Picture Time!

I will fully admit I am a picture-a-holic. I LOVE PICTURES... I love seeing my own daughter not to mention family and friends children grow and change over time. So once again we set out for pictures since we had a cousin from out of town visiting. This time it was Pop Pop's idea for pictures again, but like I would object. Every time we do this I ask my husband why... it's so tiring and it hurts to think of what pictures I want and who to send them too. And each time I ask my husband tells me jokingly (I hope). Just don't do it anymore. But we all know I will. It must be like giving birth... a lot of pain involved but with time you forget just how much and will do it again. So here are the results of our 2+ hours getting portraits taken. All children even baby Kendall were great! Such troopers.. the popcorn and soda bribe didn't hurt either.

Kendall... okay come on.. this is too cute... I mean

couldn't you just kiss this face to death?

My baby girl.. not so much baby anymore.. and yes

I have tried to kiss this face to death.

Jessica... oh so grown up looking. She is just so pretty it's not fair.

What a weekend...

We had an awesome time at the coast this weekend. It wasn't nearly long enough though. We couldn't really take time off work so we left Sat. Morning and came back Sunday evening. We managed to pack in a lot of stuff in that time. We had good friends with us and we laughed and relaxed and just enjoyed ourselves. I love the ocean/gulf/bay whatever you want to call it. The sound of the waves crashing and the tide coming in are so calming and hypnotic to me. I so want to go back soon. Hopefully we can get time off from work and stay for a longer time. I'm content to just sit on the beach... well as long as I have my SPF 50+. I was not blessed with the ability to tan... so I need the old sunscreen. But other than sunburn... I love the beach!

We also love the aquarium... I would get a season pass if I lived closer. I love to watch the fish and sea life. I could stay and watch the dolphin show over and over. It's just a very nice place to take kids and have fun while learning. If you ever make it down to Corpus Christi you really should try and make time to go. The USS Lexington is there too, Danny wants to go on that, but I can't stand the no ventilation in those big ships. But you know... I would go if it were winter and cooler weather.

These were taken at N. Padre Island National Seashore.

We love it here. One of these days I'll make it down to help

the sea turtles. You can volunteer to protect

the turtle eggs. Katherine told me on the beach

that she was going to bring her daughters here

when she gets older. AWWW!

Here is one of the 3 dolphins at the Texas State

Aquarium. I love the aquarium... so much fun and well

I just think the dolphins are too darn cute... the turtles

aren't bad either.

Katherine and Daddy walking on the beach.

I have a picture like this when Katherine

was almost 3. She sure has grown up so much.

Katherine getting her first taste of salt water.

That or hating the sand she got in her shoes.

Here Katherine and "A" are getting splashed,

they were chosen from the audience to

do dolphin sign language... they didn't know they

gave the sign for the dolphin to give them a bath.

A Serval cat... and from Africa... he/she jumped so high,

just right from a standing position. This show

was at the Texas State Aquarium.

Here is a picture of a Ferry Boat taken from the ferry boat we were on.

It's kind of fun and well you never know, the dolphins like to swim with

the ferry boats so every time I cross my fingers I might see a wild

dolphin up close.

If you look closely you can see a dolphin swimming in front of the boat.

They like to chase the boats in the channel.

My pooped out little girl.

My Little Graduate

Today Katherine graduated Kindergarten. She was so cute. She worked very hard on her musical performance and did a wonderful job being on stage and in the front. She didn't even hesitate to walk up on stage to get her diploma in front of a cafeteria full of Kindergarten parents and grandparents.

I couldn't help but think that she has grown up so fast and that in the blink of an eye I will be watching her cross the stage to receive her high school diploma. I am so proud of my baby girl she has learned a lot this year and not just academically. She has learned how to be a friend and share the attention. She has had to deal with friends moving and leaving. She is an amazing girl and I am so blessed to have been given the chance to be her momma!

I love my Hubby!

I love my husband... Last week he took time out to mess with my car. There were some minor things that just bugged me and he finally was able to take care of them plus some.

He took my car into the dealer to get the oil changed. Yes he can change the oil, but it's a pain in the butt to do so the dealer can have the pleasure. I asked him to ask about the dashboard not lighting up all the way and the windshield washer spray would shoot over top of the car instead of on the windshield. He came home and told me they would need the car for a couple days to diagnose the dashboard light and he forgot about the windshield washer sprayer.

