D + A

My brother Alex is (finally - wink, wink) getting married to his long-time sweetie Deidre. The date is set, the place is booked, the details are coming together...so it was time to get friends and the McElroy and Skrudland families together to celebrate. D and A arranged yummy catering (fajitas from Polvo's - delish) and a margarita machine from The Margarita Man (super-delish) and everyone came over to our place (sans kids) - it was a great night.

Check out these adorable cookies she got? Edible save the dates - March 13th will be here before we know it!

Deidre's aesthetic for the wedding is vintage chic so we went with it for the party decor.

The lovely couple!

All the bridesmaids :)

A somewhat random photo of my mom and her sister Debbie who drove in from San Antonio for the event. They were really funny posing for this one.

I'm pretty sure there were cell-phone selfies galore throughout the evening but I didn't take any more than these - wish I had captured Stan the Man totally under-dressed. Or some other group shots of McElroy cousins. Or Alex's bestest buds that go back to middle school - all grown up now. 

Anyways, it was a fun evening and just the beginning of the wedding festivities! To Deidre & Alex! 

#irishiwasamcelroy

July, Seriously?

Wow - I can't believe July is almost over. Owen starts back to school in 3 weeks! Let's wrap up some summer randomness before it gets any closer!

Maggie enjoying some pizza at the pre-4th of July bike-decorating party. Funny girl.

Rebecca and Maggie and I were ALL in their tiny pink castle. Eating our lunch. Criss cross applesauce + chick fil A. No filter - its just super pink inside that tent!

Rebecca dressed Bee up as a Fairy Grandmother or Grandmother Princess or something. She loves using the pancho as hair. Rebecca was happy until I told her she couldn't use real glitter around the house as fairy dust. Bee told her imaginative/invisible fairy dust was better anyways. Well played Grandmother Fairy Princess!

Have I mentioned that Rebecca is a ninja? More on the general topic later...but one aspect is that she has taken to being sneaky, meaning she actually sneaks things (steals!) and sneakily does things she shouldn't and then pretends she didn't (lies!)...Like this hairdo...Rebecca, did you put something in your hair? No??? Are you sure???

Turn around. Are you sure???????

And more performances. The highights of this one included: 1) Owen "MC-in" (which they call judging) and directing people to use the powder bathroom if they need to, 2) Rebecca packing a back with a snack in it for midway through the performance so she'll have more energy (she actually took a snack break while we watched). Unfortunately, her stage (our coffee table) is no longer - it's still a table, we're just not letting her dance on it for fear of it caving in. That has proven to be quite the barrier to her creative spirit.

Just when I catch myself thinking - where does she come up with that? whose daughter is she? - because she's so creative and free-spirited...and then she goes into party-planning-mode and I'm like - oh, yep, definitely mine. She makes lists (even though she can't write) and invitations and meal plans for every made-up and real event possible. The challenge is I never know exactly what she's planning or what she is expecting to actually happen - is this a real party we're talking about or is this something you and your animals are doing and the invites are just for fun? The other day the example was a baseball game. Invitations were made, tears were shed that people (grandparents, mostly) were not able to come (with 10 minutes notice), uniforms were donned (she put on one of Owen's polo shirts and called herself "Rowen"), snacks were packed...in the end, she had a great time with Owen and Kyle just doing their own little game in the backyard - yea!

(Rebecca insisted on batting and running the bases with her purse, which had extra balls and a bottle of water.)

The same day (at least one of them) that Rebecca put a bunch of conditioner in her hair (above) Owen gave himself a mohock. Unrelated, he also lost his first tooth! It's a good thing too, because both of his adult bottom front teeth had already come in behind the baby ones. He wiggled it and wiggled it and then finally just yanked it out at dinner. He was excited about the dollar the "tooth fairy" left and immediately did the math to figure out how much more money is in his mouth. Right now his other front one is literally hanging on by a tiny thread/root but he doesn't want to pull it out (even though he said he's excited about the dollar) because he'll miss wiggling it.

Just a morning at the lake w/ the chillins.

And an evening at a food trailer park. They were more excited than they looked.

