The first half of July

Mary Beth was invited by Bryon's family to go to Disney World the first week of July.  Now, Mary Beth thrives in her very boy oriented world at home, but she loves the opportunity to hang out with her girl cousins in Conroe.  They are 5, 7, and 9, which is a perfect little playgroup for our nearly 8 year old.  She had a blast!



Meanwhile, we celebrated 4th of July at our house for the first time in 3 years.  We had a parade, then ate brisket at our house.  Then, our dearest friends were out of town, and they offered to let us use their pool and cabana.  We enjoyed swimming and relaxing on a beautiful Independence Day!

 The 5th of July, I headed down to retrieve our Mousekateer.  She was the most excited about seeing her long lost brother, Thomas, and jumped into his arms when she finally saw him for the first time in 3 weeks!

Strangely, there was only one weekday in a four week time period that all three of my kids were home. We headed to Hawaiian Falls with the kids and their buddies.

 Mary Beth...always the ham!

 It was so strange (and nice!) to see all three kids in the back seat!

 Last week, the boys went to church camp!  No pictures!  Michael and Jilinda graciously invited Mary Beth to join their crew last week as well.  This gave me the opportunity to work as well as enjoy one on one time with Bryon.  Now that Matthew can babysit, we feel like we are more able to go out by ourselves, but we rarely get the house all to ourselves!  We enjoyed cooking out, watching movies, as well as going out with friends.  Meanwhile, Mary Beth enjoyed playing with her sweet cousins at "Camp Frisco".

 Yeah, the boys are back!  They had an awesome church camp experience!  After they got home, one of Bryon's clients rented out a local waterpark, and we enjoyed a beautiful, cool evening together!

 Thomas had had it!

 Another fun adventure....Bryon enjoyed playing lots of golf in law school and our early married days.  After the kids were born, he rarely played, as he preferred to be home with the kids.  This summer, he has been playing much more, and the boys have LOVED it!  Before Mary Beth got home from Dallas, I even went out and rode around in the golf cart.  The boys are so fired up about playing, and Bryon loves finding yet another activity to do with his boys.

 Matthew is quiet adept at golf cart maneuvering.

Kamp Kanakuk

Thomas spent the last two weeks of June at Kamp Kanakuk.  Matthew was too old to attend K-Kountry this year, and Mary Beth wasn't quite ready to leave me for two weeks, so it was just Thomas this year!  He absolutely loved every minute of camp last year and could hardly wait to go, despite not knowing a soul there!  That's our Thomas!

I love that every day, the camp would post pictures of the kids having fun.  Here are a few of my favorites:

He made lots of sweet friendships with his barn mates, and adored his counselors from UT and Wheaton College.

Red Carpet night.  The kids had to dress like their favorite movie characters, so Thomas chose Rocky!

Bible study

Also interesting to us, Thomas chose wrestling as his clinic sport.  Who knew?

Nerd night

Dipping into the freezing Lake Tannecomo

One funny story....Thomas had written to Bryon and Matthew the first week of camp, and I was surprised that he had not written to me!  The day before we left to get him, I finally received a note!  I tore it open to find this message:

Anyway, after a quick two weeks, Bryon and I headed up to Branson to get our little boy.  Mary Beth was in Disney World, and Matthew stayed behind to hang out with the Satterfields.  Bryon and I had never been on such a long road trip by ourselves and had a ball!

When it was finally time to enter camp, it was 106 degrees and at least 90% humidity.  I don't remember ever being so hot in my whole life!  Thomas saw us and got teary eyed, which made me teary eyed as well!


"Here's a pen, darling!" ;)

After our hellos, it was time for Thomas to show off his sweet wrestling moves.  He wrestled most of the week with a kid in the older barn and wound up winning the best wrestler in his age group!  Way to go, T!  If only wrestling were a sport in Central Texas!

After wrestling, the counselors gave out character awards to the kids in their barn.  There are at least 10 different awards that can be given, and both years at camp, Thomas has received the same award!  It is called Faith on Fire, which is basically the award for bible knowledge and a desire to learn more.  We are so proud of our Kanakuk Kamper and were so happy to have him home with us again!

