My 39th Birthday!

The night before my birthday, we had a group of friends gather to celebrate all the June birthdays. We had Pizookies and watched the Bachelorette tv series together. It was a great girls' night and a lot of fun. The next day I hosted pool hop at our pool and I brought treats to share. It felt like a huge birthday party just for me to be at the pool with all of my friends and their kids. During the day, I had such sweet gifts given to me. My visiting teacher brought me flowers and chocolate, neighbors gave me a candle and a new makeup bag. Another friend brought over cookies and another gave me a bundt cake. David and the kids gave me my own set of Mexican Train dominoes game and a Fitbit. 

Twilight Camp 2015

Drew is now a Webelo and it's his last year at Twilight Camp. I volunteered two days, Tuesday and Friday, and Tuesday was my 39th birthday. I figured I would spend my day with my son as that would be a perfect gift for me. I probably wasn't thinking about the heat and the sweating I would do when I made that decision but I survived. Drew had so much fun the entire week. On Tuesday, we made bows and arrows, saw various raptors native to Texas, ran the obstacle course and was able to squirt the boys with water guns, and made rockets to launch. Friday was the day just for the Webelos and they could pick whatever they wanted to do. Our boys chose to do archery, crafts (Drew made a slingshot and a kite), and have snow cones too. They even flew in a rescue helicopter and had a firetruck there for the scouts to tour. After dinner, we went to rock climb and all of a sudden, the skies were black and the wind picked up. Camp was shut down and we all went home early. It poured and poured on the drive home but we made it back safely and had so much fun!

Summer Happenings

Drake took swim lessons from Mrs.Sally again this summer. He did great but because he can't touch the bottom of most pools, I still expected him to wear a floatie. But pretty soon after swim lessons, he chose not to wear a floatie in the shallow end and put it on if he wanted to swim with the big kids in the deeper areas. And then all of a sudden, Drake is completely comfortable swimming in the pool without a floatie at all. He is such a smart boy who is aware of his surroundings. He swims all over the place and does it with confidence. I'm so proud of Drake and his willingness to use his skills to swim and have fun. Can't wait for this kid to do swim team next summer!

I signed Drew and Dilan up for swim team this summer. Since we weren't taking any big trips this summer, I knew we had time for them to try it out. I also wanted them to become stronger swimmers overall. The season has been such a great experience. The kids love going (maybe not waking up early to go even though practice is at 9 a.m.) and have enjoyed learning so much. At each meet, both Drew and Dilan beat their previous times in all their events they swam. Dilan made an "A" time in both backstroke and freestyle qualifying her for regionals. At regionals, Dilan's freestyle relay team got 5th place (out of 5 teams that competed) which meant she qualified for STATE. Dilan will go to state in College Station, Texas with her relay team on August 1.

Dilan at her first swim meet

 MawMille and Popo at Drew and Dilan's first swim meet

Father's Day Weekend 2015

I was supposed to fly to Chicago and spend my bday weekend with Keely but her kiddos got sick and she had to return home from a work training. So I was in town for Father's Day weekend and Colleen came up to celebrate David too. We had a great time giving David a "best Dad ever" t-shirt and two new movies, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. We also saw the movie, Inside Out, which was a great movie about emotions and the brain, and we even got a date night playing Whirlyball with many of our friends at church. David and I made a great team and had so much fun playing together. The next day at church, we served the guys a BBQ lunch!

 Mimi and Drew

Drew turns 10!

It's officially Drew's birthday and he chose light blue balloons to wake up to. He also chose a trip to the zoo today with friends.

Rode the carousel many times! The kids love the bird's nest where they can spin around and around!

 The zoo has the dinosaur exhibit this summer and it included this puppet show from some Australian troupe. They did a great job and it was very informative and entertaining. We got to meet the puppets after the show as well. Most memorable part was teaching the kids that mother dinosaurs often feed their babies by regurgitation... ewww!

 Time for popsicles!

