I just signed up for mobil blogging...maybe you will here from me a little more often :) Then again its me....we shall see.

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Colton eating his First Day of school breakfast, his favorite, bacon and eggs and biscuits, yummy!

Humoring mama for a before school shot! Isn't he cute :)

We went straight in and he sat down at his spot he chose at Meet the Teacher night.

And quickly went to work :) Colton isn't one to talk about school, but you can tell he really likes it (o.k. recess and p.e. are his favorites). But he is so smart. He acts like he doesn't know anything new, but he read the first sentence of a not sent home by his teacher today (11/11/10).

Mrs. Craig sent home a certificate for completing his first day of Kinder.

I am amazed at how quickly he seems to learn and pick things up.

Meet the Teacher

Colton with the girls before heading out to meet the teacher.
Colton with his eyes open this time. He was so ready to go to the school to meet Mrs. Craig officially as his kindergarten teacher. He already knew her from VBS and his little buddy Sam is her grandson. All of us went to the school and went to see his classroom. He took all his school supplies and picked out the seat he would start school in the following week.

My Babies are 4!

My Caleigh and Claire turned 4 on July 3. Yes, I realize that was 2 months ago. But this week while Colton was at school, we decided to ride around Omaha and Naples to take some pictures of the girls while they are semi still barely 4.

Claire, always cheesin :)
Caleigh

sitting pretty Claire (l) Caleigh (r)


silly babies
Caleigh (l) Claire (r)

There was a thick overcast that day, I am not sure why they wouldn't quit squinting their eyes.

One of the perks to living in a small old town....lots of good picture taking places.

They really love each other.

I had the hardest time getting them to both look at the camera.

I have been eyeballing this old barn across the road for the past two years thinking about taking pictures in front of it. Well, I finally just did it.

I didn't even have to force them to hold hands.

pretty

Caleigh Paige, you are so sweet and genuine. You make my heart smile everytime I see your sweet smile. Your sister is definately the dominant one, but you are the care taker. You make sure I know what everyone is or isn't doing, and we are working on the tattling part, but I love your concern for everyone around you. But at the same time, I think you are going to be the sneaky one.

Claire Brooke, you are sweet too, but also SO mischevious. I won't ever have to wonder what you are up to. Your evil (but so cute) little laugh will always give you away (if Caleigh doesn't first). You have taken such a huge interest in learning recently, and want to be in the spotlight with everything you do. I love the zest for life you have.

I am so proud of the little girls my babies have grown into. They definately keep their daddy and me on our toes, and honestly I wouldn't have it any other way. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Caleigh and Claire.

Amber Graduates!!

So, the reason we chose Stephenville as our family vacation spot was becasue my baby sister was graduating from college. Amber attended Tarleton State University and received a Bachelors degree in Animal Production.

The College Seal

Amber receiving her degree

The Flag Poles

Amber standing next to the Gates of Tarelton

Colton in Aunt Ambers cap and gown

Caleigh in Mamoos cap and gown

And Claire in Mamoos cap and gown

You know....just incase any of them ever want to follow in her footsteps....

The Erath County Courthouse

Congratulations Amber, we are all so very proud of you!!!

Vacation day 3....Dublin Dr. Pepper Plant

On Friday, we drove to Dublin to the oldest Dr Pepper bottling plant. While we were there, we visited Doc's Soda shop and went on a tour to see the equipment used to bottle the origional recipe of DP using pure cane sugar instead of corn syrup. We were also treated to a nice cold Dr Pepper while on the tour.

There was a very impressive collection of old signs and memorbila from the company like the sign above.

This is part of the machine used in the bottling process. Can you see the red marker on the right hand side of the picture? We were asked to guess what its function was. After a few tries and no one in our group guessing right, the girl leading us told us that it is their dating system. How simple and amazing that this is still their method. The color of the marker is changed 4 times a year, and that is how they know when the product was made.

Here, the bottles have been filled with syrup and carbonation, and are going into these four slots for a 3 step rotation to be mixed. After they have been mixed, the ingredients will never seperate.


I don't remember what step this is.

AA check station to be sure their aren't any visible cracks in the bottles before they are capped.

This is a diagram on the side of the part of the equipment that sterilizes the bottles before they are filled.

Where the bottles are loaded. They have these huge tongs that pick up ten bottles at a time to load them on the conveyer belts.

Bottles being stored waiting to be filled.

Finished product on a lamp to check for color/fill quality. The 3rd bottle from the left is the correct bottle.

The pictures obviously are not in the correct order. But it was very interesting to see how my favorite drink is bottled.

All the products bottle in Dublin.

Vacation day 2 continued....Dinosaur Valley State Park

The kids on the trail down to the river bed where the Dinosaur tracks were.

A track at the edge of the river

Tracks where they beleive at least 2 dinosaurs walked through....the theory is that one was trying to escape the other.


Diagrams of when there was to believed to be water covering the state of Texas

North American Land Masses

The kids with the dino believed to be running from the preditor

The preditor...a T-Rex

Kiddos sitting on the tail of the Paluxysaurus

Vacation Day 2...Fossil Rim

On Thursday, we headed over to Glen Rose to Fossil Rim to checkout some wild life. It is a 9 1/2 mile drive through lots of exotic animals. The kids loved it as did Jacob and I. They gave you a brochure with all the animals you might see, so as we went along, I drove and Jacob told us what everything was and marked it off our list. We also got a bag of food so we could lure the animals closer to the car to get a good look....and let me tell you, we got up close and personal with a few :) Dinosaurs at the entrance

a baby Zebra, there were LOTS of zebras

some kind of deer also LOTS of these

he wasn't too interested in visitors

Even the animals thought it was hot, check out his tongue stuck out.

We raised the back glass in the expedition and this is where the kids rode in between herds of animals.

This guy cracked me up, at one time his head was in the car between me and the steering wheel.

Jacob LOVED all the bid deer, (I think he was imagining hunting them).

The 1/2 point from the trail

Looking out from the 1/2 point. There was a really neat gift shop and restraunt up there.

Giraffe...if you look really close you can see his tongue picking leaves off the tree.

technically, the giraffes were the only animal you were supposed to be able to feed by hand, but none of them would come up to the cars. Still Beautiful.

Colton and a zebra

Me and a zebra. These were the friendliest animals.

The picture doesn't do justice, but his spots were REALLY dark, very different from the rest of the giraffes.

the bully

a cave, right around the corner the road went right over the cave.

rhino

Ostrich....a.k.a. Jacob's favorite....NOT. He was hillarious to watch :)

and finally a buffalo. We didn't see him until we were out on the road to leave.

After we left Fossil Rim, we went down the road to the Dinosaur Valley State Park (lots of dinosaur things to do out there). I'll have to make another post for that one.