Weekend with Papa and Shanni

My Dad and Shanni came and visited us this weekend. And they couldn't have picked a better weekend, cause the weather was gorgeous. Friday morning the boys showed Papa and Shanni the pictures they had drawn them, some new toys, their super sweet bike riding skills, and some good Wii time. Then we packed a lunch and headed to the pool.

Beatin' Papa at Wii sword fighting
Playing at the pool

That evening we grilled out, then headed out for some of the best snow cones in Austin, and then went to watch the famous 1.5 million bats take off.

SNOW CONES! Note: Bryce did not get to enjoy a snow cone because he did not eat his dinner. (I hate that part of parenting. The next night and ever since he has decided that eating his dinner so he can enjoy dessert is a GOOD idea) He probably thought I'd let it slide since Papa and Shanni were here, but nope.
Getting ready to watch the bats. I love this spot in Austin. It's fun to see the HUGE crowd that shows up everynight to watch and to add to the fun we got to see 4 people repel down a huge hotel while doing flips and tricks all the way down. What a funky town we live in. Austin is definitely weird but we love it.
A picture of the bats taking off

We woke up Saturday and drove to Sea World San Antonio. I love that San Antonio is a short hour drive. Well it should be short, but we ended up having to stop 3 times. (Ugh kids)

A picture with Shamu. It cracks me up that everyone calls every whale "Shamu". Even during the show the trainers tell us the name of each whale, but the show is still all about Shamu.
Once it got too hot we headed over to Sea World's water park and enjoyed a couple of hours swimming and playing in the water.
Connor and I getting ready to ride the river.

Our little water baby. She took a nice nap in the shade while everyone else got some sun and swam some more.
Getting ready for the Azul show. It was a combination of cirque du soleil with dolphins and white beluga whales and exoctic birds. Such fun!
It was a fantastic trip! Love you guys.

Lovin on Sister

I absolutely LOVE how much my boys adore their sister. I pray that this love continues to grow throughout the years. I hope that all my kids have a close friendship and love for each other. I love that I get to watch their journey together everyday.
Bryce wanted to give his sister a ride. I caught him trying to pick her up and throw her in. Luckily, Alexis has learned to yell every time he does something that bothers her(that happens a lot). I put Alexis in the wagon for Bryce and let him give her a ride. He loves having someone to boss around and makes it his daily mission to get her to smile and laugh. He loves her so much. It also helps that she doesn't throw a fit when he steals some of her snacks.
Connor told me that I hadn't taken a picture of him and Alexis in weeks. So here it it. He loves his sister too and has taken a liking to teaching her new things. He's currently trying to teach her to walk, but she is not too interested because it's too slow and she can move faster crawling or "walking" on her knees. He also taught her how to spit and likes to blow in her face to get her to giggle. I pray that he continues to look after her and protect her. Watch out future "callers" big brother Connor is going to be hard to impress. Ha, I can't wait for the day when one of his friends thinks Lexi is a hottie and wants to ask her out. PRICELESS!!

What about you? Are you still close to your siblings?

My brother and me and our puppy Sandy.

My 1st Triathlon

Last week I competed in my 1st Triathlon. It was a sprint so I had to swim 300 meters, bike 12 miles, and then run a little over 2 miles.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1) 5:00am is WAY too early to get up and try to get motivated to race. I tried to go to bed earlier the night before, I think I finally fell asleep around 11:30pm. (That is early for me)

2) Triathletes are SERIOUSLY tough! I was constantly thinking "Holy cow look at the guns on that chick" "Dude that girl is freakin FIT" "Ummm That chick actually looks like a real DUDE" This triathlon is part of the Austin Tri Series so there were actual professional triathletes competing and they were STUDS.

3) The line for the port-o-potties before the race was a good 15 minute wait. Ha why does it take us ladies such a long time to pee?

4) The water that I had to swim in was ABSOLUTELY disgusting and smelled really really bad(like poo). It did NOT make me feel better when I saw that goats(YEAH REAL GOATS) were hanging out on the island in the middle of the lake. I never did find out why, but it did help explain the smell.

5) I now know why so many people warned me about the swim. It was CRAZY! Ladies were kicking me in the head and smacking me in the face. Every time I tried to take a breath I got splashed. It was hard to see where you were going and I had trouble sticking my face in that nasty water. If I wasn't as comfortable as I am in water it could have ended bad. If you are not a very confident swimmer this part of the race can be really frightening.

