A First Grader

Kade has been counting down the days until school starts. He's been so so so excited! 

Maybe we're over the top but you'll just have to get over it. We document things like this. 

Deal. with. it. 

But Wait! There's More!

We had lots more happen in our last month. I guess I just got lazy in my last post. 

Our friend Janine came into town with her three daughters. They recently moved to Sherman, TX which is about 4 hours north of us. We tried our best to show them a little bit of Austin. 

We went to Sound and Cinema movie in the park and Aaron and I had delicious sliders from The Peached Tortilla. Seriously. Yum. 

Raiders of the Lost Arc was the movie. We stayed for a bit and then headed over to the colorful splash pad for the kids to play. Then we took them to Gourdough's. Janine loves donuts so we had to take her there. I couldn't let her come all the way to Austin and not try Gourdough's donuts. 

The next day we took the kids to a splash pad, just a few miles away from our house. Then we headed to Williamson County park to take the kids on a little train ride. 

With 6 kids ages 6 and under and the hot sun, we got pretty beat. We headed back to the house to relax and play at home. 

The next morning, we relaxed. We let the kids play and Janine made yummy cookies with the kids. 

We had so much fun having them visit! We love visitors!

Last Saturday, Kade had baseball tryouts. They say tryouts but really it's more of a skills assessment, then the coaches have a draft. We met Kade's coach at his first practice this week and he seems great! Kade really likes him and I think he'll do a good job teaching Kade to be a better ball player. During the tryouts Aaron and Tadd decided to take pictures of each other. 

During the school year, the school districts do a reading program. If the student reads a certain number of hours, he/she gets a free ticket to Six Flags. Welp, Kade got his free ticket!

Aaron and I decided this would be a great opportunity to have some one on one time with him. He's tall enough to go on real roller coasters so we all got to have a lot of fun!

He was so excited all day! 

Below was the first big roller coaster of the day. 

He really wanted to go on the big one. The Iron Rattler. And we did it. It has a pretty big/steep drop right at the beginning. I definitely screamed.

It was probably the most intense roller coaster I've been on in a long, long time. 

As soon as it ended I looked at Kade. He looked terrified, white in the face. I asked him if it was too scary and he nodded... a few minutes later he was smiling and exclaimed, "I wanna do that again!" He got over the fear pretty quickly. He clearly wasn't expecting it to be so intense. I honestly wasn't either. I think if I had gone on it before he had... I wouldn't have let him ride. But he loved it. And to this day, if you ask him what his favorite ride was... "Iron RATTLER!"  

He wanted to ride some of the smaller kiddie rides so that's what we did. It was a day of fun for him. 

We went on some water rides, to help cool us down. Kade thought those were hilarious. 

While Aaron was getting our dinner, Kade wanted to go on the swings. This was the first part of the day that I became nauseated. But the kid loved it. During the ride, he looked back after I took the pictures of him. He got so worried! He yelled at me to put my phone away so I wouldn't drop it. He's such a responsible kid. Love him!

We had so much fun trying to get on as many rides as possible and soak up one of the last Saturdays of the summer. 

Last night, Kade and I went on our annual back to school date. Just the two of us. We went school shopping, school supply shopping and out to dinner. He kept chanting that his mom is awesome. Then today he told me over and over, "Mom, I loved our date." I hope he loves our dates forever! When we were taking our picture, he told me he wanted to take one with him kissing me on the cheek. Obviously I'm not going to say no to that! He so excited to start 1st grade!

Our Month in Review

We've had a lot of little stuff happen this month, but nothing big enough to warrant it's own post. So here's a collection of photos from our most recent happenings. 

We went to the Snake Farm with Amy's family. It's about an hour and a half from our house. I held a snake. The boys wanted to hold it so bad but kids weren't allowed to. It was such a cool little place. 

There are so many animals here! It's like a zoo, but better. We got to watch them feed the hyenas, the wolves and the mountain lions. Then we just walked around and looked at all the other animals and birds that they had!

Kade wanted to hold the bunny so badly. But the bunny wasn't old enough to be held so he settled for petting it. He also got to feed some tortoises. 

Tadd was terrified of the petting zoo area. I don't have a clue as to why, but he hated it. He wouldn't let Alex put him down. 

This kid cracks me up. Why he is screaming at the animals... no clue. He was loving walking around with them, but every once in a while he would scream at them. He makes me laugh every day.

We headed up to Fort Worth again. Aaron's cousin David was in town with his new wife Sarah and his daughters. Aaron and David were really close growing up but since adulthood it's a rare occasion that they get to see each other so we took advantage of the opportunity to go spend time with his family! We are so glad we did! We got to meet Sarah, she's so wonderful! We absolutely loved spending time with them!

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. That's a pretty big deal, but we just went to dinner so there's not much to post. We went to Pappadeaux, a seafood restaurant. It was so delicious! Afterward we drove around downtown Austin, just exploring. 

When driving around we spotted this awesome splash pad that we knew we needed to bring the kids back to. 

So a week later we took the kids back. Such a cool little splash park. The boys LOVED it! The lights are constantly changing. 

That's all for now. There will be more to post soon enough.