Visitors!

Grandma and Grandpa R and Christina and Justin and Lucy and Lily and JJ came to visit us!  Hooray!

We started out with a hair salon, of course.

 Lovely!

We took Grandma R with us shopping for school supplies.  I think we were all surprised at how full the cart was--and it was only the required items.

We had to do a little baking, too.

We went to a Rangers game one night, but it was rain-delayed and didn't start until after 10 pm!  Yikes!  We only stayed for a couple innings, but the good news is that we brought lots of good snacks, and the Rangers eventually won--and the stadium is right by Six Flags, so I could pick up Tessa's hat at the Lost and Found on the way to the game.  (PS--she hasn't worn it since.)

We went to the pool almost every day.  I only got one picture though, and it's just my kids.  Sorry. 

Scott was in the middle of band camp.  It was super hot, of course, but after the night of rain, the clouds stayed for a couple days.  Nice!

On the morning of the sixteenth anniversary of our wedding and sealing in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, Ben and I kissed goodbye as he went to work and I took everyone else to the zoo.  There was a light drizzle for most of the day, which was perfect.  (I prefer the wet from the sky to the wet from my sweat.)  The animals were out having a great time.  This elephant, in particular, was having fun taking a bath.  We watched it for a long time!

I guess I was really into the elephants that day, because I didn't take any more pictures, though we covered most of the zoo.  We only got a little lost on the way home.  (Thanks, new bridge construction.)

Ben and I went with Christina and Justin and Ben's parents out to dinner that night for our anniversary.  Good times with good people.

We were sorry when they left, though it was only a couple more days until school started.  What a lovely way to end the summer!

(The main purpose of the trip was to be here for Scott's Eagle Court of Honor, which was on Sunday.  I'll do another post for that.)

Oh What do you do in the Summertime?

Do you make tiny towns?

 Or decorate clowns?

 (These are actually "Snowgies," which are from the Disney short "Frozen Fever," and my kids decorated them with clay into Peter Pan characters.  Why not?)

Or jump in the pool from so high?

 (Caytie)

 (Tessa)

Is that what you do?  So do I!

Do you pet the cat Bella?

Or sew a sock puppy?

(Hmm, I can't make this verse rhyme.)

Or break down the fort oh so high?

Is that what you do?

I don't either.

But these kids sure had fun!

Six Flags

Our friends invited us to accompany them to Six Flags, and with some free tickets from school reading and their discount, we were able to have a (less expensive) fun day together!

LUNCH!

Emma in red

Caytie and Tessa--farthest left and next in left

Gracie and then Ben (and Benson's in there, too--promise!)

I had to try the Batwing, too!

This is just before she took off her hat and accidentally dropped it under the ride.  The attendant wouldn't get it, and it took a couple weeks of bugging the Lost and Found (who claimed an animal must have taken it), but we got it back!

How Ben rides the Cat Woman's Whip--he's the one with arms out!

We can smile--in the shade

Everything's bigger here

Gracie is in front, and Ben and Benson are behind on the Harley Quinn

Fun friends!

Tessa was not pleased with the photo bomb.

Can't see them, but most of the kids are on here--including Benson

Ending the day with a little spin in the teacups

Emma rides this one a LOT

The Sombrero.  Loved by my kids; avoided by me...

What I don't have pictures of is the second trip we took there--we meaning me, Ben, Joe and Bekah--a couple weeks later.  It was soooo fun, and since we didn't have any kids with us, we couldn't blame them for staying away from rides, and we ended up doing a lot of the biggies, like the Texas Sky Screamer, Mr. Freeze, Batman, Pandemonium, and the indoor dark roller coaster (Runaway Mountain), etc.  We haven't done the Texas Giant, Superman tower, Riddler Revenge, or the Titan yet.  Maybe another day.  (Maybe not...)

The Rest of July

Guess what I found while cleaning?  A little tune I wrote when I was nine, transcribed by my sister Jenny.  (I know because she wrote the copywrite information on the back.)

Gracie made a cool house from one of our moving boxes.  (She does things like that.)  I caught her in it up late reading one night.

Pioneer Day doesn't get much more authentic than celebrating with graham cracker and marshmallow covered wagons.

Ta da!  (We actually did some indexing on this day, too.)

I took the kids swimming at their favorite pool.  One waterslide was closed, but they made full use of the other three, and the lazy river and the volleyball net and (for Benson) the water playgrounds.  It was a fun, tiring day (and we were happy to have Scott with us).

