One Smokin' Hot Father's Day

I scored a used electric smoker for $20 for DMP's Father's day.  Our total Texification continues :)

On Father's Day, he tried it out for the first time. This was in no way an attempt to get out of making his Father's day meal :)  We decided to try chicken this first time, so if it was gross, it wouldn't be too expensive to throw out!

Lucky for us, it was delicious. He learned a lot about the smoker and we had a yummy meal.  We also had his favorite "crash potatoes". It was a fantastic feast for an awesome Daddy!

Sport Camp!

 A friend of ours told us about a free "sport skills" camp we could sign the girls up for this summer. It was so much fun!  They mostly did relays with football-type drills.  Above is Birdy pulling the tires and below going over the "hurdles" (they also had to go under them sometimes).

Above is EJ (the one in the front of the line) doing the 4 way tug of war. That was a lot of hard work, but lots of fun.   EJ enjoyed the "ladder" run relay, too.

It was an awesome, well-run camp.  The last night there was a family party. Parents (and little brothers) got to participate in all of the drills and then there was a raffle and hot dog dinner. We actually won the raffle!! It was a fancy-shmancy box of all kinds of beauty treatments and make-up. It was a great prize!  I can't wait for next year. Bear will be old enough to participate, too.

Boy Camp

The Sissies had Library Camp at their school the first week of summer. I thought it would be fun for Bear to have a little "camp" of his own. We invited two friends to come and play for a couple of days and do a "camp"- really just a more structured play date with a theme. It was so fun to do for him and they all loved it. 

The first day was Pirate day.  They painted pirate chests and glued jewels on them. Then they went looking for buried treasure in the sandbox (the best activity for everyone by far- the "treasure" is still buried and unburied regularly).  Then they had a great big pirate sword fight. They were so cute. Sometimes they fought each other, and sometimes trees, the slide, and lawn chairs were "dragons" that needed fighting.

The next day was "Super Guy" day. They came dressed in their super-guy apparel. 

The boys loved the "Hulk Smash" game I made up- stack the produce boxes in a tower and run through them to smash them down. Big surprise there :)

I was going to have them finger paint their pictures this day, but it was really funny. They did NOT want to get their fingers messy :) 

The last day was Train Day.  They painted with trains (so fun! Just put a glob of paint on the page and let them drive through it with cars/trains. It makes painted "tracks"). 

Then they worked together to build and run their trains around the wood tracks. It was a simple and fun day!

Last Day of School

Just for fun, a side-by-side First and Last day of school pics:

 First Day:

Last Day:

 



The Greatest Picture in the History of Ever

Just Stuff

Someone got shaved for the summer!  Our guy is great- he doesn't make her look stupid.

EJ had a great end-of-year project. The kids learned all about marketing, manufacturing (cost/profit) and etc. Then they made an item to sell. They had to determine price, create digital and print advertisements.  Then they saw how much profit they made based on the cost for producing.  She came up with the idea to make yarn dolls and did them herself. 

I love that this girl still loves to wear princess dresses. This is her "castle" she put together one day. She and Bear each had "rooms" that they made up.

Happy to say that the produce boxes from Bountiful Baskets are still going strong as the favorite toy in our house with all children of all ages!

Every Party Needs a Snake...

Way back in May, we spent a Saturday whipping our back porch and yard into shape. To celebrate, we invited some friends for dinner and ice cream.  One of my friends has a really tame, awesome snake. EJ was in LOVE.  She is the most patient and cool snake, and my friend wears her all the time.