Fourth of July with the Astros

Our Fourth of July weekend started off on the road. We got up and headed down to Houston to watch the Astros at Minute Maid Stadium. There were several cool things about this trip:

We got to meet Uncle Tone's girlfriend Samantha for the first time. I don't think we scared her off - having cute kids helped us I think! :)

Pa had the awesome idea of everyone chipping in and getting a suite. And it was AMAZING! I've never enjoyed going to a ball game so much than we did with this trip! Especially with the kids. It helped that Minute Maid was air conditioned. The Astros may have lost but they have an amazing stadium!

Carli really thought the Mickey Mouse was cool. I couldn't get her to be still long enough to get a decent picture...so I choose the picture where Keith was at least smiling!

Grandma came to a ballgame! How cool is that! Here is a picture of the oldest and youngest enjoying each others company.

Carli did really well at the game. She was so funny. Any time the crowd cheered or there was a loud noise, she'd run back into the suite and look around. Ava would just clap! Carli even slowed down every once and awhile and let Pa point things out for her on the ball field.

Both Carli and Ava really liked the food. It seemed like they ate all day long!

Grammy and Ava taking in the game. Ava did really well with everyone. She is still a Momma's girl, but Momma has learned to "hide" so Ava will let lose and enjoy the company of others. :) Grammy helped out a lot on Saturday with Carli bathroom breaks and simply taking Ava so I could get a breather.

Some of the rest of our crew - Aunt Betty, Grandma and Aunt Carolyn with Uncle Cleaon and Michelle in the background. One thing that was pretty cool about the suite too - you could talk to everyone and not just the person you were sitting by. I actually got to talk to Michelle for more than five minutes! That's a rare occurrence with the kiddos and life these days.

Taking in the game - Ava really liked this view! Carli really liked to just run down and check on things before high tailing it back into the suite again.

Ava is in the "sitting" phase. Carli did this too. She likes to find things and just sit on them. (Carli did this with her little vacuum cleaner she got on her first birthday.) Ava loved the little ledge that was just the right size for her to sit on.

Daddy and Ava

What are the odds of getting both girls smiling, looking at the camera with a shoot of the ballpark in the back...well, with Pa's help we got kind of close!

Apparently the odds don't improve much with a 4 year old! :)

The kids had an absolute blast in the suite - and it was awesome b/c there wasn't much that they could hurt! Carli and Logan loved to "hide" under the table - Ava would squat down and just grin out them. Too cute!

At the end of the game, the closest thing we got to all three sitting in close proximity! This was close to 10 pm at night. I was really surprised that Ava stayed awake the whole time!

I was pretty proud of this picture! They are kind of dark, but I'll take it! Everyone looking at the camera with at least some smiles! Pa and Grammy with their grandbabies...

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. It was a long day but totally worth it. We carpooled with Grammy and Pa and after dropping them off in Alto, we came home to Whitehouse. We got home about 1:30 am.

One HUGE thing that I just have to brag on is Carli. We've been working on potty training for about a month. She'd done pretty well, but on trips I usually put a pull up on her. Just this last week I had decided that was hindering us a bit and had gotten brave about just putting her in a pull up only at nap time and bed time. She's done pretty well. But I wasn't sure how to handle Saturday given the amount of time we were spending in the car and I was sure she would be too busy to remember to go potty. But I put her in undies at 6:30 am that morning and decided that I would put a pull up on her when she had an accident. At 10 pm, we put the girls in their pj's before we left the ball park and Carli was still in her original undies! I was so proud! She used the potty all day and even told us twice on the way home that she needed to potty. She arrived home at 1:30 am in dry pull ups too! Woohoo Carli! We were very surprised and proud of Carli for doing such an awesome job!

Our Fourth of July got off to an awesome start and got even better!