The bike

Bodin got a new bike from Grandma and Grandpa Cobb for Christmas last year and he absolutely loves his bike. Look at the smile on his face when he received it.
He rode it down the street to play the other day and left it laying in someones driveway. Well, the kids decided that they wanted to play basketball and asked the dad to move the car so they could play in the driveway. I am sure you can tell where this story is going....


The pictures do not do the devastation of the bike justice. It is much worse than it looks. The bike got completely run over. Ben went to get Bodin to tell him it was time for dinner and that is when Bodin discovered the bike was smashed. Ben had Bodin drag it home (the wheels won't even turn) with Bodin in tears the entire time. You see, we would have more sympathy, but we constantly tell the kids not to park in the driveway. Do they listen? NO! And this was not the first time his bike has been run over, Ben ran it over before, but luckily that was just the rim and it was still driveable after a little bit of bending the metal back in place. This time there is no way to fix it.
We let him cry for a while to teach him a lesson and then I told him we would probably go to Wal-Mart for a cheap bike (it gets smashed anyway) in about a week. Well, he came home from school yesterday with this...

Unless the child decides to wait until Chritmas and prays for Santa to give him some sympathy on top of a good sale, I am not seeing a Tony Hawk bike coming his way.

To finish the story, we went and got Bodin a bike at Wal-Mart. He was so excited, we came home, hooked up the babies in the bike trailer and decided to go for a ride. We got to the other end of the neighborhood when Bodin starts yelling. I look back to see his pedal has fallen off. Ben picks it up and screws it back on. It falls off again. This goes on for the next 10 minutes with Journey screaming wildy in the bike trailer. The decision is made that the bike will have to be pushed home. The screws on the pedal are totally stripped. We had to pack it up and take it back to Wal-Mart for another new bike. All is now well.

Happy Birthday McKade

McKade, how fast these two years have gone, and how much we enjoy having you as part of our family! You are the cutest little guy ever. You always have a mischievous look about you. You are a climber and are always found on counters, the top of the couches, and moving chairs all about the house to get into anything and everything. You have a mind of your own, and you decide when and how you want to do things. When you have made up your mind, that is it! You have decided that you like to fall asleep on the couch with your favorite red pillow every night and that is what you do. You have your favorite helicopter book that you like to read, and we read it many times a day, but you also read anything I will read to you. You love storytime. You are 22 pounds now and still in the less than fifth percentile for weight (that is how the doctors put it). Your height is in the 16th percentile and your head is in the fortieth percentile. You are talking very well and you mimic everything. One of our favorites is when you sit at the dinner table and say.... Red Robin....Yum! And then laugh as McKinna and Bodin laugh with you.


For your birthday we had your cake with two candles. The first candle went out rather quickly but the second one would not go out no matter how hard you tried. You blew and blew (by looking at the pictures you can tell it was kind of spit and spit), but that candle would not go out. We were all cracking up. After a while of this we let McKinna and Bodin help you, I think you were relieved as you welcomed the help. You loved opening all of your gifts, even though I think that Bodin enjoyed it more than you did. I found out in the morning that he had snuck your Transformer car into bed with him and slept with it. You are doing very well riding your new scooter, you insist on bringing it into the house most days to practice. This house is set up pretty well for that. We love you McKade!

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a wonderful birthday this year, my friend Jenny insisted on taking the kids so Ben and I could go out to dinner, and I am soooo glad she did. I always feel bad leaving my kids with anyone. Four kids is kind of overwhelming and on a school night, that is asking a lot. It was great to go out and actually enjoy dinner with Ben.
Brie always says that she lost her birthday when she had Landon on her birthday. It is always more about your child than yourself. I totally understand this now with McKade's birthday the day after mine. I spend my birthday getting ready for McKade's (making the cake, planning his day, wrapping his presents, etc.) I must say that I enjoy doing this too, but it sure was nice getting away from it all for a few hours.
Here's to another great year!

We had a great time visiting with my parents. I swear, I felt like a neglegent mother as Journey decides to do all kinds of tricks for my mom. She babbled to her, got up on all four and did a little crawling, and she even pulled herself to a stand. I swear, I do work with her, but she decided that it was time to show off, I guess. McKade loves his grandparents and wants to be with them constantly. He cried and cried after we drove away from the airport. It broke my heart. It is really hard to live away from all of our family. We love and miss hanging out with the grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews. I hope to get closer to our family one day. We can't wait to come back for a visit.

Houston Museum of Natural Science

We headed down to the Houston Museum of Natural Science for a day. Our first stop was at the Cockrell Butterfly Center. We got to see the butterflies going through the life cycle. We also got to go to their outside center and see tons of different types of butterflies. I really enjoyed this.






We then went on to the museum. It was very interesting. It had different types of dinosaur bones, gems and minerals, African artifacts, Indian artifacts, and we did not get to all of the museum. We got too hungry and ate at McDonald's before heading back home.

Visit with Grandma Tana and Grandpa Bill

We had a great visit with my parent's last week. They were able to come for a few days. We, of course, had to spend a day at the beach (Landon, Van, and Gracen, if you look close there are messages for you in the sand).




My mom, McKade, and I also went down to Old Town Spring. I had to buy this hat, isn't it adorable!!