Wow! We did a lot fun things in May...lots of fun memories! Here's a photo recap:
Max's hair in the morning is crazy!
Jed: My mommy's name is Darby. I think she's like 45. I know she's smart because she knows how to do the clothes. I know she loves me because she hugs me and kisses me. Jed's advice to mom: She shouldn't do the clothes. Dad should do it.
(Well said, Jed. I totally agree!)
Mom's day at Jed's school. He made me the hat.
Max and his friend Harper
Mother's day
Jed's creation. If you look closely, you can see how he recreated his Skylanders character, "ShroomBoom"
Jed made this crab with no help!
side walk construction=lots of trucks=exciting for boys=free entertainment
We had yet another fun-filled Halloween this year! First, we went to the Sunset Valley Elementary Fall Festival at Eli's school. Thanks to more parent involvement and a bigger, better PTA, the fest was 100 times better than last year. It was outside with bouncy houses, live music, food, several booths, cake walk, haunted houses, and more! As the room parent, I recruited John to volunteer for the 1st grade fishing booth, which was a success!
We also went to Jed's school fall carnival, which was fun as well...perfect for 2-5 year olds. My favorite part is when the kids sing their Halloween songs.
For about 4 years now, we have gone to the pumpkin patch at the Elgin tree farm with the Klentzmans. Jen and I were trying to figure out how and when we were going to go out there this year, which was going to be tricky since Eli and Mia are in school and we had to work around the babies' nap times. Luckily, the first grade classes at SVE planned a field trip out to the Elgin pumpkin patch, so Jen and I ended up taking the little kids there and met Eli and Mia and their classes on their field trip. It worked out perfect! We got to do the duck races, the corn maze (although it was more like a tall weed maze due to the lack of corn from the drought), decorated pumpkins, the hayride, train ride, picnic lunch, and the pumpkin pictures! We snagged Eli and Mia before they got on the bus home for some quick pics, and they almost got left behind! It was really difficult to get 6 kids to look at the camera at the same time. The series of pictures I took of the kids is funny.
And finally, we went trick-or-treating this year in our neighborhood with our friends who live down the street and have three boys, all a year older than each of our boys. They are good friends to have around! They came to our house for some taco soup and then trick-or-treating. Fun times!
As you may notice, Jed had some costume changes. We have plenty of costumes, so it was hard for him to decide which one to wear. He ended up as Storm Shadow (white ninja from GI Joe for the SVE fall fest and for trick-or-treating, Spiderman for his school carnival, and Iron Man when they wore their costumes to a party at our church). Eli was Snake Eyes from GI Joe, and Max was a frog ( the same frog costume that Eli and Jed wore when they were babies). The boys insisted that John and I dress up as well, so we went with our go-to costumes: John was a cowboy for the SVE fall fest and a Baylor basketball player for trick-or-treating (he also wore his uniform to work on Halloween...no one else dressed up, which he knew), and I was a farmer and a cowgirl. Next year, we'll have to put some more thought into our costumes. Jed already told me that I should be the either the pink Power Ranger girl or Scarlett from GI Joe. We'll see...
On Labor Day weekend, we went to the Lego Fest at the Austin Convention Center. It was a ton of people and a ton of Legos. The boys were in Lego heaven! They had different areas to build, mostly separated by the types of Legos, as well as building competitions, Lego stores, Lego movies to watch, but my favorite thing was the giant characters built all out of Legos. John and the boys also had fun building Lego race cars and racing them down the ramp. I think they had everything you could think of to do and stuff for all ages! It was all fun until it was time to go and we were all hungry and deciding what to do for lunch...but we don't need to remember that part! I think we'll go again if they have it next year, but we'll come prepared and pack a lunch!
This year for the 4th of July, we went up to Dallas to hang out with family. While we were there, we found out about a special event at the Amazing Jake's fun center at the mall...breakfast with Spderman! Knowing that Jed is a huge fan of Spiderman, we knew we couldn't miss this! So, everyone headed out to the mall at 8:00 on Saturday morning to go eat some breakfast at the buffet and meet Spiderman. Most of us were excited to see Jed meet Spiderman, but I think Grayson and Garrett were way more excited about the breakfast buffet! We ended up spending half of the day there playing games, riding go karts, playing mini golf and lazer tag, plus riding the carousel and the little train. We got our money's worth and stayed for the lunch buffet as well. Jed loved the whole experience, but his only regret was that he didn't get to wear his Spiderman costume since we left it at home in Austin.
Breakfast!
The big kids are still fans!
Lazer Tag
Riding go karts w/ cousin Grayson
Mammy was brave enough to ride w/ Garrett driving!
I found out about this amazing video/story about a 9 year old kid who created an ellaborate arcade out of cardboard. You can watch the video here. It's pretty inspiring! I knew Eli would be inspired to make his own creation after he watched it, and I was right. For his first project, he made a football game where you pull back the die with the rubber band and try to make it through the field goal to get points. I'm looking forward to seeing the next game he's going to create, which Eli says will be a soccer game. What a great way for him to use his brain this summer! We had a talk about "plan B", trial and error, and it's also a lesson in patience!
