August 2016--week 1

 Our "Summer of Service" continues.  We volunteered to go serve lunch at Boyd Summer Lunches.  Boyd Elementary School is in our city and most of the school's population gets government subsidized lunch. During the summer months, those kids don't get lunch (or breakfast) so different churches in the community all sign up to provide lunch for whoever is hungry.  While we served Lindsey exclaimed "Mom, it feels good to do service!"

I had to run some errands to Sams Club.  These kids came along.  They found these BIG chairs.  While it's been fun, this mom is pretty ready to be able to run errands alone.  Kind of glad summer is winding down.

July 2016--week 4--Pioneer day, Boyd summer lunches, boating

More summer fun.

Sometimes my children surprise me.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir put on a wonderful Pioneer Day Concert which I put on in the background on Sunday (day after Pioneer Day).  And before I know it, I look up and I've got 3 pioneers and a covered wagon and everything in my living room.  What a fun Sabbath Day activity for them!

Kaitlyn has really been cranking on her Personal Progress for Young Women's.  One thing she needed to do was to cook meals for 2 weeks.  She chose some of her favorites to make, and on this night it was biscuits and gravy.  She also has made Chicken Pot Pie, Swedish Meatballs, Mexican Casserole and a few other things.  This girl, I tell ya, is so comfortable in the kitchen.  I'm proud of her!

Mrs. Lee!  Her favorite children's book is the BFG so when it came out as a film this summer we made plans to meet up with her half way (she lives over towards Ft. Worth now) and watch it.  It was a cute movie, not the best but it sure was fun to see her!

Another summer time regular occurance is bike rides.  On this particular day the kids were up way too early and whining and fighting.  So I made them get on their bikes and I ran while they rode.  We went a couple miles and played at a neighborhood park.  It was an excellent way to "re-set" the grumpy attitudes.

Boating with our friends the Burgessons!  Parker and his mom, Katie even got up on skiis!  What a fun day!  They wrote us some sweet thank you notes.  Their son Lincoln has autism and his note was my favorite--he's such a special kid!  Kaitlyn LOVES their little girl Sophie and Sam is getting to be a good friend of Parker's.

 

Boyd Summer Lunches.  Each summer our church participates with other community churches to feed the families who during the school year enjoy "free lunch" at school.  I was super proud of my children who joined me in doing their "summer of service" activity of the week to help serve the food.  Lindsey shared with me how happy it made her feel to do service--that's exactly why we do it!

July 2016 week 3--Lake, Police appreciation, cupcakes, flute

A lot of summer had passed and not enough time had been spent on the lake.  Stephen was antsy.  We were learning that the trick is bringing friends.  We had a fun day with our neighbors Mark and Katie Glaser.

For family night we couldn't stay away from the Ninja Warrior gym, we had to bring the girls and had fun with our friends the Hess family who also joined us.
 But we couldn't go until Stephen fixed ANOTHER thing on the van.  On my drive back from Waco I was getting a check engine light and we determined that the car battery issue we had while on our DC trip was only the first step of the problem and we actually had a bad alternator too.  Stephen is super man and was able to put that in.  He's amazing!

On July 7th a horrific attack happened in Dallas where 5 Dallas Police officers were ambushed by a man who targeted police officers at a peaceful protest.  Since that time there has been an outpouring of support for local police officers.  I wanted to make sure my children appreciated their local police too.  So they each made a card, we made some treats and took them some gatorade.  A fun memory about this was when we went to drop them off, our favorite neighborhood officer Mulkey (not pictured) was in the break room and we were able to see them.  Kaitlyn had even mentioned him on her card and everyone got a thrill out of that (Mulkey is known as being gruff and mean--but he's got a soft spot for his Marion Elementary kids and for our family).  This was also part of our "Summer of Service" where we're focusing on finding an act of service each week this summer.

