Multiple Choice

This picture shows either:
A. A burglar came in and ramsacked my master bedroom, looking for where we keep all the high priced Claire's jewelry.
B. To keep the children entertained, I decided to ask them to bring everything we own into our master bedroom.
C. We leave for Camp Blue Haven tomorrow morning.

Here's our address for the next few weeks....send it early if you're sending something!
The M's (and be specific on which ones....there's more than one!)
c/o Camp Blue Haven
HC 81 Box 304
Las Vegas, NM 87701

AHOY! It's a Boy!

And we now will round things up and tie them in a nice little bow. We've caught you all the way up to yesterday! Well...actually I left out all of last week which was VBS and I was in charge of crafts. I didn't take my camera, but I promise I was there! We also made homemade icecream and I made an orange/vanilla icecream with dark chocolate bits throughout...and it was WONDERFUL! I think I might have a talent here....but make use of it. lol So yesterday, I and 6 friends hosted a baby shower at my house. The theme was pirate and we had a great time working around that theme. Our friend Brigette is due at the end of July and it's a boy! We are excited to add another precious baby to our church family.

Mr. Photogenic

And now we interupt your regular programming for pictures of a little boy who is good at smiling for the camera.

Can you find him here?  He has stared hiding and moping when he doesn't get what he wants.  He had been back there attempting to use Shawn's chapstick.  (Gramme, he's still just as crazy about chapstick as when you were here last!)

Best Buds Sleepover

Ava's best friend is a boy....his name is Joel and I can say pretty confidently that he's the male version of her.  There are many things that they do JUST alike!  There are even obscure words they mispronounce just alike.  He's a little bit younger than her, but they both will enter Kindergarten at the same time this year.  His younger brother happens to be Levi's best friend.  :)  Anyway, Joel and mainly Joel's mama has been kind enough to invite Ava over a few times for a sleepover and so I figured it was my turn to have Joel over.  I've never done a boy sleepover before.  All I could think of to do for fun was toenails and fixing hair fun ways.....which I knew wasn't going to fly.  So I bought candy.  And glow sticks.  And made Shawn take them for a night walk at 10:30 pm.  And let them watch movies while eating popcorn until really late.  Truthfully it was a really easy sleepover.  Both girls were super excited that he was spending the night.  I must do this more often this summer! 

Here's a picture of Joel and Uriah with my kiddos at the pool one day.  Uriah and Levi are only about 2 weeks apart in age and really love being with each other.  Joel is only about 8 months younger than Ava.

8 years mature

Elle has had quite a summer just in the past two weeks!  Last weekend she was invited to a slumber party, her first!  They were also taking all the girls to a waterpark about 30 minutes away.  I had to do some praying and hard thinking about all that.  I know that parenting is all about making hard decisions, but I truly wrestled with this one.  Elle is slowly dipping her toes into the waters of ...hmm...what's the word...it's not adolescense yet is it?  Well maybe you get the gist.  She's beginning to grow up a little, and with that comes my responsibilty to loosen my tight grip....ever so slowly.  It's not realistic to say that she can never be with any other adults or kids and etc...unless I'm around.  At some point, I have to allow her to stretch her little wings out and test them out a little.  How else will she learn independence than allowing her the opportunity to try to take little test flights.  Anyway, she had a wondreful time at the sleepover, and didn't sunburn or drown, didn't learn any new bad slang or curse word, or to my knowledge learn any weird myths about sex, so I'm calling it a success!  lol  (and yes, even at 8 they are hearing weird myths about sex....many of them have older siblings!)  Here's a picture of her a few days ago.  I was setting up for a photoshoot in my backyard and needed to test my camera...she was glad to be the stand in...nerd glasses and all.

This past Friday, her best friend at church invited her to a Girl Scout sleepover at the zoo!  This was much easier to send her to, since the Girl Scout troop was all girls that went to a christian school in Austin affiliated with the church of Christ and the troop leader happens to be one of my best friends.  MUCH EASIER!  But it still was hard letting her go almost an hour away to the zoo and not being there if she needed something.  She on the other hand, had a wonderful time and couldn't and wouldn't stop talking about it all day yesterday!  If only this girl scout troop wasn't such a far drive, I think I'd encourage her to join.  I'd love for her to have a group of Christian girls to do things with!
Anyway, here's a few pictures I've taken of her lately.  She is such a beautiful child and I have no idea how our genetics worked so well to make her, but I'm so proud of the young lady that she's growing into.  I have a lot of weigh on my shoulders to help mold her into what God wants, but I'm so thankful that He trusted me enough to let me have her!

