Little House

Another goal of ours for this summer was to finally begin reading the Little House on the Prairie Series...there's about 10 books in the series so it's a long term goal.  We finally began a few weeks ago and I have tried to be diligent to read for at least 15 minutes a day to them.  That is so hard to do when so much is always going on...making us all sit down and just read...but we have fallen into a routine with it and the girls now love that time we have, and I do too!  This morning before worship we had about 15 minutes and everyone was at a point where they could sit and do nothing so we squeezed in a few pages of The Little House in the Big Woods.  We are very close to finishing it and then we'll begin on book #2.  I am loving doing this with the kids!  I told them today that when all of them are older, our family is going to take a vacation and go see all the sights that are in the books and her old homes and such.  Such an exciting thing to plan for one day down the road!

Enchanted Rock and Cooper's

It's been almost a year and a half since we last went to Enchanted Rock and Coopers BBQ so this was one of our 2013 summer goals.  I was feeling pretty sick the day of, but refused to stay home.  I knew the rest of the week and this coming week were going to be extremely busy and I didn't want everyone to miss out so off we went!  We had a great time this time around and the weather was wonderful considering you are on a big rock with no shade!  The kids loved it and the icing on the cake was eating at Cooper's, a BBQ that is so delicious!  Another item checked off, another memory made, another fun time with the family.

Elle was very interested in harvesting cactus needles.

Ava holding Levi's hand :)

There is a creeper in the photo....zoom in....(the kids spent 10 minutes trying to find him.  He kept whistling and they kept going around the rock and never figuring out where the noise was coming from.  It was pretty comical to watch.)

Yuuummm....a little bit of every kind of meat, all baptized in their delicious BBQ sauce!

Jammin'

Luckily I have a friend that knows all about canning stuff so I knew I couldn't fail at the "make blackberry jam" goal on our summer list.  So we worked out a time with Jen, and then the girls and I headed over there yesterday morning.  It was a lot of fun for all of us.  She enjoyed teaching us and we all enjoyed learning the whole process.  It felt so cool to be able to grow something and turn it into something else that by the way is SO delicious! The jelly didn't quite set as well as we'd have liked it to, but it's not bad for a first attempt.  I ended up using one jar for homemade ice cream last night.  I didn't think it had a strong enough blackberry flavor to it, but it still tasted great!  This morning we had it on biscuits and it was absolutely great....a little more like syrup that jelly, but the taste was still wonderful!  So another check off the list.  We also checked off "go to the movies" this morning with the VERY much anticipated Monsters University.  All the the kids were so excited to go, the theater was packed and we got great seats.  Levi was a little antsy about half way through...it's a long movie, but he made it just fine and we loved it.  We saw some previews for more "G" movies that we are really excited about going to see, so know we have that to look forward to! 

 

The process begins...squishing out the juice from 4+gallons of berries!

Jammin' with Jen

The girls wanted to eat the pulp left behind, so badly, so I let them.  I figured they would think it was too bitter but they didn't!  I finally had to stop them...wasn't sure what lots and lots of berries would do to the digestive system and didn't want to find out!

Now we started cooking the juice and adding pectin.  After pouring it into jars, it was a waiting game.  The first time we did it, they didn't set so I took it all home, poured it all back into the pot, heated it all back up, added way more pectin and put them back into jars.  I really wanted it to work.  It still needed more pectin but we know for next time.

Here's Elle making homemade blackberry icecream

And blackberry jelly on hot biscuits this morning....super yum!

Yeah for Monsters University!!!!

Might just need to buy him this poster....he couldn't stop staring at it after we got out of the theater.

A horse head and another check

This weekend we celebrated Shawn's awesomeness.....and with the gift I got him, his awesomeness level skyrocketed.  See for yourself.

Yes, he got a horse head mask.  It is the most loved thing in this house right now.  But the kids are expecting rides every time he puts it on.

Okay so paper plates aren't usually an exciting gift.  But I call this gift the great compromiser.  Shawn insists on using paper plates for things that are not suppose to be on paper plates...waffles, runny eggs, syrup....it's just wrong people.  So we debate about it regularly...until now.  I found melamine "paper" plates in the dollar section at Target....we are now the proud owners of 5 melamine paper plates...end of debate.

In other news, we checked off another bucket list item this morning.  We woke up to rain of all things...rain in June...in Texas...it's almost unheard of nowadays.  But either way we woke up to it and after the kids had been awake for a while, I realized that "play in the rain if it rains" was on the bucket list!  I jumped up and fire-drilled the kids out the front door...half dressed, mostly in PJ's, sleep still in their eyes, and told them to get to playin'.  At first they didn't know what to make of me, but then I get that kind of often.  After a few minutes of me yelling directions on how to have fun in the rain, they began to warm up and started sailing "boats" down the gutters, making dams for those boats, adding "people" to the boats, making more boats and splashing in the tiniest puddle they could find. It was very nostalgic to see them playing WITHOUT anything but nature! They loved it. I had to drag them back in at some point. Now let's hope we see more of that rain......

