Call Me Picaso + ME-CATION

I wouldn't have ever really said I have a creative side, but its been coming out a lot more recently. 

Here was my set-up the other night on the back driveway - canvas, kids craft paint, brushes, other junk, wooden plank shelves I'm determined to do something cool with.

Haven't finished the wood project, but I did finish the canvas project for the playroom. I wanted something for over the tv - we have a couple of globes in there and the fan blades have maps on them, so I stuck with map colors and just did a bunch of free-form lines. Fun to do and really easy. And I'm happy with the finished product - looks a lot in person or zoomed in than this picture shows (that's actually 3 equal-size canvases).

Painting in a crafty way is fun but what I really love is taking pictures. In early August Kyle had some time off and I got to do a little worship with a local photographer/instructor named Randy Kerr. I'm a big fan. We went to Umlauf Sculpture Gardens and I couldn't believe this little gem was right in the middle of Zilker and I had never been there! He taught me a lot about light so a lot of the shots were just experiments but I got a few shots I really like.

Angel statue left side.

Angel statue right side

Mother statue through trees

Mother statue through through trees again

And then my sweet (and beautiful) friend Michelle let me practice on her - a statue that moves when we ask it to!

Check out those gun!

I also got to spend two luxurious nights in a hotel in downtown Austin all.by.myself. I am an extrovert, but boy, did I need this! I spent the first night in my hotel bathrobe eating a package of twizzlers for dinner (so I wouldn't have to interact with a room service person) and watching old episodes of Project Runway. I slept in. I woke up and slept in some more. Then I wondered around downtown taking pictures and ducking in different shops and Starbuck's to beat the heat for a bit.

I even went inside the state capitol for a little bit (hadn't been since probably sixth grade Texas History) and observed some ridiculously clueless protestors. Don't get me started.

The fancy grilled cheese I ate for breakfast.

I ended the weekend with a fabulous girls' night out - that's Christal and Katie in Carlos' pedi-cab. Sidhya and I and those two girls had dinner, then dessert, and had our own personal escort. Then Katie and I stayed up way too late w/ Carlos so he could show us the ins and outs of late night Austin (something these two soccer moms -  yes, I admit it) hadn't really seen, and probably don't need to see again for a while. But we had fun. We danced. Katie pretended to get a tattoo. We pedi-cabbed. We people-watched.

Be jealous of my friends people - they're awesome. :)

End of Summer Hodge-Podge

It's September and even though its still 100million degrees outside we've been in major get-ready-for-fall-school-end-of-summer-cleaning-out-organizing mode over here. So, its unacceptable that these random photos have been sitting in post no-mans-land for weeks and weeks. Let's wrap this up...

Maggie cooling off in a little bucket-pool sometime mid-summer. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Cheese face.

Jumping back - the long awaited play-date w/ Owen's preschool class (many of these kids he's been in school with at Westminster since we moved to Austin right before he turned 2). They're all off to kindergarten now (more on that in another post). Trampoline + hose + watermelon and cupcakes (off the trampoline)...good times.

Maggie flying. Kyle photo-bombing.

Maggie passed out at the kitchen counter in mid-snack.

Dont' worry mom, she was very stable and I got her down and put her to bed.

Owen & Rebecca gearing up for the neighborhood 4th of July parade. It was a real treat this year. Kyle stayed back with Maggie - I forget why - and I walked while both kids rode their bikes. They did so well on their own!!!

Checking out books from the library at Owen's soon-to-be kindergarten school. They had the library open each Wed (and the playground for the upcoming kindergarteners - we only made it to that once or twice because it was just tooooo hot).

Our favorite new neighbor friends moved to Japan. No, we didn't scare them out of the 'hood. They went for a year-long job opportunity and will be back. We got to host a little going away party for them - so fun! - and since she doesn't eat sushi (what???) we had some for her made out of rice crispies. (Booyah to all those pinterest nay-sayers.)

 Magalicious with crazy ice-cream hair at chick-fil-A.

 In general - the older they are the cleaner they are.

 Owen sporting a gift and Rebecca holding one from Bee/JoJo from one of those Nordic countries they went to.

 Maggie having a little second dinner w/ Carlos - aka: ARLOOOOOO! What he eats, she'll eat.

 Owen made his own PB&J (not real P). Stuff like this happens and I realize he'll grow up if I would only let him! Sweet and sad all at the same time.

 Rebecca sporting her multiple stickers covering multiple bandaids from multiple vaccinations at her four-year well-check. She was a total trooper. Not even a tear. (Remember the story of her getting her finger pricked when she was like two and she just stared the phlebotomyist down?) One tough cookie.

 A little playground time when we were fooled for a minute into thinking that it wasn't going to be very hot that morning...