I found her on the sofa the other day during quiet time, snuggled all under a big comfy blanket and watching TV.  She looked so comfortable I wanted to lay down right beside her and take a nap!

Water, Water, Everywhere

So I'm pretty sure this is the last summer I'm sending my kids to swim lessons.  They both seemed to grow quite a bit with these lessons, and are much more confident with getting in the water and having fun.  Now it's just about getting to the pool often enough that they can gain their confidence.  They are by far more interesting in splashing in the shallow water than they are swimming in the deeper stuff.  Anyway, I took pictures of them on their last day of class.  We have been spending many days a week at the splash pool here in town and they dearly love going there...hopefully they will gain the ability to swim in order to save themselves, should the need ever arise...utnil then I must be a very vigilant mom or keep them in shallower waters....

I had to take Levi to the swim lessons too and he spent most of his time over by the fence watching ants...I sure do love how easily he entertains himself!

We also went out on the lake a few weeks back for an afternoon of tubing, fishing and watching the sunset.  It was a wonderful and relaxing afternoon and Elle was even brave enough to tube!  I was really proud of her confidence :) 

 Levi on the other hand, was not having this at all.  He didn't want to tube ONE BIT!

 Last week one night, we headed to Salado with the Valdez's to one of our favorite little spots down on the river.  The kids all loved being down there.  We played until no one complained when it was time to pack up and head home.  You know a trip has been a success when everyone's too tired to argue the need to stay!

Coming up for Air

So in my last post, all of 14 days ago, everything seemed to be "under control." (the older I get the more that term makes me laugh)  I knew the upcoming events and what my responsibilities would be for each of those events, but then....well, the mud hit the fan. It feels like I have just come up for air today, 14 days after running that mud race!!! I thought summer was suppose to be calmer and slower, but for whatever reason, I am busier than ever! So, in these next few posts, I am going to give you all the fun details and things that are keeping me so busy I don't care to blog! I guess that's a good thing right? Being so in the moment of summer that blogging is not on the list of things to do. :) I'll start with this random picture I took yesterday.

I unfortunately ran across a Heath bar inspired creamer at my HEB and have begun randomly drinking coffee at all times of the day and night. Yesterday Shawn and I were both drinking coffee out of our favorite mugs and I thought it was pretty telling to see our coffee mugs side by side. They represent our personalities and our marriage so well! Opposites do attract!

Rebel Race

Yesterday, I ran my first 5K and we did our first real mud race! Of course this is all in preparation for the upcoming Tough Mudder...which is 4 times longer than this! whoa! Anyway, we had a great time with our little team. It was exhausting and tiring and I'm pretty sure I was the weakest link, but I guess someone has to be the last on the team. I still had a great time and now I can see exactly where I need to do more work.....everywhere. lol

 Before the race...we took a nap standing up.  Okay, this was the only photo of us...it's bad...but it's proof.  And just for th record, it's almost impossible for me to keep my eyes open in broad daylight without my sunglasses on!

 Sherry, who watched my kids while we raced:),  caught us by surprise waiting at one of the last obstacles.  All my kiddos were cheering us on as we came out of the water.  It was just the inspiration we needed to push to the end!

 Going under barbed wire...the bad part was all the sticker burrs at the bottom of the water that we were putting our hands in...OUCH!

 We made it!!!  So proud of our team!!!!

My workout buddy...we did couch to 5K at the same time and really kept each other going...we will continue to encourage each other alllll the way to TOUGH MUDDER!!! 

High 5's all around!

Anniversary Adventure

As if being married 13 years isn't adventure enough in itself, we decided to celebrate by going ziplining last weekend! Gramme came in to watch the kids while we headed to somewhere in the hill country. We had a fun time, considering neither of us had ever done a tree to tree zipline excursion before, but I'd definitely say this wasn't worth the money spent. It was nice to spend time together alone, but either my adrenaline button is getting worn, or this just wasn't that cool. Anyway, another adventure under our belt and another year celebrated as survivalist of this crazy thing called marriage.