A day at the ranch

The girls and I had so much fun today!  After a morning of playing with our dear friends in Alpine, we headed to Walter and Janet's ranch to see the horses.  Shelby's favorite movie, as you may recall, is "The Man From Snowy River" and she loves horses!  Like all animals, she seems to like them from a distance and gets scared when they are close to her.  However, today she did great!  Several times she would reach out her hand to pet Hank, the dog.  And she was pretty close to some wild horses today.  Enjoy the pictures.

A HUGE Thank You to Walter and Janet for opening up your home and your ranch to us.  We had a wonderful time!  Thanks for driving us all around, Janet.

While out with the horses we got to see two fighter jets fly overhead.  

Here Shelby and Janet are sitting on their salt blocks, watching the horses eat. 

Janet put out some feed for the horses so that they would stay near us and they sure did!  This mamma and her foul were within arms length.   

Shelby enjoyed riding in the ranch truck - both in the back seat and up in the front between Janet and Hank, the dog (driving) & Melissa and baby Cameryn (passenger seat, friends who joined us at the ranch). 

Excited here, as she heard the horses and cows making all sorts of noise. 

Shelby and Vivian did great all day long!  

Vivian fell asleep just as we were leaving the ranch and Shelby fell asleep before we even left Marathon.  Shelby told Josh all about the horses, the ranch, the ranch truck and her rocks. We had a super fun day and now we are ready for a good night's sleep.

Thanks again, Walter and Janet!

Vivian is 6 months old today!

Today our sweet girl, Vivian is 6 months old.  She is a very precious girl who is happy (almost) all the time!  She is doing well sitting up on her own.  She loves her sister; and Shelby loves being silly for Vivian.  

She loves playing with toys and being around people.  She loves to squeal and laugh and smile and talk.

We love our sweet little Vivian Ruth Hamilton!

Happy Memorial Day!

Thankful for all those who have served and are serving our country!

Here's a little red, white, and blue photo shoot from this morning.  

Two great trips

Last week Josh went on a river trip for work (pretty sweet deal, right?!?!) so I took the girls to South Padre Island to visit my grandparents.  We had a wonderful time!  (More on Josh's trip later.)  On the way down we stopped in San Antonio to visit Matt and Jessica and their twin boys, Jack and Luke.  We had a very nice visit with them.  Shelby loved the boys and talks about them all the time now.  While in South Padre we did a little shopping, drove around in the golf cart a lot, ate at my favorite restaurant, Dirty Al's, hung out at their home, watched TV and enjoyed the nice weather.  And, of course, we went to the beach!  Outcome?  Same as last year...Shelby hated it and screamed the whole time.  She did enjoy eating her lunch on the blanket - out of the sand and away from the water.  Vivian took a nice nap in her stroller.  I really enjoyed the water and walking on the beach.

Grandpa was so nice to make the trek to the beach with us, hauling everything.  It was a short trip as Shelby wasn't very enjoyable.  Maybe next year???  Actually, we determined that we need to go with some of her cousins/friends as then she will probably be a little more brave.  

 The girls with their Great-Grandpa.  They loved him!  Shelby followed him around everywhere again this year.  She loved to go outside with him, play on the back deck, water the plants, ride in the golf cart ... just do anything he was doing.  So precious!!!    

The girls with their Great-Grandmother.  She was such a trooper with Vivian "talking" and being really loud, and with Shelby getting into looking at everything.  :)  

Precious times!  Also, we attended Chapel By The Sea on Sunday for church and enjoyed it!  Shelby and Vivian were the only young children there, so they received lots of attention and compliments.  :)  The church handed out roses to all the mothers so that was nice.  On our drive back to Sanderson we stayed the night in San Antonio again, this time eating dinner a super yummy Mexican restaurant, Mamacita's.  

We were so glad to get home on Monday and find Daddy here, back from his trip a day early.  We'll post pictures of his trip later.  

Thanks for hosting us Grandpa and Grandmother!  We love you!!!

Vivian is 5 months old!

Vivian turned 5 months old on April 28th!  We are loving this little girl, who truly is full of life! 

Vivian loves to squeal and laugh while watching her sister jump around, dance, and just be silly.
She loves to play with her toes...and eat her toes.
She is doing very well at sitting up, as you can see her in the pictures sitting in Shelby's chair.
She still gets up twice a night to eat, but we are going to start working on that.  :)
She loves her Mommy and Daddy making it hard for others to hold her, but that is a healthy thing and we love it.
She takes good naps during the day.
She is a trooper on our morning walks.
No teeth yet (Shelby got her first two teeth at 5 months).
She is very good at jumping in the Johnny Jumper!  Check it out:


Vivian is a super sweet girl and we love her contagious laugh!

Fun with friends

Shelby had some friends come to play twice a week for four weeks in April.  We had a lot of fun!  

 Tea Party!

 Arranging Vivian's room to fit the crib.

Painting!

We also made cookies and granola bars, played outside, playing the matching/memory game...  Thanks for coming over Amriel and Elijah!