6) Getting out of the water and then having to run to the transition area(where your bike, shoes, and other things are all set up) was harder than I thought. I had bare feet and had to run through gravel, that was not fun.

7) I purposely took my time in the transition areas because there are so many rules and I didn't want to get DQ'd. Other ladies were psychos in the transition area and literally just grabbed their bike and took off BARE FOOTED and all.

8) The bike part of the race was by far my favorite and I was the best at this. I actually got 65th outta like 500 in the bike split. I had a great time and could have done better, but I wanted to save some energy for the run. It felt good passing ladies out on the road (knowing that soon they would get a chance to pass me back during the run)

9) Ah the run! I knew that this would be the hardest part for me. You see I have literally NO cartilage in my knees which means when I run my knee joint is bone on bone. Running hurts me no matter what. And guess what? The run hurt and it sucked. My average was 9 and 1/2 minutes (not great) But I made it! I did almost puke at one point, but that was because I took a huge gulp of what I thought was water, GUESS WHAT? It was not water. It was some high calorie high sugar disgusting syrup stuff. Ha makes me think of a Seinfeld episode)

10) I did not pass out at the finish line like I thought I would have. I actually felt really good. This makes me happy and sad. Happy because I feel like I trained well. Sad because I could have done better. Hopefully I'll do another race this summer and can't wait to try and improve my time.

I finished the race in 1 hour, 15 minutes, and some change. That's a good time and I was happy with it. It felt good to push my body. And I'm proud of myself. Here's some pics from race day.

Seriously NO ONE should get up before the sun.......EVER!!

Some of the ladies from my Lifetime group. The stud in the red helped me train. (She placed 7th overall) The lady in the pink hat also helped me out a lot.
That's me all finished with the swim. I'm smiling because I'm finally out of that nasty "poo" water.
Didn't even know that there was a photographer here, I was "in the zone" for sure.
Sporting my Help Haiti shirt and loving that I'm a half a mile from being DONE!

First Word!!

Dude that counts, right???

Alexis' First Word from Adam McManus on Vimeo.

It's a joke between Adam and I about the kiddos first word. They all start doing the Daddadada thing early on, but say it to everything so it doesn't count. Connor's first word was Rhea (our dog). Bryce's first word was Dada for sure. So it is ONLY FAIR that my sweet baby girl says Mama, right???

Adoption Journey: Just Chillin'

We are waiting!

We've started the Home Study and hope to be COMPLETELY done in the next week or two. Our agency is really busy right now and they want to do the Home Study themselves.

Sooooo we wait.

Continue to pray for us and the little girl or boy who will be joining our family soon.

Guess who looks alike? (Maybe)

So everyone has always said that our kids look a lot alike. But to be honest I've never really seen it. And then the other day Adam asked me about a picture hanging on the wall. He couldn't tell if it was Bryce or Alexis. Ha! So, I found 3 pictures of the kiddos all at the same age doing the same thing. (EATING) Here ya go, enjoy!
Can you guess who is who?

Going back to K-town

This week/weekend was a busy one for us. I was asked to speak at Northwood's T-Kids JAM night and, of course, said YES! I miss my T-Kids very much and couldn't wait to see them. We hadn't visited Keller since October, so we made a mini vacation and stayed through the weekend. Wednesday night was JAM night, and it went great. I spoke about beautiful feet. The kids were challenged to raise enough money to buy shoes for an entire village of kiddos in Vietnam (and knowing my T-Kids they WILL!)

My "beautiful feet" for my talk at Tkids that night!
We stayed at the house of Northwood's Children's Pastor (Becky Done). The boys slept in their youngest daughter's room and LOVED LOVED sleeping in their new sleeping bags. There were lots of giggles each night before they finally fell asleep. We had a blast staying with Becky and Ralph and the girls, especially when we spent most nights staying up WAY too late talking life, kids, loving Jesus, mission work, and American Idol.

On Thursday, we got up and headed to the zoo as a family to celebrate Bryce's birthday. (We love going to the Fort Worth zoo, check it out here)

The Birthday boy!
Daddy and Bryce
We have been waiting for YEARS for the new Mola exhibit to open. Can you believe that the boys loved it? Snakes, lizards, more snakes, and spiders??!!
The highlight of the day! Petting a real snake. All we've talked about since is getting a snake as a pet. (ummm NO)
(I tried to get a shot with all the kids)
Lunch with the alligators, fish, and turtles. Cool huh?

