Things I've Skipped Over (June)

I didn't quite get my updates done before we left for our trip, but since it's going to be awhile before I get my vacation post done, here's the finished update for June.

Oliver has once again been busy with making Ironman suits. Out of paper. I think all the fun must be in making the suits, not wearing/using them. He'll spend about a week on one suit, with lots of fittings and displaying, and then it usually gets stashed in a cupboard somewhere and forgotten. Or broken after being tried out in battle.

He was nice enough to construct a different model for Tristan, too:

You can tell by the looks on Rachel and Lizza's faces that we take our battles around here pretty seriously:

Henry setting up all his Star Wars guys:

He still spends a lot of time being both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker at the same time, so he often carries around both the red and the green lightsabers.  And the underwear on top of his diaper was just for fun.  We're not even close.

Doing his Darth Vader march:

Henry has also started drawing a lot with his older siblings.  He loves drawing a lot of scribbles on a paper and then making up big stories about it.  Real life example:  "Mom, guess what? (he starts most sentences with 'guess what').  I drawed three whales.  The whale got the fishy.  The fishy's cryin'.  The whale runned away."  Most of his masterpieces follow a similiar theme.  Also, we're pretty sure he's a lefty.

Lots more swimming in June:

Tristan got to attend a cubscout camp every evening for a week.  That's him in the bandana.  I can't believe he might make it all the way through the summer without asking for a buzz. 

Rachel roasting a fake marshallow over a fake fire that she built out of little toys.  I think she was practicing for the camping trip we did this month.  She has now perfected the chopstick method of roasting.

Henry playing outside in the rain.  I noticed that in lots of Henry's pictures this summer he is in various states of undress - I really do get him dressed every day, but he gets pretty sweaty in his naps, so sometimes I strip him down to a diaper and his clothes don't always make it back on.

He and Oliver were investigating one of the many toads that Oliver finds in our yard.

The older kids having some sort of secret meeting in the back corner of the yard.  We had some rainy days in June, and the kids discovered that those were the best days to get some outside play in, because it was so much cooler.

Playing bocce ball together.  We bought croquet, ladder toss, and bocce ball this summer, and it's been so fun - I love having yard games.  Bocce ball is especially easy for the kids to go out and play by themselves, because there is no set up and the rules are easy.

Elizabeth, on her fourth birthday, singing part of her favorite song.  She makes everyone laugh in Primary each week:

Tristan and Oliver get free tickets to Six Flags from school every year, and we never use them because it would still be pretty expensive to take the whole family.  This year we got another free ticket for Rachel from a cereal box, so we finally decided it was worth it to go if Daniel just bought a ticket and took the older three. They spent the whole day down in San Antonio, and had a ton of fun. I don't have any pictures from while they were there, but I do have a four-minute video clip of Rachel describing some of the fun. I know I could listen to this girl talk/use wild hand motions all day, but for the rest of you, feel free to skip it unless you could use four minutes of Rachel.  It was after 10:00 and everyone else was already in bed, but she was still full of excitement. My favorite part is around 1:40 because she says "The Scream was Tristan's first ride. . .like, literally, first ride."  I love when my kids say "literally." 

Things I've Skipped Over (May)

Miscellaneous pictures from May:

Henry enjoying his favorite meal.  He loves noodles of any kind, and requests them for every meal.  This is his new picture smile.  So handsome, right?

More baseball.  Tristan got to try out pitching in a few of his games. 

Oliver concentrating on running the bases.  Notice the Mariners uniform - Ollie had to step up and play on Tristan's team quite a few times, because they didn't always have enough players.  He was a good sport about playing with all older kids and braving kid pitch instead of coach pitch.

Henry with his T-rex tail, some of his favorite dinosaur toys, and princess shoes.  This kid loves everything about dinosaurs.  He just occasionally likes to play with them while wearing fancy shoes.

Eating raisins and talking about dinosaurs (and princesses - I love how adamantly he denies playing with princesses at first):


Rachel is the proud owner of several pairs of high-heeled fancy shoes that have been passed down to her.  Every once in awhile, I'll find them all set up on display in random places throughout the house.  She'll walk around saying, "Mom, I just can't believe I have so many high heels!  When you were five did you have any?" (no).

I think this particular day she was getting out the old heel collection so she could get all dressed up for our fancy candlelight dinner.  Daniel had taken the boys out for a father-sons night, so I told the girls we could have a special dinner at home.  They chose macaroni and cheese (of course).  And we lit candles and pretended it was a restaurant. 

At the pool.  We are getting a lot of good use out of our neighborhood pool this summer.  I love it.  I wish it was a little bit closer (we walk/ride bikes), but I still love it.

