Summer of Adventure: #12 Sidewalk Chalk

This girl has been full of her own adventures this summer. She has found a couple of blogs and YouTube channels that she follows religiously. These sites are full of cute hair, clothing, accessory, and decorating ideas. Then, she comes and tries out all that she's learned on the rest of us. That has meant lots of hair sessions, art projects and such. She had found some cute ideas where the kids drew pictures with chalk and then posed on the ground with them. She was very excited for us to try them.

She drew a dog, complete with prints and a leash and then the kids took turns laying down like they were walking the dog.
Gibson was laughing at the fact that he was on the ground, the whole time. (And that it was really bright.)
Grace was really trying to make it look like she was walking. I was having a hard time getting up high enough. I'm sure that we were a sight!

Summer of Adventure: #11 Splash Pad

We have hit the part of the summer that are the growing pains leading back up to the school year. If you are home with kids, then you know what I am talking about. We have hit up most of the little activities that we had planned, we have read lots of books, we have vegged out in front of the TV probably more than we should, we have played outside as much as possible and now it is HOT and HUMID, lots of crafts have been completed, and the kids start to get antsy. My husband insists that this is an important part of childhood. (I know that he is right. He just isn't the one that is having to deal with this important part of childhood, as he is at work.) Kids have to have the ability to find themselves bored and come up with something to do on their own, without me having to be the party planner and structure their day for them. (I'm sitting at the computer giving myself a pep talk as my kids are going through their little pains. Technology time is over for the day and I sent them all to play, and thankfully, I can hear them starting some little game. It just took them a minute to get there.)

Ok, little boredom rant aside...

I have been trying to find little things to do to get us out of the house and our yard and that are FREE. Not only free, but very little gas to get there. One of our local parks has this fun little splash pad and we have hit it up several times. I sit on a bench and work on my tan and the kids run around like little crazies and wear themselves out.

This girl was giving me a concert.
The play park is right next to the splash pad so the kids run back and forth between the two. Very fun. Hayden was humoring me here. I never did get a picture of Gibson. He was much to busy to stop for something like that.
These two got a little hungry and I had brought snacks. Something about water makes kids turn into hungry, hungry hippos.
Lots of other kids were out enjoying the water as well which made it even more fun.

Here's to fighting boredom! What are you doing this summer?

Summer of Adventure: #10 My Garden

This adventure is definitely more my adventure than the kids. This last spring I decided that I would turn one of the flower beds in our backyard into a small vegetable garden and I have to say that I have been very pleased with how successful it has been. I am still learning, but have really enjoyed having my own vegetables to cook with and eat.

I planted bell peppers.

Lettuce...
More bell peppers...and you can see a tomato poking behind the pepper...
And basil and cilantro. My basil has taken off and turned into a tree. I have never seen a basil bush so big.
I also planted several tomato plants. I do have to say that this is where I was a little disappointed, but I think that it has to do with my inexperience and I will fix it for next time. My tomato plants produced a TON of tomatoes. (I was eating them for breakfast, trying to keep up.) Then my plants started to turn black and then died. After some research, I think that they got some sort of fungus. (There was a fungus amungus...That was for my dad, I know that he is thinking it.) Before I plant anything else, I think that I may need to do some dirt therapy to treat whatever is in the soil. Shane patiently listens and quietly tunes me out as I talk to him about dirt.

So...one of the plants is still alive and I am hoping that it makes it to the end of the summer.

Whew! That was a long boring story. If you are still with me...

I had a ton of tomatoes in the fridge and I decided to make tomato sauce. Now, this is nothing new to me. As a kid, making tomato sauce was part of my mom's annual torture regiment called, "summer." She would set my sister, Miriam, and me up in the kitchen with a hand crank juicer clamped to the kitchen table, a cutting board to cut thousands of tomatoes, and huge pots boiling on the stove full of tomato sauce and boiling water. The water was where hundreds of jars were waiting to be dunked for the water bath that is part of the canning process. Sounds terrible, right?!

It was really hot, but not so terrible, I guess. After all, there was lots of quality sister time happening in that kitchen, and I'm not afraid of canning things in jars.

So, I pulled my tomatoes out of the fridge and started chopping.

Shane got me a juicer for my birthday and I have to say that I may be in love. No hand cranking or clamping to the kitchen table here. This baby works like a dream!

After I juiced all of my tomatoes, I cooked my sauce on the stove and it made my house smell like an Italian momma. (Not that I really know what that smells like...I'm just imagining.)

I took all of that tomato goodness, along with my bell peppers and basil, and made a big pan of lasagna for dinner. It was quite wonderful.

Summer of Adventure: #9 - 4th of July

This is our second 4th of July in our new home. I guess we are getting to the point that I can't really call it "our new home" any more. Shane was working for part of the day since his department puts on our city celebration. We hung out in the morning and we cooked hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch (my favorite part of summer - food!). Then he took off to save the world and we headed for the park and all of the fun.

Any time Shane has special events, these guys come out with this flippy thing and a climbing wall. They are a favorite of not only my kids, but of everyone else. The line is always looonnggg. We got there early and the kids were able to flip a couple of times before the line got out of control.
Gibson is always a little afraid of flipping. He just swings back and forth.