 Ava was the first to figure out how to get her boat going.

Levi was the expert puddle jumper.

Elle tried many different techniques to make her boat go, as well as lots of different "boats."

Not much better than reckless abandon....laying on the wet driveway, letting the rain fall in your mouth.

Celebrating

We spent this weekend celebrating quite a few important things!  We headed to Tyler on Thursday and went straight to Paul and Carolyn's house for lunch and were surprised with a little Kindergarten graduation celebration.  They had bought Ava a cookie cake which made her feel really special, but what she REALLY loved was some nail polish they gave her that changes colors in the sun! 
After lunch, we headed to see my mom and dad and spend time with my nephews Brooks and Hayden.  Friday was spent playing with Hayden some more, and preparing for a party we were throwing my parents for their 45th anniversary!  What an amazing feat! (and I think I respect it even more, being on year #15 with three little kids!)  We also got to see sweet little Grayson for a while on Friday night even though he wasn't feeling too well. 

They are still testing the waters of friendship...cars before bros.

I thought the quote was just right to go with the picture :)

 

This picture is a very special treat, considering my dad is almost phobic of cameras.

 

Don't be fooled...they weren't playing together...they were establishing territory.

 

I called this one the "grandchild givers with offspring" photo...your welcome mom.

 

Saturday, Shawn and I traded Gramme some free babysitting for yard work.  We took out a few really huge bushes while she watched the kids!  It looks so much better now and we're excited to help her put new azaleas in at some point soon! 

All done!

Hopefully the trash men have the same definition of "bundle" as we do!

 

And here's a sort of before shot of what it looked like...ignore all the humans in the photo and notice the bushes. lol

 

After that, we met up with our friends, Tim and Marci for lunch.  We meet up with them every year at Christmas and then try to meet up once during the summer.  They are one of those kinds of friends that you just pick right back up with every time you see them.  And our kids had a lot of fun together too!

Yeah for good friends!

 

 Lastly, we headed back to my parents house to drop of the girls for a WEEK at Camp Grandparents!!  They are going to spend their days with Nana and Poppy and their evenings with Gramme, Grandma and Max and they couldn't push us out the door quick enough!  That was another great reason to celebrate....a whole week with only one kiddo (and just enough time away to miss them :).

 Ahh...here's the girls in front of the house, bags and bodies ready for adventure!  Thank you grandparents!!!  I know it's a LOT of work!!!

Summer Tradition

Probably one of the things that got my children more excited than anything on our summer bucket list was "Eat snowcones every Wed. after church."  They have been talking about that every single day since last Thursday.  They were downright anxious for us to leave quickly after worship tonight to get those snowcones!  They sure are yummy...and this is one tradition I'm happy to enforce.

Two checks

Today, our family was able to check off two things from our summer bucket list!  Our first thing to check off was "Ride on John's boat."  So we met up with our friend John at the lake at 11 am this morning and spent 4 amazing hours on his boat!  We all had the best time and were totally worn out by the time we left!  It was the perfect way to start the summer...of course we are now also all sporting various degrees of sunburn in weird shapes all over our skin, but we'll get better at the whole sunscreen thing as the summer wears on! 

So proud of Elle...she didn't fear the water at all!

Don't be fooled...I didn't get pulled in this tube...I was just using it as a relaxation device.

Ava took a little coaxing to get in the water, but once she realized the swim floaty things on her would actually hold her up, she became a fish!

This picture make not seem like much to you, but it's a big leap for me...I am afraid of open bodies of water...where things live....and can get you.  I have to work really hard not to hyperventilate when I get in the water...but I kept watching Elle and the fact that she didn't fear it at all, even though she knew fish and other things lived in it, and I decided to get over it and have fun....and keep an eye out for scary things.

We were making fun of Ava because she was struggling so much to pull in the anchor....until we realized it was wrapped up in a tree at the bottom of the lake.

Ava is driving the boat while Elle tubes!

Levi was probably the best at steering out of the three!

Creeper alert...this one is for you Valerie.

For the second check we completed the "eat ice cold watermelon" task. The pictures take care of that one. We've already put a few of the other bucket list items on the calendar and are excitedly planning and dreaming about them! This is the first summer we've really done a bucket list and I'm loving it...and so are the kids...we'll mark off a third one tomorrow evening. :)