Lizza and Henry playing with Star Wars guys on the stairs.  Star Wars is Henry's new obsession.  He switches back and forth between being Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker every 5 minutes or so.  I know when he's being Vader because he walks around doing the imperial march and breathing "koo-pah" really loudly.  He loves to assign other people in the family to be different Star Wars characters, too - I can't tell you how many times a day he tells me, "you be Darth Vader, I be Luke. . . .actually, no, I be Darth Vader, you be Luke.  Rachie be Princess Leia.  Ollie be Jabba." 

Blankets are no longer blankets.  They are Darth Vader capes.  And when he wants to be the Emperor, he puts them completely over his head and walks around yelling "the dark side!" to everyone.  He convinces the older kids to turn on the Star Wars theme song on the ipod all day long.

Sunday walk near our house:

Braving the murky waters to search for creatures:

I always picture photo ops like this (when I can get all five kids sitting together, in order even!) miraculously turning into great shots of all the kids that I can frame, send to grandparents, set as the new blog header, etc., but mostly I just end up with a picture of a bunch of ragamuffins/orphan children.  But at least they are in age order, right? 

The walk home:

The day after our Sunday walk, Oliver didn't get home from school for quite awhile - he had stopped in that same little canal to do some more searching.  When he did finally arrive, he was carrying this huge fellow (some sort of crawfish/crayfish/crawdad type thing).  Apparently it put up a bit of a fight, and Ollie had the battle wounds to prove it.  I like it when my boys do boy things that I would be too scared to do, but I don't have to witness them doing it (because I would ruin their fun by telling them to be careful about everything).

Things I've Skipped Over (April)

Somehow the last few months I've only managed to blog about the trips we've been going on. I'm going back to April to fill in the details on some of the other stuff we've been up to.

The first thing I skipped was actually a whole other trip - at the beginning of April my younger brother got married. Henry and I made the trip to Utah to attend the wedding and visit with family.  It was so much fun.  Whenever I'm with my family I wish we could all live right next to each other.

Me and a newly buzzed Henry at the open house the night before the wedding:

Henry posing with the soon-to-be bride and groom before heading off to bed:

At the wedding luncheon.  All the sisters with our brother Alex and his new wife, Lindy (plus a brand new nephew who decided to make a surprise early arrival 3 days before the wedding.)

At the Discovery Gateway children's museum in Salt Lake.  His favorite part was the helicoptor.

Back in Texas, we were still busy with baseball:

Daniel coached Tristan's team, so they got to be the Mariners:

The younger kids were good at keeping themselves occupied during the boys' games:

I think this picture of Lizza reading to herself during one of the games is my favorite:

The girls and Henry and I made a trip to Crowe's Nest Farm with some friends.  Henry was running wild all over the place, so one of the moms there lent me a little monkey/harness/leash.  It was very helpful.  Henry was not as thrilled about it as I was.

Everyone loved the milking demonstration:

Henry and me on the hayride.  We got to see ostriches and bison, of all things.  Henry was in heaven.

Rachel on the hayride.  Notice the special "farm" overalls she is wearing - she had those picked out for a whole week before we actually went on our fieldtrip.  She had it in her mind that they would be just the perfect thing to wear at a farm.  And they were:

Lizza on the hayride.  Her nose was still recovering from a major fall at one of the baseball games.  About a week after this, and before it was fully healed, she managed to tip over a glass-topped table at a car repair place - she and the glass crashed down onto the concrete floor, and she re-sliced her whole nose up again (miraculously, she only had a few other minor cuts).  April was a rough month for Lizza's nose. 

Here's Henry (about 3 months ago) talking about all the fun he had at Crowe's Nest Farm.  He mentions velociraptors in the clip - the whole time we were at the farm, he kept asking when we were going to see the t-rexes and velociraptors.  He loves dinosaurs, but doesn't realize that they aren't still around, so he thought for sure a farm would be a likely spot for them.  He still claims he saw them there.




Other April stuff:

Oliver with a little baby turtle he found on the way home from school.  I noticed as the days got warmer, it took longer and longer for the boys to make their way home - their path leads them right through a foresty area with a stream, and there was always exploring to be done.

Henry discovered Star Wars.  He has been carrying around a lightsaber (or two) ever since.

Although occasionally he does work with other types of weaponry (we encourage our fighters to be well-rounded):

Elizabeth with one of her famous set-ups.  I think she is going to major in set-ups in college. 

Okay, April's done.  Hopefully I'll get to May and June before our next trip (next Friday) or else it's never going to happen.