August 2013

Here’s Henry and Cynthia, working hard at learning how to draw giraffes:

And here’s Cindy drinking two of her favorite things simultaneously – applesauce and spinach smoothie.  She’s always much more pleasant after she’s had her first sippy cup full of applesauce of the day, and she’ll never turn down a smoothie of any kind, but this was the first time I’d seen her try to combine them. 


There were also lots of forts built in August.  I think this was what was called a “mini-fort.”  These things would crop up all over the house in the most random places.  The kids would ask if they could build a fort, and I would say, “hmm”, and they would say, “we’re just going to use a couple of pillows!”.  And then we’d get this:                                                         


And this:                   


This picture makes me laugh.  Tristan and his friends got really into card tricks, and Tristan even made his own website with videos demonstrating and teaching the tricks.  Lizza really wanted to learn how to do what Tristan did, so she watched the tutorial videos over and over, practicing her moves.                  


Here’s one of Tristan’s videos from his website.  Unfortunately, I did not watch the tutorial video for this one, so I have no idea how he did it:                

The kids had been asking to do a lemonade stand all summer, and they finally managed to put one together a few weeks before school started.  Cynthia was their first customer.                    


Oliver turned 11!  I’m never surprised when he gets older, because I tend to think he’s older than he is.  I’m always like, “oh, you’re just barely turning 11?  Are you sure you haven’t been 11 all year?  He wanted something different for his birthday cake, so we looked online and found this lemon cheesecake.  It was pretty easy and really good. We did the cake and ice-cream the day before his birthday, since he was going to be gone the next day (at a Mariners game in Dallas).            


All the kids.  I don’t know why Tristan is wearing sunglasses.

The next morning Ollie got up early and opened his presents. That is a homemade duct tape weapon in a sheath that he is wearing, I think from Rachel.  He has such thoughtful sisters. 


French toast with strawberry sauce and whipped cream:    


Building his new lego set:                                                      


Then it was off to Dallas for Daniel, Tristan, and Oliver to go to the Mariners/Rangers game.  The Mariners come play teams in Texas a few times a year, and we decided as loyal fans we should go see them when we can.  Ollie thought it was the best birthday activity ever. 


Especially since he got to see King Felix pitch:                       


Happy boys:                 


I love when my kids fall asleep in the middle of reading a book. 


A few days before school started Lizza and Henry teamed up to do a major puzzle day.  They decided to tackle our Las Vegas puzzle, which is 750 pieces.  They begged me to leave it out that night and not clean it up, and they finished it up the next day.

Cynthia takes after her older brothers and sisters.  Except that she likes to do her puzzles while wearing Spiderman jammies and a towel cape.                                                                 


The first day of school! Tristan in 7th, Oliver in 5th, Rachel in 3rd, and Elizabeth in 1st.  Lizza was very excited to wear the exact same dress that she wore on the first day of school last year.  And now that I think about it, I think Rachel wore that shirt last year, too:


Yep.  Haha.  This was 2012.                                                 


Henry and Cindy were a little lost at home without all the big kids.  Cindy kept walking around saying, “where are all my friends?  I can’t find any friends!”  And Henry decided the best thing to do to cope with the loneliness was to see if he could cover the whole table in puzzles.                       


Then there was lots of waiting at the window for the big kids to come home.

The next day I took them to the pool at lunch.  We were the only ones there, which was awesome. 


Henry is a back-floating champion.  He can stay like this forever. 


Then there was another Mariners game, this time in Houston.  Rachel got to go along with the boys for this one.  They left in the morning, drove 3 hours, went to batting practice and the game, then drove home super late.  They got so many balls and signatures at this one, and they had a ton of fun interacting with the Mariners players.  Oliver said that for sure some of the players recognized him from the game 2 weeks before.

At the end of August it was time for the boys’ first football game of the season.  Tristan and Oliver are on the same team again this year, which I love.  Daniel is one of the coaches, so he takes them to all the practices (3 times a week), which is also nice.  Their first game was down in Austin (you can see the downtown buildings in the background), and it was so hot!  The hottest football game I’ve been to.  I don’t know how they survived with all their pads and helmets on and everything, and then running around on top of that.  But there were no complaints from the boys – they were just happy to be playing (Tristan actually tried to tell me that he almost felt cold at times because he was so soaking wet from sweating so much).   


Here is a video of Tristan sacking the quarterback on one of the first plays of the game.  He is number 15, in white, on the left side of the field:                                           

About to make another tackle:                                               


Here is Oliver all pumped up after a tackle.  He is so funny to watch.  And whenever we’re watching football on TV and the NFL players do lame touchdown dances, Daniel and I look at each other and we’re like, “oh, brother, this is giving Ollie all sorts of ideas.”                                                                              


Happy brothers after a win:                                                     


The boys with their team:

That’s it for August.

P.S.  Actually, I forgot another big thing that happened in August, because I only had the pictures on Daniel’s phone.  Daniel got Lasik surgery on his eyes!  No more glasses or contacts.  I’m going to wait and see how his turn out (so far he’s pretty happy) and then maybe in a few years I’ll be brave enough to do it.

Before:                                                                                                  


During.  I got to watch the whole thing through a little window.  I could see his eye on that TV screen, and it was crazy to watch.


Done!  The whole procedure only took about 15 minutes.  He got these fun little sunglasses to wear after, and then he had to go home and try to keep his eyes shut for 6 hours straight. And I just realized that these are the sunglasses that Tristan is wearing in Ollie’s birthday picture, and that Henry is wearing at the lemonade sale (both of those were taken the day after Daniel’s surgery).  I’m glad they were so useful.