July with a Bang

July started with a bang --literally --with having our good friends, the Mohontys, over for Independence Day.  We had a nice BBQ and then lit fireworks. Adelaide finally summoned up enough courage to try holding a sparkler this year. Joseph, on the other hand, has never had any fear of fireworks. Even as baby he has always been mesmerized by the glowing lights and loud noise. It was hard trying to restrain him to a safe distance.

Just a few days later, we celebrated Adelaide's fourth birthday with a pool party.

I made a beautiful "princess cake" because that's what she wanted. --I had to dig around for a frosting recipe that wouldn't instantly melt when we took it outside in the heat. (Meringue frosting worked great!)

It managed to stay together quite well.  Adelaide loved it, and everyone else was quite impressed.

Here is JoJo and his Beloved enjoying some watermelon together. (We joke that these two were betrothed at birth, because they were born only a few days apart. . . . And they're both so cute!!!)

Happy birthday, Big Girl! 

The very next day, we left for a family vacation to Galveston, including amazing Moody Gardens. We bought a membership so we could do everything there is as much as we wanted.  It was all wonderful!  

The Rain Forest Pyramid was amazing.  They have a special section just for butterflies, and apparently, they love people, or at least our family, because everyone had one land on them.

(Notice Sadie's sad face in the above picture when Michael got to hold one; then a look of joy and triumph when one finally decided to land on her.)

As always, Michael loved the reptiles and amphibians best.

Joseph's favorite part was watching all the fish.

My favorite part was getting to see the bird feeding when we were within a few feet of  a dozen or so scarlet ibises and all other kinds of birds were flying above our heads trying to catch a tasty treat.

They Aquarium Pyramid was equally amazing. They have huge tanks of seals, penguins, sharks and other tropical fish.

And all kinds of smaller tanks with sea turtles, octopuses, sea urchins, and seahorses. --They even had a bunch of teeny-tiny baby seahorses in a special hatchery. So cute!

Joseph enjoyed getting almost-eaten by a megamouth shark. And again, he loved the fish! He could have stayed in here all day, easily. We almost did.

But we also had to see the Dinosaurs!!!  Michael and Sarah were less-than-impressed with these animatronic beasts, but Ada and Joseph loved them. They insisted we go through this exhibit every day we were there. (Actually, JoJo was a bit scared and wanted me to hold him when we first entered the tent, but by the time we were done, he was in toddler-boy heaven.)

While waiting for lunch one day, Matt invented a new game for JoJo --Dino-Soccer.

Apart from Moody Gardens, we visited La King's Confectionery. Boy, walking into a candy store with four small children is DANGEROUS!

We also toured the Flight Museum and got to see a few antique planes take off.

And of course we played at the beach, but I didn't want my phone getting sandy, so I left it in the car each time. Hence, no pictures. :-(


Back at home . . .

Our smart little boy put two and two together and decided to go fishing for our goldfish with the plastic fishing pole from our "Let's Go Fishin'" game.  Thankfully, he has been unsuccessful so far.

JoJo thinks he's such a big boy. 

Michael was "really bored" one day, so I let him make a marble cake all-by-himself-with-mom-supervising.  It turned out quite good, and he was quite proud of himself.

Joyful June

It was a very busy June! Matt's sister, Lisa, and her husband, Sean, moved here to Houston and stayed with us for a few weeks while apartment hunting. It was so fun!

Here is Aunt Lisa teaching the girls how to do head stands.

Uncle Sean was very generous to let the kids play games on his iPad.  . . . Michael, in particular, wanted to play non-stop.

What could be more fun than a sprinkler on a summer afternoon?

My nephew and niece, Cole and Kylie, came for a visit, and we did something fun every day including lots of parks and swimming. Here we are right after a boat ride around the Woodlands mall.

Last year, Matt and I came to an agreement, if he would take me to the opera, I would go shooting with him. He happily took me to see "The Magic Flute" last fall, so now it was my turn to try something new. It was actually easier and more fun than I anticipated.

What do you do on a summer morning with three bored kids?

Make food art!

Some of their creation were actually pretty sturdy.

A law firm that Matt works with gave a huge party in box seats at a Houston Astros game. It was great! Free good. Free game. And an amazing man to share it with. . . . The Astros won btw. Go Astros!

A few weeks ago, we attended a retirement party for my Aunt Cathy. It was at the Spaghetti Warehouse downtown. Everything was going smoothly. The kids were all behaving. Then Michael turned to me and yelled "I'm bleeding!"

His loose upper tooth finally decided to come out with a little help from some french bread.

Spring has Sprung!

Sadie and Ada attended a preschool program (run as a class at our local high school) this year and LOVED IT! They came home every day with new crafts and projects and songs they had learned. Here they are the week before Easter when they had an Easter egg hunt.

