My almost 2 year olds!

I can't belive that in less than a month, these two are going to be two!!

I just can't belive that I'm about to have 2 year olds, really, where has the time gone?!?

Avery is such a girly, girl! She loves to dress up and wear jewelry, her most favorite though are these mardi gras beads! And notice the tooth brush she's holding in her hand, she's a little obsessed with toothbrushes lately!

She loves wearing these goggles from their tool bench. Everytime she puts them on she comes over to me and says, "pitcha, pitcha" (picture) and then, "cheeese," wanting me to get the camera out and take her picture.

She loves these "little people" she likes to fill up her purse or backpack with as many as she can stuff in and carry them around. So cute!

Some of the cute things Avery is saying these days are:

-"Oh my goodness" anytime there is a mess on the floor, or something dramatic happens

-"there ya go" she stared repeating this after I would say it (I guess I never realized how much I said "there ya go") now she says it all the time...it's so cute!

-"Oh, no man" which is her version of saying, "awww, man"

-she says, "ohhhh" in a very long, drawn out way whenever I've explained something to her.

-and she loves to tattle on her brother. Any time I ask her who did it, or who made this mess she says, "bubby did it." She's a little snitch!

She also loves to get her nails painted. Here is aunt TT painting her nails.

And of course, Carson had to get his done too (which daddy was less than thrilled about :)

Carson, my sweet wild man!

He loves to wear anyone and everyone's sunglasses!

He still loves to swing! We haven't been swinging as much in this horrible month of August, but he still gets out there as much as he can!

Here he is after falling asleep swinging!

Carson is obsessed with Shane's truck. He talks about it all the time. Every white truck we see when we're driving around, he'll point to and say, "daddy's shruck" (and every red truck we see is "papa's shruck"). When Shane is out of town I'll ask Carson where daddy is and he'll say, "daddy, airmane, shruck" (daddy, airplane, truck) because I guess he figures that wherever daddy is, his truck must be there too! Sometimes he'll grab a bag or a purse and put in on his arm and start waving at me and saying, "bye-bye mommy" and when I ask him where he's going he says, "daddy's shruck" The boy loves his daddy (and his truck :)

His other great loves right now are light switches and the microwave. He wants me to hold him up to the light switches so that he an flip them on and off. When he's not asking to play with the lights, he wants to be held up to the microwave so he can push the buttons and wait for it to, "beep, beep." (which is what he calls it)

I have such a hard time getting a good smiling picture these days.
Everytime they see the camera they start making their silly cheese face.

But every once in a while I get a good sweet smile!

I also wanted to share a few pictures from the summer, that I never got around to posting.

Here is Carson and Shane swinging at our friends the Hammonds house.

They have the best backyard swing!

And here are some fun pictures of Carson and Avery eating some watermelon outside!

I love this "surprise" face he makes, so cute!

Beautiful girl!!

I can't believe that the summer is just about over!

I'm getting so excited about my most favorite season, the Fall, yay!!

Fun Getaway!!

Last week I tagged along with Shane on his work trip to New York City. It was so much fun, and a much needed little vacation for me!

We stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria. It was so nice!

Friday morning I got up early and went over to the Today Show. I love the Today show, and was so excited to go see it!

The Today Show was having one of their "summer concerts in the plaza." Train was playing, it was packed!

I was standing in the street behind a fence thing, so this is all I got to see of the concert, but it was still fun to see it all! 

I walked over to Central Park one day and sat in the park and read, it was so fun!

I am always so amazed by this beautiful park sitting right in the middle of this huge city!

So pretty!

While Shane was working, I did a lot of walking around, a little shopping, and a lot of dessert eating! Yes, I ate chocolate like I'm pregnant (which I'm not :) I really enjoyed myself!!

I went to Serendipity for a frozen hot chocolate, so good!!

And went to a place we saw on the food network called Max Brenner for Chocolate pizza, it was amazing!!

Friday night Shane and I went to see Jersey Boys, it was fantastic!! Such a great show!!

