Weekend Blessings

Our weekends this year have been full, but they've been full of blessings! Whether at a baseball game, a 4-H contest, a family outing, or a church sacrament celebration, these weekends have been filled with precious memories to treasure in our hearts. This photo shoot was from a hike at the state forest one Saturday evening in March.

The rest of these photos were taken by Mary Clare, in preparation for photo contests for 4-H this spring. She did an amazing job!

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

I'm not sure I can top the very pretty pictures from the All Saints celebration in the country, but here are a few photos from the past few weeks...

This week was the first Nature Club we were able to attend.  The classes are free and are held at a newish nearby nature center.

 We went down to the pond area where we had the great privilege of searching through pond water to find and identify the different critters that might be living there.  They had started with a classroom lesson about invertebrates.

{happy}

Well, it's not perfect, but I'm happy we got a decent family photo a few weeks ago at Steven's sister's house.  I'm hoping to gear up for a family shot for our Christmas cards soon.  This was a good trial run.  My plan includes: bribery, good weather, and coordinating clothes for Mass (not intentional on this day, but once I noticed it, I made the one clashing child change clothes!).

I'm not sure where this photo came from of this happy little cherub, but I like it.  Today a friend told me she looks like the children in the books illustrated by Eloise Wilkin,  which made me smile because she is one of my favorite illustrators of children's literature.  I love all those Little Golden Books!  And I love this sweet little angel with all my heart!

{funny}

Here are all the kids working together to make some chocolate chip cookies.

They may have eaten more cookie dough than was baked,

but I think they had fun!

{real}

A real moment with four of our crazy kiddos!

Thanks for visiting!  I finally took some photos of our house today, now that we are almost fully unpacked, so I'm hoping to do a little house tour soon!

{pretty, happy, funny, real} A Nature Walk

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Last week we went on an evening stroll down a nearby trail that leads to the bay.  We didn't make it all the way to the bay since the sun was setting, but we enjoyed our evening outing.  So why don't you all come along with us on our little walk?

All photos taken with my new camera lens  

(still working in Auto or Av mode though)

{pretty}

A pretty walk down a nature trail

Baby is on Daddy's back in the Ergo!

 {happy}

 {funny}
Steven has a baby on his back and a very large 3yr old on his shoulders.  Wow!

Katie doesn't look amused.

 

Always funny are our attempts at kid group pics.

{real}

Here's an Instagram shot of the bee swarm Mary Clare found on our way back to the car!  Steven was excited and took the kids back the next evening to see if it was still there (it wasn't).  He can't wait to have a beehive again, but I think we will be waiting until after the move!  Do you remember these videos of him "cutting out" a feral hive?  Crazy!  Here are all our posts about bees for the bee lovers :)

And a real shot of Steven with his big catch from a fishing trip the next day.  Whoa!  He and Mary Clare had it for dinner last night.  

It was quite a full weekend,with hikes, beach outings, fishing trips, swimming, and a trip to a small water park.  This weekend will be a swim meet and preparations for an upcoming week in Houston.  The summer is off to a fun, but busy start!

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Botanical Gardens, Aggie Game, and Catch-ups!

 

~Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life~

Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter

Please excuse my long catch-up post!

{pretty} 

 A few weeks ago was our first St. Francis Nature Club at the local Botanical Gardens.  We hadn't visited since around April.  The bugs were bad and it was still really hot, but it was so nice to get out of the house that day.  I've had quite a bit of cabin fever the past few weeks.

 

By Mary Clare...

I love this one of her helping them down the stairs.  He's concentrating so hard with his tongue out!

Lunch time!  Why can't my kids sit on the benches?  They always want to be ON the table!

This poor tree is irresistible to the kids!

I think these were by Ellie

My cute crew!  Hopefully we'll get to make a couple more Nature Club visits before baby arrives!

{happy}

On October 19th, we took the kids to College Station on the Texas A&M/Auburn game day!  I'd been wanting to go for a game weekend, and our last game we attended was 5 years ago.  So we walked the campus, watched the Corps march-in, saw a few old students (my FIRST graders are now COLLEGE FRESHMEN!), and went to our church's big Tailgate party!  It was a great day, except Steven came down with food poisoning halfway through :(  Poor Daddy!

Here are the kids under the famous Century Tree

In front of the Academic Building by "Sully"

The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band!  Whoop!

The Corps of Cadets March On.  Steven was a member of the Corps, so he suggested going to watch this.  It was like a long parade! 

Reveille, our mascot

Steven and Steven :)  I can't believe we didn't get photos with my old students or our Aggie Catholic friends at the tailgate!

Checking out the horses of the Parson's Mounted Calvary, of which Steven was a member.  None of the same horses ~18 years later!

One more of our Aggie kids!

And of course the day wouldn't be complete without a trip to St. Mary's, where we met and were married :)

{funny}

This is how crazy our car rides are!  And this was before Daddy got sick and Mommy had to man the wheels.  Always an adventure!  We'll be maxed out in Daddy's car once baby arrives!

We sat down to watch the Corps and looked next to us to see a friend and fellow homeschooler from The Woodlands whose oldest son is a fish in the corps!  Small world!

Road trips almost always include a gas station stop.  Tommy picks out powdered donuts every time and eats the whole tray in a couple minutes!

 {real}

Here are some other little "real" moments of the past couple weeks, too.  iPhone pics...  

With the boys at Academy.  Lots of fun :-P

 Morning games...

Afternoon games...

I noticed MC had gone through all the newborn girl clothes and sorted and labeled them <3 br="">

The extent of our Fall/Halloween decorations.  Not really my favorite season, but maybe one day I'll get a few more things to please the kids!

Cole Park fun with the boys while the girls were at Nutcracker practice and Daddy was hunting.

Funny photos found on my phone...

And lastly, a real moment that makes me cry.  Some of our dearest friends here who were also transplants have moved back to Washington State.  I am so very sad to see them go, but happy for them that they're back home again.

We went to give some goodbye hugs yesterday at another friend's house where they were staying.  One of theirs was napping and another friend joined in the photo here.  The B family and our B family actually both have 2 girls and then 2 boys (but theirs are ages 6 and under), and they're also expecting #5.

Tommy and their little guy W are too funny.  They wanted to take the picture with their eyes closed.

And these two got into quite a bit of mischief.  They had quite a few "weddings" and lots of silly games!  We'll miss sweet little C and all her siblings.

Okay, that's enough before I start crying again.  I'm really homesick and emotional these days.  If you made it this far, thanks for tagging along while I caught up on photos.  Of course I'm still behind on the Disney recap, but I think I might have the rest of our September and October days covered.  Yay!

Hope you've had some pretty, happy, funny, and real moments in your lives this week!