The Graduate

Last Saturday night was a momentous occasion in the Courtright household. It was the night of Collin's high school graduation!

In honor of Collin's graduation, we had a celebratory family dinner at Taste of Texas and managed to snap a family photo.

The graduation ceremony was held at a HUGE convention center in the area. Coming from a much smaller town, I was shocked at the huge event and large number of graduating seniors.

It proved to be impossible to get a decent photo of Collin during the ceremony (not to mention the fact that my camera settings were all screwed up the entire night without me realizing it). But here is a quick video clip of him walking the stage for his graduation (it's not the best since we didn't have a great angle, but it'll do!)



And here are some of Collin's senior year pics that I wanted to share in honor of his graduation. Such a handsome guy!

And now for the million dollar question. What will Collin be doing next? Drum roll please....

Following in the footsteps of both his Dad and Mom, Collin is enrolled this fall at the University of Texas at San Antonio and plans to major in Accounting!

Congrats, Collin! We're so proud of you!

Water Baby

This week we hosted swim lessons for Ms. Glendy's WaterBabies at our house. Ms. Glendy teaches survival swim skills for little ones and her methods are incredible. Folks from all over Houston sign up to bring their kids for 30 minute daily lessons during a week at hosted pools around the area. This was our 2nd year to host lessons and we decided to get Kaitlynn in for lessons this time instead of Connor. I wasn't sure what to expect because she's so young and also because she has NO FEAR of the water. She has been making Jeff and I a nervous wreck everytime we're outside around the pool, so I was hoping for a miracle.

Well, just call Ms. Glendy our miracle-worker because Kaitlynn was floating safely on her back unassisted by Day 1 and was making it to the side of the pool after being "dunked" head first by Day 2. Incredible! In the following video, she gets tossed and floats for a LONG time by herself until she reaches the steps of the pool. (In fact, she floats so long that you might only want to watch the first and last 30 seconds of the 3+ minute video...everything in between is just Kaitlynn floating!)

Jeff and I got in our pool last night with the kids and thought we'd see how K would do with her new swim skills. Before we could even test her, she slipped right off the steps into the deeper water! My instinct was to reach out and rescue her but I quickly realized she didn't need me. She came up on her back with her face out of the water and was floating safely on her own.

With all the swimming we plan to do this summer, we can now look forward to LOTS of fun and much less stress in the pool!

Coastin'

Back when Connor was about 2 years old, he had the best time at his cousins' house playing on their awesome roller coaster toy. That coaster left quite the impression, so much so that I decided to splurge on our own for a combined birthday gift for Connor and Kaitlynn this year. It arrived by mail in 3 large boxes, and Jeff and Kevin spent one morning putting it together before letting the kids enjoy it. They LOVE it! Jeff, in his typical "helmet police" manner, makes them wear helmets but they don't mind a bit. So much fun!

A Morning at the Beach

We made a late decision on Friday night to head to the beach early Saturday morning. We knew it would be crowded due to Memorial Day weekend, but we figured if we went early enough that we could wear out the kids by lunchtime and call it a day. When we told Connor at dinner about going to the beach, he got so excited and exclaimed, "I've never been to the beach!" Jeff and I looked at each other and realized surprisingly that the last time we could remember going to the beach together was back in 2007 when Connor was a baby and we went to Hawaii.

We consider ourselves beach people so it was embarrassing to realize that Connor had no memory of being there and Kaitlynn had never been. Well, that settled it. We loaded up early Saturday morning and put a movie on for the kids during the drive. This was K's first time wearing headphones, and she did great for about 45 minutes.

We were on the beach before 9 am and it was great! It wasn't very crowded when we got there, and the weather was VERY windy so the waves were higher than I can remember ever seeing them. Both kids had no hesitation whatsoever about the sand and water.

Jeff and I had big smiles on our faces watching how much fun they had, again thinking, "Why haven't we done this before?!"

I've been working on taking better pictures lately, so I went a little camera crazy and took so many photos of the kids in the water. I was surprised how many I took that actually turned out nice (well, nice to me anyway) so I ended up posting all of them. Now begins the photo overload...

Our morning at the beach turned into almost an entire day. The kids didn't want to leave, but the beach was jam-packed by 2 in the afternoon. We headed home and resolved to make more frequent trips to the beach with the kids in the future.

One Lucky Mom

Our summer is officially underway and I get to spend my days with these two cuties. I am one lucky Mom.

Kaitlynn's Carseat Meltdown

We finally moved Kaitlynn into a front-facing carseat about a month or so ago. She was SO excited about her new carseat that I could barely put it together because she was climbing all over it. Everytime we picked it up and set it down again, she was right there to climb on in. When it was finally installed, she was one happy girl. For about a week or two, all I had to say was "Do you want to go for a ride in your new carseat?" and she would drop whatever she was doing and sprint out the door.

She still loves her carseat ("pah-see" as she calls it, I have no idea where she gets some of her pronunciations) but now everytime we strap her in she says "Tye" meaning tight, so we wiggle the straps and she's good to go.

Despite all the love for the carseat, that doesn't stop her from her typical toddler antics. The other day we were at a park and Kaitlynn didn't want to leave. Jeff had to use physical force to get her strapped in to her seat, and from there she proceeded to have a "big bad meltdown" as Connor called it. This is the kind of stuff that cracks me up, so I whipped out my phone and took a video. So for those that don't believe me when I say how naughty and what a mess Kaitlynn can be, here you go:

Spring Pictures

I came across these pictures of Connor and Kaitlynn from the day of their spring school pictures a month ago and I'm just now getting around to posting them.

It's obvious in most of the pictures that I post of the kids that Connor LOVES his little sister. Many other friends/parents will comment to me how sweet they are together and I'm trying to enjoy it while I can because I expect it won't last for long!

But just for the record, Connor isn't the only guy around here who adores this little girl.