There was a new snow cone vendor this year that was amazing. They were actually snow balls. (Ashley, that was just for you!) The kids were in love with them. Gibson got his signature green. His teeth, lips and tongue were a lovely shade for the rest of the night.
Landry and Hayden enjoyed theirs as well.
The parks department handed out cowboy hats to all of the kids as they were arriving. I have to say that I may just have had the cutest cow people there. I made the mistake of telling Gibson how cute he was and that hat never graced his head again. One of these days, I am going to learn to keep my mouth shut with that one.
After snowballs, my little cowboy tried his hand at the mechanical bull. He did not make it 8 seconds. Thankfully, he didn't cry when he got knocked off. I was bracing myself.

My little cowboy and cowgirl also got to ride the ponies. Landry hollered, "Yeehaw!" and gave me a thumbs up every time she came around.

After all of that fun, we were ready to sit still and watch some fireworks. It was an excellent show and we oohhed and ahhed enough for the whole town.
Following fireworks, traffic on the way home, etc., we had late night. I was pleased as punch that these guys slept in the next day and then moved veerryy slowly the next morning. We did a little of this... and a lot of just lying around to rest up for our next adventure. :)

Summer of Adventure: #8 Flying Trip and Visit

I love that our adventures have taken us all around this summer. We have made some special memories for us and our kids and have gotten to see wonderful friends in the process. This adventure took us to Fort Worth/Dallas to meet up with some of our college buddies that we haven't seen in quite some time. The Hanes family has been in our lives for a long while as Shane and Perry and all the other guys have been great friends since freshman year at Hardin-Simmons. Perry and his wife Candace have been on a difficult journey. They have 3 beautiful children that have all been born with a heart condition. The medical journey has been difficult, but not unmanageable. Recently, their middle child, Ethan, got really sick and has been at Children's Medical Center in Dallas waiting on a new heart. You can check out his page here. The family's story can also be found here on Candace's family blog. The whole family needs your prayers.

Enough about that. We headed up to the DFW area to take the family out, have a good time and love on them a bit.

First stop, The Ballpark in Arlington to watch our Texas Rangers. We won and it was a fireworks night, so a win win for everyone!

Candace and I took the kids to the kidzone at the ballpark and we sat and visited during the game, in the air conditioning. Then we headed out at the end of the game, saw the win, and watched fireworks. From a mom's point of view, this is the way to go.
I realized after we were home that I didn't take any pictures of all the guys or of Candace and me. Shame on me!

The next day, Candace and I took her two littles, Caden and Maddison and my two boys to LegoLand. This is the place where little boy's dreams are made. My boys were in hog heaven, especially Gibson.

This sweet little girl was a doll the whole time that we were there. What a good baby! She almost made me want another. And then I went back to my kids and decided that I can just hold and cuddle little ones and then give them back. :)

These boys were waiting to drive the Lego cars. The boys had a good time making a new friend and I think that Caden had a good time as well.
Gibson was really taken with this little baby. He thought that she was really something. That's what makes him a good big brother.
Hayden saw Gibson being smitten and what big brother does, he does too.
After the ballpark, LegoLand and a quick trip at Memaw's house we were back in the car so that Dad could be back at work. We all felt a little like this...

Baby Mini Books

I have had tons of fun putting together these two little mini books. I have decided that these little scrapbooks are my all time favorite to make. I just finished one for my sister's wedding. Many times, scrapbooks get very stressful for people because there is no beginning or end. It seems that memories just keep happening and the book just gets bigger. With these little guys, there is a definite beginning and end, the info has to be precise because there's not a ton of room, but with the circle clasps that are used, it is really simple to add in extra souvenirs. For instance, if the baby received a beautiful card or note from someone, just use a single hole punch and add it to the book. Other things that I have kept from when my own children were born, were the ID cards that were placed at the bottom of the little cribs in the hospital, cute tags from baby gifts, and other special mementos. These could very easily be added to the book as well.

Here is the cover.The opening page with all of her info...
This is a second book that I made and it's cover.
And her opening page and info...
Both of the books were very simple with the pages measuring 6"x 10." Each page has a small embellishment or place for some simple journaling or notes and then the majority of the page is for the picture/pictures.
These particular albums use a pink/aqua/green/orange color combo with cute, baby zoo animals.
I also added mini-file folder tabs to the tops of a couple of the pages.
Each book has approximately 10 pages.

My kids love to look at their baby books and hear stories from when they were little and first born. I hope that these precious baby girls enjoy looking at their little books.

Summer of Adventure: #7 Painting

Children can not live on beach, swimming and water days alone...

This was news to me. I sure thought that they could. My kids informed me that it was time for them to have some structured creative time.

I got bamboozled. I went to the crafts store for some glue and suddenly I had children hauling every arts and crafts project from the Crayola aisle straight to the front. Because I am not a millionaire, we compromised with paint, brushes and some paper.

Their creative juices flowed. Landry mixed a bunch of colors together. (Not on the paper, but in the tiny jars of paint. I wasn't surprised.)

Paint was everywhere. Children were having a ball. No one was fighting. Success. :)