I love hearing the occasional "Want to be best friends?" . . . It doesn't happen every day, but when these girls decide to get along they are so sweet it brings tears to my eyes.

Michael remains an amazing little boy.  Ooops! I mean "big boy."
This kid soaks up knowledge like a sponge, is always thinking about something, and forever asking questions. He was accepted into the gifted program at school starting next year, so hopefully he'll have a teacher who's able to quench his curiosity. 

Michael LOVES chess --so much so that I volunteered to run the school's chess club, just so he would have a way to play with other kids. I am not a great chess player (Yes, I admit Michael has beat me fair and square several times), but we spent the year learning together and had a great time.

Joseph continues to be a joy to everyone in our family. He is such a happy little guy that the kids routinely vie for his attention. (Ada: "Oh, Joseph. Want to come play with me?" Sadie: "No, he's playing with me right now, Ada!" Ada: "Come on, Joseph. I'll let you play with my monkey." Joseph eyes the stuffed monkey and happily defects.)

Strawberry picking by myself with four small children was quite an adventure . . .  Only Sadie ended up lost, and I think there were less than a pound of strawberries ingested before we could weigh and pay for our buckets. So, I guess I can chalk that up as a successful outing, right?

This was the closest I could get to having all four kids looking at the camera at the same time. Michael has entered that boyish stage of refusing to smile for pictures. At least in this one, he's not making funny faces or giving someone bunny-ears.

The Saturday before Easter, we had a lovely celebration at my cousin Charlotte's house again this year.

It was wonderful to visit with everyone

and as always, we came back with LOTS of candy, despite my personal quest to fill as many eggs as possible with non-candy substitutes. (Yes, I know it's not as exciting to open an egg and find a sticker instead of a roll of Smarties, but do kids really need to ingest two pounds of sugar and food coloring every major holiday?)

The kids had Easter baskets waiting for them Easter morning at home, too. . . . Yes, I broke down and gave them a little candy, too. 

Camping with Aunt Sarah was so fun last fall that we decided to do it again in April! 

And Matt was able to come this time too this time.

Our shelter wasn't quite as nice as the previous one, but we made due. Apparently it has been some time since someone had used the shelter, and the door was left unlatched during that time. We found lots of bugs and spider webs, and a pair of wrens made a lovely little nest inside the shelter just above the door. (You can see it in the corner of the picture with Sarah.)  We didn't realized it was occupied until one of the birds starting flying around our heads as we were arranging our sleeping bags Friday evening. We finally managed to get him outside, but the next morning we found the second bird, presumably the mother, flying around trying to get outside for breakfast.

Because there was large thunderstorm passing through, we packed up a little earlier than expected. (No fire-grilled eggs and bacon for breakfast. So sad. We had to make due with leftover hot-dog buns and tortillas.)  And we left the door open for the birds to come back to their nest.

Michael had his first team-sports experience this spring playing soccer. It was great.  Their coach was so patient and encouraging!  He was on a team of all beginners, so there was a big learning curve for everyone.  

When Michael scored two goals in the same game, he was on top of the world!  . . . We already signed him up again for the fall.

Just a cute moment I caught --two boys and a book.

Mr. Smiley

One morning after breakfast, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and Joseph was "cleaning up" the kitchen table (i.e. looking for tasty things on other people's plates that they hadn't finished eating). One of the kids saw him doing this and pulled the chair he was standing on away from the table, thinking it would simply pull him away from the food.  Instead, Joseph landed mouth-first on the edge of the table and then head-first on the floor.  He knocked some teeth pretty badly --one was chipped and one was loose and bleeding. We put in a quick call to my brother Jeremy (a dentist) who reassured us the loose tooth would probably go back into place by itself, which it did within a few weeks.

This was one of Joseph's few sad faces. --He was sick with a high fever, so who could blame him?-- He's even cute with a sad face!

Here is Michael on his field day. They had all kinds of creative games to play --much more fun than the boring relays we did in my elementary years.

We are still gardening --if you can call it that.  At this point, I know we've put so much more money into trying to get things to grow than we have saved in actual produce. But it's fun, so we're going to keep doing it. With my dad's help, we actually added a lot more beds along the back fence this spring, so maybe eventually it will all equal out . . . 

We would have had a decent potato crop if it hadn't rained non-stop for two month straight. Most of the potatoes rotted in the muddy soil, but we managed to salvage a few.

One thing that has grown really well is our zinnia patch. They just keep going! The girls bring me new flowers several times a week, so it's a good thing I have so many little vases for them. I keep them in the kitchen window so they can brighten my mood even while doing dishes. They really are very cheery flowers.