One little picture

Okay, so I finally found my camera cord...but now there are so many cute pictures I couldn't possibly choose which ones to post. So for now I'm just going to post one of me and Benjamin since those don't appear on my blog too often. Not much to report from here. Ben's been keeping busy with work and in his spare time we like to keep him busy with Splashtown. We were so proud of Hailey the last time we went because not only does she go down the big slides by herself, but she also will (while wearing a life jacket) do an otherwise unassisted dog-paddle. What a big girl. Hunter on the other hand just likes to jump into the water when no-one is nearby to catch him-he thinks it's funny-and I'm just grateful that the life jacket keeps him up long enough for one of us to grab him. The little monkey.

We're still here.

So I've been putting off posting a new entry until I upload my latest set of pictures. Evidently it's not meant to be. I cannot find the cable for my camera anywhere. So I just wanted to let everyone know that we haven't died and I will try to post some more pictures soon (hopefully).

Has it been a year already?

Yeah, I know some of you are probably thinking it's been a year since I last posted...but no, that's not what my title is referring to. We have now been Texans for over a year. So howdy. Things are going well. I've been going a little nuts the last few days trying to figure out what color to paint my kitchen. I feel like it really shouldn't be that big of a deal but for some reason I'm really struggling. I bought a $30 can of paint today and now I'm not so sure I like the color (I think it's too green for my tastes...I'm kind of a blue girl...but I'm not sure I like blue paint, go figure). I have to figure it out soon, because I'm determined to get it painted before both sets of my parents show up this weekend (for baby Ellie's blessing at church-that's my brother Matt's new little one). Needless to say, I think I've been driving everyone a bit crazy.

Not the most attractive picture, but you gotta love the self-taken, no make-up look...pretty sure my head isn't actually that misshapen.

Well, the weather has been getting warm and we've been enjoying it on the weekends. We ended up getting season passes to Splashtown-a big waterpark that happens to be about 3 minutes away. The kids are really enjoying it. But so far we only go when daddy can come too-I'm not quite brave enough to take those two out in all that water on my own. But I am so nice that I let them play in the backyard with a tiny kiddie pool. It was great cause I just sat there in my chair and sprayed them with the hose (remind anyone of a scene from Billy Madison??-'who are you mister? why are you doing this to me?'). Here's a couple pics of my bathing beauties:

He's such a stud...isn't he?

Okay, not related to the rest of my post, but this just made me laugh. One day I came upstairs to find Hailey had turned on the TV and was sitting there watching PBS-in the mid-afternoon. Most of you know there really isn't anything interesting on then. So I look at the TV and it is this middle-aged woman sitting on a chair teaching other older women how to do exercies in a chair. Hailey was just sitting there soaking it all in and doing her arm lifts. A few minutes later I came back and asked her if she wanted to turn it off. Her reply, "Um, no, I'm watching Muscle Strengthening. Thanks mom."

Outside fun

We ventured out to these new fountains we had heard of about ten minutes away. The kids loved it. They had so much fun just running around and playing and getting soaking wet...all the things their boring old mom never lets them do... This video is really short but it made me laugh. In case you can't tell, Hunter is running around saying "wa wa" (water), then he sees the camera, and it's an instant, "cheese". Many of my pictures came out blurry sinch the kids were running all around. I guess I'll have to figure out how to use the setting for action shots. We're pretty lucky to have this beautiful weather that we can go out and play in, but it's staring to get hot...

Something

I've been receiving requests for something new on my blog. So let me think of something...nope, I can't-so evidently I'm going to just list a few things we've done lately:

--This morning I re-caulked my shower all by myself-it looks so much better. I'm proud of myself.
--My mom was down last week to visit Matt and Sharon's new baby. It was nice to get to play with her.
--My mom left me a book to read...I started it on Wednesday morning and had it finished by about noon on Thursday. It was like 500 pages, this is especially impressive for me, cause I'm just not a reader. The book was called "Love, Rosie" by Cecilia Ahern. She also wrote "PS, I Love You" (which I read in 3 days time). I really liked these two books and couldn't put them down (my poor kids-hope they didn't feel too neglected). There is a some bad language in the books, but I guess I tuned it out or figured that Irish people must just swear a lot.
--We took my mom and Katie and Megan (Matt's older girls) to the children's museum-the kids loved it. We got stuck in crazy traffic on the way home-even though it was 9 pm because a U-haul had apparently fallen off an elevated lane on the freeway and blocked traffic going the other direction. Creepy.


See, I'm just trying to think of random things to tell whomever might be checking up on us. sorry if it's boring. Here's a little video of my boys at the piano-I just thought it was cute.

--Oh, and I made a lovely cake for last Sunday's dinner over at the Gwilliam's. Pretty??

Newsworthy

I keep waiting for something newsworthy, or some cute new pictures to post...however, nothing is really happening at the Swanson's. Hmm, last week my newest niece Ellie was born. She just happened to come on the same day that I was planning to have a baby shower for her mom, Sharon. Well, since I really had no clue who was invited (someone else passed out invites), we decided to still have the shower without the guest of honor. We had a great turnout-16 guests I think. I made a really good homemade carrot cake (though I obviously need to take a cake decorating class or something). I was sad that Sharon missed it, though it was fun to take her all the presents at the hospital . Ellie is beautiful.

Fun at the park

The kids love going outside to play. When grandma was here we took them to this great park a few miles away. I love the playground there...it is too bad you have to seriously drive through the ghetto to get there...needless to say, I wont take the kids there alone. We had lots of fun.

Hailey loved making cookies with grandma Swanson and wearing her cool apron. Thanks for coming and having so much fun with us grandma!