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So, we went to Bull Creek Park the other day, to get out of the heat, and into the creek, for a little cooling off.

After a little while, I noticed Steven was skipping rocks. I told the boys to go learn from him. Jack was super interested.

After a few tries, Steven leaned down to give Jack some pointers. He was showing him how to throw the rocks, so they’d skip.

After a few more tries, Steven leaned down to show Jack how to pick which rocks to skip:

“See this rock? This rock is good and flat, but it’s not perfectly flat. This side bulges out a little, and this other side is caved in a little. See this side? It’s convex. And this side is concave. We want to throw it with this side down. Got that, Jack?”

And Jack looked up at Steven with these “I completely understand you, but I have no idea what you said” look in his eyes. He then proceeded to throw the rock, and it skipped a little.

That is how Jack learned the difference between convex and concave. Now to get him into a 10th grade geometry class, so he retains it.

I love taking photos. Really, I do. The photos I love taking the most, are photos of kids… because they’re just perfect, every time… kids can be dirty, stinky, frowning, smiling, jumping, running, falling, or just sitting there, and they’ll still be just perfect.

Here are some photos I took on my brother’s birthday at his house in Bellville:

And here are some non-kid photos from the day that turned out pretty good:

Happy Birthday Bro.

The rest of the photos can be seen here.

A week ago, or so, Jack and Grayson grabbed their guitars and a harmonica and sang songs to Christine and I, so I set the experience to some Jack Johnson, and edited the clips a little. Here’s the result:

After watching it, Jack asked me “Daddy, did you name me after Jack Johnson?” so I got to tell him a little about his Uncle Jack, who he is really named after… which was a nice memory.

On Saturday, Christine and I took Jack and Grayson to Anderson High, here in Northwest Hills Austin, so that he could ride his bike on the running track around the football field without his training wheels. Christine figured he’d be less scared if he knew that the track was softer than concrete, or the road out in front of our house. It also helped that there weren’t any cars on the track to worry about.

They boys had a blast:

After riding bikes for a good thirty-minutes or so, we headed back to the car.

On the way back to the car Jack said “This is the best day of my life.” Christine just about melted when she heard that.

She did good recommending that we go to the track to ride bikes.

I got home tonight to some wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. Christine was cooking chicken, and it looked good.

As she cooked, I sat on the couch and recounted my day with the boys… and vice versa. Turns out Jack got to go in a paddle boat today, in a lake, that had only three alligators in it.

We sat down for dinner, and Christine said “I hope it’s good” with a pleading look on her face.

I said “something new?”

“Yes, I was trying to make Chicken curry, but I was missing one ingredient.”

I asked “what was that?”

“Curry” was the answer.

Last week, Christine and I, Jack, Grayson, Cyndi, Marc, Rowan, Caelyn, Elise, Maly, Jennifer, Steve, Brendan, and Mia all headed to Garner State Park for a Spring Break camping trip.

We spent a day at the Frio River… and yes, it lived up to its name:

We danced under the stars:

We climbed a mountain, and looked down at the world.

We cooked out on an open campfire:

We had a blast, and can’t wait to do it next year:

Photos are here and there are a few on my Facebook wall.

Jack turned five last week.

FIVE YEARS OLD.

And to think, I used to be able to hold him with one hand:

I just re-read the first post I made about his birthday,

It’s hard to explain how cool it is to have a five year-old in the house, but it’s pretty cool. Jack is becoming the “big boy” in the family, and he’s learned so much in the last 6 months… going from four to five, I’ve really seen him mature.

He’s now sharing with Grayson pretty much all the time, and when he’s not, he uses his words to tell Grayson and his mommy and I that he’s “playing by myself right now” which is so sweet. He’s also learning responsibility. Just last week he told me to take my own trash to the trash can after dinner, because “it’s your responsibility Daddy” and when he had a friend over for a playdate, he asked him to help him clean up “the toys you’re responsible for”.

Jack is an adorably sweet boy who gives hugs and kisses, and thanks God for his family, while also being pretty independent and resolute in his endeavors (just today he opened the back door at Nana and Papa’s all by himself (it’s a heavy sliding-glass door, and hard for me to open at times)).

He’s also rubbing off on his little brother. Yesterday, Grayson walked up to Jack and said “Hey Jack, do you want to be Jazz or Rachet?” When Jack chose Rachet, Grayson said “Ok, I’ll play for you and tell you if you win” which is a cute game for Jack when he plays it, but wasn’t cute to him when Grayson played it… though we got a kick out of it.

Jack is a sponge and just loves going to school and soaking up all the knowledge he can. Today he wrote his first item on his list for Santa… and he wrote all of the letters himself. He wants a “Lego Watch” with Luke Skywalker on it.

Jack is also a good Aggie fan, and great football game buddy. He’s been to pretty much every home game with me or Christine since he was born, and to a couple of games in Austin. And he loves seeing Bussy at the games.

I hope he continues to grow and develop in the manner he’s being doing so far, and that he grows to be a compassionate man who knows that love and communication are the keys to everything important. I think he will.

This year, for Halloween, the boys wanted to dress up like characters from Star Wars.

Grayson wanted to be Darth Maul. Jack wanted to be Luke Skywalker.

So, I give you:

Darth Maul:

And Luke Skywalker:

Between the two of them, we’ve had some major lightsaber battles around here!

(more photos from Halloween here)

In mid-October, I took Jack and Grayson, and we picked up Maly and headed to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to be part of their “Flight of the Monarchs” night. We had a lot of fun!

First, we met my Aunt Margo… my Dad’s sister, who I haven’t seen since I was in college 15 years ago.

Then we went into the main center and made caterpillars.

After that we walked up to the top of the observation tower, and I held each of the kids up high, so they could see the surrounding land all around us. They all thought that was pretty cool.

Then the kids were off. Off and running to be exact. I could barely keep up with them… running, running. Running. All over the place. Then we found some yard art.

An iron spider to be exact. And a friend. We played on that for a while, then right as it got dark, we headed back to the car… to home, and to bed.

Maly spent the night with us and the next morning, the kids all ran outside in their t-shirts and underwear, and played and got dirty… and looked for butterflys… Never saw any, but we looked.

What a great weekend!

(more photos here)

Kids are so fun. And funny.

I took some photos of Jack and Grayson in the bath:

and then a few of Grayson in his elephant towel. He’s such a cheese:

Then I took a photo or two of Christine reading to Jack:

Then of Grayson drinking chocolate milk from his bear cup:

Kids…

(all photos here)

This summer, Ella came down to visit, so we met them out at Debbie and Raymond’s lakehouse.

The kids had a blast… Jack and Grayson love handing out with their favorite cousin!

See all the photos here.

As a follow up to our trip to Kemah earlier this year, I’ve finally posted all of the photos from the trip… and talk about some fun photos.

I think these are my favorites:

This is what happens you leave the scanner attached to your iMac and have two boys under 5 at home with access to it:

Heh…

Jack has to make a boat this week for school. On Friday, they get to bring the boats they made to class to try and float them together… They’re studying water right now, and the world of water around us.

So, Christine had an idea to make a boat out of wine bottle corks.

Jack and I built it tonight. And did we build a boat!

Jack had drawn the design of the boat out on a piece of paper, so building it was actually pretty easy. Just a little hot glue and some patience.

And here’s the end result… click to watch the movie:

We went for a “drive” the other day. Grayson fell down “kersplat”:

And eventually, we got both kids in the Jeep together: