Truth about Mascara

I was in the kitchen doing dishes a couple days ago and I heard a funny noise. My first thought was, "uh, oh. What is Addison up to?" Sure enough, she was up to no good! She's smart too. She always manages to get into things when she knows I'll be otherwise occupied. This time she got a hold of my mascara. I thought it was out of her reach. Clearly, it was not. After I caught her putting my mascara on, she ran away from me. She fell as she was running away from me, that's why she's crying in the pictures. I couldn't help but laugh. We did have our first girl-to-girl talk about why you can't cry and wear mascara. It's just not pretty! Funny on a two year old, but still not pretty!

First Day of Kindergarten!

When I was a kid, my mother always (I mean ALWAYS) took my picture on the first day of school. As a young child, I'm sure I thought this was great. As a teenager, I remember thinking it was dumb. As an adult, I love looking back at my first day of school pictures, which I now have in an album. As a mother, I'm excited to be continuing this tradition. Here's Alex on his first day of kindergarten:

And this is what he was wearing when we picked him up that afternoon. It says, "I loved my first day of kindergarten." It made me laugh when I saw him after school, which immediately helped my anxiety. He had a great first day of school and was happy to return to kindergarten the rest of the week!

Our Last Summer Outing

For our final outing of the summer, we visited the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. I've been a few times with the kids, but this was the first time that Roger was able to join us. We really enjoyed our visit, as always. We started in the children's museum part. Roger and Alex went straight to the building section...building tents, building blocks, building railroad tracks. Addison went straight for the shopping! Then we made a pit stop in the gift shop. Oddly enough, there is a little slide in there and the kids loved that! We also visited the planetarium for the first time. We saw a really cute show called Big Bird's One World, One Sky. It was a little movie about the stars and the moon, and it was specifically geared towards young children. It was really entertaining and informative! We finished out our visit in the tinkering around area and the art area of the museum. Roger and I were both really sad to see our last outing of the summer end, as we both realized that we won't have these occasions very often anymore. With Alex starting kindergarten and Roger's schedule, we just won't have the time together that we used to have. That was part of the reason we made family time this past week top priority.

Pool Fun

On our second day of "end of summer fun" we decided to swim at the Howard Moore Pool. It's a public swimming pool and the whole pool is only 18 inches deep. It's perfect for the smaller crowd. We went one other time with my sister and her kids, and Alex LOVED it! He couldn't wait to go again with Roger. Most days it's only open in the afternoons, so we had to go on Wednesday morning when it was open. We didn't have great weather. But we made the best of it and had a fun time!

Because of the weather, we were kicked out of the pool a couple times. The first time someone thought they either saw lightening or heard thunder. So we had a snack and waited it out.

The next time we got out of the pool for the weather we actually thought it might rain. But false alarm..again! This time, we took advantage of the break to eat lunch.

It was a fun morning, despite the clouds. And really, I would much rather be asked to get out of the pool because of possible rain, than have to get out because someone pooped in the pool. That happened last time we were there. Always the optimist, right?

Despite the Heat

Roger has just finished up a two week stretch of working. By that I mean, two weeks of working straight with no days off. This happens every month because of his military commitment. Luckily, he now has a week off and it is also Alex's last week of summer. I really wanted us to enjoy these last few days together as a family before we got wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of school. Roger and I, with Alex's help, planned some fun activities together to celebrate our last days of summer. First on our agenda: the zoo! We are really going to miss taking Alex to the zoo. We've always enjoyed going during the quiet off days, such as Thursdays. And we haven't been all summer. So it was really fun to go, despite the 100 degree heat! We strategically planned how we would maneuver the zoo so we wouldn't die of heat exhaustion. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not! So we decided to see some of the animals that were outside during the early hours of the morning, when the temperatures were only in the nineties. The first animal we saw were the elephants. Not this is how to stay cool when the temperatures are up!

