McGrath Reunion 2014

This week, 2/3 of the McGrath kids and my mom and dad were able to meet up for a mini reunion in Surfside, TX.  Surfside is about an hour south of Galveston.  There is absolutely nothing to do in Surfside except go to the beach, but we chose it because we were able to find a house there large enough to accommodate the group.  I actually didn't even mind there being nothing to do, as I envisioned spending every second on the beach, being lazy, and just letting the kids hang out.

When we pulled up on Monday, we were met with a wall of seaweed.  You literally could not walk from the sand to the water, and it covered the entire coast line.  It was insane.  However, we didn't let it bother us.  We got right to work making our path.  First we tried digging a path, but then we realized there were GAZILLIONS of mosquitoes breeding underneath all of the seaweed.  And it smelled AWFUL.  So then we just started dumping tons and tons of sand and made a path to the ocean.  That worked alright and the kids (and all the neighbors) were grateful for the path. 

By Wednesday, the seaweed started clearing up.  There was still a bunch on the sand, but it was drying up and it there wasn't much washing up anymore.  The beach was now ideal for the kids again.  They could go a ways out in the water and it was still only at their waists.  They had fun boogie boarding in the small waves, searching for shells, and just being with their cousins.

Some of the highlights of the trip included glow-in-the-dark zombie tag on the beach (even though we all probably now have Malaria), playing Fishbowl, If/Then, and Telestrations. 

It was a great trip, just wish all of my family could have been there.  I also wish I had gotten more pictures (especially of the adults)

Well, at least we tried to get all three in a picture.

 

 

Aunt Ali is a hit with the girls.

4th of July 2014

We had another fabulous 4th!  Of course, I was sad we would missing the small town Oak Point parade this year, but Rockwall's did not disappoint!  It was just perfect.  Lucy LOVED it.  She was clapping and waving and yelling, "Hiiiiiiiiii!" to the parade participants.  It was cute. 

Later, we went to mom and dad's for dinner and swimming.  Colin and Alison are in town and the girls have been hanging on them like monkeys.  They sure do love their aunts and uncles.  Later in the night we went to the Rowlett fireworks show, where Sheena Easton was performing.  Uhhh, random.  Haha!  But the girls had a great time with their glow sticks and then watching the fireworks.  They were so tired when we got home that Lucy pretty much jumped in her crib.  All in all, it was a great 4th!

Shelby is SEVEN!

Last Saturday Shelby turned 7!  She had been asking for a horse themed party (not sure where that idea came from) for a while, but we told her since we had just moved a few days prior we wouldn't really have a party this year.  Instead, we surprised Shelby with some new boots and Jeremy and my dad took her horse back riding.  She loved it!!  She keeps asking when she will get to go back.

They came back home and we had hamburgers, cake, and ice cream with my mom and dad.  Notice all the boxes in the background!

She loves her big girl Vera Bradley purse and carries it EVERYWHERE.

Happy Birthday to my not-so-little baby!  I can't believe that next year she will be getting baptized!

Back It Up

I guess it is time to finally update the blog.  I just haven't had the time or energy lately to do so, but so much has happened I'm afraid if I don't just do it now I will miss something.

So, going back to March 1.  It was Jeremy's 32nd birthday and our nephew, Owen's, 1st birthday.  Tristan and Ana brought the boys to our house and we had a little party for Owen.  That night, Tristan, Jeremy, and I ran in the Big Easy in Little Elm 5k.  I did a lot better than I expected I would do!  Tristan won 1st place for his age division!

 

 

You may be wondering why I am wearing a "Vote for Flores" shirt in the picture.  Back around February I became the campaign manager for THREE candidates running for school board.  You wouldn't think that a school board election for a small(ish) town would be too much work.  You would be wrong.  This was life consuming.  We even worked with our local state rep, and in the end, ALL THREE candidates beat the incumbents, which is pretty unheard of, and we had a record turnout for voting. 

 



 

During that time we also decided to put our house up for sale and look for something closer to my mom and dad.  I have to say that selling a house this time around was far less painful than the last time.  Don't get me wrong...keeping your house "show ready" at all times with three little kids sucks.  But at least I had Jeremy here with me the whole time, and the house sold in 3 weeks.  We close in 3 days, and close on our new house in Rockwall in 4 days!  We are so ready to be settled in.  Throughout this whole process, we've had a lot of mixed feelings:

 

1) Leaving Little Elm - There is a lot of growth happening in LE right now.  We have loved living in a small town, but close to the city.  There are a lot of new, fun things, being built in LE right now that I guess we will miss out on.  However, we are excited to get to explore a new city.  We are basically moving from one lake (Lewisville Lake) to another (Lake Ray Hubbard). 

 

2) Leaving our ward.  There are definitely some friends that we will miss from our ward.  However, at this point I feel a sigh of relief to be leaving.  The dynamic in our ward has completely changed.  There is a lot of dissent, gossip, cliques, and people just outright not being good members of the church.  It's just weird.  Not to say every member is like this, but there is too much going on for my comfort.  I have no idea what our new ward will be like, but I am hoping for a much more peaceful ward where we can focus on the Gospel and not the drama.