Other July events included--

*Free Slurpees at 7-11 on 7/11!
*Tessa started piano lessons and is so very excited about it!
*Gracie and Emma had well-checks, and the doctor noticed some possible scoliosis for Emma, so we scheduled to get it x-rayed.
*Emma had her thyroid/growth hormone checkup.  All is well; even her weight is good!  This doctor is not concerned about her spine; she said it looks OK so far.
*Our new couches were delivered--again!  However, one had a missing middle foot, and the back frame of the other broke, so we had to order them--again.
*Caytie and Emma visited the orthodontist.  Both will wait until more progress happens in their mouths, but lots of work for both is in their futures...
*Caytie and Tessa took swimming lessons.  Both are able to swim, but it's not always very--skillful.  They're working on their technique.  Their teacher is a young woman in our ward and is so cute and fun for them.
*I had a couple ward visits, a presidency meeting, and Stake Council for my calling.  Ben's our new Ward Clerk and is learning to like it.
*We had the missionaries over for dinner!  It had been a long time.
*We went to Six Flags, but that gets its own post later.

And that's all she wrote.

BIG NEWS

One child in our family (the most recent one to have a birthday) had a night-time habit of finger sucking.  We have talked about stopping it a lot, but it's a hard thing to monitor during the night.  Well, with this birthday, it was time to do something about it.  I said that if she could go for ten days without sucking her fingers during the night, I'd get her any thing she wanted at Walmart.  Anything.  Each morning I would ask her if she had done it, and totally trusted her to tell the truth.  She made it through the first night, and the second, and the third...and way past the tenth.  She broke her seven year habit in one night.  I was very impressed.

We took a trip to Walmart one day about a month later, and she reminded me of the terms of our deal, so I said she could pick out anything.  We went to the toy section and she debated and deliberated and doubted and declared that she just couldn't pick out anything that day, which was fine with me because I was in a hurry.  At the checkout line, she finally chose something--a container of Eclipse gum squares.  She was so happy.  She even gave everyone a piece.

She hasn't gone back to finger sucking, and I am thrilled that that chapter of our lives is over.

We Heart Grandma and Grandpa

My parents braved the heat for a quick visit with us.  They arrived when the carpet was being installed (as mentioned) and were a huge help in getting most things moved back where they belong.  We were able to work in a little fun while they were here, though, including a trip to the Dallas Museum of Art.

(Please note that Emma and Grandpa were with us; I just didn't get any pictures of them somehow!  Scott was at drumline camp and Ben was working, though.)

We were a little early, so we first went to the Klyde Warren Park across the street.

The kids were happy to cool their feet in the little stream (and I think Benson cooled most of his bottom half), and we dried out when we ate our picnic lunch outside the museum.

We had to start out in the children's area.  They redid the little kid place, and it has a lot less in it now, but Benson was still entertained.  (Look at that tongue--just like his brother, dad and Grandpa R!)

 These kids could have stayed at this creating station all day.  (The tongue again!)

 Gracie left hers on display.

 Bored mom finally convinced them to see the rest of the museum.  The girls liked this silver vanity set.

 Looking for the mummy was motivating for some.

 I caught sight of some paintings by some pretty well known artists this time, including Piet Mondrian (color block paintings, though there were several other styles by him, too), Johannes Vermeer (one by him and several others like it in the exhibit--very, very detailed portraits), and this one by Vincent van Gogh.  (Benson wasn't in the mood for a selfie...)

My dad found a couple interesting possible temple connections.  I wonder what I could find if I could actually look at things for more than a couple seconds before keeping little hands from touching things they shouldn't.

I think I'll be back.

The Carpet is Coming! The Carpet is Coming!

Once the windows were installed, we were ready for carpet.  Of course, the kind we chose was on backorder, but after a few delays, we got the word that it would finally be coming!  Much of our house was still packed up, but we had to spend Saturday and Monday moving everything else except dressers, bookcases, and beds into the garage...

...my bathroom (and all the others)...

...and the kitchen.

I spent a lot of Monday cleaning the floors, too.  It's amazing how much dirt was already under the carpet when they pulled it up.  I had cleaned that up, but we added plenty, and the shop vac and I were good friends getting rid of it all.

On Tuesday morning, the knock we had been waiting for finally came, along with lots of strong men and our wonderful, soft new carpet!

The kids wasted no time putting it to good use in the first completed room.  After months on cement with tack strips all around, we were so happy to be done with that chapter of this mess.

Two things of note from that day...  1) This is pretty much the only part of the reconstruction that was done right the first time, and these guys were so good.  They even disassembled the bunk beds and put them back together when carpeting the kids' bedrooms.  2) Grandma and Grandpa D arrived for a quick vacation...hooray!  They helped us (and motivated us) to start putting things back in the newly carpeted rooms for the next couple days.  We worked in some fun, too.