Other summer funnies:

• Owen thinks he has super-vision. He also uses the word bizarre a lot. I find both of these things very amusing.
• Rebecca asked me the other morning over breakfast: Mom, are these farm fresh eggs?
• Maggie-isms: sowwy momma sowwy (sorry) - said, like most things of importance, with hand up, palm facing mouth), likes to interrupt the other kids when they're talking to me even when she has nothing to say: mommy, mommy, someping... and often times starts talking to me and then immediately tells them to be quiet even if they're not talking: mommy mommy, quiet Rebecca, mommy...when she has an accident (potty, spilled drink, etc.) she says: mommy mommy iiiiiiiiis okay iiiiiiiiiiiis okay (because clearly I'm the one who needs reassurance), she says tank you sir! in a very sweet chipper voice (with a hint of an English accent?) when you help her, and finally, she loves to comment on food especially when it is: tasty an 'licious!

That's it for July randomness...lots of other new posts below. :)

The 2014 Mezger Art Collection

I'm don't think I've been doing this with any regular interval but with all the kids brought home at the end of the school year it is definitely time for a little art re-cap and filing. 

Maggie's Art Collection

At age three, Maggie doesn't gravitate towards the art table as much as Rebecca did at that age, so we have fewer samples in her collection. Having been in her classroom as the Helping Parent I can agree with her teacher that her favorite thing about doing art is that she's at a table with other kids - she's talking and laughing and being silly. And maybe some art happens in the process. :)

 

Rebecca's Art Collection 

Rebecca definitely took full advantage of the self-serve art supply table at preschool. And the not-supposed-to-be-self-serve art supply stash in our mudroom to create lots and lots of art this year. Most of it is 3D and lives with Rose Princess aka Bear in the window seat in Rebecca's room. But here is some of the 2D stuff.

Princess on cardboard

Color princess on paper

Black and white princess on paper

Rose Princess (her bear)

Some art she made for daddy for Valentine's Day - complete w/ note, artist's rendering of R and daddy and bag of nature

spin art

More Rebecca loves Daddy art

Fairy (?) Princess

She did this one at Dahdo and Pam's - I know there was a big story - it came from a nature or history video they watched - but I can't remember...building? volcano?

Frozen: Finn the Elk jumping from the giant Snow Monster

Princess on Plate

Princess in Egg

Laffy Taff

Throw Up Man (from her anti-Princess day - 1 day)

September 13 Self Portrait

March 14 Self Portrait

The Gray Stormy Night (a short novel)

The Fairy & Her Wand (an even shorter novel)

Shell art

Yellow Princess

Orange Bandaid-Body Princess

I love how she wrote her name on her bunny ears - impressive backwardness.

Princess with tape clouds

Pirate Princess

Life-Size Princess Self-Portrait

Owen's Art Collection

Owen's primary quiet-time past-time is legos so there's been less art, but he still likes to draw some. And between that and normal kindergarten projects plus the projects from the special after-school Art & Nature class he took means he amassed quite the collection this year!

Back when we were in full-on we're-getting-backyard-chickens-mode (which has significantly subsided) Owen made a book all on his own (except for the final dictation to me of the text) called Cockady The Chicken. Enjoy.

A rock bug

A fort diagram

Owen's school self-portrait, complete w/ uniform

Sea creatures

Still hoping daddy will get back on the chicken bandwagon.

Metamorphosis

His portfolio folder

Spring

Nautical

Venn

Salt art

Broken heart?

Star Wars

More Star Wars

Incomplete Darth Vader

Light Saber (Pointillism)

Leaf Bugs

Goat Study

Our House! This is my favorite one - he did this by memory and its pretty spot on!

Velveteen Rabit

More Star Wars

Just Stars

Chanook  Helicopter - 2 Views

Stegosaurus

Owen the Astronaut

Helicopter for Nathan

Remote Control Helicopter

Tie Fighter (?)

Death Star

A little story by Owen & Rebecca for their Aggie buddy Warren

What a difference two years makes (in age)!

It's fun to see them work on things side-by-side because they work so differently given their ages and interest level!

Maggie

Rebecca

Owen

Most of the above art got filed away since they're clearly masterpieces. And of course they'll live on forever in the blog. But what happens to all the rest of it? 

Shhhhhhhhhh!