Austin Asays

Fun Times at Busy Bee Preschool.

I'm being eaten by a Boa Constrictor! Zach and Sav, with preschool friends at the Waco Zoo.

This is the only pic I took of Bella at the Zoo :(
She called every animal a doggie in her loudest voice.

Zach and his friend Quinn checking out the marine life.

Digging for fossils. I love kids- here we are at the zoo, and they spent the most amount of time digging up bones and rolling in grass. Ah- to be a kid again.

Rolling, rolling...

Kaylee- "Wow these lizards are cool! I've never seen any like these" Zach (proudly)-" I have, at my grammy's house , thousands of them actually every summer."

Sliding through the otters pool. One of the kids (thank goodness not one of mine this time) was so fascinated by the otters swimming around her that she refused to slide down half way through. After much fussing from the kids waiting their turn it took at thin mom (see told you I was happy it wasn't my child) climbing in to pull the child out. Quite a site. One kid couldn't wait his turn and tried forcing her out the hard way.

Yes- Zach is KISSING the otter through the glass. Silly kid!

Did you know...
That tortoises can live to be hundreds of years old? Zach really thought about that seeing as how his birthday was coming up, and said thoughtfully, "wow mom that's a lot of birthdays, how many presents do you think they get?"

Easter Time with Busy Bees

Many of you know this year we did a home preschool seeing as how every preschool in Round Rock was full when we moved here during the summer. So I heard about this homeschool curriculum through church friends. I've heard about other people doing this before and it sounded like fun and a good chance to do some planned, structured, one on one with Zach (along with 5 others) in preparation for kindergarten. I'm so glad we did this! It's been SOO fun getting to see Zach in his element with friends, and in a (sort of) class room setting. I've gotten to see his strengths and weaknesses, which being his mom and being with him 24/7 at home you would think I would already know all this. But somehow it's different. And it's been really fun for me and for Savannah too. My favorite part- snack time! Each time there is a child assigned to be the snack helper... the coolest job you could get. I pick the snack, and the helper and I fiddle with the snack until we can make some kind of silly face. Here's what we came up with for Easter. I know doesn't look like much of a snack, we gave them more stuff once they ate the bunny.

Bunny masks!

Easter Egg hunt!

Girly Faces!

Uh oh, who left the pantry open again!?
Bella got caught red handed in the Nestle Quick chocolate mix. She was in heaven until she got caught!! When she wants something she says "Pleeeeease!" in a really loud voice. That's what she's saying as she is pointing furiously at me to give it back to her. She's pretty quiet and very quick (no pun intended) when it comes to making messes these days. We call her busy Bella these days. I keep thinking she needs a hair cut everytime I see a picture of her, but I know I just cut it like last week! (or so it seems)

Savannah- the girl of many faces!

Intense coloring project!

Little more relaxed and having fun

getting a little too relaxed.

so relaxed she started to fall asleep.

Let it be known- We do have a blog! We have just never had the guts to share it with anyone- yeah I know- selfish! I LOVE catching up by browsing all the blogs of our friends and family- so we decided to create one when Bella was born (1 and 1/2 years ago!) but never kept up with it frequently enough. So time has passed and every once in a while I would post a picture or two, but nothing worth sharing I thought. Even more time passed and I realized, I'm not ever going to have more time so here goes. Maybe I will get better with more practice. So here's the scoop... well most of you know from our christmas letter, that we are now in Round Rock (Austin area), getting Mike's dental practice going, busy with kids, running them around to their activities while trying to keep up with our own. Hectic, fun, crazy, but we love it and wouldn't have it any other way. Favorite things right now, our hammock, long walks on the neighborhood trails, ring around the rosie on the trampoline, and saturday morning pancakes. Oh there is one thing that's pretty new... We're EXPECTING baby #5 on Dec. 1st, 2008. I was putting off telling people because I was feeling really good, and not at all pregnant, but I forgot to knock on wood! Do I ever feel pregnant now! So I figured at 8 weeks it was ok to share. We're excited! Zach and Savannah insist that I have a boy for him and girl for her- YIKES! I don't know if I could have twins at this point. We'll keep you blogged in.