 Birthday boy on the biggest elephant

 Dilan posed for this picture on the jeep

 We had so much fun with friends at the zoo celebrating Drew's special day. He chose dinner at Chick-fil-a too :)

Drew's 10th birthday party!!!

 Drew had his 10th birthday party at The Frisco Discovery Center. He and his friends were able to have free time in the science center and then we had our own private party room where they did multiple science experiments. From making rockets to launch and seeing fire being made to going outside for the diet coke and mentos explosion, the kids learned a lot and enjoyed seeing such neat reactions. 

Drew chose a cookie cake yet again and we put a rocket on it to represent our rocket launch science party.

MawMille and Popo came into town for Drew's bday weekend and his party. They also got to see Drew and Dilan swim in their first swim meet earlier that morning. 

 Our family at Drew's party

Drew and his presents. He got money from many family members that he chose to put towards a basketball goal for our driveway. 

 Drew and all of his friends at his party

Spring Visitors

David wrangled a rat snake from our next-door neighbor's yard the other night. They had him come look at it and sure enough, David grabbed some gloves and went after it. It was fast and it slithered away a lot but he was determined and he grabbed it! He walked down to the pond with the tall grass to let it go. I am glad David got it because it was probably headed to our backyard next! 

 Mara came to visit me!! She (and her bf) came in town for some R&R and came out of her way to see me. I loved every minute of seeing her and spending time together. We took them to Rudy's for some Texas BBQ, and Mara got to see our home and spend time with the kids. She even brought us some delicious treats from Austin. 

Mandy came to visit me too! She came to Dallas with her kiddos and we loved every minute they were here. We went swimming, made homemade pizzas, played, watched movies and just hung out. The summer is starting off awesome!

End-of-Year Class celebrations 2015

Drew and Dilan both had end-of-the-year celebrations with their classes. Dilan earned her certificate of graduation from kindergarten. Her teacher, Ms. Cornatzer, put together a beautiful and endearing slide show of all the pictures she took this year of the kids and their learning. David was able to attend Dilan's celebration and Dilan loved that he was there, even more than watching the video. Drake and Dakota colored pictures the whole time at Dilan's desk. 

 Drew's celebration was very touching and it began by the teacher, Ms. Vanderplas, playing sentimental music when the parents walked in the room. I had tears in my eyes, it was so hard to get through for me. I feel like Drew is growing up and as happy as I am to see the young man he is turning into, I miss him already thinking one day he will leave our home. He is such an incredible kid. Drew's teachers, Ms. Vanderplas and Mrs. Bell, handed out awards to each student tying them into candy and making it very specialized for that student. Drew got the Dove award, which represented the peacemaker in the class. It really felt like his teacher knew him and she loved her students so much that she even started crying saying, "When you don't have children of your own, your students become like your children." She loved Drew, she loved her class, and it meant so much to me that she loved my child when he was with her in her classroom. Drew was also recognized and received an award for being the male student council representative for his class. 

 Dilan and Drew on the last day of kinder and 4th grade. Dilan had me curl her hair because she was up early and ready for the last day!

Spring Soccer 2015

Spring soccer was interesting this year. The kids only played about half their games as it rained and rained and rained. So many games rained out, they stopped making them up. Dilan scored a goal this season! She was thrilled about it and deservingly so. Drake scored several goals but really worked on coming together as a team and not taking the ball from one another. Drew's team did very well too, placing fourth in his division frankly because they didn't get to play all of their games, thereby not playing all of the teams. Dilan's team struggled more this season to win their games and I am not sure if it's because they moved up a division or not. But they fought hard and played well.

 Dilan got the "grit stick" one week from Coach Allison because she played with the most fight out on the field. 

 Drake's end-of-the-season soccer party was celebrated at Palio's pizza. Drake looked forward to the cupcakes most of all! His coaches said he was the happiest player on the team and also the one who got the most disappointed if he didn't make the goal. lol!

 Dilan's team celebrated at Bahama Bucks where she earned the "Perfect Placed Kicks" award.

