I arrived a bit early to the temple last week for my photo shoot with Andrew. This gave me the rare opportunity to be at the temple with some extra time on my hands. I took advantage of this and snapped a few photos of the temple. It is such a beautiful building with interesting architectural details and gorgeous landscaping. We are so blessed to live so close to it.
I recently had the privilege of photographing Andrew before he leaves on a mission for our church. What better setting than the temple?? He will be serving in the Germany Frankfurt mission.
We first met Andrew and the rest of his family when we moved to The Netherlands. Their boys are close in age to ours, so we became fast friends. Andrew is older than Helmut and Josh, but he was always so good about including them and making them feel accepted. Moving to a new place is hard, but he (and his brothers) made their transition much easier. Good luck Andrew!
I've taken a bit of a sabbatical from this blog as of late. I thought about posting many times over the last month, but laziness got the better of me. I am hoping the rest will give me the renewed vigor and desire I have lacked.
We went to dinner on a Monday night, and this is what we came home to.
Little Helmut's friend, Marley, was asking him to the Tomball High School prom (Don't worry. No trespassing was involved. She had contacted me to get permission ahead of time). The yards and yards of string wrapped around the bottom floor led upstairs to this.
144 balloons. Some empty. Some containing a magnetic letter, the kind our kids used to play with on the fridge back in the day. After Helmut and Sam sifted through all the balloons (and Helmut made good use of his hunting knives), they spelled out this.
Such a cute way to ask someone to prom. Prom is this weekend, so I will post pics next week.
Chuy is not allowed on the couch in the living room and he knows it. So I was a bit surprised when I came around the corner and saw this.
He looked at me like, "Ah, please don't make me get off." Evidently, if there is a blanket on the couch and he isn't actually touching the couch, it must not count.
Josh just finished up his JV tennis season last week. He played in the district finals in the men's doubles category. The made it through the first round of 32, but then lost in the round of 16. I really enjoyed watching him play and I think he had a really good time.
Sam is always my sidekick.
Now that he is in the off-season, he is really ramping up his game. He has just switched tennis clubs to get more personal coaching. His new coach requires that his students play in two tournaments a month (one ZAT and one non-sanctioned). So I guess I know where I will be every other Saturday this summer.
We had a great Easter this weekend complete with Easter baskets, family time and beautiful weather. But no egg hunt for us this year. Sam told me she was too old for that, just a basket would do. It made me a bit sad, but I obliged. That does make it easier on me.
Sam and I took our annual Easter dress shopping trip a couple weeks ago and came up with some really cute options. She has become quite picky about what her dresses look like. No full skirts for her, that looks "too babyish". I picked up coordinating ties for the boys. Together, they were adorable. Enough to melt this mom's heart. My babies sure are getting big.
We finished up the night with a fabulous dinner at Sarah's house. The ham, mashed potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce and homemade rolls were perfect. But my favorite part was the coconut lemon curd cake. Yum. Yum. Yum.
You may remember my post about Josh's invitation to the Crimson Cadette Ball. Well the big day came and went...and I am a bit behind on posting to my blog.
I think he had a good time. This is the first formal event either of my boys have attended. It was the first time in my life I have really understood how much boys dislike formal events. It's the dressin' up they don't like. In a world of basketball shorts and comfy t-shirts, they don't like to squeeze into those fitted clothes for an evening of entertainment. Lucky for Josh, once the ball part was over they quickly slipped into more comfortable clothes for the after-fun.
I was able to get some nice pics of Josh and his date while they were still dressed up. They both looked great.
When I was in high school things seemed a bit more simple and straight forward. If a guy wanted to ask a girl to a dance, he did just that, he asked her (or that girl simply asked the guy, which ever that case may have been). He might have asked her face to face in the hallway between classes or by her car in the parking lot after school. If he was the shy sort, he would have worked up his courage to call her on the phone, saying a quick prayer that her dad didn't answer the phone. Because back in my day, we had one phone permanently connected to the wall that we all had to share between the ENTIRE family. Crazy, I know. But this doesn't seem to be the way it works at Cypress Woods High School. They like to be a bit more creative in the asking. Just last week, this appeared in our front yard.
Josh already knew this girl wanted him to attend the Cadette Ball with her, but I suppose this sign made it official. When Josh walked out of the house and discovered the sign, he responded with a double thumbs up as she drove away. I was certain she was expecting a more creative response. A few night later, Josh dropped off a large box at her front door, rang the doorbell and then ran. The box was stuffed with red helium balloons and one gold helium balloon with "YES" written on it. So when she opened the box, all the red balloons flew up out of the box and the gold balloon just floated up and stopped. It must have worked, because she loved it.
Stay tuned for pictures of Josh in a tux.
I am constantly trying to come up with new interesting and exciting healthy food options to entice my children with (and to be honest, myself as well). Our favorite healthy snack de jour is orange slices. It reminds me of the oranges my mom used to send in our sack lunches in elementary school. And they don't look half bad sitting on the kitchen counter.
