Goodbye Baby.....Hello Big Boy!

So a little over four years ago my mom bought us this crib. I have loved it, but when we got it we thought a plus was being able to turn it in to a toddler bed. After Ella and then Cavin I never really thought it would make it into the toddler bed that it is capable of, but here it is! Cavin is now far too old for my own good and wants to be big like his sister. Given the fact that we are renting and don't have room to store the crib, we decided to go ahead and put the crib to its full use. So here it is before....

And After with the kids loving jumping in!

Then.... Cavin escaping as I am sure will be the rest of my life...

I will let you know how he does....now that he is FREE!!!!!

Our Little Ballerina!

Posing in her new ballet outfit from Oma Uschi!


Her new dance studio

Her teacher Mrs. Cheryl

They even got to be princess ballerinas with tutus and crowns!

She has to have a picture with her biggest fan..her brother Cavin!

Today Ella started her first day of ballet. She was SO excited. She talked about it all before bed and when she woke up. We just decided to put her in a 5 week program to see how much she really liked it. She dances around the house ALL day long, but going to class is a little different. So we tried it today and she ran out of the class and said "Mom that was SO much fun!" I'm so excited, and I hope she continues to do well and love it. We love our little ballerina!

Aloha!

I don't even know where to begin. There are a million pictures and so I just wanted to add a few of the hundreds to get a glimpse of the fun we had on our vacation to Hawaii. My parents took Ragnar and I and my older sister Natalie on a vacation to Hawaii this past week. We had a great time and were so glad we were able to go. We did some fun things and we enjoyed the time for ourselves. We missed our kids a lot, but they were with my brother Corey and his family and had so much fun on "their vacation" that they didn't seem to miss us so much!

The beaches were so pretty and the sand was so soft, running on the beach was much more difficult than I thought it would be!

We stopped at the L.D.S. temple, although it is being renovated, we wanted to see how beautiful it was.

I wish we could have climbed the stairs.



All the trees there were so cool.

There was always a nice breeze, it was so pretty.

We first started at a condo at the North Shore in Oahu and we snorkeled and swam and relaxed. We even played games....my favorite.

This was at Waimea bay. We got to body board here and the waves were so strong here that Ragnar and I washed up the shore many times :)

Then we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was probably one of my favorite things. It was so neat to watch them dance and show us all about their culture.

Yummy smoothies.


My parents enjoying their meal!

Hey Mr. Tiki man!

Next we went to Honolulu and we went on the Atlantis submarine ride. It was neat. We really only saw turtles and fish, but it was still cool. We even got below 100 feet.

I love riding on boats.

Pretty waterfalls.

Natalie enjoying the vacation.

Then we hiked Diamond head where you can see most of Honolulu. It was beautiful.


That night we went on a Star dinner cruise which was interesting.


I think a cruise would be fun someday.

The next day we were at Pearl Harbor and saw The battleship Missouri and the Arizona then went to the aviation museum.


I'm going to drive the boat!

We had a great time shopping, getting a tan and sight seeing. Vacationing must have stressed Ragnar out because we even found his first grey hair!! Haha! I am so grateful to my parents for letting us have this wonderful memory. I am also grateful for my brother and his wife for taking care of the kids. They had a great time, and hopefully they will want to still see them in the near future. Thanks again to everyone we had a wonderful time!

The craziest week EVER!

So this week has come and gone by so quickly. It may not be a super busy week for some people, but for me, who lives a rather simple life.....this week was crazy. My brother Chris flew in for my other brother Coreys graduation and here he is doing a sandwhich of John and Ella.

We were glad to have him around, he is always so fun. Then it was a big dinner at Texas Land and Cattle for Corey's graduation on Monday night. My grandma Walls birthday was on Tuesday so we had a lunchin for her that morning.

Here she is 85 years young! We loved that she was able to come celebrate with us!

After celebrating her birthday and Coreys graduation, we actually went to graduation. My brother Corey graduated from Baylor medical school with an m.d./p.h.d and will do one year of residency here at the Methodist hospital in Houston and then the next four years in Michigan. He is excited, and we are super proud of the many years he has worked to accomplish that schooling.

Here is his cute family!

All of us together again.

This is how Ella spent graduation :)

My brothers and sisters had a great time getting together.

The next night Ragnar took me to the Taylor Swift concert. He bought me tickets in December and it was a great show. They were filming a music video so everything was extra cool :)

Thanks hun for the night!

Then Thursday night was Marisa's baby shower. She is due on July 1st and so I decided to throw her a shower while she was in town. It was fun and I think she got some nice things to get started.

It was a fun week and so much more happened, but those are most of the notable things, I don't have time to post much more, but there is an idea of what's happening here. Now it is off to pack and we leave for Hawaii in the morning.......YAY!!!!!

A Lifetime of SPORTS!

Life as we know it is sports! It seems that we live and breathe them. While, I do absolutely LOVE them, I think we may need to subject our children to the arts or something educational (not saying you can't learn things from sporting events :). Despite that thought process, since Ragnar works for the Houston Rockets, we are able to enjoy other perks of that association. We were given free tickets to the Houston Astros game and were able to take the kids to enjoy some baseball. Now, since our paycheck comes from a different sports team, and we had on a different logo, we got a few looks and comments of people wondering if we indeed knew we were at a baseball game not a basketball game! It is already super hot here, but we tried to enjoy it until the sun went down. Let's be honest though, the Astros aren't really making the season worth our time.

Here we are.....sweat and all!

Cavin, much like his Opa Hellmut is obsessed with finding trains and therefore loved this train at Minute Maid park.

He loves his shades and hat and the huge baseball behind him!

Yes this is an Astros game! whoops!

We had a nice night out. You will have to forgive me if the space of time that lapses until the next post is longer than usual. My brother, sister, and grandma come in town for my other brother Corey's graduation from his m.d./p.h.d, then we celebrate my grandmas birthday, then the next day is the Taylor Swift concert, my sister Marisa's baby shower, then we leave the same day they do to Hawaii for a week. I know, I know, I am not complaining, they are all fun things, but it will be busy busy busy, and I'm not really used to that. I will keep you posted........until then..........