That night we celebrated Bryce's birthday with great friends!!

This was the first year Bryce actually liked being sung too.

Friday morning was Minter Family Day. We adore the Minter family and HAD to have some great playtime.

Connor and Avery are the best of friends. Seriously, could they be cuter?
We found an absolute KILLER park and played for a long time.

That night we got to hang out with the Sadler family, but I forgot my camera. :(

Saturday, we got to see more friends and played outside some more.

Hurray for some Kiki time.

That night we got to have dinner with Becky and Ralph at Texas De Brazil. It was the BEST food and a perfect night. (Minus when I fell on the stairs with a full plate of food and a bowl of soup. It was really funny...NOT. And, that's all I'm gonna say about that.)
On Sunday, we spent Mother's Day at church seeing everyone one more time and at the Gould's house grilling out and playing cards.
What a wonderful trip!!

Happy 3rd Birthday Bryce

I can't believe that you turned 3 years old. You asked today if you can be 3 and 1/2, and I said ABSOLUTELY NOT! You've grown up so fast this year. You're talking so well and so often. Sometimes it's hard to get you to be quiet! I can't believe that last year I was concerned if you were ever going to talk. You ADORE your little sister and take such good care of her. The other day a little toddler walked over and tried to take a toy from sister, you calmly and assertively took the toy back and pushed the little boy to the ground. "Don't be mean to my seeeester" is what you said. It made me laugh, and I was so proud. (You did get in trouble for pushing) You and your brother are best of friends and I pray that friendship continues forever. You are so independent and yet shy and reserved. You won't do something unless you're confident that you can do it well. You get embarrassed easily and although I hate seeing you uncomfortable, I love that you always come running straight to me. You love LOVE learning new things and I hope that continues. I think you want to learn how to read more than your older brother (and you just might). My prayer for you this year is that your curiosity to learn continunes to grow. I pray that your confidence to try new things even if you're not "good at it" increases. I pray that your heart continues to seek justice for those younger than you (especially your sister and future brother or sister). I hope and pray that I continue to see you grow in your faith and love for God. I love hearing you repeat the stories we read with your Daddy each night. You're confidence in what you KNOW about God and Jesus is so inspiring and already I see you one day never wavering about what you know to be TRUTH. You are not easily swayed by others and I love that! Happy Birthday my sweet little bubba. You warm my heart and bring a smile to my face. Middle kids rock and I can't wait to see that personality of yours blossom even more!

You were such a cute baby boy.
Happy 1 year old little boy who loved playing peek at boo with his Mommy.
My quiet, sweet, loveable, and sometimes very stubborn little 2 year old.
See look at you! You're a little boy now. But still my special cuddle bug who is always ready to climb up in Mommy's lap for a snuggle. (You might hate those cheeks you got from your Mommy and I am sorry about that. But for now know that that everywhere we go someone comments about how adorable you are)

Another Week

Man I've been slacking on this blogging thing lately. Sorry but the summer weather has arrived and we can't stand staying inside any longer. Lot of stuff going on in the McManus household right now, so here's the low down.

1) My little man is turning 3 on Wednesday (more on that later) I can't believe it!
2) WE ARE DONE WITH ALL CLASSES for foster-adopt. We have a meeting on Wednesday with the director of our agency to chat and schedule our Home study and then we are ready for kiddos. Please continue to pray, we are a week or so away.
3) We are leaving for Keller, TX on Wednesday afternoon so I can speak at Northwood's T-kid JAM night and to hang out with the gang up there. Please pray for me, I haven't done this in a while and am feeling a bit rusty. I promise to take plenty of pics and maybe a video or two!

Here's some pics to enjoy cause I know you love them!!

We went to a jump place this week with our play group and HAD A BLAST! It was a good find and we will go back.

Alexis wasn't so sure about the big jump houses at first but warmed up to them.
Forts, forts, and more forts. This brings back so many memories of growing up. My brother and I made forts everywhere inside and out and so do my boys. Here they are in one of their latest creations.
Alexis might look excited about walking in the picture, but this is a rare moment. She is perfectly content to either just stand still (which she can do quite well) or crawling and climbing like a mad woman. The boys want her to walk so badly and I have a feeling she is just playing with them. Ha that cracks me up!!!