New SHOES and HAT

Monday was Carter's first day of Basketball camp and I totally forget that he didn't have any decent shoes to wear. We had an old pair that Blake wore last year and then left them outside forever, so they were really crappy but he wore them because it was to close to basketball starting to go get new ones. I promised him that we would go that afternoon and find him some new shoes.
Who knew that a boys size 6 and 6.5 were so hard to find. OMG, since that size is right in between boys and mens, either a lot of kids need that size or the shoe companies don't make near enough. We went to 4 different stores, including academy and the shoe carnival, then on one last ditch effort before going home, we stopped at Kohl's just to see what they had. They happened to have 1 pair of Nike's in that size and those are the ones we got! They look good and Carter was so happy to have them!

Blake bought a new hat with his chore allowance from last week because he needed one for tennis. He looks so cute in a hat! My baby boy is looking so grown up :( ::sigh::
They have been having a great summer so far.

Tennis Friday

Today was Tennis Friday. Blake and Carter went to a free summer tennis camp through the city of Tyler. Blake has been going with a friend every day this week but today Carter wanted to try, so we all went. Carter liked it, but got bored because he was with younger kids. I told him to go over with Blake, but by that time he was DONE! I did make him finish the day, because he is bad about wanting to quit when things don't go his way. He finished with a good attitude, but it just wasn't for him.

Blake on the other hand, loved it and he and all of his buddies moved up to the intermediate level.

Lazy Summer Day

Today was a fairly lazy day around our house. This morning Blake went to a tennis camp with a friend of his and while he was gone I took Dawson to the dentist because the tooth he chipped a few months back, that we had fixed, was hurting and very sensitive. It ended up being nothing, just another grown up tooth was pushing up beside it and was crowding the roots a little bit.
This afternoon we went to the local library, which was a little disappointing. We hadn't been in a few years and it looks like the book selection has drastically declined since then. We didn't find anything we couldn't live without, to check out, but we did find a few books, to buy for a really good price, on the way out.When we got home the boys wanted to go swimming and I finally got some good swimming pictures of them!

Carter Reading Big Nate

Carter loves Big Nate Books. I need to buy him the next couple of books. He is really embracing his reading time this summer, so much so, that I normally find him reading even when it is not designated reading time! He is really motivated by the prize chart and that makes me really happy! This is how I found him this morning!

Brothers

This is just a quick post to show you the most wonderful sight! My two oldest boys acting like they really do love each other after all! They are getting big and won't be able to share the chair for too much longer. They have been playing together nicely everyday of the summer so far! This picture just makes me heart happy!

Summer 2011

I am going to attempt to make a new blog post every few days this summer with some pictures of the sweet baby boys!

The boys got out of school at 1:00 last Thursday and we have been enjoying the summer to the fullest since then.

The first thing on my agenda was to clean out their bedrooms and get some things cleaned out to take to good will. We got all the boys' rooms done in 1 day and they were actually great helpers. You can imagine that most of the time, with an almost teenager and a moody 8 year old, the complaints I normally get. But NOT today! Yay for me!

I do this for 2 reasons. The first and most important reason is because summer chores are starting and it is so much easier for them to get their chores done if everything starts off clean and they know where I expect things to be put and the second reason is that they have grown a lot this year and Dawson still has some size 5T shirts and about 6 pairs of shoes that don't fit in his closet that desperately need to find a new home.
After we were done cleaning, we still have half the day left, so we took a trip to the lake and the boys had a blast swimming for about 2 hours. They were exhausted and slept well their first full day of summer.

Since then, our days have been filled with a lot of guitar hero and other video games. They don't get to play video games during the school week, so they always look forward to summer and any other break from school. We have also had a few boys from the neighborhood over almost everyday to play.
While they have been playing hard, I have been working equally as hard getting the pool ready to swim in. It takes some work but we have been diligent for over a week and we finally had our first swim and cookout tonight!

I will be sure to take lots of pictures while I am borrowing my brothers camera! This is the only one I got today. My camera has an error message and no longer wants to take pictures, so while it is hopefully getting fixed, my brother was nice enough to let me use his.

New Pictures of Dawson

This blog is mainly for my cousin, Amanda! She has been telling me that I need to start blogging again and I guess if that will make her happy, I will gladly do it! Dawson is my baby boy and he will turn 8 years old on Sunday. I know, CRAZY, right? Where did the time go? Here are a few recent pictures of him.



What a handsome guy?!?!

Dresses are taking over!

I have been feeling crafty lately and I have found that I really like to sew. Seeing as I only have boys and once they get a certain age they don't really want Mom to making them anything, I have been sewing for my niece. I don't want to over fill her closet with dresses that all look the same, so I decided today, that I would open an etsy shop and see how I can do selling some dresses. http://www.etsy.com/shop/windysmith

First Week Of School

Well, the first week of school has come and gone. The boys have all adjusted well and like their teachers and classes. Blake started 6th grade and is loving it. He is playing in the band this year and his instrument is the saxophone. He is very lucky to have a Papa John who is always ready to help with things they want to do because saxophones are EXPENSIVE. Carter is in 4th grade and has a great set of teachers. The discipline tool they have come up with suits him wonderfully. While he is not one to get in much trouble, he is one who needs encouragement. So instead of only moving colors when they do something wrong, they also move colors when they do something good. I think that is great! He is upset about the monkey bars on the playground being to low this year..=)(he is focused on the most important aspects of school!) Dawson is in 2nd grade and will do great! He is there for the social aspect of school and tends to TALK way too much, good thing he is cute!
I am taking 2 internet courses at TJC. My plans to go to UT Tyler were put on hold because of the times the classes were offered and they didn't really have to specific degree I was wanting. While taking these 2 classes, I will also be researching other schools that offer online degrees. I hope I can find something that will be a better fit for me.

