Thankful Thursday - Beach edition

Well, we started homeshool this week. And as much as I love homeschooling my kids, and as much as I am grateful and thankful that I am able to do it, well, let's just say it's been a long week already.

The kids have honestly done great. I think it's just balancing a 10 month old along with a 3rd, 2nd and 1st grader and having one of them constantly needing to talk to me about something very important that has pegged out my child tolerance meter.

So I'm going to focus my Thankfulness on something I was thankful for a couple weeks ago. I can do that, right?

Because last night, after my husband got home, I needed to run an errand. And the thought actually crossed through my mind that if I kept driving south, in several hours I could be back at the beach house we stayed at a couple weeks ago.

And I could walk along the quiet beach, all by myself, and collect pretty seashells, and let the waves wash over my feet as I walk in the sand........

But I didn't go. So I'll just reminesce.

1. Thankful for the beach house.
This was the beach house we stayed in. LOVED it! I was standing in the ocean as I took this picture. It was so nice to have a house this close to the beach. And they had a shower underneath so you could rinse off. It was so nice. 2. Thankful the beach wasn't crowded.
This house was on a public access beach but it was a little more secluded. We never saw more than a couple people at a time. We were told that in July and August there was more seaweed/kelp on the beach, but it really wasn't that bad.

If I was Blue, I would SO skadoo right into this picture. Right now. I'm just sayin'.

3. Thankful that the few storms we had were very brief.

This is from the 2nd story balcony right before the storm hit. It was such a beautiful view.

4. Thankful for the other family that went with us. He was a groomsman in our wedding and they have 2 boys the same age as our 2.

5. Thankful that we had a great time and no one got hurt.

6. Thankful for the beauty that God created for us to enjoy. I can't imagine what heaven must be like.

7. Thankful that my husband will be home in an hour and a half and I can go to Starbucks.

I realize that last one had nothing to do with the beach, but that's just what I'm thankful for at the moment. :)

Okay, so that's all I've got for the moment. I'll try to do another post about all the fun we had on the beach because we really had the best time!

Have a thankful thursday!

Is it too much to ask to just stand there and smile?

So we went to the beach last week. Had a great time. Took the traditional white and khaki clothing to try to get a "beach" picture. The problem was that we honestly weren't there long enough. The best times to get beach pictures are right when the sun comes up, when it is a little overcast or around dusk. Otherwise the sun is just too bright and everyone squints.

Because of the bright sun, several small storms during the day, and other various reasons, we only had about 20 minutes before dark to take pictures.

And I had no idea that during the whole "photo shoot" that one member of our party was having the time of her life posing.

It wasn't until we got back in the house and I started looking through the pics that I asked my dear sweet daughter, "What in the world were you doing????"

Just posing like a princess, Mom.

Great.

The first one is distinctly her Pocahontas pose.

And she tried her head this way.

And that way.

She tried various poses with her hands.

The throw back her head and kick her leg up pose.

Another eyes closed dreamingofmyprincetocome pose.

And a pose involving the proper placement of princess hand.

At this point, her brother was getting tired of the picture taking gig and started playing the game where he pretends to pinch off the head of someone standing in his close vicinity. Fortunately there were a few that turned out.

Not as many as I would have hoped, but enough. And one good one of the family. So I'm happy.

And I have to say, I had a close friend whose 1 year old neice died last week while we were on vacation. And things like that really make you re-think your whole view of life. And it makes you realize what is really important. And it helped me to embrace the beautiful little girl I have with the brilliant personality. No matter how many pictures she puts her own personal touch on.

But I need to know, is it just me or does anyone else have a poser in the family?

10 months

Baby girl is 10 months, give or take a few days.

It is kind of hard to believe. The days sometime seem to go by so slowly. But somehow the weeks are just flying by. There are moments that I would just like to freeze and capture. Like when she nuzzles her head into my neck or when she gives me an unprompted kiss on my cheek.

She is now standing independently quite well. We don't think she will start off taking a couple steps at a time. We really think that once she decides to do it, she is just going to start walking.

She crawls really well right now. In fact, we were borrowing a friend's bumbo because we were too cheap to buy one for the last kid. Her legs now get stuck when we sit her in it so we've decided to return it. The other day we were working in the garage and she was getting into everything.

