Beach Weekend

This past weekend we made a quick trip down to the coast to see dear friends and check out something called Sandfest in Port Aransas.  My quick review: friends were worth the drive, Sandfest was not.  It was overcrowded and underwhelming.  But, now we can say we've been there, done that and don't have to be curious ever again.  Now seeing our friends was wonderful for our hearts and we are so thankful to have been able to spend lots of quality time together.  

Our favorite sand sculpture on day 1.  By day 2 is was gone...guess it fell while being sculpted.  :(

Our family all in the same picture!

Hitting the beach!

Our dear friends the Minzenmayers

Sweet Brooke, who I love and who warmed back up to me really fast which made my heart happy!!!

Ava imitating Art

A zipper!

A hound dog laying on top of a converse hightop!

Can you guess who's leg belongs to who? lol

Two in a Row

Well, actually it should read "Four in a Row" because we have had four BIG weekends in a row...and I'm planning to do a garage sale this Saturday so make that five...I could keep counting but it's best to just focus on today....and the last two weeks, for this blog's sake!  

Let's start with last weekend, which was L2L for us; Lad to Leaders.  It's the culmination of a years worth of study, work, art, planning, sewing and all kinds of other stuff, centered around helping our kids to grow in knowledge and leadership within the realm of our Christian lives!  Whew!  It's a big deal and we love it!  This year we were able to take about 35 people to L2L, our biggest group yet.  And we only expect it to grow each year!  Enjoy the pictures of our wonderful weekend.

Here were are taking our tons of luggage to check in at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, on Friday morning.

We quickly jump into events with Ava doing scripture reading.

Here's our precious, and I don't really like that word, but I really think it works for this group, so our PRECIOUS group of young people!

Here's our puppet team getting ready to do their thing!

Levi lead a song at L2L!  He lead I'll Fly Away.

Ava led "I Am A Sheep." She was a finalist out of about 20 girls! 

And here's our Bible Bowl team.  They did in depth studies over the books of Ruth, Esther and Job!  The 7th-8th grade team made finals also!  Elle and Ava were on that team so wooohoooo!!!

Elle is on the far left of this picture leaning on me while I talk to friends.  This is how awards ceremonies looked!

Our whole group...minus a few that left before Sunday morning!

Moms high-fiveing that we made it through another year!!!!

One of the projects Elle worked on was to sew something.  She chose to sew her own Easter dress!

Ava learned to sew a reversible kids apron.

Both girls learned how to properly set a table and this was our Easter dinner table!  I love how pretty it looks!!!

This was the poster our Banner team made and it turned out SO CUTE!!!  They won 2nd place out of about 15 banners!  Each of their talk bubbles is something they can do for God.

We are two weeks out from this trip...and have already solidified what everyone is doing for next year, as well as begun working on things!!!! 

 "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 

 Proverbs 22:6

ThirTEEN

How we celebrate a 13th birthday.  By Emma M.

We invited all of her friends from church, over for a sleepover Saturday!  They all arrived about 3 and Elle opened her presents.  Every one of her friends got her something perfectly perfect for her!  :)

Then we took all of them, plus Ava and Levi, down to Austin for a little taste of Austin.  We started at Homeslice Pizza.  This same day happened to be a huge vintage car show weekend in Austin, so all up and down Congress Ave. there were the coolest cars parked all over the place!  

After the, we walked to Amy's icecream, which was a first for most of the girls!

Then we headed across the street to take a picture with this iconic wall!

Then we headed home for the actual slumber party!  There was popcorn, hair braiding and the movie, Moana.

Sunday morning the girls all got dressed and we all headed to church together!  It was such an easy slumber party.  I didn't feel like I did much.  It was so fun to have them all over together.

Then today, on her actual birthday, we started the fun with me popping confetti at her as she came home from school!

She picked Olive Garden for her dinner choice and then, just like Levi, we headed home quickly so she could open her presents...all 13 of them!  :)

We ended the night with strawberry cheesecake icecream, her request, and lots of wishes!

Happy 13th Elle!  

Seven is Heaven

My baby, the one I just had, just turned 7.  It's a little traumatic for me, but he refuses to stay 3 so I am being forced to go with it and even celebrate it.  As if!

He started off Saturday morning at Mt. Playmore without me.  I was at a Ladies Retreat.  I now know that he is a child that is not okay with me missing any part of his birthday celebrations....making mental notes....

After Mt. Playmore, I met him and the rest of the family at Chuy's for a celebration lunch.  He ate as fast as he could because he knew what waited for him when he got home!

After tearing open all these gifts in about 5 minutes flat, we had some Thin Mint Cupcakes, per his request!

Later in the day, he was traumatized by his lizard friend in the picture.  He has been catching lizards forever, but on this day, the lizard bit him hard enough to cause him to bleed.  I think this is the day he officially became afraid to pick up a lizard.  :(  

Later that evening, while out celebrating Elle's birthday, Levi got to facetime his cousin Lucy, who also has a birthday on the same day and they sang Happy Birthday to each other at the same time.  :)

He had a wonderful day and now my baby's age doesn't even sound a little bit young.  At least he still loves wearing footie PJ's...which he got for his birthday.

Pizza Prank

My April Fools abilities are alive and well.  We weren't all together this weekend for April 1st so the kids thought they would not be fooled this year.  They were wrong.  I set this year's trick up by telling them we were having Little Caesar's pizza for dinner tonight!  They were excited!  I got a box from Little Caesars and made a cake that looked like a pizza topped with pepperoni (fruit roll ups) and beef (nestle little crunchies..it's a thing and it looks JUST like pizza meat!)

I had Shawn go pick up the real pizza and I put the fake one in the laundry room.  When he was almost home I called the kids upstairs to look at pictures while he switched out the pizzas.  

They all came down and I opened the box and immediately they could tell something was off but couldn't figure out what.  I had them going with acting weird and grossed out by the pepperonis and the way the cheese looked.  It took them a few minutes to start to realize something was off.  

Levi cried part way because he didn't like how the pizza looked and part way because he wanted a cheese-only pizza.  I'm still calling it a win because one kid cried.  

It's no fun to trick, unless tears flow.  Happy April 1st + 3 days!

Here's the fake pizza

Looks of concern...

....and disappointment/disgust.

TRICKED YA!!!  APRIL FOOLS!!!

Gotcha....AGAIN!!!

Dessert pizza is yummy!