White Tiger Family Day

What started out as an ordinary Saturday routine of taking Mason to Taekwondo turned out to be the highlight of our weekend.  Cheryl was in town visiting and we went to watch Mason at  his lesson.  Little did we know that it was "family day"  where the parents participate.
Chris being the awesome sport he is went out and did it.  Luckily I'd just ran 11 miles and had a good excuse of why I wasn't up for it - and someone had to photograph the moment.

 Like father like son.

 Being dressed and showered for the day didn't hold him back.

It was so funny to see the dad's giving it their all, it was so fun to see Mason watching his dad give it his all.  I'm so happy I didn't miss the once in who knows how often moment.

Bacon and Bedtime

Bacon:
The news recently reported a prediction of a bacon shortage.  The news has gotten a lot of mileage with our family.  Bacon happens to be Mason's favorite food.  We were talking about how the shortage was caused by the recent droughts and that the pigs were having a hard time surviving.  (my limited understanding of the situation).  It could also maybe because Denny's now has bacon in every menu item including their sundaes.  Maybe.  We told Mason he should write a story about a world without bacon, a futuristic story about a boy who never knew bacon.  How would you describe bacon to someone who has never experienced it?
Fast forward one week:  That boy's mind is still on his bacon.  Riding home from church today he out of the blue brings up the bacon shortage.  He said "Mom, I was thinking about the bacon shortage, I actually think if all the pigs die, that would mean a lot more bacon".  For the here and now, I guess he's right.  Feast or famine.

Bedtime:
Our little restless Mallory has had a really hard time with bedtime.  She stays in her bed just until the parent putting her to bed leaves the doorway.  Sometimes she's out of her bed while you're still walking out and your back is to her.  We've tried every parenting trick we could come up with.  She is always wondering around the house long after the older three are peacefully snoozing away.  We now have a trick.  For the past few weeks, Chris has come downstairs to play the piano for her.  It's like a really talented kind of lullaby.  It works like magic.  It's amazing.  Now bedtime looks like this, a prayer, a story, a kiss and a request from Mall - "go play me a lullaby".  Chris plays the piano, and she's out.  She doesn't even get out of bed once.  The lights stay turned off and everything.  Who knows how long it will last.  Who knows if my very amateur piano playing skills will do the trick when Chris isn't home.  I can always call in Charlotte for reinforcement.  That girl is getting so awesome at the piano.  I love being surrounded by musicians.  I love it even more that their talents can put my babies to sleep.

Mallory Jane hits 4!

My sweet sweet baby is now a year older.  My baby is a 4 year old.  I never got why I had to be referred to as the baby for so long.  Now I get it, your last born just stays your baby.  She's totally still my baby.
Her birthday was on Saturday - Saturday birthdays are the best.  Sleep in, eat a big breakfast, open presents, play with presents all day, eat some pizza and cake.  That's a great birthday.
Mallory is spunky, full of life and even attitude.  I think she was born with sass.  She's miss independent, miss performer, miss picture poser and runs on fumes.  She usually is the last to sleep and the first awake and doesn't even take a nap to refuel.  Her endless energy is amazing!  She just started taking gymnastics because she really wants "to do a somersault in the air".  She has no fear, she's a brave soul.  She's perfectly honest - for good or for bad.  Her emotions are right on her
sleeve at all times.  There's no poker face on our sweet girl.  She loves to play - all day.  She loves books, and my i-phone and the TV.  She loves to hide, especially when we're not playing hide and seek.  Sometimes we have to freeze what's happening in the house when a Mall alert is issued.  Everyone stops in their tracks and we all search until we find her.  We'll yell out her name, bribe her, but she doesn't come.  When we find her she usually escapes trouble because we're so grateful she's okay.  Neighbors have seen me way to many times outside yelling for her - I wonder what they think of me and how I can always lose her.  "Did you lose a pet"?   "No, my daughter."  She loves this game - the rest of us don't.   Once when we she missing, I was outside yelling for her, running up and down the street, I came back to the house where she was up against the side of the bricks holding perfectly still - just looking at me smiling, she watched the whole commotion and didn't flinch.  Relief > Frustration.  
Her favorite things in life are brought to you by the letter P.  Princesses, Ponies, Pet Shops, Polly Dolls and the color pink.  Her favorite food is even pizza.  I should have thrown her a "P" party.

