Sweet Land of Liberty!!!!!

We had a FANTASTIC 4th of July!!! Truly, the day couldn't have gone better. We were a little apprehensive of Ryan staying up late for the fireworks...but, hey! It's once a year, and its FIREWORKS!!!! He was an absolute CHAMP! Did not fuss once. As you'll see through the progression of our day, into the night, he slowly tuckered out!

HAPPY 4TH TO ALL!!! Officially, one of mi favorito holidays.

Ryan had a BLAST in the pool, all day long! Rod had to pull him out for a bit to make him rest.

Sweet Rylee LOVES to play with Ryan, and is a huge help to Rod and I! Always love having a Rylee around. She's got such a sweet, nurturing heart.

Would a Tootle day outside be complete without a "goff cub" or a "goff ball"?!?

After swimming, we headed to Sonterra for the fireworks show! From the parking, to our blanket spot, seriously couldn't have gone better!!!

Lots of line dancing as we all waited for the show to start. Here's Ryan doing his "how low can you go" manuver. He's a little behind on the music, but he took that dancing VERY seriously. I have to say, I was quite impressed with him following along with all the women.

I don't know what's funnier....Ryan "jumpin" to the music, or the girl on the left. What line dance is she dancing to??? I'm assuming Ryan's following her dancing, and not the rest of the group's.

Chicken dance!!!! Ryan, you feelin' it?!?!

Love this shot of him. He was soooo in his own moment. I just happened to catch him looking at me for a sec.

Family picture attempt! First of many lollipops. The last of which was a red one that I sat on during the fireworks show in my white shorts. Lovely.

This is Ryan's reaction to his first sighting of fireworks. The church next to the club had their show first. (On top of lollipops...he had a few oreos).

Love my little Lovebug!

I'm really feeling the National anthem. Wow.

Jed was gracious enough to take my camera and snap shots of me in the fireworks moment! Thanks Jed!!!! (I did delete the ones I looked "more plump" in). Shawna, Lange and Walker joined us for swimming and Sonterra. Fun times with the Allens.

SLEEPY! At this point, it's about 10:15pm. Ryan's bedtime is 7:30.

Ryan rocked it that night!

"Do these fireworks ever end? And, why do they have to boom so loudly?"

Donut Date #1!!

I label this "Donut Date #1" b/c I hope to have many more....and particularly during this pregnancy! (And, while breastfeeding when I burn 800 cals a day feeding). As most of you know, the temperatures in SA are still in the 100s. The pools are even starting to get warm. YUCK. So, genius me came up with the idea to have a donut date with the kiddos. I had Friday off of work for the holidays, so I fully intended (and, did enjoy) a day in the life of a stay-at-home mom!

We had a FUN time! I don't know if the kids had more fun than the adults. We couldn't stop watching them run around the donut shop like CRAZY kids. Luckly, no one seemed to mind. I sure didn't. I was most amazed at the SUDDEN sugar rush, and then a total low at the end. I think I was right with the kids on the rush, and the low.

This is Ryan's first Krispie Kreme! Hot off the belt...he loved every minute of it. (Agian, working on his "cheese" face).

The only one missing in the pic above is Abby. She decided to sleep in this morning. Her sugar rush came a bit later, while the others were slowly crashing.

The above pic is our hefty attempts at getting the boys lined up in a row for the picture I'd been waiting to snap! This is the moment I wanted captured!

We're almost there.

Yes! We did it! (only bad thing is sweet Abby is missing)

He LOVED the donuts!!! Love this pic of Jack Walker!

MY most favorite moment of the donut date was the surprise arrival of Kim and Scott!!! I cannot tell you how happy this made me. For those of you that don't know, Kim and I have grown up together since we were two or three. She's my fav! While I'd like to think they were at KK to surprise me, they came to see Abby and Sharla. They flew in from Seattle the night before, and didn't get it until midnight. Thanks for waking up on Texas time.

Here's the adorable Abby and Ryan!!! Destiny.

Abby, I can't wait to meet your baby sister!!! Welcome to the world Katie!

Brothers!

I couldn't be happier for Ryan. He's going to have a little brother!!! One of my friends mentioned that they'll be "brothers", and that just melted my heart! I LOVE the idea of Ryan having a brother, being a brother, and playing with his brother!

