to the beach!

Alexandra was SO happy to show Jolie all of her new found beach skills... Surfing and boogie boarding, woo hoo!

A few other families joined us at the beach too. So fun.

Barely recognizable, Solace covered himself in sand... He is SO busy at the beach.

Playing a "get Auntie Jolie dirty with sand" game... Always fun.  Being an Auntie automatically makes you a celebrity.

The boys were busy in the water with the squirters Jolie got them. I hardly saw them at all.

Paul made dinner, hotdogs and chips and fruit, as usual.

Solace "helped" lots with sand castle building.

Lulli keeps herself busy and needs very little attention at the beach, she loves it there.

Alexandra the mermaid. I did this when I was little, at pretty much every beach I ever went to.

I loved having my sister here, even if it was only for a little while. Going to the beach with Jolie was on Alexandra's list of fun things to show Momma when she came. I'm glad the weather was perfect for it.

Jolie comes to Texas

Auntie Jolie came to get Alexandra, and was immediately forced to play... Candyland was a favorite (and Mom, she actually PLAYED!).

We went to the Kemah boardwalk for the first time and were very excited to try out the splash pad there.

After a million years of walking, we got to the splash pad area, only to see that it was under construction and CLOSED. Total bust. We tried to make it fun and walked along watching the boats and fish in the water, but we all left cranky and hot and tired. Oh well, another time. Now you'll have to come visit again Jo!

for the swap shop

The zoo has a place called the "Swap Shop" inside. It's a little store of all things nature... Bones, shells, rocks, fossils, you know, TREASURE! When you bring in an item (found in nature), you give it to them and you get points. Certain things get certain points. You get more points if you know something about the item, like it's name, where it's from, or something interesting about it.  Then you can spend your points on something else in the shop... So when Paul found this dead snake in road, the boys yelled, "Let's bring it to the Swap Shop!!" Well, it wasn't quite ready (and a little stinky) so we left it outside for the ants to clean it off. All those little black dots are ants, working very hard to clean it up so we can trade for something great, like a giraffe vertebrae (Hawken's coveted prize).  It's mostly just bones now and ready to be swapped. Oh the joys of having kids...

Children's Museum

Children's Museum, again... Do I need to write anything about this, since we practically live here and you've seen most of this before? Maybe just a few... Superheroes, always.

Learning about the Vietnamese culture. A favorite.

Making slime. Another favorite. I'm not sure if they got through security with Alexandra's baggies of slime... Maybe?

Solace Charles

Feast your eyes on perfection. Here he is. While talking with a friend of mine, while our other children played with each other, Solace fell asleep on the couch next to me. I was rubbing his tummy and giving him smiles in between telling stories with my friend. Seriously, he is perfect.

circus mustache

Putting mustaches on people who don't normally have a mustache, is incredibly funny to me. So so so silly.

zoo

After a week of no posts, I'm back! We went camping in Austin again after Alexandra left, but I still have to catch up! Here come a LOT of posts. A wonderful thing about Paul working at a hospital near the Zoo and Children's Museum is that he can join us there when he's done with work. Posing on this orangutan statue was their idea, but no one could agree on who should be where, so we had to take the picture 3 times.   Holding Solace, balancing on the top and sitting in the arms were all coveted positions.

After a while, Paul joined us.  We looked at a few animals before making our way to the playgrounds.

Paul spotted some abandoned sunglasses under a climbing structure and encouraged Matix to squeeze in there to get them. His head was just barely smaller than the opening and I thought he got stuck a few times... But he got the sunglasses and got back out and Hawken was SO pleased. The glasses were Spiderman glasses, Hawk's favorite still.

Cutest baby around. Seriously. 

park

Our neighborhood park is such a nice place to go after a day in the house, and when you add a fun daddy to the equation, it makes it even better!

Solace's hair in the wind kills me. :) SO funny.

Ali eats quinoa

Alexandra is (by far) the pickiest kid I've ever met. She eats very few foods and isn't excited about trying new things either. She IS, however, easily enticed by treats. I don't always offer a dessert, but we had lots of piñata candy left over and quinoa isn't very good looking. The faces she was making were too good not to take pictures of. She (literally) choked down every horrible, flavorful, perfectly cooked and seasoned bite.  Poor thing was given good for you food, and she barely made it.  To her credit, she does love broccoli, but that's the only really good food that she will always eat for me. I am impressed that her parents have kept her alive this long on the diet she consumes. They're probably more creative about meals than I am. Enjoy the pics.

Fire Truck Park

The Fire Truck Park will be a favorite of ours forever. It's so fun. We brought dinner and had a picnic. We spun the kids on the spinners until they were so dizzy they could hardly walk. We would all laugh and then they begged for more. Perfect weather in the evening, hot but not sweaty. Perfect company too. :)