Birthday hugs and thank you's

Serious concentration

My best giant cupcake yet

Charlotte's biggest and best balloon "Jimmy"

Mastering the Mini-Murph

Making wishes

May all of Mallory's birthday wishes come true.

Potty Accidents and Dead Batteries

These are the kind of days that make me appreciate normal, uneventful days.  We headed to Rozlyn's weekly soccer practice.  The kids spend there time cruising around on their bikes and scooters & playing on the playground at the school.  I go back and forth between watching Rozlyn and watching the kids.
Halfway through practice, Mallory tells me she's got to got potty.  The school doesn't leave us with a lot of options.  We were trying to find a bush or tree where we could conceal ourselves.  During our search Mall insists that she no longer has to go.  Insists, and I believe her.

Seconds later I see her standing in a puddle, wet shorts & angry face.  "Dangit - this makes me so mad!!!!" is what she said.

This makes you mad, I'm think to myself.  So wearing the least capable outfit/fabric of disguising a potty accident we have to make our way to the car.  The front of Mallory and the back of Mallory left no questions as to what just happened.  Should I sacrifice myself and my shirt and my smell and hold her against my body, shielding her from the crowds of people?  I pass by Mason and Charlotte and tell them to keep playing I was running Mallory home for a quick wash down and clothes change and would be back.  We head to the car.  The options were to take her clothes off and drive her home naked or put her in her seat all wet and wash the carseat later.  I thought the naked idea was better.  To make the situation worse - the car wouldn't start.  :-(  so I get to parade Mallory around some more in her condition to find help.  I really would have just rather laugh or cried to myself in the car but that wouldn't get us anywhere.  A few strangers helped me out.  Good citizens indeed.  

It literally started to downpour that second, heavy heavy rains falling from the sky.  Why?  Why couldn't of this downpour came 45 minutes earlier so everyone was soaking wet and no one would have known.  I love these moments.  They make my life exciting and entertaining and give me good stories to laugh about and save for the future.        

7 Happened!!!

There was talk for awhile that Mason was going to skip his birthday this year.  Then August came around and he started talking and dreaming (trying to) about it. 

A few weeks ago, I went in his room and he told me that he was reading books on dolphins and snow because Roz told him if he read about good things before going to bed then he'd have good dreams.  He said he really wanted to dream about Max's donuts and his birthday.  He's hilarious.  So in the middle of the night - I made the drive to Max's donuts to make his wished for dreams come true.  

 He looks so sleepy.  Birthday Breakfast - it's on the tray because it was supposed to be in bed, but he made his way down before the breakfast made it up.  

 The birthday brother.  He got a lot of love from his sisters.  I loved the details of Rozlyn's sign.  Each letter was a "Super Mario" guy - so thoughtful and perfect for Mason.  

 Getting his fill. 

 The Birthday Party at ASI.  Having someone else entertain the kids while I sit back and watch was heaven - it almost felt like my birthday.  It's a treat to do every few years.  

 There really were that many kids there.  Whoa.

 Happy Birthday Boy

 The Mario mustache's. 

 Happy Birthday Boy again with his Luigi cupcake and Power Up Water.  

 These cute candy bars were custom made for Mason from my super talented, amazing friend Debbie - someday I will have photoshop and make cute custom things for my kids.  I loved them so, so, so much - I love talented people!  Mason was so excited when he saw them.  

Mason is a guy worth celebrating - his birthday was so much fun to share with so many people.  I'm so glad I have a boy - I'm more glad that boy is Mason - he makes my world a happier, funnier, brighter place.  

That Time of Year Again

School's back on.  So long lazy mornings and big breakfasts and getting dressed at 12:00 and swimming the afternoon away.  We'll see you again in 9 more months.

It looks like Charlotte will start and finish her elementary days at Green unless something crazy happens in the next few months.  I'm so glad the 6th graders are still in grade school here.  Chris and his wisdom had to tell me that Charlotte didn't want me to walk her in and take pictures.  He's a good dad.   

 Mason and Ms. Martel.  He's so handsome!!!

 Roz and Ms. Janasak.

 Mallory and I had to endure a week on our own.  We both missed the big kids:-(  They entertain her a lot which Mallory loves and so do I.  Mall is such a pal, we did have lots of fun but she was so excited to finally get to her school today.  She packed her own lunch, I had to intervene a little with some of my mom control.  Look how big she is - and so ready to go.  I love that sweet, sweet, sweet, girl.

