Fun Weekend with Family in Tejas!

After seeing some friends in the Dallas area, we went to Granbury to Oliver and Ellen's house for Texas Grammy's Summer Camp. It was our first time to see their place in Granbury. It's really a neat place. We got there Friday afternoon and enjoyed a dip in the pool and a tour of the place by golf cart. There were so many people staying at Oliver's so we had a hotel at the clubhouse. At first I was bummed we would have to leave early each evening, but I later realized it was great. We were able to leave and get Emma to bed and have a great night of sleep while Maddi and Cade stayed at their house. Saturday morning, we met back at their house for breakfast and then went to a state park with dinosaur tracks. Here we all are sorting out all of our stuff.
I should note that all of these pictures are courtesy of my wonderful momma. We took our little camera since the big one is breaking and I never took a single picture with my little camera. Ugh! My mom and Al drove up for the weekend so we could visit with them. Our Texas visit was too short to make it down south this time. I am sooo happy they were able to come up to Granbury to see us!

Maddi is pointing out one of the big dinsaur prints before getting in for a swim at the blue hole.

Cade with his boat, enjoying the blue hole. I didn't plan to swim that day and was glad I didn't after the man next to me told me there were alligator gar in the hole. Yikes! They didn't bother anyone, but I didn't like knowing they were in there.

Emalyn and Daddy contemplating going in for a swim.

Our crew trying to figure who's going in, who's not, etc. After a swim and hanging out for a while, we went out for lunch. It was good Texas food and we enjoyed good company too.

Later that afternoon, the kids painted a shirt. Emalyn really enjoyed this summer camp activity! After her shirt was painted, she painted on paper. She asked to paint every day after that too.

Al and Oliver getting to know each other.

The boys grilling fajitas for dinner. Yummy!

Emalyn being a fussy pants back at the hotel later that night. All I wanted was a picture with her Omie :(

3 of the most special girls in my life!

The next morning, Emalyn wanted to go see Omie after she got dressed.

The kids waiting for me to take them on a golf cart ride. It was fun, fun, fun driving those kiddos around on the golf cart! They loved to go fast and loved the bumps. They would scream and cheer when they liked the ride.

Janet and Sharon came up for a visit Sunday. I am so glad Oliver and Ellen opened their home to my family as well as Janet. We are lucky that we have such wonderful and loving families. We enjoyed some time visiting together while the rest of the crew was on a river float/walk. The river is really low so they said it was more of a walk than floating, but they still had a good time. Even Emalyn floated and had fun!

Uncle Todd and Cade. I pray we get to move back to Texas...soon! My kids love being around Todd and I know he loves it just as much. He's such a good guy and has such a great sense of humor.

Omie with 3 of her 9 grandchildren.

Omie and Al with the kiddos!

Maddi, Cade and Emalyn with all of their grandparents. This is the first time in Emma's life that she's had all of her grandparents in one place. I think everyone might have been all together for Maddi or Cade's dedication at church, but I can't remember. I know they were all together at Joel and Sara's wedding, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get a picture of them all. Lucky kids with grandparents who love them so much!

The 5 McDonald cousins.

All of the McDonald grandparents and grandchildren.

Grammy with her 5 grandchildren. Sara is expecting again. She has miscarried the last two pregnancies, so we are praying that this will be a healthy pregnancy for her. She's due in April. If things go as they have in the past, they will have a little girl. So far we had Maddi and Cade 21 months apart and then they had Grace and Will 21 months apart. Now they just need a little girl and we will be the same!

My little monkey boy climing the tree for the big family photo.

Oliver and Ellen with their children and grandchildren. What a crew! The rest of that day was spent swimming, fishing, eating, golf cart riding and hanging out. Monday morning, we spent some time watching deer on the golf cart and then I lost my phone. We spent quite a while searching for it and then Brett and Emma found it. Whew!

