Guess We're Done Talking

JR and I have never communicated through email before.

I know he's sent a few to Jason, but I've never been the "lucky" recipient of one until the other night.

 

Here it is:

 

Of course I'm not thrilled that he's going to be in 5th grade and doesn't know how to spell "off", but it did crack me up that he sent me this while I was putting Kyle and Reed to bed. 

 

I'm going to pretend he was being considerate of their bed time, and not that he's done talking to me.

 

And, yes, I took him.

Bigger

I always have to remind Jason that I don't really know my way around here all that great.

 

Yes, I grew up in "Houston", but I was in a suburb about 45 minutes from where we are now, and I never came to this part of town.

 

The last time we lived here I was pregnant with twins (or had new born twins), so I didn't get out a whole lot.

 

The other evening the weather was nice (for Houston) and since we were out, I asked Kyle and Reed if they wanted to go to the park. I said, "I think I've been to one around here before."

 

Everything seemed familiar, and thanks to the magic of my blog, I was able to find where we had indeed been there before.  Only JR looked like this.

 

 

And Kyle and Reed looked like this

(Reed is green, Kyle is blue.)

This time around I don't even have a picture of JR since he was off at the movies, and here's what Kyle and Reed looked like.  (We tried to recreate the JR picture with Kyle.)

 

They've all grown just a smidge.

At Least They aren't Selfies

 

What goes through boys' heads that they think a family trip to the zoo is a great time to position themselves into "dangerous" photo-ops?

 

 I guess at least he's smiling as he pretends to hang on for dear life...right?

 

Just Look at Him Now

We tried to go to the Houston Zoo back in May to use Reed's free pass he won in the TX Beaches art contest.  We got there, drove around, and couldn't find a parking spot anywhere. 

So we just came back home.

 

I saw where the zoo was open on Friday evenings until 8:30, so after Jason got home from work Friday, we decided to go. 

 

If you're in Houston and want to do a zoo trip, the Friday evening deal is perfect.  Not crowded at all, no big day care groups, and of course it's hot, but at least it's not sun-beating-down-on-you-hot.

 

 

Poor Reed, no matter how old he gets, he'll never live down his 2 year old petting zoo experience.

Unfortunately for him, it's one of our favorite pictures to laugh at.

 

 We started teasing him there was a petting zoo as soon as we got near it.

 In case you were wondering, he's fine with petting zoos now.

 

 

And if there was any doubt he still might have been a little scared (or scarred, either word works)....

Shirts! Skins!

Kyle and Reed finished up football camp this week.

(Just a fun skills camp at church, they have soccer next week.)

 

It was only from 8:30-11:00, but it was still hot (and it hasn't even really gotten hot yet, we've had a "cool" and wet summer).

 

This is what hot and dirty boys look like after playing football.

And they also got to participate in the time-honored boy tradition of playing "shirts vs. skins".

Now if I Could Just Get Them to do This at Home for Me

While we were trying to get moved in, we spent a few nights over at Grandpa Gary and Granny Buffie's.

 

I'm not sure how she does it, but Granny Buffie always has the kids cooking really good stuff.

 

(They act like they can't even open a package of chips at my house!)

 

 

She even bought them aprons so they'd look the part.

After a few days, they'd learned how to make more things than I do.

 

 

Though you never know about Kyle, at any moment he might up and leave his cooking station for something "better".

Annie

With all the moving and goings on, it wasn't that I forgot to write about JR in Annie, I just couldn't find my camera to download the pictures.

 

JR actually tried out for Annie in May at the School of Performing Arts at Second Bapstist.

He sang "Easy Street" and "NYC", read for Rooster and Daddy Warbucks, learned a full dance routine he had to perform, and also tap danced.

 

 

We found out over our trip to Denver that he had been cast as Bert Heley (the radio announcer). It wasn't the part he wanted (he wanted Warbucks, I wanted Rooster) but it turned out just fine since we didn't have to spend any of our cruise practicing (which would have definitely thrown a wrench in his rolling in at 1 AM every morning).

 

 

I quickly saw I wasn't going to be able to get any pictures from the show (I forgot my big lens) and due to copyright laws we weren't allowed to video tape.

So here's my one picture of him introducing the show. (He's on the end with the hat and bow tie!)

 

The gist of his part was to introduce Daddy Warbucks and Annie on the radio, then the orphans sing "Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" while they all do a tap routine together.

Dancing is still the hardest for JR, so I was so proud of his tapping. It was very cute.

Even Granny Sherry leaned over and said, "He can tap!"

 

  I happened across this picture on Facebook a friend of a friend had posted.  There's JR in the back!

And there he is again.

 This one I got off the school's FB page. 

 

Kyle and Reed have watched the movie version of Annie about a million times so they really enjoyed the show.

 

And look how cute Paw-Paw and JR look.