What's in a Name?

I don't think anyone in our family ever calls this baby girl by her real name. Claire Bear, Clarabelle, Clarabelle Pizza, and Cheeks are just some of the names she goes by. I'm sure she will only develop more nicknames as she gets older.

Fishing with Dad and Grandpa

One of the best things about living down in the Rio Grande Valley(for an outdoorsman) is the close access to the great fishing down here. The boys are already learning about fishing at a very young age. Tyler has a spiderman pole and Coop has a batman one. I guess we'll have to get Claire a Little Mermaid or something soon. This past Saturday my dad and I took the boys and had a good time on the water with the boys. We caught some big redfish early and even had some big schools that came right by the boat from which we pulled some fish. It slowed down pretty quick and we didn't catch much after about 8 am, but it was a good outing with the boys. The boys' favorite part was eating the donuts for breakfast, oreos and fruit snacks for brunch, and chips and sausage for lunch. We eat good when we go fishing!!

An oversize red caught on a Bugg lure(Shameless plug for my friend who invented and produced this lure-www.buggs-fishing-lures.com)

Sunrise on the Laguna Madre with my boys-Puro Vida!!!

Grandpa with the boys

The boys practicing casting

Tyler driving us out in the morning. Watch out!!

Florida Fun

A couple of weeks ago my parents generously took our family along with the Hoovers to Florida for some family fun! We had a blast and we made great memories with everybody. We played on the beach, swam in the pool, relaxed in the hot tub, took naps, collected seashells, built sand castles, had a scavenger hunt, flew kites, jumped the waves, played cards, and of course ate our fair share of food. Here are some pictures from the week in no particular order:

All of the boys love Claire! They gave her lots of attention throughout the week.

Family Picture- the best we could get with 3 kiddos! Of course we waited until the last day to take pictures and it rained so we weren't able to take pictures on the beach like we had planned.

The house we stayed in was awesome. It was three stories and had an elevator. Here are all the boys taking a ride down on our way to the beach.

Love this picture of Claire and me. I never seem to make it in any of the pictures so I'm glad we got one together.

Family pic on the balcony overlooking the beach.

Gram and Claire

Papa and his girl

Gram and Papa with all the grandkids. We took so many of them and this was about the best we could get!

The awesome house we stayed in right across from the beach.

Gram and Papa with the kiddos overlooking the beach.

Will LOVES baby Claire and wanted to hold her on several occasions and paid special attention to her all week. He is so sweet to his baby cousin.

The boys got a taste of what it's like to grease up a hairy, sweaty man with sunscreen. The girls were out shopping and my dad caught the boys lathering each other up. Classic!

The boys playing at the beach.

Having a blast on the beach

All the guys relaxing in the hot tub. Ha!

Luke is too cool for school in his shades.

Will and Reese. Love this picture Christine captured with their goggles.

Claire soaking up the attention from the boys!

I love this picture of Papa after being buried in the sand.

Will being buried on the beach. You can almost hear the giggles.

Burying Papa on the beach

Thanks Gram and Papa for a wonderful vacation!

What a Stinker!!!

This afternoon Claire was in the Jumperoo and started to fuss, so I went over to pick her up. I immediately smelled something funky and turned her around to find this...

OH. MY. WORD!!! I rushed her to the changing table- the clothes went to the washer and Claire went straight to the bath. This was the aftermath...

Claire will probably kill me one day when she sees this! Sometimes I just have to laugh or else I would be crying all the time!!!

Pre-K

Tyler started Pre-K this morning at a new school. He and Cooper will be attending the same school this year. Tyler walked in and never looked back. He wasn't nervous or hesitant at all. I know he is going to love it and learn so much this year. He will go four days a week and I'm already enjoying only having two kiddos this morning. Cooper will start tomorrow and attend two days a week.

Tyler and Daddy before school.

Tyler and Mama

Everything packed and ready for school!

4 Months!

Claire is 4 months! Time is flying by with this precious baby girl. Claire had a rough week a couple of weeks ago. She had been extremely fussy for a couple of days and then started running fever one night so I knew something was up. We took her to the doctor and sure enough she had an ear infection. They thought she might have a UTI, but luckily all of the cultures came back negative. She is feeling much better now and hopefully we won't have too many of those pesky ear infections with her. Yesterday she had her 4 month appointment and she is growing so much! She weighed in at 14 lbs. 9 oz (75%) and was 25 1/4 inches (75%). The doctor also gave us the go ahead on rice cereal because she hasn't been sleeping well and has been showing signs that my milk just wasn't enough. Last night she slept awesome after having her cereal so I feel confident it was just what she needed! She fills those cheeks up to tide her over through the night!

Claire is such a great baby and is as laid back as they come. She just goes with the flow and loves any attention that comes her way. She has the most beautiful smile and we love her so much! We think she is just the most beautiful baby girl, but we might be a little bias! :)

The boys love to watch her eat her cereal.

Sweet baby girl!

Not wanting to cooperate.

Showing off her beautiful smile!

My Boys

Still Remodeling

We are still working hard around the house and I feel like in the past month we have been able to cross a bunch of stuff off of our list! We are almost done with the Kids Bath, Laundry Room, and Guest Bath. I'm so ready to be done! I'm tired of all the dust, dragging stuff in and out of rooms, and chaos that goes along with remodeling. And I know Travis is tired of me adding things to the list as soon as he is done with something else.

Cooper helping Daddy install the sink in the guest bathroom.

Today I finished a project I've been wanting to do for the Guest Room. The best part of the project is that it was free! I started by arranging picture frames that I already had. I found an arrangement I liked and then I painted all of them with three different colors of paint that we already had from sampling paint around the house. Once they were dry I distressed them with sandpaper and hung them on the wall. Here are the before and after pictures:

Before- Playing around with the arrangement

Ta-da!

Happy Birthday, Cooper!

Yesterday was Cooper's 3rd birthday! Cooper has been telling us that he wanted to spend his birthday at the beach, so that is what we did! We packed up and headed out early yesterday morning and met Grandma, Kelsey, Callie, and Aunt Ann. We had a good time, but we didn't last too terribly long. We had a tent, but it still got really hot and we thought it was best to not have Claire in the heat too long. The boys had a blast and Claire got to show off her new swimsuit!

Claire chillin' in the stroller and showing off her new suit!

Posing for a picture

Cooper found the perfect seat.

Callie loves the sand- so much that she was eating it by the handful!

We headed home after lunch and took naps. Grandma, Kelsey, and Callie came over to the house to eat dinner, have cake, and open presents.

Cooper was so excited about his new front loader tractor!

Showing off his crop dusters!

Cooper eating his birthday meal in his new Batman goggles! And yes, Cooper doesn't have a shirt on- he spilled something water all over it and I just stripped him down and we didn't bother to get him dressed after that!

Finding Nemo Cake

Do you think he enjoyed his cake?