kyla's party

i had so much fun planning kyla's detective birthday party. i got the idea for the invitations here. i was too cheap to buy stickers so i made my own in quark and got the bags and ribbon from michaels. i ended up doing the secret message a little larger than the original invitation because the magnifying glasses were so crappy. i was afraid no one would be able to read them if i did the font any smaller. kyla had so much fun hand delivering her invitations to all her friends.

i labeled all the food with detective names. we had detective dogs (mini hot-dogs), secret salsa, secret agent spy tray (veggies and dip) and mystery munch.

the mystery munch was a combination of pretzels, goldfish, mini marshmallows, m&ms and gummy worms.

here's the gift bags i made. they were filled with disguise glasses, a notebook, a pen, and candy.

the kids made these detective badges when they first arrived. they signed their names and put their thumb prints on it.

we played lots of fun detective training games and then solved the mystery of the "birthday bandit." the kids had a blast follwing the clues all around the house and outside trying to find where the bandit hid all the presents.

kyla loved her party!

six!

my sweet little princess is six years old today. we love you so much kyla!

a good read!

we have really been enjoying reading the Fablehaven series by brandon mull. the books are aimed at young readers but are enjoyable for adults too.

i just picked up book two today. elayna was so exicted to start reading when she got home from school. now dan and i will have to fight her for a chance to read.

from summer....

...to fall.

i must admit, i am not quite ready for fall yet. we've been enjoying the last of the season's peaches. so sweet and juicy.

pears always remind me of the beginning of fall. i am looking for a good pear dessert recipe. this looks yummy.

schlitterbahn

labor day weekend we went to schlitterbahn in galveston with grace and travis and little calvin. it was so much fun. we had beautiful weather and it wasn't too crowded. and evan was such a trooper. he didn't fuss or cry the whole time, until the ride home. we can't wait to go back again next year. here's a few pics from our trusty point and shoot camera. i didn't want to risk it with my nicer camera.

we spent most of the time on the lazy river (avery's favorite) and the kiddie slides. there were lots of fun tube rides that the adults took turns going on with the older girls. then we decided to go on some of the bigger slides. at first only dan and travis were going to attempt the "cliff hanger," a 80 foot free fall slide. but then elayna saw a boy her age do it and decided she wanted to try it too!

what a brave girl! i wish i could have gotten it on video. she liked it so much she went on it twice!

and then somehow i got talked into doing it. and i forced grace to come with me. so here's me screaming my head off. i seriously thought i was going to die!

here's the group. what a fun day!

calvin

my cute little nephew calvin and his mommy (dan's sister) stayed with us all of last week and we had so much fun together. we took the kids to the park, the children's museum, the library, the splash park, and we also got to celebrate calvin's 2nd birthday with him. (i have a cute video of everyone singing happy birthday to him that i need to figure out how to post.) calvin is quite the social butterfly and everywhere we went he kept saying "hi, hi, hi, hi" to every single person. grace said he did that at the airport too. it was so funny. we miss hearing his cute little voice!

kyla was always excited to play with calvin after school. here she is building a domino tower for calvin to knock down.

it was so fun for me to hang out with grace all week. this is the second year in a row that she has been able to do this while travis is training in oklahoma. labor day weekend uncle travis joined us for a trip to schlitterbahn water park in galveston. we had a blast! i'll post about that tomorrow.

half a year old

wow. i feel like i haven't blogged in forever. we have been so busy having tons of fun with dan's sister grace and her little boy who were in town this past week. uncle travis joined us over the weekend. more to come on that later.

but first, this little guy turned 6 months old on the 23rd of august, his big sister's birthday. it's hard for me to believe that my sweet baby boy is already 6 months old! he can now sit up, and he is up on his hands and knees trying really hard to crawl.