Tuesday, June 22, 2010

these busy summer days...

~July 28, 2010~

WOW...I am way behind! Has it really been that long since I posted on here?!!!

We've had busy,busy days here lately, so...time to catch up...this is another one of those BIG blog diary posts...with a crazy amount of photos!
It really boils down to alot of stuff you're probably not interested in and lots and lots of rambling!


Little Miss Em turned 9 MONTHS old on the 5th of July! Holy Moly!
And yes I'm so very behind on posting it!UGH!
Little Miss, what in the world have you been up to?...

*Emma you have stood and let go for up to 5 seconds on your own and then you love to just fall down

*you have VERY strong opinions on a lot of stuff and don't mind telling us...HA!
*when you get mad you make fists with both hands and yell
*you crawl ALL over the house
{this is what a lot of my photos that I end up deleting look like...just a blur. you're getting pretty fast!}

*you really love to hit things together....like cymbals and other various toys

*of course you still won't sleep through the night
*you love ice cream
*on July 6th {9month ck up date} you were 28 inches long- at 90% and almost 22 pounds- also at 90%
*you cruise some around furniture and stuff
*you like to wave at us and others...when you want to
*(ahem)you have taken to biting your mama while nursing at times when you are full...does not make mama a happy person
*you WILL NOT BE STILL when I change your diaper. it's like holding down a wild animal
*you have gnawed a large area on your highchair. you especially tend to do this when you don't want to wait for mama to get your food ready at meal times or you want up
*you get SO excited to see Bubba sometimes you squeal and jump all around
*when you smile you show off your two pearly whites, it's so cute!
*you laugh at Bubba all the time
*you love to get in the diaper bag and pull out mama's wallet





The kids and I made a trip out to the cemetery back on June 26th. Hubs was out at the lake doing a bit of cleaning up from the flooding so he was gone most of the weekend. I had not been out to the cemetery, where my mother and some family are buried, in about a year and really needed to go. I took flowers to mom's, granny Mc's, grandma Connaway and cousin Aaron's graves. And this might seems strange, but I took some photos while we were there.





After the cemetery visit we had lunch and then mama wanted to go to a little fabric/quilt store in Fort Worth called Cabbage Rose. OMG!!! They have some wonderful fabric!!!! I purchased some large paper doll fabric while we were there. That was all I bought, but I will be back...oh yes...I will be back!!!
At dinner time we picked up Kelley and filled our bellies at Genghis Grill and topped it off with a trip to Brahms afterwards for ice cream. Oh Dear Lord how I was stuffed!

Sunday June 27th we meet some family over at my cousin's house to celebrate "T's" birthday. He turned 10 years old. The kids enjoyed swimming, jumping on the trampoline, playing on the jungle gym and shooting a few hoops. Hunt really loved the trampoline!!!
They cooked burgers and dogs and had cake and ice cream. It was good to see some of my family!


{cousin LeighAnn with Em}


{trampoline fun}

[trying to shoot hoops}

{uncle Kenny}

{aunt Leona}

{uncle Philip and cousin Jonathan}

{uncles Philip and Kenny}




{the birthday boy}



So how was everyone's Fourth of July? Our's was not very good! We left Friday for the lake and came back Monday. I won't go into details as to why it wasn't good , but let's just say unplanned stuff happened and it kind of rubbed hubs and I wrong. The fireworks Sunday night were good of course, thank goodness for that!
I made Em some outfits to wear to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. So she had some for the whole weekend. Hunt made a hand print eagle shirt


and I made him one also to match a dress that I made sister. I also made him some new pjs to.






















{firework trash bonfire}


{sister wasn't feeling up to taking photos}

{I got this tye-dyed shirt while we were on vacation in Port "A" back in April/May}




Tuesday July 6th we meet some moms from the Early Childhood PTA group at Henrietta Creek Orchard for some peach and apple picking. They had peaches and one variety of apples ready to pick.





{picking peaches}



{apple picking}



{oh these kids...Hunt and "R" holding hands as always}

The kids also got to pick a carrot and check out all the other veggies, fruits, flowers and other plants growing all over the farm/orchard. They spied three LARGE garden spiders and were in heaven...mama, not so much. For I am not a spider fan.HA!







{getting our goodies weighed}

{Hunt and his friends "R" and "S"}

We also picked up some flavored honey tubes, a louffa sponge grown from one of their gourdes and an embroidered cup towel with beets. The lady who owns the farm, Sue(I think was her name), told me that her mother makes them.
{look at that...I already got the cup towel dirty}


{basket full of peaches}


{yummy apples}

{we cut an apple to try at home and noticed that it was shaped like a heart}

{trying out a flavored honey tube. we decided that the rootbeer one was the best so far}

Thanks so much for sharing your yummy fruit with us Sue and Henrietta Creek Orchard! We will be back!

