fields forever

"Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever."

Two years ago Hayden wanted a strawberry plant. I figured "why not?" So we bought a plant and got a whole whopping 2 berries that year. Last year we got about 5 berries. This year the plants seemed bigger and bigger they were. We started noticing flowers on the plant about the first week in May... dozens of them. Dozens upon dozens of them. We knew we were in for a good haul this year.

Not only have we had a good haul but so far we've filled 3 pint containers and the plant isn't done yet :)
Big beautiful, red, and sweet juicy strawberries. We've had them on french toast and ice cream... heck the boys eat them right out of the fridge.

This picture is just from this evening. Hayden counted 3 dozen strawberries. Its nice enjoying something we planted and waited so long to see rewards.

Moving on up in the world.

A couple weeks ago we decided that it was time to move Jax to the toddler bed portion of his crib. I was nervous since he's our adventurer. I had visions of him playing in his toy box or closet at 1 am. But it was time to make this leap and trust him. Checking out his new bed railing.

He enjoyed helping Tim take the railing down. Daddy's big helper.

Well here he is... in his new big boy bed (phase 1)He was pretty happy about it too.

Hayden getting in on some brother love :D

Daddy and his big boy

Mama and her boys. <3>I am happy to report that in the past 2 weeks Jaxson has done WONDERFUL!! He's not gotten out of his bed once. Surprised us all :) He really likes having this new railing and his new pillow. Guess he was ready way before we were.

My artist

Jaxson is my child who loves to color. Hayden likes to now... but not at 2yrs. Jaxson loves to paint and create. Here he is trying out the new finger paints Scott and Autumn gave him. He's still a bit of a wuss, hence the paint brush and not fingers :)
He concentrating so hard.