Memorial Day Weekend 2015

Memorial Day weekend keeps getting better and better! Going to PawDee's lake house is so much fun from boat rides where you get to drive the boat to fishing off the dock, to swimming at Lake Tejas, playing cards, riding the golf cart and this year, we four-wheeled at my Dad's new deer lease. It is a beautiful piece of land 5 miles from the house where we explored and drove all the way around it. The trees were tall and the hills big and steep but what a blast! David and my Dad even went back to shoot guns for a bit. We even had time to make chocolate chip brownies for Drew to celebrate his upcoming 10th birthday. So many traditions and so much fun to begin our summer!

Field Day 2015

Field Day was fun this year as always and even more fun to run back and forth between Drew and Dilan's events! We saw Dilan play bingo, stack cups, dance, and play on the playground with her friends. She learned a new dance called, The Sid Shuffle, from the movie, Ice Age 2, (which she has seen Landon do at MawMille's house) and it was fun to see her do it. 

 We saw Drew in the rubber ducky races, put a marble on a spoon and try not to let it fall, the 3-legged race, and plumber's helper. It was so much fun to see them enjoy this fun day at school. Even Drake and Dakota got in on the fun playing with the plumber's helper supplies while Drew's class was on a bathroom break.

Hair cuts and socks

After our weekend with family, I realized Dakota needed a haircut. I knew she was starting to get uneven in the back again so we went for our first real haircut. I took Dakota all by herself while the other kids were at school. She did really well and enjoyed it for the most part. She looked so beautiful after it was cut and styled. I also got a souvenir of her lock of hair. This little girl is growing up!

 Drew's last 10 days of 4th grade were marked by popping a balloon in class to reveal what the class would doing the next day. Drew wore Keely and Lar's German socks they gave the kids as a souvenir and won crazy sock day; therefore, he was the one at the end of the day to pop the balloon for the next day. When he popped the balloon, it said, "neon day." It was too funny and he looked so good in those socks! :)

Golf weekend/Cousin weekend

David went on his annual golfing trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico, this year so we took off to Lake Jackson to spend time with cousins. We had only seen them for one 24-hour period on Easter weekend since Christmas so we needed some family time. All the cousins and the women were together eating, swimming and having a blast!

 David left on Thursday so we chose to leave after school on Thursday too! We drove down to Conroe and had dinner with Mimi at Subway, saw her new apartment, and even got to visit her office where she works! The kids had the most fun playing on the phones intercom system, twirling in the spinning office chairs, writing on legal pads of paper, and eating some candy too! Mimi gave Dilan a pad of paper and a red pen to take with her. She loved it!

Open House 2015

We went to the kids' open house at school tonight. They were both very proud of their accomplishments and the things they had made. It is so fun for them to show off their hard work. Drew was proud of his autobiographical poem in which he wrote that he was a "peacemaker," his map of Texas and artwork of the Alamo, and the diorama of a temperate forest where he used feathers we had donated to the project. Dilan was proud of all of her drawings and journal entries that were put together in her folder for us to see. 

Mother's Day 2015

We had the privilege of having Colleen come visit us for Mother's Day weekend. We took her out to chili's for dinner and I put together a jar of hugs and kisses with "Memories of Mom" written out on pieces of paper in the jar too. I had all the kids and grandkids contribute two memories totaling 52 memories for the 52 weeks of the year. Colleen very much appreciate it. I also took her to get our nails done Saturday morning. We had a great time celebrating with her. David later cooked steak and asparagus, our traditional Mother's Day dinner. :) I also got not one but two days at the spa to use later this summer.

  Drew asked me if he could be in charge of Family Home Evening tonight. He worked hard after school to put together his lesson on Mothers. It was the best present I could receive as he talked about all the things I do for the kids specifically "help them clean the game room because most moms don't do that." Lol! This boy warmed my heart with his appreciation for me and the way he asked his brother and sisters what they can do for me on Mother's Day. Little does he know, he's already done enough. And the way he ended his lesson with "A-mom" instead of Amen was simply priceless.