Harry Potter's Birthday

Our library puts on a fun Harry Potter birthday party every year, and this year we finally made it!

First, of course, they got sorted.

Caytie to Ravenclaw,

Tessa to Gryffindor,

Gracie to Ravenclaw,

Emma to Gryffindor,

and Benson to Gryffindor, though I missed the picture.  (PS--I took a quiz on Pottermore, and I'm a Hufflepuff.  I thought I'd be Gryffindor too, but no, Hufflepuff fits for sure.)  We got cake balls and the kids made ties to match their houses.

Then they had to get a wand after a few questions.

They got to see some owls, like this cute itty bitty one.

Benson participated in the costume contest.

They all did a scavenger hunt around the library, and finished up at the photo booth.

Gracie's good friend Brooke was there, and we had to get a picture, because her family was moving to Wyoming in a couple weeks.

It was especially fun because I had just finished reading the Harry Potter series to Caytie and Tessa, so it was a nice culmination.  Happy birthday to our favorite wizard!

Summer Six Flags Trip

We found a day we were all free (even Scott, who started band camp the next day) and gathered the kids' free tickets from reading and made our annual trip to Six Flags.  The kids had been looking forward to this all summer!  I didn't take many pictures this year, but we had a really great time.  We got soaked, flipped, spun, swung, and thrilled as the kids showed slightly more bravery than in times past.

Now who's ready for bed?

Pioneer Day 2017

(But first: some doodles Gracie did while in church...)

We couldn't let this day go past without honoring our Pioneer ancestors with some sugary treats!

Timmy is always ready to perform a trick to get a treat, too!

Finished products!  Tessa pulled out my Trek clothes, while Benson went for a less traditional look, in Ben's very old wrestling singlet. ☺

Thank you, Pioneers!

Holly in Houston

Sooo....remember when I said that once my kids are all in school, I'd get more involved in community things, like helping with PTA?  My neighbor was recruiting people to help with the intermediate school's PTA board, and in my ignorance, I decided to step up and volunteer.  I got assigned to be the treasurer.  On my first foray into PTA land.  I had no idea what was in store for me!

The first thing that we got to do as board members was attend training in Houston.  All expenses were covered, and that weekend was open for my family, so I joined the incoming PTA President and the Membership Chair, and we headed south for two days of classes and meeting with vendors and eating good food and figuring out what a PTA treasurer does.  We stayed in a Hilton which was FULL of PTA ladies--and a few men.

This is the view of the convention center (on the right) where the classes were held, and the stadium where some sports team plays (straight ahead, which is why I took the picture, to show Ben), and a nice downtown park we walked through a couple times to get circulation back in our legs (to the left) taken from the skywalk in our hotel.

We ate one night at Papasitos, and I took this picture to text to Ben to show that I ate guacamole--and enjoyed it.  This is big, people.

The second night we walked to a barbecue place for dinner, which ended up being in a sketchier part of downtown Houston than we expected, and it started to sprinkle while we were there.  We took that as a sign to call Uber to get us back to the hotel--the first time for all of us.  Our driver was a big Middle Eastern man, and we were a bit nervous that he might just drive off with these three little women, so I got him talking about his life.  Turns out he was a nuclear physicist who moved from Baghdad to Houston, but once he had worked for a couple years, decided to follow his passion to be an artist, and now he is an Uber driver for as long as needed to pay the bills and then paints for the rest of the month.  I have his website, in case you're interested in his art...

It was a fun weekend, and I felt decently prepared to start my duties, but--

it was nice to get home!

FHE Treats, etc.

What better way is there to enjoy a summer evening that is hovering around 100 degrees than by making a fire and a hot treat?

Well, judging by the faces of those partaking, they were pleased with the results of the evening.

I found a massive ant hill in our garden.  That's why this patch of weeds is still there--it's in the middle of the hill, and I wasn't brave enough to pull it until applying poison.  Texas fire ants are not to be trifled with.

Tessa and Benson were inspired by my preschool finger puppets and put on a play (which they thought was hilarious!), and Scott helped out with and improvised soundtrack.

Great British, um, American Baking Show...or...Gathering

At the beginning of the summer, a friend and I were talking about how much we enjoyed "The Great British Baking Show," and she suggested that we try to do something like that with our families.  I thought it would be great to give my kids a reason to bake, so we decided we'd pick a theme, bake at home, and then meet at the park to share what we made.  (We had thought of judging, but that never happened once we were there.)  We had a couple other families meet up with us, too.