We made our way back to DFW later Monday afternoon. While waiting for our flight, we saw this girl get off a plane at the gate we were sitting at. Some people took pictures with her and got her autograph so Maddi decided to get a picture with her too, even though we didn't know who she was. Turns out she's Eryn Wilson and she has a few pretty good songs on her website. I'm curious to see if she becomes a big name. If so, we'll have this picture of her. If not, we'll have a picture of some Lady Gaga wanna be!

Our flight home was smooth and uneventful. We were all glad to be back at our house, but a little sad to leave Texas.

A bit of Heaven

We didn't think we were going to make it to Texas this summer, but in the end, we were able to squeeze it in right after Cade's birthday but before school started! Going back to Dallas and seeing friends and family is like a bit of heaven for us. We had a late flight on Tuesday evening. Here we are on the plane ready to take off at 9:25 p.m. Emalyn was very excited!

Unfortunately, we didn't actually leave. Instead, we had to get off the plane because of bad weather in Dallas. This little one was a trooper. She was probably 5 minutes from falling asleep, but instead, she stayed awake the whole time we waited to hear if we would get the green light to reboard and leave at 11:00 p.m.

Cade man was tired too, and tried falling asleep at the airport. He never fell asleep, but he fell asleep as soon as we took off at 11:00!

Maddi was wide awake while we waited. She is the night owl of the group!

We finally landed at 1:00 a.m. Emalyn slept the entire flight and stayed asleep when we moved her to the stroller. She even turned around in it like she was on her belly. What a trooper! We drove through the scariest storms I can remember and were releived when we finally made it to Kim's house after 3:00 a.m.

Wednesday morning, we met Joel, Sara, Grace, Will and Janet at Gattitown. I only got these two pictures from our time there, but trust me, we all had a great time!

I think Brett enjoyed the bumper cars as much as the kids!

We stayed at Kim and Michael's house and had such a great visit with them. The kids LOVED their house. Emalyn found a new love of pop guns. Cade showed her how to use it and she told me how to use it about 50 times. She was so cute, she's say "you pull this back and then you POP it! Do you want to try?" I thought about getting Emalyn her own popgun until I saw Cade with a popgun. He'd drive me crazy with it, so no popgun little Emma. Sorry!

Kim's kids were out of town with Dan, but Dusti and Mike brought Zach, Gavin and Reese and our kids loved playing with them. Maddi was playing dress up with the Emalyn and Reese and then Kim introduced Maddi to her closet. Maddi had a blast trying on Kim's middle and high school dresses. Here she is in Kim's prom dress!

We all got a good laugh at Maddi in Kim's candy corn costume from a few years ago. Nice! We used to all dress up in Kim's clothes in college and now our little girls are doing the same thing. How fun!

I was soooo happy to see my bffs. We had a great night hanging with our fams at Kimmy's. Les is trying to move back to Texas and we are too. Hopefully one day we will all be together again.

After a few nights at Kim's, we went to stay a night with the Balls. Their new house was beautiful and we had a lot of fun visiting with them.

Emma and Ellie had just seen each other at our house the week before, so they played together awesome. The day we were leaving, Emma and Ellie were outside when Molly, their dog, got sprayed by a skunk! When Brett went to get the girls inside, Molly ran inside and rubbed on their couch and rug. Their house smelled HORRIBLE! I was glad we were leaving to get on the road but felt terrible for them that they had that smell in their house. They were able to buy some products at Home Depot to get the smell out. I'm sure they were so relieved!

After leaving the Balls, we met up with the Laird's for lunch. No pictures from that, but it was so good to see them. Hayden was there too, which was great. He's 16 and a junior in high school. We've known him since he was about 2 years old! It's always so good catching up with old friends. After lunch, we made our way to Granbury for Texas Grammy's summer camp. Pics from that coming soon....

Modeling Maddi

My posts are out of order, because this actually happened the day of Cade's birthday, but I'm not sure how to change the order of posts. Anyway...our neighbor is the store manager for a Sears near us. His daughter, Abby, was modeling in the back to school fashion show and she invited Maddi to do it with her too. Maddi was THRILLED to be modeling and it was fun to watch her. I left Cade's party early so I could see both of her shows. When I got there, she was just coming out of the dressing room and she was getting her tags cut from her clothes.

