First week of summer vacation

We started things off right this Summer!  Stephen was off to attend a few days of high adventure at "Camp for All" which is close to College Station so the kids and I drove down to spend a couple days with grandma and grandpa.

Our cousins came up for the day and we spent HOURS in the pool.  We baked muffins and did a lot of reading!  One of the reasons we "run away" to grandmas house sometimes, she has a book collection that keeps my children very happy!

THEN, since the camp is on Lake Summerville, and we had friends taking their boats for the boys to use when they weren't working at the camp, we got to use the boat on Thursday while the boys worked.  It was magical!  We had the lake to ourselves and the weather was perfect!!

It was really the first time our children remember tubing.  Kaitlyn was cautious and only wanted to go slow.  Sam couldn't get enough turns.  Stephen was the only one who got up on the skis even though the rest of us adults tried hard.  We all really liked jumping into the lake to cool off when we could.

And now we have boat fever.  Seriously there are so many great lakes here in Texas and it would be so fun....

End of year class parties!

Bring on the Summer!  It's that time of the year when we welcome summer and say good-bye to teachers.  This year due to security concerns they decided to have outdoor end of year parties and parents and siblings were invited.  First there was Kaitlyn's.....

Lindsey and Matthew enjoyed the ice cream sundaes that melted FAST!  

And here is Katilyn with her teacher Mrs. Asif.....

The next day was Sam's.  He had Mrs. Keim who LOVED him...

 And with special friends like Diego...

And all of his class, Mrs. Keim's "kangaroos"

And these two love spending time at the school with big brother Sam!  I look at this picture and can't believe they've gotten so big!

You've got to be kidding me!

He's a normal 3 year old boy, and it's a good thing chicks dig scars because 2 days after we removed the stitches on the top of his head, Matthew was getting out of his chair at the dinner table and fell on his face, slicing open a small slit to the right of his right eyebrow!

I literally said, "You've got to be kidding me!"  I just couldn't believe it!

It was a big enough gash to warrant maybe a stitch, and I don't want to mess around with the face that can scar badly, I was hoping for some superglue and in the end that's what we ended up with.  I took him to urgent care and they super glued him right up.

Of course this all happened on the last day of school:

And to celebrate we were having a block party, Stephen wasn't home from school yet so I had to leave the other kids in the care of the neighbors.  When we came home, this is what we were greeted by, we have great neighbors!

And we need to invest in a helmet for "Math"

He should be nicknamed Haz-MATT

Memorial Day 2013 was eventful.  We were enjoying an extra day to work on extending the flowerbeds, the everlasting home improvement project, and as we dug around in the dirt we were finding rocks and loading up the red wagon.  The children came and asked to throw the rocks in the small creek across the street.  We were watching them, chatting with a neighbor, and in fact noticed a family we didn't know round the bend and start walking around the creek.  I heard a bang, crash and screams "Mom!  Matthew fell in the creek!"

I ran over there in time to see that the wife of this family had jumped into the creek to get him out.  He'd landed head first on a sharp rock and had the head gash to prove it.  The Lord was watching out for him because this family happened to be a nurse (wife) and paramedic (husband).  The paramedic ripped off his shirt and started applying pressure.  I tried to take Matthew from him until he identified himself as a paramedic and told me to get a towel.  I called to Stephen to a towel but I don't think he yet knew he'd been hurt but just wet from the water.

The paramedic instructed us to take him to the ER that he didn't lose consciousness and the fact that he was crying and not lethargic was a good thing, we left our kids with a neighbor since I had to hold him in my lap and continue applying pressure to his head while Stephen drove.  I learned that head wounds get priority treatment at the ER which is good. =)

We got a CT scan (which we knew would likely be fine) and he had 4 stitches underneath and 11 on top.  Poor guy was not fully numb and he felt some of the stitches which was awful, but he's a trooper and until he goes bald the scar will be hidden by his hairline.

Paint the Town and Change the World

A few things monopolized my life for the first part of this year:

1.  JustServe
2.  Paint the Town
3.  Change the World

JustServe was blogged about earlier....

Paint the Town was in conjunction with our Youth Conference which also fell on a city wide clean up day and an inspired idea from President Fisher to plan a multi-faith youth service project.  We approached the city about painting fire hydrants and aimed to paint as many as 1700 over half of the city.  We had 600 volunteers and painted over 1200, with multiple churches, high school service clubs, it was mammoth to plan and coordinate but a success!

So once we'd painted the town, we wanted to aim a bit higher, the next weekend we tried to "Change the World".  This event sponsored by the First United Methodist Church as an annual day of service and we were invited to join them witch was HUGE!  I helped to organize 3 projects, 2 of them in our building.  A lunch sack decorating project for the Salvation Army which my children really enjoyed doing and then a Red Cross Blood Drive.  My dear friend Aubrie donated for the FIRST time on her 18th birthday and that was special!