June

Well, the first month of summer is now a memory!  It was such a fun month, though I cannot remember a time that I felt more like a chauffeur! Three kids having different daily activities kept this mama hopping!

First of all, Matthew is fully immersed in the youth group!  This means endless fun and fellowship not just on Sunday, but throughout the week.  Here is a pic of some of the middle school boys at the zoo.

 The first week of June was basketball camp for MB and football camp for Thomas (no pics).  I am pretty impressed with this picture, though!  I only took a few pics this day, but managed to get one of MB's basket going in!

 As the goal oriented person that I am, I set out to perfect the art of pie and homemade pizza making this summer.  I have made countless pies with homemade crust, and am doing everything in my power to clog the arteries of all my friends and family!

 We got season passes to Hawaiian Falls as well.  This is a fun waterpark that just opened up in our town. Mary Beth and Thomas had a fabulous time to round out the first week of summer!

 Mary Beth was also introduced to the Little House on the Prairie series.  When I found out I was pregnant with Matthew, I bought the entire series looking forward to having a daughter to read them with.  It's finally time!

 During the second week of summer, MB and I bought out half of Michael's craft store and she hasn't stopped crafting since!

 ....or getting in to my make up while I was packing Thomas for camp.  ;)  Eventually, I will add pictures from Sports Camp at church as well.  Mary Beth and Thomas participated in this while Matthew began the strength and conditioning program for 7th grade sports.  This was quite a week of juggling schedules!  Oh, by the way, I also "work" outside the home as well, so lots of seeing patients while the kids were at various activities!

 Mary Beth was introduced to the cherished button box at Nana's one night while I was with the boys.  These buttons have been in the family for a while...some of them are five generations old.  I used to love playing with the buttons when I was little as well!

 I took the little two out to breakfast one morning while Matthew was working out.  Matthew has taught Mary Beth the wonderful skill of smiling, then timing a goofy face as soon as the shutter on my phone opens.  I have many, many pictures on my phone like these!

 Mary Beth's mentor...

 The third week of June, Thomas went to camp!  That deserves it's own blog post.  Stay tuned....

 We left our house before 4am to get Thomas to the bus on time.  That made for a very quiet drive home!

 Happy Father's Day, Bryon!

 One day, when Matthew was working out, Mary Beth and I had a fun girl date shopping and eating ice cream.  She claims that shopping with her mama was one of the best things ever.  I agree!  We had a ball picking out clothes for our 80s party that night.  The ladies in charge of the children's ministry at church put on a super fun party celebrating all that was good in the 80s.

 Like riding a bike, my hair just "knew what to do".  The higher the hair, the closer to God.

 Swimming beauty.

 Matthew and a few of his buds after working out.  He does this every morning, then goes to speed camp each afternoon, while hanging out with friends in the middle, or going to basketball camp, and mowing lawns at night.  There was one day and a half that he was in town, but never at the house because of activities.  I don't know where the energy comes from!

There are 8 little girls in our neighborhood who are all going in to 3rd grade and good friends.  We decided to each take a Monday and have the girls play.  Last Monday was my day.  I decided to make fun food and crafts.  Here was my rainbow fruit kabobs...

 choose your own cheese quesadillas...

 and decorating a cake with candy....

 The girls had a ball and I enjoyed watching MB interact with her friends.

 Twizzlers as straws.  Perfection.

 We also painted MB and Thomas's rooms!  We have lived in this house for 6 years, and I had never been able to commit to a paint color.  I love how hers turned out!  It was fun to surprise Thomas after he arrived home with his newly painted room as well!

The day we left to get Thomas in Branson, I drove to College Station to drop Mary Beth off with my in laws.  They were taking their entire family to Disney World and asked if Mary Beth could come.  She has been so excited about her adventure, but cried knowing that she wasn't going to get to see Thomas for a whole week more.  In fact, by the time she gets home, we will not have all been together for 3 weeks!

 In the few hours between dropping her off and heading to Branson, I put these polka dots on Mary Beth's wall.  She has been begging for a polka dotty room, so I'm excited to show it to her when she gets back!

 Thomas's room is sort of a grayish blue with lots of Bama memorabilia.  We wanted to give him a fresh new start now that this is just his room.

So that's June in a nutshell!