Summer Camps

Every summer our school district offers a huge variety of summer camps.  They send home this enticing packet with the full descriptions that make the camps almost seem better then Christmas.  Here's what I can't do, 1.  pay $400.00 a week for all 4 of my kids to go and more importantly 2.  wake up and be ready to go somewhere by 8:00am in the summer for one week straight.  Nope!
So I gave them the brochure before school was let out last spring and told them they could all pick one camp - whatever one they wanted.  They were so excited.  After they'd made their selections, it wasn't quite as exciting when I told them I'd be teaching the camp.  At our house.  With 4 little campers.  (and camp would never start before 12:00noon.)

Charlotte's Camps:  Cupcake Wars - All the kids got to pick out there flavor of cake, pick out their flavor of frosting, and cupcake liners.  Then we loaded the table with stuff to decorate with.  The decision of who would win the "cupcake war" was their dad - who really loves a cupcake - that would fairly judge them later that night.  I filled frosting bags with different colors and different tips and showed them some decorating secrets.  72 cupcakes later.......alot were shared with friends and a lot were frozen.  Chris was such a cute judge - he was thoughtful and meticulous when tasting each cupcake.  He awarded them all a day of the week.  (i.e. Friday's cupcake was loud and colorful, Mondays cupcake, was exactly as he expected it taste, very predictable, he made it sound a lot better then I can describe).

Rozlyn's Camp:  Minute to Win It - Rozlyn went to the minute to win it video selection and carefully picked out  8 challenges that she wanted our family to do.  A Bit Dicey, Baby Blockin, Dizzy Mummy, Elephant March, This Blows, Sticker Picker Upper, Breakfast Scramble and Hangover.   We then gathered up the supplies, and had a beefed up Minute to Win It FHE.  I think the Grahams our ready for the family edition of the show.  Our game room turned into a training camp.  We all tried them - we're ready to go.

Mason's Camp:  Color Creations:  Mason's Camp was color creations, he was set on the balloons filled with paint that you throw and pop but we didn't do it.  Poor Mason.  Instead we the-dyed shirts, painted door hanger crafts and created color clay animal buddies.  Color camp would have been easier if Mallory would have been sleeping but maybe not as memorable:-).

Doing the Duty

 Here I go, here I go, here I go again - I'm sure I said I wouldn't do this again.  I was persuaded to take on membership this year.  With Mallory gone three days a week I felt like it was doable and a little bit of my duty with my extra time and three kids in that school.  I hardly do anything or ever volunteer.  I'm dead weight:-).  Time to do my fair share.  I saw the printed out board roster - Third VP - Rainie Graham - it sounds fancy to me.
Here is what makes PTA so much better then it sounds - working with these amazing ladies!!!!!  Here we were decked out in our Green gear at Back to School Night.

See, the job doesn't look so terrible.  

I think this must be my "You know you wanna join" face.  

Here was my handy work of a bulletin board.  Teaching elementary school might be alright, coming up with bulletin boards - not so much.  However, I love how it turned out.  Our school has an All-Star sports theme this year.  Those are scoreboards - even if students told me they looked like robots.  The home score will be how many from the class have joined, the visitor score is how many are left to join.  

Reading Rewards

Since we all love our free time in the summer to read and relax, we thought we should reward ourselves.  I actually thought it would be fun to see how much we actually read.  We made a goal at the beginning of summer, our family number was 100!!!  My personal contribution was 4 books, Chris was supposed to contribute 2:-)  I don't think we even pulled that off but the kids made up for it and more.  I think we finished it the first week of August.  We rewarded ourselves ever 25 books. 1-25: Bowling, 26-50: Frisco Aquatic Center, 51-75: Pie Eating Contest and 76-100: Magic Time Machine.

I don't have pictures from all of our rewards but here is Charlotte - so proud of herself for making our pies:-).

And here is the whole family enjoying them.

R squared

My new school clothes are in.

  I can't wait to wear them with my fancy custom made button from awesome friends

driving my awesome mini van with my Mitt decals, looking at the awesome Romney/Ryan yard sign as  I drive by.  