 

3) Leaving our house.  We always knew this wasn't a long term house and that we would sell when it made sense.  But, we've brought 2 babies home to this house, and made lots of good memories, so there is always going to be an emotional attachment.  BUT, I am also SUPER excited to move to the new house with LOTS more counter/cabinet space, more bathrooms (which don't really matter now, but I keep telling Jeremy he will thank me for as the girls get older), and an overall better layout that will allow us to enjoy the house more.  I am also determined to actually decorate the new house, and not leave everything blank and bare.

 

That's about it in terms of updates go.  I am excited to post lots of pics of the new house!



 

 

4th Birthday!

Yesterday was Joey's 4th Birthday!  She is my little Sour Patch Kid.  She can be so sweet- she is my cuddler!  When Jeremy wakes Shelby up for school in the morning, Joey will crawl into bed with me and snuggle until Lucy wakes up.  She also loves to sit on my lap while I'm working.  She is also very sensitive lately- like when Shelby drew ears on Joey's picture of Hello Kitty today.  Joey cried for about 30 minutes.  Silly.  She can also be very disobedient mischievous- like hiding the iPad under her pillow so she can watch a show after we put them to bed (We've since learned to do iPad checks every night.), or like when she stretched her gum all over her hands so she could have Spidey hands.

Joey is a perfect mix of tomboy and girlie girl.  She still loves Scooby Doo and Spider Man, but also loves princesses.  She knows pretty much every word to all of the Frozen songs (and every line in the movie), and told me this year she wanted a Frozen party.  I had SO MANY awesome ideas for a party this year, but due to everything going on just couldn't swing it.  We decided instead to take the girls to Six Flags on Saturday, and then to Gattitown (Joey calls it Daddy Town) last night for her birthday dinner.  Those are two places she asks to go to all the time, so we were happy to oblige.  When we got to Gattitown last night they were playing Frozen, so it kind of worked out perfectly!  The pizza was gross, of course, but the girls had a blast going from game to game. 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 4th Birthday, Joey!  We love you!

Part 2

So Julie posted more pictures of our trip, so of course I am stealing them to post on here.  There were also a couple of stories I remembered and wanted to write down.


-The girls LOVE Frozen.  They know all the words to all the songs and they sing them constantly.  Joey loves to pretend that Shelby is Elsa and she is Anna.  It is really cute.  So meeting Anna and Elsa (thanks to Jeremy waiting 2 hours in line) was one of the biggest highlights of the trip.  HOWEVER...as much as Joey loved meeting them, she got mad at Anna.  I had the girls' hair in buns, and Anna was just chatting with them and said to Joey, "Your hair looks like a donut."  Everyone chuckled and that was that.  After we left the room, Joey turned and said, "Anna was so rude!  She said my hair looked like a donut.  It's not nice to laugh at people's hair!"  We had to explain that she wasn't being mean, just trying to be funny.  Every time we talk about Anna and Elsa now Joey brings it up.


-After we went to Turtle Talk with Crush, Shelby kept talking like Crush.  After we got off Space Mountain, Shelby rand to Jeremy and exclaimed, "That was so gnarly!"


-Monday night, after a loooong day at Disneyland, we wanted dinner, but wanted something that was on the route back to the hotel.  We decided the best option was a buffet we had seen right outside the gate, that would allow us to eat then cross the street and hop right back on the shuttle back to the hotel.  The girls love Golden Corral (for some reason), and I figured it would have lots of good options for Lucy.  The name of the place was Captain Kidd's.  IT.  WAS.  NASTY.  I'm honestly not sure how we didn't end up with food poisoning.  Jeremy got a hamburger.  They were pre-wrapped and had been sitting under the heat lamps.  Probably for a week.  The bun was so hard you loterally could not take a bite into it.  Same with the chicken in the Alfredo.  Ugh, I am making myself sick thinking about it.  Never eat there.  You have been warned.


-The flight from L.A. back to Houston was not fun.  Lucy was not having it.  It is super hard for a 13 month old to understand she has to be still and can't explore.  It doesn't help that Lucy is in a shrieking phase.  And the plane was completely full.  The woman in the row ahead of me (who was on her 3rd glass of wine) kept sighing and turning around to shoot us looks.  Of course it stressed me out, which is the worst thing to do, because that stressed Lucy out even more.  Lucy FINALLY fell asleep right around the time I thought I was going to pee on myself.  I held off as long as I could, but then I had to go.  I had to.  So I handed Lucy off to Jeremy hoping she would stay asleep.  I got to the bathroom and shut the door and heard her shrieking.  That was the longest flight ever.  Of course she was a perfect angel on the flight from Houston to Dallas.


-Lucy slept through the entire Snow White ride.


-A really nice employee at CA Adventure saw Shelby's "First Visit" button and asked her what her favorite ride was.  Shelby told her it was the Radiator Springs ride and the employee gave her a free Lightning McQueen bucket of popcorn.


-The World of Color show at CA Adventure was awesome!  It was long, but so good.  The bursts of fire were so hot, I had to keep checking my eyebrows to make sure they hadn't been singed.