Saturday Mornings...

This is what saturday morning looks like in our house.
Daddy with lots of helpers.

Josh is the designated pancake flipper.

Mike makes his famous, signature, personalized chocolate chip pancakes in the form of the
kid's initials.

Next comes Saturday chores...

Disgruntled yard workers!!

Poetry Tea at Cactus Ranch Elementary

Our super shy poet. Hiding under his work, whispered the whole time, hiding his light under a bushel. Let me share with you his favorite Diamonte titled : Reading

Reading
interesting, entertaining
learning, talking, describing
library, store, reading chair, bed
disappointing, exciting, surprising
fun, cool
books

Favorite past time, playing in the back yard

Josh loves pushing his Bella on the swing. He's sweet!

Bella's got a do-rag on!

sorry about the cleavage picture here, but hey, she's only 1 and 1/2 - give me a break!

Tea Party with Princess Savannah, Princess Emily and Sir Zach.

The Best Spring Break !

Camping at Pedernales Falls State Park in Johnson city, TX
We loved the falls, the hikes, the sandy beaches (river front), and the smores. This is one of our favorite things to do as a family. I didn't grow up camping much but grew to love it in college and fortunately Mike and our kids are big fans too. We stayed for 2 nights and enjoyed the first 90 degree day this year.

Zach and Savannah getting ready for dinner- YUMMY!

Gross picture of me, but I had to show Savannah's pirate face. She has lots of these :)

Hiking on the first night

Yummy smores!

MMMMM... pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit- I wish we ate like this at home everyday! Thanks for sharing Josh!

Check out the canteen, now that's using your head Josh!

I have the power!

I kept waiting for one of them to fall in , but they were pretty careful- they just wanted to make a good splash.

Hee Hee- Savannah is notorious for showing her little plumbers bottom, good thing this time she had a swim suit on underneath!

We found a really cool cave (literally cool -about 65 degrees vs 90 outside!)

We did it! we hiked for over 2 & 1/2 hours in 90 degree weather (in early March! only in Texas)

Don't worry we had tons of SPF 50 and H20, this is just heat exhaustion- no biggie!

I'm on top of the world!

We loved how the tide pools varied in color from each other!

Nature lover!

We wanted to jump in SO badly- but unfortunately this part of the falls was restricted for swimming (strong currents)! Very beautiful though.

Ahh, taking a break in the shade!

Fortunately they did have areas for swimming in the river that had sandy like beaches. Savannah was begging Zach to bury her, got impatient and decided to do it herself.

Gross- Sand Snot! We were just getting over our illnesses when we headed out on our trip, so Bella had a constant runny nose. At one point I looked up at her and was a little freaked out because I couldn't tell what happened to her face! She seemed to just be contently sifting sand through her hands over and over for about an hour! Then it hit ah- sand and snot, not a good combo. But she had fun!

Icy cold river water, but it felt soooo good after our long hike under the hot sun.

Monkeying around in the trees one last time while mom and dad do all the dirty work.

Before we headed out the boys decided to try their hand at fishing. No luck, there river fish are too fast paced! Still relaxing.

The award for the Worst Parents goes to ...
Mike and Caroline Asay

Zach was sick for his last soccer game, but insisted he was feeling completely better. Feeling sorry for the little guy we decided to take him to enjoy one last game before the end of the season after much begging. This is the before game picture

during the game....

After the game... all 3 kids were SO sick! They could barely stand! We felt like the worse parents ever. You live and learn.

At the Asay infirmary ...we had about a month and a half of constant sickness ie. colds, flu, strep, bronchitis, pink eye. It was almost comical, you name it, we all had it! So what did we do... we painted, played and tried to keep it interesting. What a strange year- never have we been so sick in our lives. We blame it on the new, big, bad Austin bugs. Hopefully we're immune by next year. While stuck indoors with cabin fever we tried to turn lemons into lemonade- we discovered that we have budding artists in our home.