July and August

Here are some pictures of other things we did in July and August besides go to Yosemite and celebrate lots of birthdays. 

JULY

There's always dressing up going on at our house.  Oliver started reading Lord of the Rings this summer, and it renewed his interest in all things Frodo/Gollum/etc.  Here he is as one of the ring wraiths.  Pretty scary:

Of course, some of us are some of us still stuck in a Star Wars phase.  Here's Henry as General Grievous (I'm not sure what about this outfit made him the General - it looks more like Ollie's ring wraith costume to me - but Henry insisted):

Celebrating the 4th of July with red, white, and blue (as best we could with Sunday clothes):

Rachel watching fireworks (I love the summer freckles on this girl):

Posing around an intense army guy set-up that is about to be blown apart by tanks.  Yes, this is how we do fireworks in our family:

Examining the aftermath:

Oliver and Henry drawing together:

Henry has become quite the artist these days.  And I know he's only in a diaper, but at least he's got his leopard print knife sheath strapped on (because you never know what kinds of dangers you'll come across at the drawing table). 

Expanding his artwork to the family room.  This was not a happy day.  Luckily, it all came off, or Henry might be banned from drawing forever. 

Riding bikes in the rain.  There were a few rainy days in July, and my kids decided it was perfect bike-riding weather (finally not too hot!).  There's a steep little hill across the street from us that they discovered was great for all kinds of bike stunts.  They spent hours out there in the rain, going down the hill over and over again.  I guess I should consider myself lucky that there were only a few wipe-outs and no major injuries.

My two Texas cowgirls:

And their cowboy brother:

Henry discovered pickles.  He doesn't even like how they taste (he kind of gags and shudders every time he takes a bite), but he loves to eat them for some reason.

AUGUST

I think Lizza must have taught Henry the fine art of "set-ups".  He is all about setting up massive piles of toys these days.

He doesn't have quite the patience of Elizabeth, though - after carefully setting up a few of these animals in a row, he gave up and decided to just go the easy route and stack them in piles.  He was still very pleased with the result. 

Tristan discovered the video button on my camera, and loves filming Henry at play.  My favorite part of this one is when Henry has the velociraptor growl "Hey, why'd you do that?" and then he looks up at the camera and gives a recap:  "Then the velociraptor said, 'Why'd you do that?'", in case we missed it.  He is constantly giving a running commentary on his life - always telling me, "hey, Mom - I said _____", or "Mom, why'd you say ____?"  He really never stops talking.  I love it. 

At the pool with my dad, when he came to visit for Oliver's baptism.  They had such a good time with him.

The girls even got him to play a few rounds of Pretty, Pretty Princess with them.  The things Grandpas will do for their grandchildren.

One last picture before he had to leave to go home.  Of course it had to be a goofy picture. 

Lizza and Henry running through the sprinklers at a ward activity.  It made me happy to see how much fun they were having - I remember running through the sprinklers all the time as a kid, but my kids never get to do it because we have our programmed automatic ones, and we never set them to go off during the day.  This was Henry's first time, and he thought it was awesome. 

First day of school.  Tristan is in 4th grade, Oliver in 2nd, and Rachel started kindergarten this year.  Yikes!  I can't believe I have 3 at school and only 2 at home now (at least for another month).  I've never only had 2 at home (well, since Rachel was born).  Rachel loves school. 

First day of dance class for Rachel.  She might count this as the happiest day of her life so far.  She has wanted to take dance forever, so I told her when she started kindergarten we'd sign her up for a little class.  It's a ballet/tap/tumbling combo class once a week for an hour.  She is in heaven.  Lizza is extremely jealous.  I told her maybe she can start next year - I can only add so much busyness to my life at a time. 

Football is also in full swing now.  Oliver started tackle, so now both boys are in pads. 

And then there's Henry.  They start them young here in Texas.

Here's Tristan at a football scrimmge a few weeks ago (this was before their real games started).  He's the one in all black.  We were all sitting there watching in the 100 degree weather, and I was dying.  I don't know how they run around out there with all that gear on.  Tristan and Oliver both come home from practice competely soaked in sweat.  I can't wait until it gets a little cooler so it will actually feel like fall football, instead of middle-of-the-summer blazing hot football. 

One of Tristan's loyal fans.

And another.  I know I'm his mother, so I'm supposed to think this, but I really do think this kid is so handsome.

Hey, look - it's another one of my handsome kids. And so well-groomed, too.  Haha.  In case you can't tell, this mop is Tristan pre-buzz.  After about a month of practicing football with a helmet, he decided he'd had enough and was ready for a haircut.

After.  People didn't even recognize him anymore:

Elizabeth has really enjoyed being the oldest kid at home these days.  I've been proud at how much she has matured over the last little while.  I've started giving her reading lessons, and coincidentally she finished lesson #25 at the same time as her friend Danica (her mom is using the same book as we are), so we took them to Chick-fil-a to celebrate.

Of course, Henry got to join in on the fun, too.

I think everyone could use a good celebration at Chick-fil-a once in a while.