The Beginning of Summer

As a kid (I'm sure it comes as no surprise) I loved summer. Don't all kids love summer? No school, fewer responsibilities, and so many fun things to do. As an adult, I still love summertime, but now I am annoyed by some things during the summer months that didn't bother me much a decade ago, nor do they bother me the rest of the year:

• Humidity. Hello, can we say wavy hair days? My hair used to be stick straight, but after two pregnancies now I have the annoying wave that comes out when it gets humid. UGH
• Fear of sunburn. Not my own, but Jack's. I am terrified that if I let him get sunburned all other mothers everywhere will judge me as a bad mother because of my kid's red skin.
• Misbehaving school-aged kids at the grocery store. My goodness, HEB turns into a circus when kids aren't in school and moms have to take them shopping.
• Misbehaving school-aged kids in the childcare room at the gym. Shouldn't there be an age limit in there? I don't take Jack in there for fear he will be trampled.
• I suppose I could have consolidated the above two bullets into one: "Misbehaving school-aged kids."

But, as an adult, there are some new things that I love about the summer months:

• Taking Jack to the lake. Now that he's almost 3 he loves to drive the boat!
• Swimming lessons. We put Jack in them this week and he is doing so well, and has overcome all fear he had of the water.
• VBS. I love being a volunteer at Vacation Bible School. I'll be honest: the first summer I did it (2008) I wasn't very excited about it. But it turned out to be so fun, and I can't wait for this year's VBS in July.
• Summer playdates. (Enter my fear of sunburn.)
• Mowing the lawn. Ok, this sounds crazy I know. We used to have landscapers that came, but I didn't think they did as good of a job as we did. So now Jason and I split the yard work, and I actually enjoy mowing the lawn! There is such a tangible result that I get abundant satisfaction from!
• Family and friends. We love having get togethers at our house, and there seem to be more during the summer than any other time of year.
• Jack's birthday! This year he understands that his birthday is coming. When someone asks him how old he is, he says "Three in July."

Here are a few pictures of the beginning of our fun summer!

Jack and Jason on the carousel at the zoo. Jack calls it the "carouself."

The Mattheis fam on the carousel. Makenzie used to be terrified of this thing, but she finally decided that she was going to love it this year!

Aw, this was the sweetest Mother's Day present. At church the kids made bags for their moms.






And at school they planted us flowers and decorated the flower pot for us.

Backyard fun! Great hit Kenz!

We all just love this kiddie table!

Girls night out. Here are my dear friend Val and I with our friend Jennifer who was visiting from Tyler (Jennifer is on the left).

Jennifer, Tammy, Val and I.

Watermelon at Val's son Aiden's 2nd birthday party!

After Aiden's party we went to Shannon's graduation party at the Falzon's bayhouse (this was on May 29th). Jack went out fishing with Nathan, Jason, Blaine, and Louis and caught his first fish. He then ate it for dinner!

Jack and Paw Paw.

What a heart breaker!

Jason with his sister Shannon and mom Michele.

Shannoon and I

I told you: heart breaker.

Oh the things boys do.

So, Jack loves stickers....obviously.

Pop Ice in the pool.

And giving Wiley a drink!

Pregnancy Update

Rachel has started to feel much better! Her appetite has come back and she has gained back the weight she lost at the beginning of the pregnancy (about 6 lbs). We are now just over 16 weeks along, and we find out the sex of the baby in two weeks, on June 24th. Mom and Dad are going to come down to watch the three kids for us so we can go to the appointment. I can't believe how fast the time is flying by! She has been feeling movement now for about a month, and a couple of weeks ago I felt the baby move too! How exciting! Please keep us all in your prayers!