 Mommy, can we go? We're frying out here.

 Our sweet Kimberly (babysitter/helper extraordinaire) moved and this was her last day. Saddness. But we'll see her again when she moves back to Austin - yea!

Can I be totally unorganized and throw in some other random kid notes to this one? I just want to cross it off my list. :)

Maggie

• Loves to high-five, and holds her arm way back (behind her head) for a really really long time before laundhing. sometimes the launch (and high five) doesn't even happen - she just leaves it back there and yells 'high five"
• Started sleeping in her big girl bed (6/20) followed by several nights of bed-febering followed by us throwing our hands in the air and putting her in her travel tent (which she loves) on her bed. zipped in. Tent gets moved to my closet for nap time so the kids can have free reign upstairs and I don't have a heart attack every time they make a noise. Everyone is happy.
• WORDS: Lots more. Our favorite are: OBIDEEE (Open it - usually screamed and repeated), HONREEEE (hungry), NAH (snack), I-DO-YYYYYY (I'll do it)...she'll try to repeat most anything you say, but a lot of times it isn't even close. She generally prefers the loudest voice she has when speaking. 

Rebecca

•  yoda-hay-he-hoo 
• she got a new bed the same time Maggie did - she generally stays in hers - but there have been a few nights that I've gone up to check on the kids and she's not in bed (minor panic) and I find her curled up with a blanket on the little couch in Owen's room 
• I GOT TO TELL YOU SOMEPIN MOMMA. I GOT TO TELL YOU SOMEPIN MOMMA.

Owen

• told me he was jealous of the pretty pillows I got for Rebecca's bed (little throw pillows) - gave me some ideas of what would look good on his bed (some actual good ideas!)
• loves Magic School Bus, Wild Krats, chapter books (yea for the kindergarten reading list that got us reading all sorts of NEW stuff this summer!!!)

Treasure Hunt Birthday Party

Rebecca's most frequent choice of activity when playing by herself or with others is to "make a party" - which basically means she makes a HUGE mess and strings "decorations" (clothes, toilet paper - now a no-no, etc.) all over her room, makes a little fort, puts out some pretend food, delivers invitations to guests, sometimes there are games, gifts - she'll re-purpose anything for one of her parties. So when we talked about what she might like to do for her birthday party I was given the following ideas: do art, have an Easter egg hunt, have a tea party, princess, it should be fancy, build a fort, play in the sprinkler on the trampoline...I think there may have been others but I've forgotten. Needless to say it was hard to pin her down. We finally came up with a treasure hunt (because she kept going back to finding Easter eggs) with a little art thrown in...Daughter is happy because it was "her" idea. Mommy is happy because it's easy-enough to pull off. 

 It was our regular crew plus her special friend Caleb (and family) - who came in full pirate regalia. Love that kid! They decorated their pirate booty bags right next to each other.

Owen chatting it up with his future brother-in-law.

 The actual treasure hunt in the backyard was surprisingly civil considering it was a bunch of kiddos running around looting candy and Oriental Trading trinkets off of gold doilies. Not so civil that I have pictures of it. :)

But then their attention turned to the bubble maker. It's the simple things in life...

 Rebecca just taking it all in.

 Pretending to be bashfull for about 0.05 seconds.

 Putting on some of her booty.

 I think we all had a great morning - we got the party (and most of the clean-up!) done before it got too terribly hot. My party princess felt the love of having so many family/friends around to do some of her favorite things - make art and find treasure! (And as evidence that they know her well - 95% of her gifts were art kids which we are blowing through.) We're going to miss this girl at four...I wouldn't mind her staying right where she is for a good long while.

Oh, and here she is with "Rose Princess Bear" - she made her at build-a-bear with Bee for her birthday. She is very very very colorful. Just like Rebecca. :)

Galveston

As parents we take the responsibility to feed, clothe and educate our kids very seriously. Beyond that, it's a little bit of a free-for-all. :) (Anyone remember the Justin Timberlake SNL skit - #1: FEED YO KIDS!)? But thanks mostly to the grandparents, our kids get way more than just get fed and dressed...

Bee and JoJo had another travel-filled summer. San Francisco, lots of Nordic countries - they basically go anywhere to beat the heat. So, their decision to load up our two biggest kids and go to Galveston makes perfect sense. :)

I can't really give you many details about the trip because its second-hand from O & R. And some from Bee - but that's not much better. Ha!

But I know there were dinosaurs.

 And I know there were carnival games and prizes.

 And some sort of pier.

 And definitely a merry-go-round.

 And a tiny red truck.

 And some nature-ish stuff? I think it was butterflies!

Most importantly, a good time was had by all. Thanks Bee and JoJo for braving the heat for the grandkids! Next time you have to take Maggie too...