And Wednesday July 7th we had some art fun at the ArtHouse in Southlake. Hunt painted a self portrait in Modigliani style. He did a great job! It made me want to drag out my easel and paints! We just may have to go back there and do other art activities. It was neat! The kids learned about brush strokes and color mixing. The two instructors did very well with the kids and are beyond patient!

{getting started}


{a Modigliani version portrait. this is what they showed the kids to discribe what they will be doing}

{a finished background)

{ready for the shirt and face}

{little sister kept busy and was an angel the entire time}

{the smile}

{Hunt presenting his portrait to the class}

{looks just like him huh?!HA}


That Thursday we stopped into a couple of thrift stores and I got a few good deals...

A smocked dress for $2.99! And no stains of flaws!
Em her first pair of cowboy boots{pink!} for $1.99! Maybe worn once! The bottoms were clean and really looked brand new!
Some vintage Christmas stuff...a Santa and Mrs Claus, and a couple of ornaments. and a jar and glass pitcher.

Wow, the 14th we went to the Astronaut Training Center and Hunt had a FUN time! It was really neat! All hands on for the kids. First we watched a mini movie of a rocket blast off. Then the kids tried out the gravity swings. One went slower and was suppose to be what it is like on Mercury and the other went fast like how it would feel on moon. The kids layed on these swing type things and pushed off from these boards to make them go.
Then we moved on to a flight simulator and then these hover things(similar to being weightless and working on a space ship or satelite). Next the kids strapped on a space suit, moon boots(brought back memories of mine long ago), a space pack, helmet and gloves and played moon walkers on an awesome set up! Got great photos!!!
They also got to shoot air rockets and throw parachutes. We got to see space food all sealed up looking yummy!!!...NOT!!! It was cool to find out that they serve the food packages velcroed to a tray that is then strapped to their legs. Towards the end one of the workers got out some play space men and let a few of the kids play with them around a set up rocket. I like to never got the toy astronaut away from Hunt! I did buy us some astronaut goodies...an astronaut ice cream sandwich and another ice cream to try. I mean how can you pass up these delish goodies..HAHAHA!!!
It will be neat to see Hunt's reaction to them.





























Thursday the 15th we went to the Cannon Park Splash Pad over in Roanoke. We arrived at 10:00 and the splash water area didn't even come on until 10:30 or so. Thank goodness there was a regular park with a playground right next to it or this mama might have loaded up the kids and came back home. But both kids enjoyed it so it turned out to be a fun time.



























A week ago I got a new photo editing program. It's called Photo Explosion . It would be nice to have PhotoShop, but the good one can be around $600 and well that is way out of our budget! Photo explosion is suppose to be pretty good for the price though, so I'm excited to try it. The book that came with it is like an inch thick! So It may be a while before I learn enough to use it.HA!

Sunday the 18th we went to Grandma and Papa's house to play for a while and go to dinner to celebrate Papa's birthday. The kids had a fun time and dinner at The Catfish Company was ok...not as good as I have had there before.
{the card Hunt made for Papa}


{kiddos playing}






Tuesday we decided to go to the Gaylord Texan hotel and look at the Alice in Wonderland stuff that they had set up. There were sand statues, and large figures all over the place. Mushrooms, flowers and butterflies were larger than life. We didn't do any of the activities that cost money, just walked around and enjoyed the scenery. I have to say though...I'm glad it was free because the $12.00 parking fee that you pay is enough.










{I loved these umbrellas!}








{Hunt loved this little train set up! He kept wanting to go back to it.}



We had not been to story time at the library in over 3 weeks, so last Wednesday we went to that. Hunt liked it, it was all about snakes! Later on after lunch, since both kids had way too much energy and didn't want to nap, I decided to wear them out and drag them around with me to some party supply stores. Em's birthday is in October and I need to start now on getting stuff together. We picked out some neat goodies and cute favors. I'm so excited! After the stores I wanted to go over to the Botanic Gardens and scope out some photo locations to shoot some pictures of Em for her birthday invites. And of course BG has many awesome places for photos! While we were there Hunt meet a little boy his age and they became quick friends! He lives in Alvorado, not very close to us at all. We exchanged numbers and email addresses so that maybe in the future we can make plans to meet up again and have a play date.




After all our running around and walking at the gardens, as you can imagine, we were all beat. I still have lots to do. Like I need to make a few things and gather up a few more goodies, order the cakes, decided where we will have the party and do invitations...oh my...still lots to do!