After the show we went back to Max Brenner for yes, some more dessert :) We got the fondue and it was so good!!

Then we headed over to Central Park for a 1:00am carriage ride through the park. Shane and I got engaged here, so the carriage ride is alway so special to us! It was such a perfect time to take the carriage ride, we were the only ones out there, so peaceful! With hurricane Irene on it's way into town, we had to pack as much as we could into just a couple of nights.

And then we passed the LOVE sign on our walk back to our hotel that night, so perfect!!

I was supposed to come home Sunday night, but hurricane Irene changed all of that. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen, this big city basically shutting down. Shane was able to get us on a flight out Saturday morning. There was so much hype, and everything was closing that we just decided to go ahead and come home. We were on one of the last flights out of La Guardia before the place closed, it was crazy, I've never seen so many cancelled flights on one screen!

Despite the hurricane, we had a great time. Shane had to work a lot, but we had a couple of fun date nights, and it was so nice to just be away for a while!

Some Old School Entertainment

Last weekend, Shane busted out his old school Nintendo... like the original one from the 80's and I couldn't believe it, the thing still worked.

Carson and Avery were fascinated!

They were really excited about playing video games... I think we're in trouble!

And of course, Carson quickly turned his controller into a phone, so cute!!

Here is one more picture of all 3 of my children playing Nintendo together. Shane said he needed to "show" Carson and Avery how to play... uh-huh!! I think he and Avery make the same "concentration face"

Napmat project!

Carson and Avery are starting mother's day out in just a couple of weeks, so I decided to dust the cobwebs off my sewing machine (that I haven't used since I fisnished my quilt) and make them some napmats.

I found these waterproof mats at Target that were the perfect size.

And after a LOT of cutting, pinning, and sewing....

here is the final result!!

I was so excited with how they turned out!

I've seen some napmats with attached pillows, but my kids don't really sleep with a pillow yet so I decided not to add the extra work :) The mat is thicker at the top end, so I guess that is supposed to be like a pillow.

The top blanket is attached and just pulls back for them to cover up with.

It rolls up nicely for transport.

I made the back with an open flap (kinda like on a pillow sham) so that I can take the mat out to wash the cover.

Avery loves hers!! Carson wouldn't even lay on his long enough for me to take a picture, which doesn't make me too hopeful that he is going to actually take a nap of this thing!

Woodlands Weekend

Last weekend we went down to The Woodlands to visit Grand-D!

The Woodlands has so many fun things for kids to do, and Grand-D had a lot of stuff planned for us!

We spent Saturday morning at the YMCA pool.

This was the neatest pool, with lots of water slides and dumpbuckets.

Carson and Avery loved it, once they warmed up to it.

Shane spent the whole time playing horsey, which is their most favorite game to play these days. He must have made 20 laps around the pool saying, "neigh" the whole time. Such a good daddy!

My sweet girl!

Running though the sprinklers.

Carson, sporting Grand-D's hat.

Saturay afternoon, we went to the Woodlands Childrens Museum.

It had so many fun activities and stations for the kids to play in.

Carson was in heaven when he found the truck. His most favorite thing to do right now is "drive," and his most favorite thing to talk about is "daddy's truck." Everytime we get in the car he wants to sit in the front seat and play with the steering wheel and all the buttons, so this was perfect for him!

There was a cute little grocery store where the kids could shop for groceries and then pay for them. Here is Carson at the ATM :)

This picture makes me smile. Avery has been so into her stuffed animals and babies lately. She pushed this little grocery cart over to the puppet station and loaded all the puppets into her cart. So cute, and she was so proud of heself!

Sunday morning we went over to another playground area before heading home.

They got to play in the fun sprayground area,

and then headed over to the park to play.

They were worn out for the car ride home.

Saturday night we met up with our sweet friends Jordan and Kristen (our matchmakers back in college) and their kids for dinner at my favorite restaurant in The Woodlands, Guadalajaura (not sure if I spelled that right :). It was so good to see them!

Family pic with Grand-D.

Thanks for a fun weekend Grand-D!