She did her own hair, but they did her make up and picked out her outfit.

Getting lined up for the first show!

Maddi and Abby! Abby got to model a school uniform and another outfit. It pays to have your dad as the store manager :)

Maddi had a great time. Before the show, Abby's dad took them on a tour including the behind the scenes of Sears and Maddi really enjoyed that. She had a lot of questions for Adam. We certainly miss the Ball Family, but the Key's family who moved in their house is such a nice family too.

And here comes Maddi on the runway...

...work it girl.

A very pretty girl, if you ask me. What's even better is her inner beauty!

Maddi had so much modeling, that she was asking me afterwards how she can do more fashion shows and modeling.

All of the models after the first show! Some, I think most of them, were from an agency. What a fun experience for Maddi! You did great Maddi girl. So proud of you!

A Big Day

I still need to post pictures of our trip to Texas, but I didn't take many pictures and need to get some from my momma. We had a great trip to Texas and got back late Monday night. Tuesday, the kids enjoyed hanging out with friends while I did laundry and today, Wednesday, they started school! This pretty little girl started Junior High today! I really feel like I was just taking her to kindergarden. She was excited about moving on to a new school and I think this is the first year she didn't cry and freak out the night before school started. It went to easy and smooth, I was waiting to hear that something went horrible at school. In the few minutes I saw her after school, before she went to a friends house, she said she had a good day.

I can't wait to hear the details about her day, but I am so happy for her that she is with friends and not having to rush off to dance right now :) I hope this is a great year for my Maddi girl.

Emalyn is going to miss her sissy while she is at school. She even asked me once today what time Bubba and Sissy were coming home from school.

My three kiddos are all getting so big and I am so proud of each of them.

Cade in 5th grade, Emalyn starts preschool in two weeks, and Maddi in 6th grade. I seriously never imagined we'd still live here for my kids to go to Junior High here, but I also never imagined we'd have a little one and would be starting this whole preschool thing again. I know God has a plan for all of us and I'm just along for this fun ride!

When I look at these three, I see me and Brett and other family members all wrapped together. They each have their own little personalities and looks and I can't imagine them any other way. I love you all so much!

Maddi met up with our neighbor, Abby, and Jane came over too before school. Amazingly, Maddi was the calm one in the group. The other girls seemed very worried and Maddi was filled with excitement. Jane's mom ended up driving them to school. I'll admit, it was hard for me to not walk with Maddi to school but I know she's growing up and this is good for her (and me).

Maddi starts school at 8:00 and Cade starts at 8:30 this year. I got a few pictures with Cade and Emalyn and then Emma and I walked Cade to school. I'm glad someone still needs me :) Emalyn had her backpack filled with 5 puppy dogs and she walked the whole way to and from school. This was a first because she would usually tire out and have to be carried. I guess they are all growing up.

This is what it looks like around here on the first day of school. It's like a parade of kids and parents walking to and from school. This really is a great neighborhood and we have a great location being so close to the school and the clubhouse.

Cade saw several friends along the way. Cade was excited for school and was happy to see his friends again. He missed meet the teacher night because we were in Texas, but he didn't mind a bit. He only knew of 2 kids in his class but he didn't mind that either. He figured he knows all of the kids in his grade by now so he didn't care who was in his class, really. He has a ton of friends and I think boys are just so much easier in that way.

This boy, Sam, is in Cade's class and they go to the junior high for 6th grade Honors math together. The highlite of Cade's day was going to 6th grade math and finding out they get to use ipads for math. I imagine by the time Emalyn is in grade school, each kid will have their own ipad :) This is pretty cool...Cade is in Liam Ford's math class and Liam's little brother and Cade's bff, Jack, goes to Cade's class for math and Jack sits in Cade's seat. Small world.

This is Cade's teacher, Mrs. Fleagle. He seems happy with her and from what I know of her, I like her. I hope Cade will have a great year!

I went to parent orientation for Emalyn's preschool last night. She goes to meet the teacher on Monday. She is very excited about going to school and I am excited for her and for me :)