Note for Kathryn and Liz: I am really going to try and keep up with this blog better, so keep checking back.

Special Effect for school

I loved this picture of Carter and now I love it even more. I really wanted to use it for another assignment for school but it came down to the last minute and I didn't have a chance to take the picture that I wanted for special effect so this will have to do. I really think it turned out great! I just learned how to do a few things in my photoshop class yesterday to I applied them here. I color balanced the photo by number and then added a spotlight on his face to brighten it up and added catch lights in his eyes and then I added a textural background! I think his face really looks good.

Me and My girl

I just love my niece and she normally loves me and doesn't want anyone else when I am around but this weekend at Dawson's party she only wanted Gran Gran. =( I think she must have been tired or a little sick or something, at least that was my excuse! I think this is the only time she even let me near her on Saturday but at least she smiled like she still loves me! She didn't want anyone to come around her that she thought might even have the slightest chance of taking her Gran away from her.

Happy Birthday BABY boy!

Today Dawson turned 7 years old! After the soccer games got rained out, we went shopping for a new bike. Papa John came to visit and went shopping with us and we all ate at Double Dave's for lunch. Despite the rain, he had a great day and came home with a new bike and an ice cream cone from Braum's. Here are a few pictures of my baby boy over the past 7 years!

Light writing

Bubba came out tonight to help me with my night scene assignment for school. I wrote each letter separately with a flashlight while BUbba held the shutter open on the camera and then placed them together using layer masks in Photoshop!

Dawson's Glasses

I knew that Dawson was working on something in his room this morning because he kept coming out and asking me for glue. After a little while, he came out with his new glasses on! He even made 2 different styles in different colors!

Geocaching! Who knew?

I discovered this awesome fun thing called Geocaching from one of my cousins. It has been around for a while but we just found it. You can join for free at www.geocaching.com. You have to have some sort of GPS device to play and there are free iphone apps for it. It is like a nationwide hide and seek. It is super fun and some of the ones we found today were very clever in the way they were hidden and the you just signed your name and date it and then we found some that were more kiddie and had prize exchanges(little things like cars and other small trinkets) you take something and replace it with something you brought. There are several locations at Faulkner Park but be ready to go into the woods. We had a great day and we will definitely be geocaching regularly. We might even plan a geocaching vacation this summer. It is great fun for all ages. Would be great for a youth group at a church or anyone.

Visit with my girl!

My brother and I decided that we should get together once every 4-6 weeks and spend the day with our families together! It was their time to come here and we had a good time. We ate chicken fajitas and played outside. Jonathan brought Carter a brand new baseball bat, so he was really excited about that and of course they had to try it out. My girl and I went back and forth from the swing to the trampoline! Isn't she just a beauty!?!

Green Feet

Oh the site of this just made me giggle a little bit!  Carter hasn't dressed up in a while.  It is getting fewer and further between.  He loves his Indiana Jones stuff he got for Christmas but even still it is just not as often anymore that I get to see his alter ego.  It has been a super long time since he has been any kind of super hero.  I really miss those days because it has been such a big part of him for such a long time.  I hate to see it go.  I got a glimpse tonight of my sweet boy and his alter ego.  Tonight it was ROBIN!  I know that because of the green feet.  I didn't get to see the rest of the costume because Carter always puts real clothes on top of his costumes so he can hide his true identity!  Oh how I wish they could just stay little!

Hangers Oh Hangers!

Hangers OH hangers where do you go?  I have bought 60 hangers for the boys in the last 3 weeks.  A few weeks ago when I was doing laundry I had to go get hangers because there weren't enough to finish hanging their clothes up and again today, I bought 30 more.  I haven't used them all yet from today but it will be close when I get finished with all their clothes.  I have no idea what is happening because they haven't gotten any new clothes since Christmas.  I have had all the laundry done every week and just recently has this started to happen.  I mean I can understand a few get broken here or there but really, 60???   I am sure this happens to everyone, along with the elusive missing socks?  I can't blame hangers on the drier eating them though!  It is just mind boggling to have that many missing or broken, maybe the clothes are multiplying in the wash!  Whatever it is maybe 60 will cover it!

6 months later....

SIX months ago, we went furniture shopping.  We were overwhelmed by the cost of the stuff we liked and didn't have a clue how we were ever going to be able to afford it but luckily my husband is a master researcher.  He found that Lack's furniture in Tyler has a 6 month, same as cash layaway plan.  So we went and found something we liked and stared making our payments.  I have been so busy over the past 6 months I haven't even thought about it much.    Yesterday, when he got home from work, he had a big yellow receipt in his hand and it had a ZERO balance!  We had to wait to pick it up until today because they close at 6:00 and we had to have time to hook the trailer up and get there.  It looks so nice!  Now I just need to find a big rug!

Bows for my Favorite girl in the world!

I have been making bows for Makayla for a few weeks now.  I am going to see her tomorrow and I can't wait until she sees all of her bows!  She really loves them and she loves her Aunt Windy and I love her!  Some of her new bows look like butterflies and lady bugs!