Happy 7th Birthday Lillie!

Lillie has been waiting for what feels like forever to get her ears pierced. We promised her that she could get them done when she was 7 and she had been talking of nothing else for the past few weeks. She was only a tad nervous going to get them done. The guy doing it was a real slow mover and I was scared she would get one done and then not want to do the other, but she was super brave. Tim later told me that Lillie said to him: "mom said she was really brave and didn't cry when she got her ears pierced and I wanted to be brave like her. So even though it hurt I didn't say anything." So sweet and made me realize even more the influence that we have over our children without even realizing it.

So, without further ado, here are the ears:

Ok, on with the rest of the celebration.
Lillie's 7th birthday was FaBuLoUs!!!! She wanted a diva salon party with pink, black, and white as the theme colors. We made all the decorations together and had a great crafty time. The first pic is some of our handy work: tissue paper pom poms.

And here are Lillie's good morning and happy birthday to you kitchen decorations. It's sort of turned in to a "thing" where we decorate the kitchen the night before a birthday and the b-day kid wakes up to a personalized kitchen. I didn't realize how important this had become to our kiddos until I heard Lillie and Samuel talking about it the night before his b-day and being all excited. I love that they love it!

And here's Lillie party. I had my mom and sister Allison, and my friend/ visiting teacher Brittany over to help Lillie and 9 of her girlies with hair, nail, makeup, and a flip flop craft. Thank goodness I had them!

Here's Lillie getting a new "do"

Lillie after her makeover with her "pinata". Here is why pinata is in quotes. Lillie and I found this beautiful topiary pinata online and wanted to recreate it. We made the pinata and formed about 150 tissue paper roses to cover it. When I settled down with my glue gun, the 150 roses only covered about a quater of it. I'm sure you could feel my pain if you already knew the time I had put into this thing. I was committed. 300 more paper roses + one night staying up until 3am later the pinata was completed. I calcualted that it took 12 hours of my life from start to finish to create. I gave Lillie the choice of whether or not to bash it in and you could not imagine my delight when she said she would rather keep it! So we hung it up from our swing frame and put filled goody bags inside for the girls to take home. It now hangs proudly in her bedroom.

Fabulous flower clips that Lillie and I made for each of the girls to wear

All the girls minus Lillie's friend Aydia after their makeovers

Brunch Time! Can I say how nice it is to throw parties for older kids? The girls were all so well behaved and self reliant. It was great!

Make a Wish!

Lillie with her present from Tim and I... a new MP3 player. Also, thank you to Grandma and Grandpa and the Barnes' for the money that you sent. She went to Target yesterday and bought a Hannah Montana CD that she's been wanting and put it on her ipod. She's in rockstar heaven.

Grandma and Grandpa: you guys sent the perfect present for Lillie. She has been having a blast making bracelets and paper dolls. Here are her first creations:

We did these together so she wanted me to be in the picture too.

Lillie I had such a fun time planning this birhtday party with you. You are my best friend and I love to hang out with you. You are constantly teaching me how to be a better person. I love to watch you grow and learn and I feel so blessed that I get to be your mom. Happy birthday! I hope you have a wonderful year being 7. Good luck in 2nd grade!

Lillie at 7:

Favorites -

Books:

Junie B. Jones series, Meet the Faries Series, Tales from Wayside School, and Charlotte's Web. Lillie really loves to read and often stays up late into the night reading. She was the best reader in her class in 1st grade and she read the 2nd most books in her class last school year. One of her favorite things to do is scout out cheap books and garage sales (that's my girl!) and go to the library. She also loves listening to audio books. When she gets a new one from the library she is listening to it constantly.

Food:

Lillie is great at trying new types of food and likes most of what she tries. Her favorite dinner for me to make is Chicken Pot Pie. If she has her choice of restaurants she'll choose, Pei Wei, Panda Express, Chili's, or a local fav Ding How. And she loves to go to Spoon It! for dessert a froyo place where you choose your own toppings.

Toys:

Stuffed Animals! She has a huge collection on her bed. I used to make her go through them and throw them away. But now that I've realized how much she really loves them I've allowed her to keep them all. One of her favorites is this little white kitty that Grandma and Grandpa gave to her onle a few months after she was born when they visited us and the Barnes' in UT.Other than that, Lillie is not really in to toys.

