Moody Cotton Festival and a few more things...

Elijah pushing Joaquin around on the tricycle in MiMi's driveway. He is such a good big brother, always helping Joaquin and teaching him how to do things.

Daddy and the boys at the Moody Cotton Festival

and, Joaquin is ready for his close up, please...

My attempt at getting the boys to take a picture with me in front of the bounce playground

MiMi and the boys playing the musical instrument at the zoo playground

Elijah and Joaquin at the Waco zoo sitting on the giant snake at the kids play area

Elijah saying "cheese" for the camera. He knows the camera means he should say "cheese" but for some reason when he says cheese it doesn't really look like he is smiling; it looks like he is talking! (Since of course, he is!) Whoever made up that "say cheese" thing was an idiot! It doesn't work at all unless you tell them "say cheese and FREEZE like that!"

playing with MiMi's hat

This is what happens when Ian tries to put the boys in the tub at night. They all play around on mommy and daddy's bed until the tub is full of water. The boys think it is hilarious to run around with their T-shirts on their heads when they are taking their clothes off for the bath!

And of course, every little boy loves to tackle and wrestle with daddy.

Reading daddy's book together on a Saturday morning.

I love my little nudie booties swimmin' around in the tub!

Joaquin is not camera shy :)

Elijah LOVES to wear his big boy underwear; however, he does NOT like to use the potty. So, mommy has resorted to setting the microwave timer for 30 min. and every 30 min. we go sit on the potty. Of course, as soon as Elijah puts on his big boy underwear, Joaquin wants to join in. So, he gets to wear the big boy underwear over his diaper during the day time when Elijah is potty-training and wearing his own big boy drawers. :)

This is the boys favorite Waco zoo activity...playing in the water! We have season passes so some days we just go in our swimsuits and water socks to play in the fountains. This time MiMi joined in on the action. Joaquin loves to slap the water around with his hands, while Elijah loves to stop out the fountains.

Every year after the cotton harvest, my parents little town of Moody, TX, has a Cotton Festival. There is a parade in the morning and lots of booths and play areas set up in the downtown all day. The kids dance around to the live music, ride pony's, bounce in the bounce houses, smack each other over the head with confetti eggs and the like while the parents buy small town cookbooks, welded art pieces, homemade candles and such. It is always such a fun day. Mom runs the pie contest and auction every year and dad helps set up the parade and booths. This was the first year, though, that the boys really got to enjoy the parade and festivities! They had a blast!

Nashville

Last weekend Ian watched the boys and I took a special little flight out to Nashville! My close friend Carolyn has been living out there for a couple years now and it was the first chance (between all the pregnancies and newborns) to be able to visit! We had such a wonderful time just hanging out. We actually realized that it had been over 8 years since we had hung out together just the 2 of us!

The first night after I arrived we grabbed some sushi at Whole Foods and went to watch Shakespeare in the Park under the stars. It was so much fun and it was the perfect introduction to the city. The following day we headed out to hear some live music. She had already bought tickets to hear the Civil War, and I fell back in love with going to music shows. There is just something about being in an audience and watching as well as listening to beautiful music!

The next day we drove out to the country a bit and visited the horse, Sam, that Carolyn had been leasing. Then, we headed a couple miles over to a local vineyard, lay out a picnic and lounged the day away in the shade with a beautiful view. We also made sure to get all dressed up one evening and "hit the town", which I am proud to say, when we hit that dance floor we could still groove with the best of them. :)

I also had a chance to meet up with an old friend from Cali, Christi Rush, who had moved to Nashville with her husband a few years prior. It was such a fun filled girls weekend and I soaked up every minute of it! Here are a few pics from my trip.

one of my favorite "guitar as a gun" shots from one of Carolyn's photo shoots we had while I was there

Carolyn's cat, Smudge

being lazy at the vineyard

beautiful view from our picnic blanket

trying to hold the camera and get a good shot

Carolyn in her element

2 year old music man

Elijah is completely into music, as many of you know, but I continue to be amazed at how intrinsically he understands it! He loves anything musical, but lately he has gotten specifically into beats. He asks daddy (and mommy unfortunately) continually to beat-box, always wants to hear the songs with "bass" that his daddy taught him about, and he will sneak into the music room turn on a song on the keyboard and sit down and play the drums to it as often as he can! I tried to catch him on video without him knowing it and I feel like this video doesn't show just how amazing he really is at the drums, but at least you get the idea. Sometimes he is playing so well I can't even tell what is the music in the background and what is him! Is this normal for a 2 year old or do I just have a genius baby? :) (I have mommy bragging rights here!)

Another thing that amazes me regarding Elijah's musical awareness is how he refers to certain songs. His current favorite is the Clark Gable song by the Postal Service. (Hense, the above video...) He always asks me to play the "up and down song". I think that is crazy clever because the music notes do go up and down in the beginning of the song, but I don't know HOW he knows that high notes are "up" and low notes are "down". It's not like he is reading musical notes in his spare time! He just seems to know that higher pitch vs. lower pitch is similar to the understanding of what high and low mean! I'm so impressed! This is the kind of stuff that makes it so fun just to watch your kid grow and blossom! They continue to amaze us!

Monique's Visit

Every summer since Ian and I moved to Texas Monique has come to visit. Monique was a student of mine when I taught Freshman Honors English back in California. She also lived close to our old apartment so we would take her to school with us sometimes. We have all grown close through the years and now that she is a Senior at Stanford, it was our last big hurrah summer visit. (Unless she goes to law school out here :))

It has been a fun tradition every year to revisit our favorite restaurants and try to find something new that we haven't done before. So this time, we took her tubing on the Guadalupe River, to the Alamo Drafthouse, and down to the Riverwalk in San Antonio. We had a blast together and it is such a nice excuse for Ian and I to get off our booties and take advantage of all the fun things this area has to offer. Funny, how when you live somewhere you get so complacent to all that is around you. (I guess we did the same thing when we lived by the beach in Cali!) Anyway, here are a few pictures from our time together. We took pictures with underwater throw away cameras on the river but I haven't had time to scan in the pics, so these are from the rest of the week.

Joaquin, Ian and Monique on the Riverwalk

Eating out...lots of Tex-mex!

Daddy was showing the boys this huge bear outside the chocolate factory.
They LOVED him!

Trying to get a picture of the fam on the riverwalk

Daddy and Joaquin on the grounds of the Alamo

We are an official Texan family

"Visit the Alamo" - you can check that one off your list, Monique


Monique,

We love you and are so grateful you came to visit!- Rachel and Ian and the boys