Halloween 2014

 I really am wanting to get back into blogging.  I've used the blog as a resource too many times to just give it up.  And I can't just skip a year. So, I'm going to try to quickly catch up and hit the major holiday's:
First on the agenda: Halloween!
The girls both wanted to be Rapunzel (I joked in case one fell off the tower, we'd have a back-up. . . . which is funny until the children start to repeat what you've said and its sounds quite morbid coming from toddlers), but it worked out great since we already had to Rapunzel dresses. They wanted to do a theme again and I couldn't resist:

I was Mother Gothel, and Michael was Flynn Rider.  It was so fun to wear a long dark wig! Lots of people didn't recognize me :)

Halloween is so fun. I get such a kick out of it, and I love putting together little details: I made little stuffed Pascal the Chameleon to put on the girls dresses, the braid was essential, but I kept having to re-do it because it wasn't working like I wanted it to.  Michael carried around a frying pan and I had a flower.  I was often heard singing "flower gleam and glow" and "Mother Knows Best"

 I couldn't help but put something together for the trunk: the tower and floating lanterns.

 Another pic of the whole Tangled crew:

I love Halloween!

Football Weekend {3}

After we separated from the rest of the group the girls and I went to check out a local splash pad. I'm sure I've mentioned it before but San Antonio's lack of splash parks is quite sad. There is one inside SeaWorld, and I think one was put in this year up by the temple (40ish minutes away).  And it would actually get used most of the year. That being said, I'm not certain this splash park is better than what is in SA. It was really muddy/sandy and gross. But it was pretty hot and the water felt nice, even if it was just on my feet. And the kids didn't seem to mind.

 We were basically killing time before our bat tour cruise.  Since we were going to be in the area again and had a free ticket we wanted to give the bat watching a second try.

 Lucky for us we got the seat right in front of the door so we actually had leg room.  Or maybe its not so good as the girls were up and walking around a lot.  They really packed us in there this time.

 More selfies and silly faces to pass the time waiting for the sun to set and the bats to feed.

Ballet

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Nana coming to stay with the girls while I was a girls camp.  I (obviously) don't have photo evidence of the trip but the girls loved having time with Nana.  They went to the pool a lot (I was later told I didn't bring the correct toys to the pool) and every plane in the sky (remember we live near an air force base) has Nana in it.

At the beginning of the summer a teenage girl in our ward wanted to make some extra money and offered to teach a little ballet class.  The price couldn't be beat. Rylee was very excited each week to attend class.

 that is until rehearsal time:

It started off bad, since I had to wake her up from a nap to go and she did NOT want her hair in the required bun. On top of that, I'm not sure I prepared her enough for what the rehearsal would mean- you think a few girls parents and couple friends but it adds up:  the room wasn't huge, but filled quickly.  She was very nervous.


 Their first  song was choreographed "Rock-a-Bye Baby" They had a doll in a 'crib'. She did ok.

 The next song was freestyle dancing to Frozen's "Let it Go" Rylee was indeed frozen. Almost to tears. It was a little hard to watch.

 Her teacher(s) tried to dance with her and she still wouldn't. I finally got up to see if she would loosen up dancing with me, and the song ended. She's so sweet and so very scared to be in front of people.  It was a good experience, and I hope she does it again next summer.  If we're lucky maybe she'll actually do a dance move.

Her teacher performed a piece:

 Here's the group that performed:

They gave us a cd with the music and it was so sweet seeing Rylee teach Kelsey (and one of her friends that wasn't in the class) the dance. That is what I should record - much more participation than the 'official' performance.

I can't blame her too much -  I'm not a big 'perform in front of any crowd gal' myself.

Birthday and the Beach

Lucky for us, Michael gets Pioneer day off.  Even more lucky, that lovely holiday is close to my birthday! We decided to make a mini trip of it and headed to the coast! For being the middle of the week it was busier than I expected.

Michael had been down just a few weeks prior and it was perfect. Its amazing the amount of seaweed brought in just a few short days.  The water was so hot, it was almost cooler out of the water. We had a blast reguardless. 

Drip castles are a must:

 People seriously pack rakes to make a path from the seaweed. The girls HATED it the first day but realized it wasn't going away and the freak-outs were less common day 2.

 It was a nice relaxing couple days where I tried to forget about girls camp for a few hours. It *sort of* worked.

My one birthday request was to get cupcakes from a cupcake bakery called smallcakes.
Mission granted, plus much more. They were delicious.

 Michael also got me a new bike! I really wish it wasn't so dang hard to pull two kids in a bike trailor. Unfortunately Kelsey was feeling a little under the weather and threw up all over me in the bike shop. I quickly said, how about the silver 'girl' style. Michael proceeded to also buy me a new shirt and we were outta there.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday America!!

I love Independence Day. Seriously, its one of my favorite holiday's (I've tried to list Holiday's in order of which I like most, and I just can't do it)

Anyhow, we heard there was a big breakfast, games and patriotic fireside at the church (put on by the missionaries for all three ward units that attend at our building). They order in which items are listed is extremely important. It was a very long fireside (which isn't bad when its expected) and a few snacks - like one watermelon one meat/cheese tray and two pastry packs. Not enough food to even consider waiting in line for. We were bamboozled.

We sang the star spangled banner and busted out of there ASAP: we had a parade to get to.

So, we headed to Castroville and hit up McDonalds (with the rest of the ward/city) for the old-time parade.

 Surprise! My children didn't want to have their picture taken.

 yea, they are covering their ears from the noise of the fire trucks. . . . that's it.

 Of course we had to make a few patriotic foods:

 And drop a few dollars on fireworks: This was almost half of what we set off. We hosted again this year and it was AWESOME! I love being surrounded with friends, laughing, eating and celebrating

 Miss Kelsey enjoying the show:

 Just one corner of the counter, about a 1/4 of the cups we cleaned up.

Happy Birthday America! We love our freedom!

Farwell Dear Friends

While living in Texas we've been blessed to have great friends we consider family. And although we live in a fairly transient "military ward" and move in-outs are fairly common one family we became especially close to moved this summer which was much hard reality to face. Rylee's first best friend. She (still) talks about her constantly.

 see you later sweet friend. tear jerker right there:

 We definitely should have done the photo session before it was an hour past dinner time.

 It took a loooong time to convince Kelsey to sit by her friends instead of taking their fake picture.

 In other news Rylee has taken up nail biting. ugh.

 And in the 4 years we've been friends I think this is the first picture I have of the two of us. lame.

Good thing we have another reason to visit Wisconsin (not in the winter). Miss you dearly sweet friend.