Activities:

Arts and Crafts, big time. Singing at the top of her lungs in her bedroom and pretending she's a rockstar, make believe games where she is in charge and has the best part. She was always telling me about these elaborate games that she would make up for the kids to play at recess time. Climbing on things. This girl is a monkey and climbs anything and everything. She loves to me active and has been waiting to turn 7 so she can join me in my workout classes at the gym. She also LOVES to swim and like Samuel her favorite place to go is the Great Northwest pool. She has taught herself to swim and now happily jumps into 8 feet and goes like a little fish. She is currently working on mastering underwater flips and hand stands. She also loves her dates with mom and dad and her favorite place to go is ice skating.

Movies and Shows:

Lillie is not really a TV kid but if she happens to sit down in front of the tube she like Hannah Montana or any other girly Disney tweenager show.

Places: Northwoods Ice Skating, Spoon It, Witte Musuem, Becca and Ruth's house, Spending the night at Grammy and Grandad's, UT, CA, School, the pool

BFF's:

Samuel, Grant (she is such a good mini mommy to him), Becca and Ruth Holland, Leilani, Alexis, and Ezekiel (from 1st grade Mrs. Chasteen's class), and any dog she finds.

Dislikes:

Being told what to do. (But she's still really goos about doing it) Cleaning her room, raw carrots

***Special things about Lillie:

Lillie is such a special little girl. She is good at being friends with everyone and trying to make sure no one is left out. She loves adults and is always trying to help her teachers out. She has a special place in her heart for all animals but especially for dogs. Everywhere we go that there's a dog she is always trying to cart it around and give it all the love it could possible need. She's been a cuddler since birth and cuddling with mom or dad and night is always really important to her. She is really good at keeping secrets! She is also good at taking charge and gets in moods often where she takes care of everyone and likes to do everything herself.

We love you so much Lillie. Our family is so blessed to have you in it. Happy 7th Birthday!

Trip to the Coast

The kids and I took a trip to the coast to visit my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Raymond. We went for 4 days. We all had a blast and they were great hosts. Even Grant and Samuel did really well with Samuel only complaining on the last day that he wanted to go home and Grant only got the weird stressed out fever and achiness that he get when we travel on the last night and day there... so, success! The first day we were there we went to a church resale shop that my aunt volunteers at. This is always one of the kids favorite things to do. Lillie came home with 5 new stuffed animals to add to her bed collection and Samuel and Grant stocked up on "new" cars, transformers, and hero guys. All for $1.50. It's a really cheap shop. The 2nd day we were there they took us to the Corpus Christi aquarium. Grant did not want to be in any posed pics.

My Uncle Raymond with Grant. Grant really took to him, it was pretty cute.

Lillie and Samuel in the seahorse exhibit

Helping the boys see the hermit crabs. It was a petting zoo but none of the kids could work up the nerve to touch them. Lillie gave it a valiant effort though sticking her hands in and out of the water for about 10 minutes before we finally made her leave.

Grant and the shark.

Lillie was determined NOT to leave the Stingray petting zoo without a feel after the hermit crab drama. It took awhile for the rays to warm up to us but after a bit they became really friendly and we all got to touch them a lot. It was pretty cool and made me want to go on one of those cruises where you get to swim with them.

So my aunt and uncle live in a teeny little farming town outside of Corpus. There's nothing to do there so a few years ago the city teamed with the school and taxpayers and built a mini water park. It's only $3 a person and bonus: it's right behind their house! So each afternoon the kids and I walked out their backyard and hiked about a tenth of a mile to the park. It's little but that added even more value for me. I could sit in a chair, watch the kids float around the 2 1/2 foot lazy river, get out at the slide, slide down, and do it all over again for 3 hours. All while Grant played in the baby pool. Well, I could rest until Grant realized there was a slide. Then I spent the rest of the time taking him down it. We all had a blast! It was one of those great places where they post a lot of rules but then none of the teenage lifeguards follow them so you can do things like let your 5 year old go down the slide in a life jacket so you don't have to worry about him, and take your 2 year old down on your lap so he's not dissappointed that he can't go. Much better than our San Antonio pools and all they're pesky rule followers. I love it when places haven't been sued yet! Anyway, we all had a great time.

It's the best $12 a day anyone ever spent on us.

A New Find

We found this awesome public swimming pool in the heart of San Antonio. Apparently it's in the 2nd oldest park in the nation being beaten by Boston Common. The park is fabulous and it has this HUGE pool. You can see about 1/2 of it here but there is no way to comprehend the hugeness of it unless you see it in person. Half of it is shaded, it's got a beach entry for the little ones, and most of it is 2 to 3 feet so Lillie and Samuel have free reign. It used to be spring fed but with common droughts they made it a chlorine pool instead. Anyway, it was such a fun place to hang out on a hot afternoon and it was totally free! I'm amazed that I've lived in this city for most of my life and never knew about this. It gives me hope for other awesome finds around SA.