We wedged her in the bumbo and gave her some toys to play with so she'd stay put so we could get some work done. A couple minutes later one of the other kids starts laughing hysterically and we turn around and she had flipped herself over onto her hands and feet and was doing a bear walk with the bumbo still stuck to her seat.

And she was laughing about it.

Because she knew she had won.

That would be one of the first signs that we are in trouble.

And she has also discovered the stairs.

But her most favorite new past time is unloading items from their designated area of residence. It took her 1 minute and 10 seconds flat to unload these two drawers.

She throws them out hand over hand just as fast and hard as she can.

And then she turns around and laughs about it.

That would be our second sign that we are in trouble. Because it's not just drawers that she's unloading. It's cabinets, boxes, bags, purses, the pantry, the dishwasher or anything else that contains any removable item on interest.

At least if we are going to have trouble, we've got the cute kind.

It's the best kind to have.

Thankful Saturday

So I totally missed Thankful Thursday.

It could have something to do with the fact that my parents called Wednesday afternoon and said they wanted to stop by our house on the way to see my Grandparents in Missouri.

And if you know anything about where they live, and where we live, and the direction of Missouri, you will know it is not on their way at all.

But they desperately missed the kids. And the kids desperately missed them.

So they came down for a couples days to visit.

And we are so thankful they did.


I am so thankful for my dad who spent the entire morning out in the front yard with me trimming bushes and trees. And who brought me gorgeous yellow gladiolas and filled our fridge with huge containers of blueberries and strawberries and grapes.
I am so thankful for my kids who are really great helpers. I am so thankful when they encourage each other and build each other up. And I love it when they show up at my side and ask what they can do to help me. And I absolutely love it when they take the initiative to go ahead and clean or help out without me even asking.

I am thankful for the kids even when they are a wee bit ornery. Life would be boring without some 'brilliant personalities' here and there.

I am thankful that baby girl is sleeping from 9pm to 7am. So very thankful. Even if she politely declines to smile in the pictures.

I am thankful for my mom who prays constantly for all of us. She is thoughtful and kind and always tries to anticipate needs and help where she can. We all adore her.

I am thankful that my parents make family a priority and that they take the time out of their crazy schedules to spend some time with our crazy schedule.

And that's my thankful Saturday.

Have a great weekend!

It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.

So one of our summer goals was for each kid to plan and prepare a meal. They would choose a main dish, side dish, bread, dessert and drink and then make the grocery list with me and we would go purchase everything. We would then choose a night and they would get to prepare their meal with as minimal help from me as possible.

It was a great plan in theory.

I think my downfall was taking all 4 kids with me and trying to purchase everything for the 3 meals in one grocery trip.

With their 'help'.

They honestly did really well. They all got to pick out things and help find all the ingredients they needed. But there is just something about trips like that (even when all the kids are well behaved) that make me want to put a video on for them when we get home and go find a quiet closet to sit in all by myself for a couple minutes. Or a few hours.

With something chocolate.


So my big girl got to go first. Her menu consisted of spaghetti and homemade meatballs, steamed broccoli and carrots, french bread, dirt pudding, and Strawberry fanta soda.

She loved every minute of it. Although I have to admit that the menu was a little over ambitious for a 5 year old to plan and execute.

Next time we are just going to have a meal and a dessert. That's it.

And can I just say that I would really love a new apron? Something like the cute pink striped one from Williams Sonoma? I'm just sayin.

My 2nd boy got to go next. He planned hot dogs (his very favorite meal of all time), pineapple, celery with peanut butter and raisins, individual peanut butter pies for dessert and Orange Soda.

He loved using my new Kitchen Aid blue willow mixer (thanks, babe) and grilling with daddy.

And aren't his miniature peanut butter pies adorable!!!!?!!

The oldest went last and he wanted to make pizzas. He had several side dishes planned with root beer floats for dessert. And can I just confess that by the time his night came around I told him that we could just make the pizzas (from scratch by the way) and not worry about the sides. I felt rather guilty about that but my tolerance for helping children produce edible meals was rapidly depleting.

And I don't really think he minded.

All in all, it was a great experience. Each kid was so proud of their meal and they all turned out pretty good.

But it's going to be another year before we try it again.

At least.

My husband rocks.

