All About the Alfords

Friday, April 6, 2012

Bluebonnets 2012

It is an annual tradition in our home to go take pictures in the bluebonnets. The bluebonnet is the Texas state flower...remember my post a few weeks ago about the pride in Texas...well it follows through all the way to the state flower. We venture out every year to different locations to take some good and not so good shots! Every year has proven to be different from the last. This year followed suit! We always go with the Kuhn family...our kids love to take pictures together. We have grown from 2 kids to 6 kids all together! Unfortunately, baby Emerson has been in the hospital with pneumonia and major breathing issues for 5 days so they were not able to join us. :( We took the advice of the Pierrel family and headed out to Buffalo Springs in Montgomery! I think there were tons of bluebonnets about a week ago but there was no time in our days to make the trip! We found a pretty good place and got some great shots of the kids! They were very cooperative, which was a change, and just loved being out there and exploring!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

A Special Lady...

My mom has been friends with a lady named Martha since before I was born. I feel blessed to know Martha. She is the most caring, thoughtful, and generous person I think I know. Every holiday, I mean EVERY holiday, since I was tiny, I have received a card from her in the mail. I remember loving opening the mailbox to get her cards when I knew Valentines, St. Patrick's, and even our birthdays were coming up! Well, now she has continued to send to me and also sends to my husband on our birthdays and anniversary. She now shows her love to our kids through her cards every single holiday. I think it is truly amazing! We love you Mrs. Martha!
Well, Martha is a Precious Moment collector and is very involved in the Precious Moments world. She knew that Brooklyn was a Daisy this year so she was determined to find one for her that is a Daisy! Martha surprised Brooklyn and me with her Precious Moment Daisy....it is so sweet and just amazing to think of the amount of thoughtfulness that Martha has! Truly a wonderful person!

St. Patrick's Day 2012

We had a pretty low key St. Patrick's Day for the most part. We spent the morning on a bike ride/run on some trails in a park by our house. It was so fun and the perfect weather. We are only able to do this for a few months out of the year before it is just way too hot! We went and got some flowers for the front bed to replace some that we lost in the drought last year...we are so thankful for the amount of rain we have had this year! Mommy went out with some friends for a girl's night out which was so fun! It is just nice to have dinner and visit with friends!

Thank you Memaw and Pop for the cute hat and headband for the kiddos!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

So blessed with great friends!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Spring Break 2012 Part 3

I know I have mentioned Brooklyn's art class that she is attending with Mrs. Judi. Well, this week we got to go to Mrs. Judi's house to go to class. It is WONDERFUL that Judi comes to us during the week while Brooklyn is in school, but Brooklyn was excited to see where she lived and see all of her paintings in her house! Brooklyn melted my heart...she fell in love with her garden (it is quite extraordinary) and walked around her house commenting on her oil paintings and other art work. After her class on sketching Brooklyn wanted to go back outside to see the fish in the pond and look at some more of her garden. Mrs. Judi's husband does a fabulous job on the yard...it is certainly breathtaking! Brooklyn sketched a longhorn, a rooster, a present, and a chamelion. She is very talented!

Spring Break 2012 Part 1

Wow! That is about all that I can say about the start of our Spring Break! We have already had tons of fun with family time, friend time and just plain fun time! We started our break with rainy weather but tons of fun at a rainy cookout at the Kuhn house...the Messeralls and Lamnecks were also there so Brooklyn was in baby heaven! Great food and great company! Then it was our turn to host the Alford family over here for dinner on Sunday night! I cannot believe I took no pictures...I was busy cooking, cleaning, and being a hostess!! We enjoyed our visit with Memaw, Pop, Cynthia, Robert, and Edward and were so glad that cousin Randal stopped in for a hamburger too!

The "big" kids!

The whole clan...can you believe it...no crying!!!!!

On Monday, we began work on our yard. Curt loves to use the time over Spring Break to plant, mow, and redo beds! He always claims we will not replace anything the next year based on his good buys at the nursery, but we all know how that goes!
Brooklyn asked for a vegetable garden from Santa Claus so we started some seeds about 2 weeks ago and we are seeing some seedlings! We went ahead and bought some vegetable plants to plant in our garden that Curt built above the ground in January.

We have some squash seedlings!

The kids LOVE to put on their rainboots and help in the yard! You can see that we have two gardens that we are going to plant!

They are so excited for "harvest time" as Brooklyn puts it! They want some fruits and vegetables.

Silly boy...seriously...this is totally Colson!

Brooklyn has been all about Mommy all break!!! She was my little helper for sure!

We have squash, okra, cucumber, tomatoes, beans, watermelon, cantaloupe, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and stawberries. Not all in this one bed! We cannot wait to see what does well!

The kids stayed with Mimi so that Mommy and Daddy could have a date night for our anniversary! Thank you Mimi, they had a blast making their own desserts with you!

We got to meet Laurie, Marshall, and Madeline at Burroughs Park for a great time! We went and played on multiple play grounds, went and watched the ducks on the lake, but the favorite was throwing sticks in the water! We then had a picnic lunch all together!

Colson's preferred way to swing!

The two cutest kids ever!

Brooklyn loved playing with Madeline!!!

Colson on Marshall are such good buddies!

Our picnic was yummy!

Spring Break 2012 Part 2

We cannot believe that it is already Wednesday! We have enjoyed our time so much! On Wednesday, our friends, the Heemers came over to play and for the mommies to get to catch up! It has been a while since we have just been able to play and relax and so that is what we did! Jack and Colson had a fun time jumping on the trampoline and just being boys while Brooklyn and Charlotte spent their time reading and putting on make up! Totally shows the differences in boys and girls! Thank you Heemers for a fun day! We also went to meet the Casey girls at the park for some fun....the weather has been gorgeous! Brooklyn played her heart out with Mallory and Sydney!

Colson and Jack playing boy stuff!

Boys will be boys!

The girls were quiet and we snuck up on them! Brooklyn was reading to Charlotte in her bed!

Brooklyn and Charlotte...Charlotte is just 2 but loves being with big girl Brooklyn!

Our Thursday was spent as a day for the Daisies! We went to the movie theater to see The Lorax as a troop! There were seven girls there with their parents all in their uniforms and they were so excited to see the movie! Brooklyn and I made Lorax cookies to share with our friends and they turned out very cute and the girls loved them! The movie was very enjoyable and was very true to the book that I read to my fifth graders in science for years! We then went with our friends Tracie and Karianne to lunch and the girl scout store in town. We took the girls through the small museum they have there and bought some fun patches! We had a great girl day while Colson was with my parents at Bouncing Bears and Curt went to Twin Lakes with his friend Randy! Great day all together!