So what does my husband do? He replaced the battery, (the dealer wanted to charge him $140 for this plus replacing the windshield wiper blades.) Replaced the burned out light bulb in the dash, replaced the whole windshield sprayer thingies (yes that's a technical term), replaced the wiper blades, rain x'd the windshield, sanded and applied some stuff to make my headlights clear and remove the scratches. So now my car is not "bugging" me anymore.

I am just so glad he is so good with car repairs and that he cares enough to fix the stuff for me. Then again he might be fixing the stuff because if he doesn't I will attempt it. I seem to recall calling him when we were dating telling him I needed to drop the engine or remove the radiator to replace a fan... when he got to my house I was elbow deep in grease and not happy. He bailed me out of my mess then and continues to do so now that we are married. I love my guy!!!

The Start of Summer

Katherine has been waiting all week to swim. So I inflated the pool and filled it up. As luck would have it as soon as I did a thunderstorm hit. We have been in a drought lately so rain is a good thing, but not for a six year old waiting in her swim suit. However the weather cleared enough for about an hours worth of swim time. The dogs added a little mud to the water, and Katherine belly flopped so much that mom at a good soaking too... but it satisfied a little girls urge to swim for the moment.

Grandma's Orange Cake

Okay last week on Mother's day we were visiting Danny's mom. We got to talking and she mentioned she loved orange cake, but hadn't had one in a long time because they quit selling the orange cake mix. Soooo I file this in the back of my brain and think good idea for next week, it's her birthday.

So I let my fingers do the typing and googled orange cakes. I found all kinds of orange cakes but the one that looked the best and had the best ratings was a lemon and orange cake. I didn't want lemon and orange just orange. So I think to myself.. what a wonderful life.. ooops no that's a song. I thought to myself, I'll leave out the lemon and add some orange zest and make my own version of orange cake.

I purchase all the stuff, a yellow cake mix, orange juice, oranges, icing/frosting the cake pans (you can tell I bake cakes sooo often). Then Katherine and I set off to make the cake. She was great... the did most of the work with a little and I stress little help from me. We used orange juice instead of water and then I used the oranges for orange zest and minced/chopped mutilated the zest. Everything went according to plan. I let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes, I then flipped them out onto a cooling rack.. they didn't stick. I cooled them.

Then came the icing/frosting time... as soon as I started that darn top layer broke apart and just went crazy... it was like an earthquake had hit. I have no clue why or what happened. I have never had a cake do that to me. I am not a master baker, but I have made my share of cakes when I lived at home with my parents. I managed a pretty good Pooh cake for Katherine's first birthday and I even made a barbie doll cake for Katherine's third birthday... so why now? Is it the lack of altitude???? The high humidity???? The cosmos playing a cruel joke on me??? Bad Karma???? hmmmm??? I just don't get it. However it did taste great. My mother in law said it happened to her when that cake wasn't cooled first... but my cake was cool, just maybe not cool enough? Oh well... Katherine and I had fun and the thought was there. Tomorrow is my mother in laws birthday, we already gave her the cake, but we'll go down tomorrow to give her her present and say happy birthday on her actual birthday!

My litte Mermaid

Okay... I haven't posted much lately.. but I've been working overtime. Not as much as usual, but still.. almost 20 hrs. a week is alot. I admit I did get a little lazy and didn't go back to work one saturday to finish up my 10 hrs. But hey we had fun and I'm glad I didn't go back.

Anyway... Katheirne loves to swim... well loves the water the swimming part ehhhh not so much. but she is getting better. She is pretty brave with the old floaties on her arms. The above pictures are her first swim of the year. We went to a neighbor's brother pool this past thursday but I left the dang memory card for my camera at home! IRR!

The swim on this past thursday she really got brave, she jumped backwards into the water from the pool steps and actually allowed herself to go all the way under. She jumped from the side of the pool into the water with an innertube... and she let the neighbor boy turn the pool into a wave pool and loved it. I do admit to bad parenting though.. I bribed her with McDonald's chicken nuggets to jump in the pool with the innertube, then told her I didn't see the first time to do it again.

I really am proud of her, she's a girly girl and a big scaredy cat chicken and she's slowly but surely overcoming her fear of getting her head wet. We are still working on overcoming her fear of sleeping in her own bed all night... I'd love for just one week of her not sneaking into our bed around 2 am. But hopefully that will come before high school.