He scored 4 tickets to the Michael Buble concert in Dallas.

I'll give you a minute to recover from your swoon.

I invited 3 of my best friends to go with me and they drove down to Dallas to stay the night. Even though he got the tickets for me (I've been talking about trying to go for more than 2 years) he said that he himself would not be going with me. In fact, I think he said something about certain places would have to freeze over and then he still wouldn't go to a Michael Bubbles concert.

I have such beautiful friends. We have 20 kids between the 4 of us. Impressive, huh? And my 3rd double cousin and I are almost identical. She's the one on the far left. We were roommates in college and used to tell people we were twins. We actually had some who believed us.

A funny story is that on the way down, they stopped at a gas station that had huge beautiful dolls on display right in front. One of them said, "Only in Texas would you find a display like this in a gas station. " The attendant said, "Ma'am, you're in Marietta, Oklahoma."
ha ha ha ha ha....... I still laugh so hard that I start to cry every time I think about that.

We went to eat supper at Pei Wei in downtown Dallas and I just have to say, they have to coolest drink machine. It is interactive and it offers over 300 drink combinations.

We had such a great time laughing and eating and trying all the drink combinations that we would have had a great evening just going there.

We arrived at the American Airlines center ahead of schedule and had time to look around.

We saw these buses right near our parking garage and we were just sure they were Michael's. One member of our party signed our seat and row number to the bus just in case they wanted to ask us up on stage. The funny thing is that she actually does know sign language but she dumbed it down for the people on the bus just in case they didn't know sign language. And I'm honestly not for sure what we would have done had Michael said, "Would the 4 ladies in section 116 row W please come up on stage?"

At this point, we headed to the center and since the tickets explicitly said, "no cameras allowed", I left mine in the car. But another member of our party decided to sneak hers in. Bless her. The rest of the pictures are hers. We kept expecting to get busted at any minute but by the time we got inside, we realized that no one really cared if we had a camera or not. Everybody had a camera.

So, if you are going to one of his concerts, take you camera. Please.

Also, we took pictures with our tickets because we were just sure they would take the tickets at the door. Wrong again. Apparently it's been awhile since any of have been to a concert because these days, they just scan them. Sweet.

We had no idea where the seats were, so even though we were so excited to be there, we were a little anxious about where we would be sitting.

When we finally got to the section where we thought are seats were, we asked the attendant and she pointed to the seats up in the railed section and ours were on the front row. When we saw our seats and realized how great they were, I think we all screamed like 6th grade girls and then the other 3 pledged their undying devotion to me and declared we would be best friends forever.
They really were good seats. With no one sitting directly in front of us. And a great view. And plenty of leg room.

And that is why my husband rocks.

Naturally 7 opened the show. We had no idea who they were but we were all very impressed! You can see their video here. They are an acapella group that does vocal play which just means they make all the sounds of all the instruments as well as sing. It was so fun to listen to and we felt like we had been to a full concert by the time they were finished.

And then Michael came out.

And the screaming commenced

I tell you, there is just nothing like being out at an event like this with friends who love you, know pretty much all the good and the bad you've done in your entire life, and still love you anyways.

And friends that you can just have good fun with.

We had so much fun.

The show was really impressive. There were huge screens behind him that would change and move. Just about everything from the special effects, to the band, to the singer were impressive. And Michael was actually quite funny. He told a lot of jokes and did a lot of entertaining things.

But truthfully, the best part was just being there and hearing all the songs live. It was so great.

If you happen to be going to one of his concerts, let me just tell you that after he does the Michael Jackson impersonation (we were crying, we were laughing so hard) and then the song from Ferris Bueller's Day off, he walks through the crowd to a platform in the middle of the floor. Just FYI. We so could have been in this picture had we known it.

The end was pretty spectacular with fireworks and confetti flying everywhere. It was a great concert. And this was my very favorite song from the night. (this was not our recording but one I found from the Dallas concert on youtube)

We were there!!!!

My husband could sing this to me every day for the rest of my life and I would die a happy woman.

So that was our big exciting event for July. It was one of those times where you just want to somehow capture and preserve the moment. Everything seems right with the world, you are with people who amuse you and make you laugh, and you know you will never find yourself in that exact same place again.

We enjoyed every minute of it.