Flashback election 2008.  I love the good ole USA, I'm very patriotic, I'm easily offended (to much) by those who are aren't but chose to live here anyway.  I'm so grateful for our democratic process and the right to vote - so grateful - so much that sometimes I tear up in the voting line and booth. True Story.  So when I had to make a choice between McCain and Obama it kind of hurt. When they were both chosen as the nominees,  it kind of hurt, when they both chose their VP's - that's when things got crazy.   Palin and Biden - are you kidding.  

Fast forward to 2012.  My heart belongs to Mitt.  We call him Mittens at our place, he's on our fridge, his family's Christmas Card was on my wall, and then it became clear that he'd be the nominee.  Jubilation.  Then he chose Paul Ryan as his VP.  It was a happy day at our place.  If only the majority of the country felt the same way about it as I do.  

I'm so thankful for all the loud vocal people who are fighting so hard for him on his behalf to get to him elected and restore America to it's greatness the founders envisioned.  Will they be successful - who knows, realistically, probably not.  :-(.  There's enough people that benefit from government programs and assistance that would never vote for someone who wants to cut and reduce government spending.  I get it. I'm just so excited to have someone who I believe would be an amazing president, with an amazing resume and character to back him up, to vote for.  It's the democratic process and I'm grateful for it.

P.S. I also have a huge girl crush, huge, on Ann Romney.  Love, love, love her.  

P.S.S.  I love Barack and Michelle too!!  I think they would make great couple friends, they're just cool people, I can see the four of us hanging out.  It's just when it comes to leading our country I have to pick policy over personality.  Mitt for Pres. .....Barack for my neighbor:-.  

Houston

Six years ago, Chris and I packed up the last of our belongings, left secret treasures with the kids in hidden corners of their rooms, and drove down South Brenton Knoll for the last time as residents.  Then I cried and cried and cried.  If I had been at the wheel I might have turned us around. 

Houston was our first home away from home.  Provo was a 4 hour drive from "home". The perfect distance for blessings and baptisms and birthdays but far enough to be our own.  When we first got to Houston, our expectations were very low.  We had only heard horrible stories, where the adjective of armpit was used a lot.  Yet we were excited to go off and do our thing, it was sure to be a temporary adventure.  I guess a good lesson to learn was that when you have low expectations, they're usually exceeded and ours definitely were.  We fell in love with our Houston life.  It was our first home, our first job, our first family ward, first paycheck, etc.  

So when we left, it was with every intention that we would come back a lot, every month, every few months, every weekend:-).  Not every 5 years.  That's what happened.  We waited one year to go back.  I really struggled our first year in Dallas, it would have been to hard, and to soon.  Then fast forward life and schedules and vacations and 5 years have past.  

With a few weeks left of summer I decided to take the kids.  Chris was working and couldn't make the adventure.  As I drove through our old neighborhood, I was beaming from ear to ear - sometimes even laughing.  It was pure happiness to look back and remember the good ole days, simpler days, one car stuck at home kind of days.  

The house:  I still remember knocking over the "available sign" in the front yard and thinking, am I really this lucky that I get this house.  It was so fun to make that house a home, throw our personality into it and start the decorating experiments.   Mallory never lived here but how could I kick her out of the picture.   

My two Houston babies in front of the hospital.   

The beautiful Houston temple.  I remember packed session, I mean jam packed, on our ward temple nights.  If you got there late, you'd have to do sealings - also packed with other ward members who came late.  We were all so young and enthused and committed.   

Friends:  Here are just a few of the favorites.  It was so fun to see some old friends.  I don't think 6 years have passed because this is exactly how I remember everyone.  When I first met this group below there were 8 kids between the 5 of us.  Ten years later there are 25!!!  Four hours together is all we got, but their goodness is contagious, and I left happy with my tank filled.  

Our -way to quick of a visit- with the Berry family that we love.  Sarah was such a sweet friend to me when I lived there - I just love this family so much.   

Speaking of - way to quick of a visit- the whole trip was.  There wasn't enough time to see everyone.  We would have loved to have stayed the weekend and gone to church.  Next time - it won't be 5 years away.  

I'm so sad that I have no pictures of our friends, the Hawkins, who were so kind to let us crash at their new house, keep their family up late and eat their food.  They're more friends that might as well be family - we had our own late parents night, laughing at all the best you tube videos we could find.  It was so great.