I guess I'm fascinated with that word, because the use of the word was never needed in my household. It was always, and still is "SISTERS".

As most of you know, I change my mind often...as I did with Ryan's name. If you'll remember back, we were set on Gavin....which Ryan is so not a Gavin to me. Well, we're loving the name:

Parker Stewart

Yes, I can see this changing. We're 100% set on Stewart as the middle name. That is my dad's name. Parker, we love but that could possibly change.

And, yes we ALREADY have a name. When you have to conquer the last name "Tootle", you start planning ahead to win the battle.

If You Don't Want to Melt, We Try the Following

You have to get creative with temps being in the 100s. Today, my car read 109 degrees. So, the Tootles choose their options carefully. EVERYTHING outside is HOT, HOT, HOT. I seriously think this is the HOTTEST summer I've ever experienced.

Here are a few of cooling activities. Try them:


1. We try different ways of eating popcorn.

We'll try anything to beat the heat.

2. Work on our "cheese" faces for the camera.

3. Eat popcorn as fast as we can, before the pregnant momma eats it all.

3. Play-doh time!!! But, first we go through each tool, and be sure that momma can see it. Hold it way out there.

Way out there.

4. Try playing with play-doh without mushing it up, or getting your hands dirty. Make momma mush it up, and roll it out for you.

5. Play-doh is a serious sport. So, we use total concentration.

6. Again, trying to keep our hands clean.

7. Swimming with Nama!!! (aka. Nema now that we're big Nemo fans). We love swimming with Mimi too, but unfortunately momma forgets to pull out the camera there. I guess its the total relaxation feel from the amazing pool/backyard.

8. We CHILL. And, work on our "Big Kahuna" personalities.

Ryan, that's a good "Big Kahuna". Doing the Chesley-chuckle with it! Nice!

9. When chilling out, you can stop working on your bubbles. No, Ryan. Seriously. You can stop now.

10. We work on getting sores on our knees, and toes as we (Ryan) get in and out of the pool 500 billion times. Note Ryan's new pals...Dora and Boots. Here's where I need you to keep a secret....we lost Turner and Felipe at a restaurant last week. Shhhh. Please don't tell Ryan. He hasn't figured it out yet.

11. We give the paps the "hand". Talk to it!

12. We hog all our snacks from the other kids in the baby pool. Don't share. It's too hot. ;)

Our Little Swimmer

Tuesday night, the Tootles headed to Sonterra. Rod hit a few golf balls at the range, and Ryan and I went to the pool. I plopped myself down on a chair, and Ryan assumed the position. Arms out, floaties on....laters Mom. When Rod got to the pool we had dinner and just enjoyed the three of us. Nice evening...one of my favs. Love my sweet family.

Ryan invited Felipe, aka "Eppe" and Turner "Churner" to join him at the pool. (Handy Manny tools...Ryan's favorite from the box aka "ox")

Turner held his breath the longest. He wins.

Full of joy....just don't take the tools out of his hands please.

Role playing..."Turner, on three we're going under water. Don't laugh Felipe, you're next."

Ryan's doing great in the water. We started swim lessons the beginning of June. He's great a blowing bubbles, and jumping in the water. He's not a huge fan of the slide. He goes down it with the most terrified face. Reminds me of the Santa slide on A Christmas Story.

We're Going Green!

We got grass!!!! The HOA was probably just about to knock on our door. Here are two before shots. Drab, sad and dry. This grass' love-tank was apparently empty. We weren't feeding it the love it needed. It was less than stellar to begin with.

The "drab and sad" took away from Rod's amazing rock wall. Ryan, what color is the dirt? That's right. It's BROWN.

So, instead of filling the love tank, we decided to get a whole new tank! We got all new grass!!!!

While I watered, Ryan practiced his swing!

Ryan, this is called GRASS. What color is the grass? That's right, it's GREEN!!!!
For those of you from San Antonio, you're probably thinking, "this is the worst time to plant grass." For those of you who aren't in SAn Antonio, the city is currently in Stage 2 water restriction. This means we can only water our grass once a day between 3am - 8am and/or from 8pm to 10pm . Our day is Thursday b/c the last digit in our address is a "7". But, we can hand water the grass everyday, any time of day. So, we've been hand watering twice a day, every day since we went green!