 Kaitlyn is a cupcake queen!  Seriously this girl is kind of starting a small business with making cupcakes.  Back a few months ago we went for well-child check ups at a new doctor.  Kaitlyn was NOT happy about changing doctors.  In an effort to get to know her our new doctor asked her what she liked to do and she mentioned bake.  Well he said that he'd buy some of her cupcakes the next time she made some.  So we did and he bought 6.  I knew that she was trying to save for a phone so I told her she could try and sell the rest of the cupcakes and save the money for a phone.  She sold out in like 15 minutes!  So a few weeks later, we made a double batch of them and again we sold out.  This girl has now made cupcakes many many times and has lots of money saved for her phone.  Way to go K!  She even used some of her birthday gift cards to buy special tips for decorating the cupcakes to make them look nice.  She's so confident and comfortable in the kitchen, glad we found this niche for her!  She actually now has 2 kinds of specialty cupcakes and many "regular" customers who just want a standard "6" or "dozen" whenever she makes them!  WOW!

Kaitlyn also had a fun week at "Flute Frenzy Camp" where she went and learned a bunch of flute pieces from movies!  She really enjoyed brushing off the flute and learning so much!

July 2016 week 2--Bridal Shower, America Ninja Warrior,& Magnolia

Things just don't ever slow down for us.  The McKneely's came into town for the bridal shower of Stephen's cousin Katie.  It was a lovely Kate Spade themed shower!  After the fun weekend, Andy and Laura's family took my girls home with them for a few days!

While they were gone, I took the boys to try out a new place: Obstacle Warrior Kids.  There is this great competition on TV called "America Ninja Warrior" where contestants do crazy obstacle course challenges.  It's very popular and so this kid sized obstacle course popped up and my kids HAD to try it.

We joined with Matthew's favorite preschool buddies too.  Both the boys LOVED it, they kept thanking me for taking them, told me it was the BEST DAY of their lives.  After an hour they both were dripping with sweat.  They had 2 different "warped walls" that Sam climbed up a combined 20 times and for the next few days his stomach muscles were very sore.

Then after a few days we joined up with our cousins in Waco, Texas so that I could retrieve my girls.  The boys and I were able to spend the night with my dad since he lives there now.  And then in the morning, as usual we went to the Children's museum at Baylor University and they enjoyed it.  Especially a cool clinic they were having that day that had them use electrodes.

Then we had lunch and headed to MAGNOLIA!  There is a home renovation show called "Fixer Upper" that features a couple, Chip and JoAnna Gaines who have put the town of Waco, TX on the map as they do really cute make overs.  They have a place called Magnolia which features a home decor shop, bakery, outdoor picnic areas with food trucks.  Anyway, it was SUPER HOT but it was fun.  Grandma McKneely and Sarah showed up to see us too, it was Grandma's birthday and it was fun to see everyone.  Even if the heat was oppressive.

July 2016 week 1--Cousins from Japan!

Two weeks off from chores hit us pretty hard so the first Saturday home we decided it was a work day.  We weeded the front flower beds, I think we washed the van, then we trimmed the trees in the front.  We worked hard and I love taking the days to work with my family.  Our children weren't too thrilled but it's one of the most important lessons we can teach them.

The 4th of July came and we were thrilled to have some visitors from Japan!

My brother Ben and his family came to the United States this summer and brought me a new nephew to meet named Caleb!

We spent the 4th of July at Little Elm Beach, which turned out to be the place for a community celebration so it was a bit more crowded than we expected.  But we had fun and our children loved playing in the sand.

Kaitlyn was a sweet cousin and set up a nail spa for her little cousins one afternoon, and they shared with us a funny little movie called "Totoro" which was weird but the kids loved it.

On the Road Home

We are READY to be home.
Stephen was an animal behind the wheel and really drove a lot the first day.  We were trying to get home in time for Sam to be at his best friend's birthday party.

On our way to DC we noticed this awful back up at about Roanoke, VA.  We anticipated the same back up on the way back home and Stephen was amazingly able to maneuver some back road route to help us not getting stalled and stuck for hours in a back up, which would have made us miss Sam's party.



One thing that we really enjoy is doing the license plate game on our car trip.  We had one of these sheets on the way up and this one was for on the way home.  After the first day we almost had it halfway full!