Summer is here!

Well, I guess the official day of summer is June 20, but to our family, summer is here! Robby's last day of school was Friday and Noah has been out for a month now (ahhh....one of the joys of private school). We plan to spend lots of time at our neighborhood pool. Noah starts at 7 AM every morning, "Are we going to the pool today?" That boys THRIVES on activity and has so much energy to burn. He's a great little swimmer, too. I'm glad we did lessons for so many years. The other two, however, have never had lessons.

Luke already gave us a huge scare when he slipped into the deep (4 1/2 ft.) end of the pool as I turned to get Jonah dried off. I turned to see the top of his little head bobbing in the water and yelled at Robby to grab him. Thankfully, Robby was right there and just reached over and pulled him up. I yanked him out and we both cried. It did teach him a reverential fear of the water, though. For several days after that, he kept repeating this mantra---"I wear my life jacket in big pool." There's a great kiddie pool that's 1 1/2 ft. deep and it's perfect for Luke and Jonah. They love to collect all of the dead bugs in the skimmer. Boys are so fun!

I love this picture of the 3 of them in the fort (see Luke in the window). They were having a picnic for lunch. One day a few weeks ago, Noah proclaimed with great joy---"Breakfast was the only meal we ate in the house today!" They had a picnic outside for lunch and we had pizza by the pool that night. It's going to be a great summer!

Race for the Cure

Today some girlfriends and I, along with Aunt Penny, walked in the Race for the Cure. Before the boys, we used to do it every year. It's always a fun, girl day and we help a worthy cause, too!

Carpe Diem

John David, Robby's little brother, graduated tonight. I feel so old. John David was 3 when Robby and I started dating. All I could think when I was sitting there in the stadium was, "Where did the time go?" I am so scared that I'm going to blink and my baby is going to be graduating. John David is going to ETBU and we are very proud of him! He is a wonderful "Uncle Monkey", as we've always called him, to our boys. They love playing "dideo games" with him when we go visit Robby's parents.

I was explaining to Noah that John David is going to college and will not be living at Nana and Poppa's house anymore and Noah said, "Does that mean John David is about to be a grown-up?" In my mind, John David will always be a little boy.

My LIttle Fishies

Hannah Banana

Supper Club

We had Supper Club tonight. The spaghetti was yummy and then we took all of the kids to the pool. That always insures easy bedtimes. : ) A good time was had by all!

"Wooby" is home!

What an exciting 24 hours it has been at the McCraw house. After finding out that the rabbit is a girl, we named her Ruby, of course. (For all of you non-"Max and Ruby" fans, it's a rabbit cartoon that the boys LOVE.)
She spent all night in the backyard. We checked on her when we got up this morning and she was sitting by the back door. Noah ate breakfast and went back out and she was gone. She had found a low place under the fence. We thought we had covered them all. We found her under the neighbor's car, one of her favorite hiding places from yesterday. We proceeded to spend over an hour chasing the silly girl from our yard, to our neighbor's yard, to our other neighbor's yard, and back again. She was so scared and so fast. Robby finally threw in the towel and had to go to school. Well, she spent all day under a car. She went from car to car. It poured most of the day, which I think was a blessing because she didn't want to run away.

Soooo....at 5:30 tonight, our neighbor helped Robby catch her and she is back in the backyard. Jonah exclaimed, "Wooby...you came home!" The boys are just so in love with her. We are going first thing in the morning to buy a hutch, water bottle, food, etc. I guess I have a 4th child now. Not quite what I had in mind. She really is very sweet and must have been a good pet for someone. I'd like to know her story, but she's not talking. Robby and I sat outside with her tonight and petted her for a long time. She reminds me of a coat I had when I was a kid. : )

Our new family member

When we opened the door to go to church this morning, this was sitting on our front porch. After the boys chased it away, I told them if it was here when we get home, they could give it a carrot, thinking SURELY it would be gone. Well, it wasn't. Right now, it's living in the backyard, but I'm not sure where we're going from here.

Zack

Zack is the only boy (so far!) amongst 3 girls, so we have lots of "boy fun" when we play with him. He loves to play with "boys" as he calls Noah, Luke, and Jonah.

Friends

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful circle of friends in our Sunday School class. We got together for dinner/ice cream/playtime. I don't know who was more worn out----the kids or the parents. When 3 of our families get together, we have 9 children total. Never a dull moment!