This is one of the reasons why I love the zoo. No matter how many times we've been, we always experience something new. I've only seen the elephants playing in this pool one other time and I think it was when Alex was about two. The kids thought this was the greatest thing ever: the elephant taking a bath! And it was so amazing to see that trunk in action! We even went up to the windows and saw the elephant up close and personal.

We then managed to work our way through the zoo, seeing a lot of the animals along the way, before we started to melt. Then we popped into an air conditioned exhibit right as we were starting to really get warm. I've said this before, for Alex, he loves going to the zoo to eat! His special treat is the cheese pizza. He's been eating cheese pizza at the zoo for three years now. He's always happy about that.

From here, we managed to hop from one air conditioned spot to the next. We ended on a "cool" note by seeing the penguins on the way out and cooling off with some ice cream. Addison picked out a wild colors ice cream -- it was a vanilla flavored ice cream in these crazy colors of neon yellow, bright blue and red! All I can say is: KISS, You've got nothin' on my Addison!

Casting 101

The other night as Roger and I were looking over our calender, we sadly realized that summer is nearly over. Roger mentioned how he and Alex didn't get to go camping. So we found a free day and scheduled a camping trip. Then he called me today and asked me if I thought Alex would like fishing and how I felt about him renting a fishing boat. Then he called me a couple hours later and said he bought some fishing poles. I'm not sure who is more excited about this camping trip. So tonight, Roger took Alex out in the backyard to practice casting his line. He did pretty good.
Of course, Addison couldn't be left out. So she cast a few lines as well. And Daddy promised to buy her a fishing pole too! Promptly after this, Alex started packing. Have I mentioned the camping trip isn't for another week?

As a side note, Alex was talking to me this morning about the camping trip. He told me after he camped with Daddy, he wanted us to go on a camping trip. I hated to give him the bad news that Mommy wasn't really a camper girl. He looked a little confused, so I clarified by saying that I don't go camping without Daddy. I didn't want to go in the whole, long explanation of camper girl vs. shopper girl. Because deep down, I'm a shopper girl and would really be out of my element camping solo with my son. Luckily, he didn't press me any further. I'm thinking a family camping trip might be in our near future though!

Big Fun in Cow Town

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History underwent a huge renovation and was closed for a long time. When it finally re-opened, I couldn't wait to go back. I've been visiting this museum since I was a kid. And we have always had so much fun there. I've also been dying to buy a membership. So I finally did! Yay! My sister and I took the kids a couple weeks ago. They have such a good time there. It's so fun to just watch their imaginations run wild!


In the actual children's museum, the boys built a tent. This was really fun, but it took me a while to figure out how to stabilize the thing.


Then the boys starting building with some wooden blocks. It was so fun to see Alex build something from start to finish. Like his Dad, he is very talented in this area.


Addison loved these! It was in the "tinkering" around part, which I didn't realize would change every 6 months or so. Alex was sad to see that the sand table wasn't there anymore. But loved the wind tunnel that made a funnel cloud!
We had a really fun time. Most importantly, I'm happy that we were able to take Cadence again. Last time we went, it was during spring break and the museum was obnoxiously crowded. Hopefully we can squeeze one more trip in before school starts!

July 4th, Part 2

Wow, I can't believe it's August! And I'm still trying to catch up on my blogging from July. The summer is flying by at crazy, warp super speed! These are some cute pictures from the 4th of July. Since my Dad was in Hawaii for Father's Day, we took the opportunity to celebrate with him while he was here in July. What do you get a dad who has everything? Seriously, the man has everything. And if there is something that he doesn't have and wants it, he goes and buys it for himself. Part of me is happy he can do this because he spent many years sacrificing and putting the needs of me and my siblings before his own. The other part of me finds this habit incredibly frustrating. Because of this little habit of his, I really had nothing to give him for Father's Day except a small piece of my time and talent. And my daughter's talent!

Addison and I made him a chocolate cake for Father's Day. Addison is "helping" me make his cake. I think she's getting the sweeter end of this deal!

Then we showered him with a few cards and gifts. It was fun to celebrate with him and to let him know how much we love him. I think by the smiles on these faces, you can see how much they love each other!