I found out about 2 or 3 weeks ago that I register Hunt for Kindergarten(sniff, sniff...how can it be) on August 9th. So we'll be making a trip to Foster Village Elementary armed with our "what to bring" paperwork of sorts. It seems kind of crazy to be registering kids on the 9th of August when the first day is the ...23rd! But good ole Birdville knows what they're doing I guess...right...Birdville?!
Am I the only one who actually liked going school supply shopping? I remember it as a kid and remember loving to go! Hunt already picked out a backpack..camo(what a shock huh?..hahaha)! So I wrote down the list from the school's web site and last Thursday ran over to Walmart to see what we can come up with. The crazy mama that I am, I took my camera and snapped a few photos. I know, like I said...CRAZY! We got the majority of what Hunt needs for school, but not everything! UGH!!! So we made a trip to Office Depot Saturday to get the few things that we needed. Now I just hope that everything we got is acceptable for the school/teachers.




Hubs had to work this past Sunday, so he only got Saturday off...which really stunk!!!
I did manage to run up to The Children's Place to get Hunt some school jeans. Their clothing is good quality and their jeans were $10.00!!! Can't beat that!!! They had a pair of nice shoes I wanted to get, but the Alliance store didn't carry them. Monday I made a trip to another Children's Place and picked up the shoes, a sweater, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Also a pair of knee socks for Em. I took the camera(as silly as I am), but didn't take any photos of the school clothes shopping. But we still have more to go, so I may still do some...ha!

Today we did a tour at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing(where they make money). It was a nice tour, but maybe not geared toward kids younger than 7 or 8. I couldn't bring a camera in, so no photos(sad...ho hum)! We learned some interesting things...Fort Worth and D.C. are the only 2 locations that money is printed at. It takes 3 days for each printing ink to dry, so the bills take about 3 weeks before they are complete. They try to change the look of bills every 7 to 10 years. If a bill is printed in Fort Worth, it will have a "FW" on the right side. And if the bill has a star on it after the serial number that means that it replaced a defective bill. We got to touch actual production plates. The paper that is used is actually a type of fabric and comes from one supplier only. After the money is completed it goes into the vault where it is scanned and then eventually put into cirrulation. We were told that no one there at the plant knows the location of the vault. This is just some of the poop we learned.
We got to see the new $100 bills. They will be out the first of next year. We also got to see the spider press. Used in the 1800s. I believe the man said that this one was used around 1910 to press bills(one at a time). Now they can do several on a large sheet and then cut them into the bills. He showed us a demonstration on the spider press to.
Just getting into the first building we(children to) had to be searched and scanned and poked and proded...ok, maybe not the poked and proded, but it's a pretty secure area! No bags were allowed in, but a woman could bring a purse, but it was scanned. Then we were lead around to the back where a bus took us over to the actual plant area where the money is made. This envolved a pass through some security gates. When we got to the plant building we were put together in our tour group and lead through a hall way to an enclosed elavated walkway suspended over the production floor. Our entire group had to stay together. The cat walk window areas were in the halls, with a few set out to the side. On the ones set out to the side, we had to stay in that area, not in the main hall.
At the end everyone had some hands on fun with a large $20 puzzle(backwards...due to the fact that the press prints it that way). A look at money up close through magnifiers, the showing of water marks and etc. There was even a lady there set up at a closed off glass area. She was going through some flood damaged money. You could hardly tell what some of it was. What a process!!! UGH!!! She must have tons of patients!

Hubs wanted to take a small family trip before Hunt starts school. So we're leaving in the morning. Since his work is leaving him on 2nd shift and now changed his days off to Friday and Saturday, he will only have all day Saturday to spend with Hunt. This is really bothering him. Normally he would get to see him a short time before he left for work and then on both weekend days. But when school starts that will change.

Kids are too funny...Not too long ago I bought a couple of dress up things and one was a dr scrub hat, mask and vest thing. I told Hunt that he looked like my Dr Luna who delivered him and Em. I asked him what Dr Luna did in the hospital. I wanted to see what he would say. I asked how the Dr got Em out of mama and he exclaimed..."she pulled her out of your hiney". I laughed and said..."well almost".

Ok...I guess that's about it. I have a couple other things, but will add them on the next post...keep you in suspense...HAHAHA...not really! Nothing that exciting!
If it seems like everything on here is just thrown together and sloppy, that's because it is! This is what happens when you don't get much time to post due to a busy 5 year old and a demanding 9 month old!HA!!!But I love them boogers!

::After uploading and looking over the photos it seems that I have a few spots on the lens of my camera or something. I 've cleaned the lens, but I guess I need to take it in to a camera shop::

Have a Good rest of the week and a Super weekend!!!