I could easily put Faith (on the left) in my pocket and take her home with me. What a cutie and she can say my name too--"Ahh-mee".
Katie (on the left in the 2nd picture) and Jillian are two peas in a pod. They look like they are rocking peacefully and eating their ice cream. This was captured just moments before Jillian rocked over backwards off the porch!

Gracie

Gracie is 1 of "the 9" we hang out with often. She will be a 1st grader at Noah's school next year. She and Noah play great together and he gets giddy every time we get to see her. I think there's love in the air! She is a sweetie pie and we can only hope that our Gracie will be just as precious!:)

Jonah's Italian Concert

No, Jonah can't sing in Italian (yeah, he's smart, but we're not bilingual yet).

Tonight, after a yummy spaghetti meal, he went through his repertoire of songs. This is "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", the lullaby Daddy sings to him.
I know he's mine, but that boy is a cutie pie! : )

Birthday Bash!

We had a joint b-day party with our family for Noah and Luke. I wonder how long they will allow me to continue to combine their birthdays. With them only being 6 days apart, the idea of two separate parties is daunting. We had a baseball/birthday party. All of our family (we pretty much took up the entire set of bleachers at the Anna ballpark!) came for Noah's game and then we grilled burgers and had cake afterwards. I really thought I was going to get away with making just one cake, but Luke demanded a froggie cake. It was easier than I thought it would be. Noah's was very easy---I just baked it in a bowl.
Until next year....

Luke is 3 (again!)

Luke turns 4 today, but he's refusing to accept it. He gets irate if you talk about it and says, "I not four, I fwee!" I've even used the "You Can't Go to School if You're Not 4" argument, but that's fine with him. He doesn't have any interest in going anyway.
It seems like in just the past couple of weeks, he has become a little sponge as far as academics goes. He started identifying letters, writing letters, and spelling his name in just a few short days. Thanks, Tad! Tad is the frog with the LeapFrog learning system and it's quite educational.
Happy 4th (ok, third, again) Birthday, Luke!

My Baby is 7!

How can it be? Our baby is 7 today. Well, okay, he's not our baby anymore, but he was our first and like I tell him, he'll always be my baby. Here's a pic of the mighty Melissa Cardinal. Baseball rules our lives right now, but he's having a blast. School is out May 9th and he's ready for summer.
Happy Birthday, Noah!

Ethiopia

Here is the video that our missions minister made about this summer's mission trip. How can we not go? We are called to care for the orphans and widows, which is exactly what we will be doing in Axum, Ethiopia.

Get some tissues and watch it here!

Laugh of the Day!

Background info: Luke's best 3 year-old joke lately is to say, "You know what?" Then, he waits for you to say, "What?" and then he says, "You're a ______!" Insert any animal or household object here. Then, he laughs and laughs. Of course, little brother listens to everything, even when you don't think he's listening.

Saturday morning, Jonah got in bed with us and said, "Daddy, oo (you) know ut(what)?" Robby said, "What?" and Jonah said, "Oo a pig! Oo a puhple (purple) pig!" Then, he just cackled in his cute, little 2 year-old laugh. I think what made it even funnier (besides the fact that he came up with purple pig all on his own at 7 in the morning) is that it wasn't that long ago that Jonah was just putting 2 words together ("gink (drink) pees (please)!"). Now, he's telling jokes! He's a little comedian....

Here are a few of his recent glamour shots! : )

The biggest flakes I've ever seen!

Ok, I've lived in Texas all my life and never seen snowflakes this big. The movie doesn't do them justice, but I had to share. The boys are climbing the WALLS wanting to go out in it. 5-6 inches are predicted. Looks like a lonnnnng weekend in the house! I had to run out in the sleet to retrieve our snowman accessories from our snowman earlier this week. Only in TX does it snow only twice in the winter and both times are in March! Like they say, if you don't like the weather here, wait 15 minutes.

Ready

Finally, the boots that Luke wears every day came in handy for our snow day. I guess he thought boots and underwear were all that were needed for snowman building!

Snow Day!

I've said before that I feel like I do more by 9 AM than most people do all day. Well, today was definitely one of those days. The boys went to bed last night (after 10!) knowing that snow would be on the ground when they woke up. Well, they were up with the sun and outside before most people's alarms even went off! We built a snow "mountain" man. We couldn't really get the snow into balls. Memories were made and now I have lots of wet laundry to do!