End of school festivities

This is a long one, there was a lot going on....

Kaitlyn performed in the school talent show by playing the piano, it was her second year in a row.  She played a piece called "Tarrentilla" and did pretty well.  She has such a gift with music!  She event played a solo in sacrament meeting this month playing "Early Sunday Morning" from the Children's Songbook and I was so amazed at her poise and courage.  I'm so glad we've found this talent of hers.  She's been learning simplified versions of primary songs and the Primary President, Ally Poulton, has her play prelude once a month, what a great way to help her develop her talent!

I also accompanied her on a field trip to the Dallas Arboretum, I had a good group of girls to keep track of and we saw squirrels, a snake and a snapping turtle!  They had the kids disect animal poop to see what other animals that animal had eaten by identifying the bones (gross but cool) and they looked at skulls of animals to identify them. 

I was reluctant because I had a few tagalongs....but no one else wanted to help so we went, and they did GREAT!
Field day was busy!  The annual outside playday filled with races and water activities, it's a tradition that often makes me wish I'd bough my kids 2 pairs of athletic shoes for the school year so that they can trash one pair at this event and I don't have to work so hard to wash them by the next morning.  This day was as I expected in that regard.

Sam had his early in the morning which was perfect because the sun hadn't come out yet so it was cooler.  But it had rained recently so it was quickly being nicknamed "mud day"!

Matthew loved spending time with his siblings during the school day too!  Sam was a good sport when some of the parents targeted him and dumped him with a bucket of water.

But then I was RUNNING for the rest of the day.  This cute girl was "graduating" from preschool and it was important for me to be there.  As soon as it was over we hurried over to the school because Kaitlyn's field day was going on at practically the same time.  I felt bad for rushing her, I don't think she was ready to leave, in the moment she was fine but for the next day or so she was really missing her wonderful teacher, Ms. Kim.

Finding Kaitlyn at field day was a bit of a challenge.  In the upper grades it's not as structured as the lower grades (where the students stay with their teacher and class to rotate to all the stations) in the upper grades, they can go where they want.  So it took a bit to find Kaitlyn.  I knew she wouldn't be far from her cute friend Kendall.  But I did catch an action shot of her running and I think she had a good time, though she wasn't as wet or muddy as Sam.

Our house is going to the birds

Sometimes there are just really strange things that happen that I have to document as part of our family history.  This story is about the day the birds took up residence in our home.

I was upstairs on the phone with President Fisher trying to find a quiet corner and I can hear wings flapping and a bird chirping in the closet that houses the air conditioning unit!  I am freaked out and grossed out completely!  I prohibit anyone from being upstairs for fear that they will open the closet door and let a live bird into our home.  

I envision paying tons of money to an animal control person to come and remove it.  I call the animal control department of the city and learn that most birds are a protected animal and it's illegal to kill them!  They're in my HOUSE!!!

I post a random comment about my plight and amazingly my neighbor Alison is a bit of a wild animal specialist and she comes to take a look.

It's a baby bird, it can't fly yet, she removes it and puts it in our backyard.  We scour (from the ground) my roof line to look for the mama and to see where she could possibly be getting in to feed her baby.  At this point we think its a mockingbird.

About an hour later I dare to go back up to see how badly the "mess" from a bird is inside the closet and I am startled and shocked to find ANOTHER one!  AHHHHH!

I call Alison and ask her to come back.  When we put this one out in the yard, we see the mama this time.  It's NOT a mockingbird but a starling.  Apparently an invasive species who are mean enough to take over other birds' nests and kick out any babies so that their babies can live there.

Alison asks to take the baby starlings home to "take care of them" and I am happy to let her.  Now we need to dare investigate our attic and closet a bit more before it gets too hot......I'm scared.

Dragons finish another season!

Sam finished another season of soccer, Stephen again volunteered as coach.  He did so well, he of course wants to play again.  We really like the group of families we play with and so we'll go for it again.  Sam says he wants to play his whole life and be just like his dad!

We had a pool party at the neighborhood pool to celebrate the end of the season, the water was FREEZING but that didn't keep the kids from trying it out, until their lips were blue and teeth were chattering!

Oh, and Sam has a new "chore".  Each week he helps Stephen mow the lawn.  He's getting the hang of it, but he's young, getting it in straight lines is a bit of a challenge.  I think it makes him feel big and grown up to be such a help to dad.  And Stephen sees the light at the end of the tunnel for when Sam is skilled enough to do the whole job by himself!