Weird Home Tour...it was WEIRD.

A few months ago I heard about a Weird Home Tour that was going to happen in Austin.  I jumped at the chance to gawk at some of the weirdness that is the heart of Austin!  We were able to see 8 homes altogether.

In house #1, there was just LOTS of stuff delicately placed everywhere!  It was pretty awesome.

House #2 was tiny and super cute...but sososososo tiny!!!!

House #3 was our favorite for extreme weirdness.  It was titled Casa Neverlandia and it was WEIRD! 

A wall of beads isn't weird...actually very cool!  The owner was a bead artist and made amazing stuff!

Have a fire altar was weird though.  He also had a sky alter and sun or light or something like that altar.  We didn't ask him who the altar was for....we just gawked and moved on.

He also had a sky bridge connect his master bedroom to his art house where he worked...and had a fireman's pole that was a 2 story drop.  Shawn was brave enough to try it...I wasn't so sure about it so I took the stairs down!

House #4 was owned by an artist and architect.  There was art all over every wall (Lots of naked ladies painted on the walls!) and all the furniture was designed by the architect.  This was my favorite piece of art. 

House #5 was a paint by number house.  The outside was gorgeous!

I loved the bohemian feel of this house.  The owner sold these pillows as a job.  One thing we loved about this house was that they had snacks out...and the best cashews I've ever eaten!

House #6 was unusual in that the master bathroom was blacklight.  She also took her chickens for walks daily and here she is in the kitchen with one of the chickens in a stroller!

Then we moved onto house #7.  This house was straight up still living the high(literally) life of the 70's.  It was called the "Music House" because when we walked in, there were about 20ish electric (mostly) guitars on display and also a piano...but you could here unusual music coming from the back of the house.  We turned the corner to find this room...straight.up.seventies.  Weird music playing and the smell of incense (we hope) was STRONG.  I felt dizzy and had a slight headache when we left there...It was weird.

Our final house of the day was the Dome House.  It was quite cool except if you like things to be symmetrical and like to use wall space.  This first picture was in her art studio in the home.  She had a lifesize cow in the middle of the floor that she was working on painting.  

This was their master bedroom.

This house concluded our home tour and it was a day of super super weird.  Definitely worth the money!  We got to eat a my two favorite places during our date!  We went to Via313 for pizza and when we finished the tour, hit up Amy's for my very favorite thing in the whole world...Mexican vanilla with strawberries and hot fudge.  

Fourteen and Fabulous

We turned right around after Levi's 8th and celebrated Elle's 14th birthday!  

I picked her up from school and headed straight to her favorite store in town!  I let her spend as much time as she wanted browsing every single thing she wanted to with no one rushing her.  It's full of tiny treasures, her kind of thing.

Found this card at the store.  :)

Then we met Shawn and the other kids at Chili's for her birthday dinner, her choice!

Then we came home for cupcakes and gifts!

Last, we surprised her by letting her take her first driving lesson around the car line at the elementary school.  She LOVED this part!  And no one died so that was exciting!

8 is Great!

Levi turned 8 years old in April....E*I*G*H*T.  Wowzers...I can slowly see baby Levi getting less and less!  I do still get to snuggle him pretty often, but he's just not looking very toddlerly anymore.  The only thing that's saving me is all the mommas at church that keep having babies!  Ha!  For his 8th, we had planned a very low key party at a park about 2 blocks away...and then weather.  Good.Ol. Weather. It was glorious on Friday and supposed to be glorious on Sunday....but Saturday was supposed to be super chilly and very windy.  So plan B....which we didn't have.  Shawn and I scrambled on Friday to turn it into an indoors party with a bunch of 7 year olds!  Thankful to the church for letting us use the building.  It went wonderfully!!  My parents came in for the weekend and we got to celebrate again on Sunday for Levi's actual birthday.  It was a great weekend!

The kids did a scavengar hunt for foam hatchets all over the building.  I think this was their favorite part.

