Cancun II

Paulette mentioned that she won the second night of skittles Texas Hold 'em but she refused to post the picture so I am doing it for her.

Our life in pictures from 9/2-current day

I know, I know...We are officially horrible bloggers, but I guess better late than never. Right?

We went on an awesome vacation to Cancun, compliments of the Kline family (not us). I would highly recommend it to anyone.

We arrived and quickly started taking advantage of the all inclusive aspect of the resort. Maybe a little too much?

We played skittles Texas Hold 'em; the first night Erin won and this is what she did to her winnings. The second night I won twice, but I think they let me win the second time because they were sick of playing.

We enjoyed several very nice dinners.

Did a little local shopping.

Enjoyed a lot of time at the beach.

Our brother-in-law Jared's sand dolphin. Very impressive, huh!

We also enjoyed the swim-up bar.

But alas, the time came for us to leave paradise and return to reality.

The two big boys both played soccer.

Dylan is really quite good and actually started to learn how to "play" the game. Hayden on the other hand was very fun to watch as he and his team chased the ball wherever it should roll.

Dylan turned 7!

We had him a little family party on his actual birthday.

Kolton enjoyed the cake so much he decided to help himself to some more when nobody was looking.

The boys had their "friends" birthday party at the local gymnastics place.

Everyone had a BLAST!

I went a little crazy making these cookies for the goodie bags.

I don't really want to see another cookie for a long time.

Hayden turned 4!

We had a little family party for Hayden too.

Have you ever wondered what happens when your 4 year old eats 3 cupcakes worth of red icing in less than 24 hours. Let's just say when mom sees that one in the toilet it scares her to death and she thinks a trip to the emergency room is immediately necessary until she remembers about the icing the night before.

On a more appropriate note, aren't these two of the most handsome boys you have ever seen?

Hayden's 1st primary program.

AND NOW HALLOWEEN!

The boys are dressed as Luchadores (Mexican wrestlers) with masks that we brought them from Cancun. Dylan was Dragon Rojo, Hayden was Hurricane Ramirez, and Kolton was (obviously) Nacho Libre (and a huge hit with everyone).

The two big boys were old pros at trick or treating, but Kolton wasn't very interested.

On Thursday Kolton got his first haircut, not that you can tell. He was developing a little mullet, but no more.

Today we went to the Renaissance Festival.

We all had a lot of fun watching shows, trying out some of the attractions, riding rides, eating food on a stick, meeting royalty, and many other strange creatures. The souvenier of choice was a set of horns for each of the boys.

We must have worn him out.

This is what happens when you lay all the childrens' clothes out and don't tell your 4 year old which clothes are his.

Sorry for the long post hopefully we will be able to keep up better from now on.

Still Alive

I am not even going to attempt to catch up on all of the blogging that should have been done over the past two months. Just in case anyone cares what you've missed,

the kids win the 4th of July parade in the subdivision,

Kolton has his 1st birthday,

we spend a week on vacation in Utah,

and Dylan triumphantly returns to school and starts 1st grade.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you ask a 6 year old to put the dishes "up" by himself?

Grandpa Danny

My dad stayed with us for a couple of days recently on a business/pleasure trip. The boys always look forward to grandpa HAVING to come down here for work. Who wouldn't have fun when you get to do this

OOOOOOOKLAHOMA!

Over the first weekend in June, we went on a family vacation to Oklahoma for The Rickner Family Reunion (my paternal grandmother). I don't remember ever going to one, but, with the exception of the last four hours in the car, we all really enjoyed ourselves.

I left work early on Friday so we could begin our journey. The reunion was not until Sunday so we found a hotel in Dallas for Friday night so we would not be couped up in the car too long and the kids could swim and have fun. We drove from Dallas to Tulsa on Saturday and had a rather uneventful trip. We met up with my Grandma and my cousins Matthew and Mariana once we arrived in Tulsa; and, after a quick dip in the hotel pool, we were ready for dinner. My dad's cousin Troy and his family - whom I don't ever remember meeting - met us for dinner and we went to Logan's. The kids loved Logan's because they could crack their own peanuts and throw the shell on the ground, make a mess, and not get in trouble. After we got back to the hotel, we all sat and talked for a while and once I went back upstairs (Paulette had left and took the kids to get them in bed) Dylan said "Isn't it funny that man looked kind of like grandpa Danny?" He was talking about Troy, and yes, I saw the resemblence too.

