Peace Out Pampers, Diapers Are For Babies!!

We have finally made it… little boy is now a potty trained big boy!!  He has been accident free (#1 and #2) going on six weeks now.  We started the potty training journey at the end of February and by mid April he had things fingered out.  I was shocked.  It all happened so much quicker than it did with Savannah.  Eric and I both were pleasantly surprised.  This weekend we went ahead and held up our end of the deal and had a pizza and cake party.  The whole time we were party training he kept asking for a pizza party with a cars cake once he was a "big boy".  It may sound silly to some, but both pizza and cake are special occasion treats for Ryder.  Thanks to his pesky food allergies, it is not everyday that he gets to enjoy either of them.  So we happily agreed to provide a couple of his favorite eats once he was a potty trained big kind.  It ended up being a perfect little celebration.

This kid loves pizza… he ate an entire medium pizza (minus one piece which he ate for breakfast the next morning).  We have this awesome pizza joint up the road that is very allergy friendly.  They are a tad more expensive, but totally worth it.  Ryder's pizza: no cheese, no butter… sausage and sauce only.

As a special treat, we also busted out the bounce house that papaw and grandma bought for Savannah years ago.  We have gotten it our before for him when he was a baby, but I do not think that he remembered we even had this.  The look on his face when he woke up from his nap and saw the bounce house was absolutely priceless.

While the little two bounced, the rest of us played jenga.  How totally awesome is this large jenga set…!!  

Per Bella's request, Ryder hauled her all around the backyard.  Made me laugh that he stopped what he was doing and said okay.  When i saw this picture I immediately thought of this old Joe Diffie song.  I had to add some lyrics to the picture… they were made for this picture.

Did You Miss Us??

It has been nearly two months since my last post... I could list all the things that have kept me from blogging, but that would take forever.  I will just say that we have been BUSY... to the extreme.  Things are calming down a bit, and I really missed posting our day to day on here, so I am making my best effort to get back into it.  What better way to start, then our trip to the pumpkin patch this past weekend.  Savannah is just about too old to pose at the pumpkin patch and Ryder is too crazy to pose at the pumpkin patch, so I am not sure that these types of pictures will be happening again next year.  They were both waaaaaaaay more interested in touching every single pumpkin there.

I'm Going To Miss This

For as long as I can remember, my summers have revolved around the beach.  Day trips to the beach, camping at the beach... we were sandy all the time.  I absolutely loved it.  Makes me so sad that my kids aren't going to have summers like that.  This trip we spent a good amount of our time at the beach... more than we usually do.  Last year with Ryder being so little and still nursing, it was a little tough to be going out every day.  This year both kids were easy to tote to the beach on a whim.  If we woke up and had no plans for that day we just threw our suits on and headed out to the beach.  I am really going to miss being able to do that.  Savannah might miss it even more than me.  She is such a little beach girl... grabs her boogie board and heads straight for the water.  I have to pull her away from the ocean.  Each time I make her leave it is the end of the world.  next year I am going to have to make sure that we spend an entire week just camping at the beach.  We would all love waking up and having the beach there and ready for us.  Until then, back to the heat of Texas... where the closest beach to us is four hours away.  Boo.

The Haynes/Kovar clan beachin' it up.  This arrangement works perfectly... the boys are the same age and the girls are the same age.  That means the moms can sit and talk :)

Ryder and Troy, rocking the long hair like a couple of beach studs

Oh how I wish these two girls lived closer together.  They LOVE hanging out together so much.  They were inseparable out in the water... sharing a board and holding hands the whole time.

Ryder finally ventured out into the ocean and LOVED it!  YAY!!  Once he realized how much fun it was out there he had no interest in going back and playing in the sand.  Which meant that my nice chillaxin' time in the sand was over and I had to go out in the water.  It was worth it though.  His face and laugh out there was priceless.

Liz took this picture of the girls boarding and me and Ryder out in the water... kind of blurry, but still cute.

Rollin' With My Hommies

The other day we met up with one of my girlfriends and her two kids in Coronado for a bike ride.  Unfortunately, none of our kids can ride a bike yet, so we rented the super touristy surrey bike and cruised around Coronado like one big happy family.  It was a lot of fun.  Next time E is out here with us I am going to make sure we go and do this.  It was a great workout and there was so much to look at.  The kids were happily entertained the entire time.  Liz and I on the other hand had the tough job of peddling all that weight around.  At one point we had major issues getting up a very small hill.  We kept trying to pedal but just couldn't do it... the bike seriously started rolling backwards.  Thank goodness there was a nice man there willing to push us up the hill.  Liz and I were laughing so hard we were both crying and the silly girls were very loudly saying how embarrassed they were.  Awesome.  Now that's a good time.

Savannah and Bella sitting in the back.  If they had been a little taller they could have helped us pedal... we could have used the help, that's for sure.

The boys had the best seat on the bike.  Right up front pointing everything out and waving at people.  Being little has it's advantages.

Silly girls, trying to be gangsta.  Yeah, not so much, white girls.

Texans Invade Cali

Our annual Haynes/Guzman family vacation came and went very quickly this year.  Last year when they came out to San Diego, we had a lot of beach time and did a lot of San Diego touristy things.  This year we decided that we wanted to take the kids to Disneyland, so that only left room for one beach day.  So that meant we were going to go BIG.  Which meant we packed food, umbrellas, toys, drinks, and planned to stay for the entire day.  We all had a fantastic time... the babies hung in there pretty well... better than the grown men did (eight plus hours at the beach was a little too much for them).  Once we finally packed up and were done with the beach, we walked through the Hotel Del Coronado for a little sight seeing and then headed back to the house.  

The water was ice cold... Ryder wanted nothing to do with that... the girls were all about it.

Ryder preferred playing in the giant sand box with his big trucks.

I LOVE that Savannah is now old enough for beach games.  The two that we brought were so much fun... I'd much rather play those than dig in the sand.

The kids with the gorgeous Hotel Del in the background.

For fun... a picture of the three kids a year ago at the beach.  Can you believe how much they have grown??  Crazy.