We also played pin the beard on the boy and had a huge blown up face of Levi.  :)

Levi's funniest gift was a dozen eggs for the chickens of one of the kids that came!

He picked Mighty Fine for lunch on his birthday!

 This was my favorite picture of my mom and dad being here.  Ava wanted to do her hair all weekend.

Obligatory Bluebonnet Post

I had no firm intentions of getting pictures of my kids in the bluebonnets this year.  I didn't want to fight them on it.  They usually are cooperative (sort of) for Christmas pictures, Easter pictures and birthday pictures...other than that, it might be a fight.  I wanted pictures of them, but not enough to fight them for it....But when you do things in a very spur of the moment fashion, sometimes it just works out really well.  That was the case for the night we were driving around, decided to go as a family to look at this one amazing area of bluebonnets in town and haphazardly plopped down into them for an impromptu shoot that no one fussed about.  What in the what?!  I love these pictures!

Budding Artist

Elle is wrapping up her 3rd year of Art in middle school and there was a city-wide art show for many students in the district.  We got to take a look at some of what she's done this year in Art.  She had three pieces featured.  There was lots of really cool artwork to see!  Love that she loves art!

She's had the same teacher for all three years!  I'm so thankful she's been good for Elle and hope that high school will provide another great teacher!

Triple Doozy

This past weekend, three separate events collided on our calendar.  We celebrated Easter on Sunday, as well as April Fool's Day and also spent the weekend at our annual Lads to Leaders convention, which we've worked for all year long.  It was an exhausting and wonderful weekend!
Elle competed in song leading, bible bowl, puppets, art and other noncompetitive things.  Ava competed in song leading, puppets, story line, bible bowl, art, bible reading and speech as well as other noncompetitive things.  Levi did song leading and bible reading.  They earned lots of trophies and medals and I was so super proud of their bravery to compete in things that aren't always natural and comfortable or easy to them.  Our entire hope and goal of being a part of this is that are children won't just be Christians, but that they will be leaders in the congregations they are part of as adults.  That is our prayer.

Levi doing Bible Reading..there is nothing sweeter than a little voice speaking God's Word.

Ava giving her speech

Elle leading a song 

Shawn taught Levi to do a head stand, during some of our down time.

The puppet team

Little Hoodlums...this sweet group of boys is going to give us a run for our money when they are all in the youth group together!

Here was some of us left on Sunday morning after worship.  All together, we had 50 people attend from our congregation this year!!!

April Fool's Day was a hit too.  I pretty much made one child cry so it was a success.  It worked out so well that it coincided with Easter...lots of fun new things to try out on them.

Here's our official Easter picture

After L2L, we headed back home to see what the Easter bunny left us!  Unfortunately, the Easter Bunny shrunk their Easter basket's this year!

Then it was time to do some egg hunting in the backyard.

At least one of them started to realize that these eggs might have tricks in them....

Here was what was in Ava's eggs...she got the only egg that had something decent...$1.

 Elle got some rocks, lint, hilarious pictures of shawn, confetti, easter grass, pennies and a coke tab.

 Levi was HIGHLY unamused with what was in these eggs....didn't find it one bit funny at all.

 Shawn and I on the other hand, could not stop laughing with each egg the kids broke open and discovered to be completely worthless.

Then we played a game I called "Egg surprise."  I had 18 eggs and some were hard boiled, some were raw, and some were confetti filled.  That had to pick a number one at a time and smash the egg on their head.  Elle seemed to be the unluckiest and we also figured out that hard boiled eggs HURT when you try to smash them on your head.  

Now, the weekend didn't go without a few hitches...the worst being that Ava was feeling pretty sick all afternoon Sunday.  She rallied to hunt eggs and smash the eggs, but she had a hard hard time with the whole afternoon.  Both her and Elle woke up sick this morning.  It was a rough Monday, but it seems that as I type, all are on the mend and tomorrow will be a much less foolish, eggy day!