Celebrating the 4th TX Style

Well, there were no fireworks here. San Antonio and surrounding areas are going through such a severe drought right now that the burn bans even extended to proffessional fireworks shows. Diss-a-point-ing. But.... we still had a great time. We celebrated with our good friends the Easton's and our new friends the Calta's at the lake. We enjoyed lots of yummy food, friends, and tubing behind the ski boat. Enjoyed the 4th very much this year and as always, I feel so grateful to live in a country that allows me to worship as I choose and do as I please...mostly. Here are pics:

My contribution to dinner a.k.a. Audrey's most best favorite salsa

Yum. I can eat only this for dinner and be satisfied.

So, these pics aren't super great but I do want to preserve the memories. So you will have to rely on my desripctions to know who's behind the boat.

Tim and Audrey

Mike got pretty crazy. Crazy enough to be fun for me without throwing me off the tube.

Samuel and our friend Madison
Audrey and Grant. Grant loved being on the boat and kept pointing back to Tim and saying "gook" (look) to make sure I was looking too.

Here is Lillie with our friends Michelle and Kris. I was so proud of her for wanting to ride. She got bounced around a ton and almost flew off a couple of times but she was still dissappointed when it was time to come in.

And here are the boys: Tim and Kris. Mike did not go easy on them. They flew off quite a few times and loved every minute. And Mike was satisfied.

In the water

Man Overboard! Madison was a good flag holder.

Grant WOULD NOT get in the lake

Samuel did get in the lake however and I was very impressed. When we first got there he was scared. He didn't want to jump in because the water level was a lot lower than normal so from deck to water it was a good 3 foot drop. But by the end of the afternoon he was jumping in with the rest of them. Samuel has really made some great progress with his swimming this summer.

And Lillie our little fish. This was the best shot I could get of her as she kept dodging the camera. She was pretty mad that I made her wear a life jacket. We kept telling her "we know you can swim, but if you go under for some reason we won't be able to see where you went and we will never find you." She wasn't buying it. She did manage to have fun though with only small moments of poutiness.

Fun day! We thought about you a lot today Brian and as always you are in our thoughts and prayers.

Happy 30th Tim!

So, 30 is pretty big and I wanted to give Tim a memorable birthday. I had lots of fun things planned but the icing on the cake was when Jason decided to fly down last minute-ish in a very top secret way. He flew in Thursday night (June 30th). I told Tim I had some last minute birthday things to pick up while he put the kids in bed and I left to pick up his last minute birthday thing: Jason. We were both excited. So about a minute out from home Jason calls Tim to tell him he hopes he has a Happy B-day and he's sorry he can't be there for the Big 3-oh. Then he says: 'hey what about this. If I got on a plane tonight Audrey could come pick me up and I'd be there for tomorrow. You know, maybe she'd go out grocery shopping and swing by the airport (at this point I'm opening the door) and bring me here and I'd walk the the door RIGHT NOW!" Then he walks through the door and jumps in front of Tim who's watching TV. It was awesome. Tim was totally surprised and all of our stealthy planning paid off. Here is a reenactment:

Tim, so unassuming, not ever dreaming I could or would pull this off

Hey Bro!

What the WHAT!?!

No Way!!!

Dude, this is the best! I can't believe you're here!

I had also called his boss a week and a half before and arranged for Tim to have the day off from work. So for Tim's b-day we made him a big breakfast, then Jason and Tim went and hung out, saw Transformers 3, and did brother stuff while I got everything ready for a surprise-ish party. I'm pretty sure Tim knew we were having a get together I'm just not sure he realized that I invited all of his friends over. We had some families, and my parents over for BBQ and we had a lot of fun.

Tim with his 30 candles on cheesecake

"You're going skydiving daddy!"

Super fun birthday! The kids were of course so excited to have Uncle Jason for a visit. None of them knew that he was coming and when he got in they were already sleeping. So in the morning they come in to our bedroom and say "mom, who's that man on our couch?" Too funny. Here are some fun pics the night before he left:

Jason attempting to copy Grant's classic Grant face.

Jason we are so glad you could come and hang out with us this weekend and celebrate with Tim. And Tim, I hope you had a fabulous birthday!