The first week we made cookies.  Gracie made chocolate crackle cookies, Tessa made braided sugar cookies, Emma made root beer frosted cookies, and Caytie made a candy pizza cookie.  I was going to make some, but we ran out of time and bowls.  (Wow, what a mess at the end of that day!)

We missed the next week, and then the following week was breads--but we were the only ones to show up!  Caytie made zucchini bread, Tessa made pumpkin chocolate chip bread, Emma made banana bread, and I made cheesy pull apart bread.

The final week was pies.  Caytie made apple pie bars,

Tessa made a cherry pie (yes, we pitted all the fresh cherries and had the red fingers to prove it!)

Emma made a chocolate silk pie,

and I made a lemon cheesecake pie, which, I discovered after checking for doneness, I had forgotten to add eggs to.  It tasted delicious, but had a very odd consistency...  (Making four pies in one day is a lot for my brain.)

Here's another picture of the cherry pie, because it was pretty AND delicious...and it includes my boys (and sweet girl).

It was a fun way to spend time with friends this summer.

The Good Days...and the Bad

Looking back on our summer so far, it seems that we had a grand old time, with nothing but loves and likes and fun.  But the reality is that I'm posting about pictures I took, and somehow, I forgot to take pictures of the harder aspects of the summer--like the absolute mess our house always was, the pulling of teeth that I had to do to get any laundry folded or dishes loaded or floors swept, the NOISE LEVEL of having these six children home almost full time, both when they were getting along and when they weren't, piano practicing and media usage rules to enforce, the times we wanted to do things but couldn't because we had to wait for some more expendable income, chauffeuring to band and driving practice, the pediatrician, optometrist, orthodontist, and veterinarian appointments, and buying and making and cleaning up ALL THE FOOD these children want to eat ALL THE TIME.  There were a lot of times that I would "escape" to the quiet of my room to read or browse Facebook or play a game on my phone instead of interacting with my sweeties.  Also, my hips and my heel started hurting a lot when I tried to run, and then a long time after.  (Self diagnosis: plantar fasciitis.)  So.  Things are not always as they seem.

But, overall....

if we can look back and think that the good outweighs the bad, it gives me hope that we're doing all right.

And PS--back to current times (why yes, I'm blogging about this summer in November).  My phone broke last week.  No reason and no warning--it just started rebooting over and over, and wouldn't actually turn on.  I thought I lost all the pictures from the last post on here, when I downloaded them onto the computer the last time.  I was resigning myself to having no pictures of  our Kansas trip, the first day of school, Halloween, and everything in between, but when I got a new phone a few days later, I was able to recover the pictures on the SD card.  What once was lost was found, and I was so happy--so I don't have to blog picture-less.  Hallelujah!

Some Some Summertime!

Benson's good friends moved away this summer.  Zelda, Henson, and Fletcher were here almost every day (sometimes VERY early!) ready to play, and Benson loved almost every minute of it.  Henson and Benson are only a couple months apart and they were looking forward to riding the bus to Kindergarten together.  But their mom got transferred out of state, so we brought them cookies and a card on the day they left--while wearing Halloween jammies.  (Well, I wasn't wearing jammies, Halloween or otherwise.)

Benson's last day of swimming lessons was a success!  We need to do it again.

July 11th equals free Slurpees!  Mmmmmmmm.

Why I blog (and print the books):

The boys found other ways to entertain themselves:

We finally made it over to try the new IHOP!  The food is almost always worth the long wait we almost always have.

Ben and Scott went flying, and Ben was impressed with Scott's ability to land on the runway and taxi back.  He has some natural ability, I guess!

(This boy wears shorts in the winter and jeans in the summer.  Makes sense to me...)

Yay for summer!

July 4th

We had grand plans for this day--we went out to Dinosaur Valley to hike and see dinosaur footprints, but alas, it had rained the day before, and we found out at the entrance that all the footprints were covered in water.  It was pretty crowded there also, so instead of hiking without seeing footprints, we opted to go to the nearby Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.  It's a large drive through zoo and nature center--so right up our alley.

This guy was pretty funny--he kept trying to eat the registration sticker on the window.  He even stuck his head in the window and tried to pick off the words on Ben's shirt!

At the half way point, there is a nature center where we ate our lunch and then helped with an enrichment activity for some birds.  The kids packed cardboard tubes with treats and decorated them to look like fireworks.

We got to watch the birds figure out how to get the treats.

My girls

My boys

Yep, I was there, too!

After we returned, we joined a couple families in our ward for a pool party and dinner.

They live in the county, so we all contributed a bit and put on our own firework show!

We got a few bites on our feet (as expected), but it was a beautiful evening after a fun day.  We're grateful to be able to celebrate our freedom!