Tyler's 26th Birthday!

Last Friday was Tyler's birthday. He spent the morning golfing with an older gentlemen he's gone with a few times. So far, Tyler has not had to pay because this other guy covers for him with points he's built up since he golfs all the time. Wouldn't it be great to be retired? He has also acquired 4 free clubs form this guy, so I think I will let him continue this hobby until it gets too expensive. I had planned on making him Teryaki chicken for his birthday dinner, however, the older gentlemen invited us over to his house for dinner since his birthday was the day before. So we went over there instead and had dinner and cake with his 2 kids who are our age. We already knew the entire family since they go to church with us. It turned out to be a great night and we got to watch the Texas Rangers win the game to get them into the World Series!!! We hope they start playing better against the Giants.

Then, last Sunday(7AM)-Tuesday(7PM) we babysat a family with 4 kids while their parents flew out for a job interview. Going from 1 kid to 5 under the age of 8 was quite the eye opening experience! I realized it is a VERY hard job being a mom, yet I enjoyed every minute of it. It helped that the kids were very independent and very well-behaved. On Sunday we celebrated Tyler's birthday with them.

Tyler and Austin ready to blow out the candles.
The kids helped us decorate the cake. The sprinkles of course got a little bit out of control.

And everyone blew out the candles.

And here is the cute little bunch! Their mom said the kids told her the best part of their weekend was Austin. They all adored him and gave him a lot of attention with hugs and kisses...way more than he is used to and he got a bit fussy at times. One of the little boys asked their mom the next day if I was coming over today. She said, "I think Rachel needs a little break from you!" I did need some recovery time, mostly from loss of sleep and being on my feet all day.

EXPERIENCES TO REMEMBER:

1. Got locked inside one of the bedrooms with the 2 youngest boys and Austin after the wind blew the door shut. The door does not open from the inside...only from the outside.

2. Got a flat tire on their van on the way to preschool.

3. Between getting the spare tire on and getting a new tire, it was then time to take the other boy to preschool who didn't have shoes and didn't have a lunch. Thank goodness for a friend who lived close by who let me pack a lunch at their house (It was the golfer guy's house)

4. I loved having all the kids come in to our room in the morning at 6 AM and hang out on our bed. Of course I was up anyways because Austin wakes up at 5:30 AM everyday.

My new dress! What do you think? I got it at Ross for $7.50. I may end up adding on a piece of material at the bottom cause it is slightly too short. I'm close to living on the edge with it. Please ignore the nasty hairdo. It was a long day!

Tyler felt like putting random things on Tyler's head this night.
He looked like a biker baby! I love that his ears are poking out.

Austin loved being pulled around by the blanket!

Here we are at the Botanical Gardens with some friends. I love October weather! (Lyette this is the outfit you got him that says 3 months on the tag - and yes he is now 8.5 months and can still wear it!)

Austin showing off his friends! He loves other kids.

State Fair of Texas

One of our friends gave us 2 FREE tickets to the Texas State Fair! Usually it's $15 a person. We also only paid $5 for parking when everyone told us to plan on $15. It was such a GREAT DAY!

Sorry I uploaded the pictures out of order but I am too lazy to fix it!

Here is Austin at the end of the day, 8:00 PM. He did so good and randomly hit the sack.
I wish we could have rode the Ferris Wheel but it was way too expensive! Plus I don't think Austin would have been too excited about it.
But it was IMPRESSIVE!

There was one building that they turned into a mini zoo and had all sorts of farm animals and zoo animals mixed in. Austin was a bit hesitant of this camel and didn't like getting real close.

We watched a free show of Dobermans doing tricks. It was great!

Tyler and Austin in their favorite vehicle. CAMARO!

Me with my favorite vehicle. JOHN DEER!

This was a pirate diving show. Mostly they dove off the diving boards you see coming out of the body of the ship, but the finale was diving off the very top! 80 FEET! And they didn't just dive straight down, they did all sorts of turns and somersaults.

You should read this post bottom to top because that really was the sequence of events. Enjoy!

Our First Visitors!

Brad, Jana, and Brooks came for a visit this weekend!!! We were so excited to have them come and to show them why we love Texas so much. Brad had some meetings in Dallas so they bought an extra ticket for Jana and Brooks came along for the ride.

Austin is being a good boy and learning to share his toys.
Or he may be slightly jealous!

Went all went to the Stockyards in the"Historic" downtown of Fort Worth. They have a "small" cattle drive down the main street twice a day with Longhorn cattle. It took us longer to get there then we expected since we've never been there and we missed the Longhorns by MINUTES! We were in the car as they rounded their last corner and saw a few between the crowds of people standing around. So sad! We blame it on the 2 babies. :)

We still had fun walking around and exploring the site. They had the CUTEST baby cowboy hats but I couldn't bring myself to spend $13 on a hat for Austin that he would never really wear except in pictures.

Wow my face looks VERY freckly!

Tyler and Brad on the GINORMOUS belt buckle.

On the sidewalks on both sides of the street there were these circular manholes? with names of famous cowboys and actors. We saw this one withe the last name "Austin" so we sat him on the first name. I think the picture turned out great!

We searched High and Low for the Walker Texas Ranger manhole? and finally asked the local White Elephant Saloon (which was where a good amount of film was shot for the tv show). They said Walker didn't have a manhole? SAD! We were hoping to find it since my dad is a HUGE fan

Our next adventure (in the same day) was to head to the Water Gardens downtown. Everyone kept asking us if Brooks and Austin were twins...HA! I don't think they look a thing alike but they had the same outfit and they are about the same size, even though Austin is 3 months older

Austin apparently loves Bald heads!

Jana had this BRILLIANT idea to jump off one of the tiers of the Garden Mountain. It turned out AWESOME!!!

So, of course, the Boys had to do it too! Tyler really is in mid air even though it looks like he's stepping off. It was a long day, especially for the babies, but we had fun!!! We then topped the day off with a "SWEET" burger at Kincaids. and of course ice cream at home for dessert!

LADY A CONCERT

Here we are an hour before the concert. Lady Antebellum put on a FREE concert for all TCU student's plus they could get one guest in for FREE. The concert was the same night as the Priesthood session of conference, so we got a baby sitter, Tyler dropped me off in his church clothes, and I enjoyed a night out BY MYSELF!

If you haven't bought their CD I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! I love every one of their songs.

Austin is now just over 8 months old. I've never posted a video of him before so we'll see how this goes. Here he is at about 7 months old. He LOVES to giggle!