On Sunday morning, we decided we had to get the kids out of the hotel room so we went across the street to the mall. Talk about the perfect time to be at the mall. The mall was closed, and wasn't going to open for a couple of hours, so it was completely empty and we let the kids run around the kids area for a while. Even Kolton had a blast. When we made it back to the hotel, grandma was antsy to get to the reunion and we ending getting there quite a while before everyone else. This is my theory, Grandma has pretty much been the only representative from her side of the family at the reunion for a long time, and was excited to have 3 out of 5 grandkids and 3 out 7 great-grandkids to introduce to everyone. Despite the fact that I did not inherit my dad's ability to strike up a conversation with nearly anyone, I had a really great time getting to meet family.

Great picture don't you think! It looks like Paulette was up to her old tricks by dressing everyone alike, but, believe-it-or-not, she only dressed my 3 kids similar so it would be easier to identify them.

We stayed Sunday night and went to a movie with Matthew and Mariana while the 3 little ones stayed behind for some quality time with Grandma. Dylan had been begging to go to Toys R Us ever since we told him that's were Grandma and Matthew were when we first arrived on Saturday. Monday he woke up and couldn't wait to knock on Matthews door and ask if he would go to Toys R Us with him, and to his delight, Matthew agreed. Dylan and Hayden each picked out a Transformer to play with on the way home. Just before leaving, Dylan was able to con $10 out of Matthew so he could jump on the trampoline that was inside the mall.

We decided we were brave enough to make the 8 hour trip in one shot on Monday. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake; the kids behaved just fine until Dallas, at which point all 3 of them became unbearable the rest of the way home.

All in all we had a really great time and would like to thank Grandma for everything!

It's About Time

Dylan walked at 8 months.


Hayden walked at 9 months.


Kolton walked at ? months.


We finally decided today that we can officially answer that question. The answer is 10. He took "baby" steps at 9 months, but nothing that we were willing to classify as walking.












Here are some videos, we think they are funny because he kept swatting the camera as he walked up to Paulette.

Tons o Fun

This past week has brought with it tons o fun.

Last Saturday, Dylan had his first official swim meet and a gymnastics "meet". He did very well at both of them. He was on the 6 and under free relay team which won first place, the 8 and under medley relay team (he swam the freestyle leg) which got disqualified (along with every other team), individual freestyle which he did not improve his time, and individual backstroke which he improved his time on a lot and won second place. Later that day, he had a gymnastics "meet" and had a really good time.

Pommel Horse

Rings



High Bar

Parallel Bars

Yesterday, Dylan had another swim meet at Raveneaux and did pretty well. His relay won 1st again and he improved his freestyle time a little from last week. I don't know how he placed on his individual events; I guess we'll find out when he goes back to practice.

Also yesterday, we went to a neighbors house for their "2nd Annual Coon@!# Crawfish Boil." We all had a lot of fun and ate a lot of GOOD food. I think the pictures below should explain it better than I can.

Dylan was jumping over the other kids as they came down the water slide.

Batch 1 of 3. This picture shows about half of the table. Each batch got progressively spicier (aka more awesome)



It took some convincing, but Dylan finally tried one and ended up liking them alot.
Hayden wasn't interested in the crawfish so he stuck with "normal" food.



I think Kolton ate his weight in Ritz crackers, but he obviously enjoyed them.

Needless to say we all had really good time and enjoyed all the food.

Paulette's highlight of the week though was that after a month and a half she was finally able to start working out at the YMCA again. Just to keep things interesting, though, she decided that since she had already hurt her upper body and her mid body that she just as well hurt her lower body so she went ahead and twisting her ankle while working out. Thankfully, each time she was hurt, the severity was less.