Visit from Kathryn and Justin

We recently had a visit from our good friends Kathryn, Justin, and their little boy Jackson.  We had a great time hanging out together and swimming.  They are such good friends of ours, and we always have a blast when we are with them.  Haley and Jason came in that Saturday for some fun in the sun and I believe we had all of the kids down for naps at the same time for a bit. What a miracle that was!

 Tanner is trying so hard to get in the float...

And she made it!!

  

Studmuffin!

Scarlett was as happy as she could be in the pack n' play under the tree outside.Jackson's favorite part was splashing in the fountain. 

Sorry for the terrible quality of this photo, but that's us with our kiddos. 

We made it easy on ourselves that night and had pizza for dinner. 

We thought Tanner and Jackson looked so cute in their matching madras shorts

Strawberry Jam and Fruit Roll-Ups

After picking strawberries, Jenn and I had intended to make strawberry jam together. However, since Tanner got sick, I ended up doing mine at home since we had to leave early. It was a process, for sure, but worth it in the end. We have a ton of jam, and Tanner LOVES it!

I made strawberry fruit roll-ups with the remainder of the strawberries. They tasted good, but were a little leathery because my oven wouldn't go down to 150 as the recipe called for. I cooked them at 170 for less time, but they ended up a little tough.

Strawberry Pickin'

Tanner and I made an impromptu visit to Houston to visit our friends, Rob, Jenn, Emma, and baby Carson during the week. We left on Tuesday and were planning to come back that Friday but Tanner woke up with a fever on Thursday and we decided to head home. We didn't want to risk getting Carson, who was two months old, sick. We had a great time on our visit, though. Since we didn't get to help them out when they had Carson, I was able to cook a little for them while we were there which was nice. We got up on Wednesday morning and headed to a strawberry farm about 45 minutes from their house. We had a BLAST picking strawberries!! It was sooooo much fun! Tanner ate about as many as she picked, and her little mouth and hands were stained red! It really was a lot of fun.

After our strawberries were successfully picked and packed, we headed to an Italian restaurant in Sugarland for some pizza. This restaurant was neat, because they give kids pizza dough to play with while you wait for your food. Tanner and Emma really enjoyed that!

Jenn and Emma

The "dinosaur museum"

Tanner saw something on TV recently about dinosaurs at museums and decided that she HAD to go see one.  She asked me over and over if we could go, and it just so happens that the Witte Museum in San Antonio has a dinosaur exhibit right now so I told her we could go.  We took a picnic a few days later and headed to the museum.  I don't think she knew what she was getting into because she took one look at the first dinosaur and jumped into Clinton's arms and started shaking!  It was so hilarious to us, though, because she wouldn't admit that she was scared. She was literally shaking with fear, but she was saying "look how cute they are Mom!".  It was all we could do not to die laughing!  After we saw the dinosaurs we went to the HEB treehouse, which is located at the museum and houses a ton of learning tools related to all different scientific concepts.  Tanner had a really good time there, and we really enjoyed watching her learn/play.  After the museum, we headed to Houston to visit friends and Clinton headed home because he had to work the next day.  We missed him but it was kind of fun to take a road trip, just Tanner and I.

              

Tanner was extremely impressed with the bracelet they gave her to wear.  

Notice how she won't even look at the camera? She wouldn't take hers eyes off of the dinosaur just in case it were to do something... 

I'm pretty sure that this was Tanner's favorite part of the whole thing. She did not want to get off of the elephant!

Strawberry Festival Weekend

The weekend of the Poteet Strawberry Festival was a blast for us.  The festival is HUGE, and has every kind of food you could ever want with strawberries in it.  The Poteet strawberries are the best you will ever have.  They are so good, in fact, that HEB makes a special ice cream called Poteet Strawberry ice cream.  My aunt always stays with us the weekend of the festival because she works for a nearby visitors bureau and they always have an exhibit at the festival.  It is always a treat for us to have her for the weekend, and we always have fun preparing the strawberries from the festival together.

This is part of my aunt's booth.  They have two small horses and 1 large horse for kids and adults to take pictures on.  Notice the pose...

  Tanner got roped by one of my aunt's coworkers.  

Clinton wanted to try his hand at trick roping. As you can see, he is very good =)  

Eating strawberry yogurt

 

Watching the pig races.  They were hilarious!

This was the strawberry shortcake that my aunt made and it was DELICIOUS!!! We washed and hulled 2 full flats of strawberries this weekend but the strawberry shortcake made it all worth it!. 
                                   Sofi and Tanner gobbled it us as quickly as everyone else!


                                             Tanner tasting YaYa's hand whipped cream