Summertime Fun

My last post was at the beginning of the summer and now here we are already at the end. It has been a good one. We have been busy with soccer, work, day camp, vacations, swimming, play dates, karate, and hip hop dance class but we have also had some relaxing days and down time. Although I love the laziness and the less "scheduledness" of summer, I am ready to get back in our routine. Here are some highlights from the last few months:

Trip to Arkansas: We spent the first week of our summer in Arkansas. We started in Little Rock with Grammy and Pawpaw and got lots of cousin time in with Presley and Landon.

Aubrey painting Landon's nails. 

We also spent a few days in Monticello with Gigi and Papa. My cousin, Jon, and his wife Candice and their two kids happen to be in town visiting also. Their daughter, Hadley, is just a couple of months older than Aubrey so it was fun to get them together. 

Watching the Women's World Cup. 

 This is at Atwood's. The Farm Supply store in Monticello. They have real baby chicks so it is heaven for my animal loving girls. 

Even Oliver made the trip. 

 We have had some fun playdates this summer:

And lots of movie nights. 

And before it turned 1 million degrees outside, we had fun hanging out on our back patio at night. 

We've played dress up:

Gone rock climbing:

 And celebrated the Fourth of July:

One of the best things we did this summer was go to Great Wolf Lodge. Gigi has been wanting to take the girls for a while so we picked a date and made a plan. Because Aubrey is still too little to ride most of the rides, we decided that Gigi and Papa would stay overnight with the big girls but Aubrey, Ben and I would only go for one day then come home to spend the night.  I went back the next day (it is only about 20 minutes away) so that I could ride rides and spend time with Ava and Macy without the distraction of little sister. It was a lot of fun and  the highlight of the girls' summer (along with a trip to Colorado which is going to get its own post!). Thanks to Gigi and Papa for such a special treat!

Next post: Family Vacay to Colorado! So. much. fun. 

Other Things We Did This Summer

We did some traveling this summer (see previous post) but we also had some fun at home. Here are some things we did:

Swim. Aubrey LOVED the water. She had absolutely no fear which made for some interesting trips to the pool!

The girls went to summer camp at Heritage on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every Thursday they took a field trip. Here they are at the Fort Worth zoo. 

Macy finally lost her first tooth!

Roughriders baseball game with friends.

 One day while Ben and Ava were playing golf, Macy decided to raid our closet and play dress up. It was pretty funny.

Hanging out with mom while the big girls play.

At a friend's petting zoo birthday party:

The Ramers came for their annual summer visit and we went to the Dallas World Aquarium. 

 Checking out the sharks!! 

Such a fun and busy summer! Can't believe it went by so fast! 

Sweet Summertime (June Edition)

I have not done a very good job of blogging this summer. Summer is usually when I am able to blog the most but for some reason, this summer has been extra busy and has gone by extra fast. In order to tackle all of our summer happenings, I thought I would break it down into a June edition, a July edition, and an August edition. Here is the June edition:

My last day of school wasn't until June 8th and then we left for Florida the next day. You can read about our Florida trip here. The day after we got back from Florida was Father's Day. Ava and Macy made him this coffee cup at school. Apparently they worked on it together because they only brought home one. (BTW... if you ever teach school, Sunday school, VBS, dance class, etc. and have twins in your class... this is the WORST thing you could do. They are 2 SEPARATE people. Do not give them one cubby to share, or one take-home folder to share, or one project to work on. Seriously drives me crazy! Their pre-k was really good about seeing them as individuals but they kinda dropped the ball on the Father's Day gift.) Anyway, off of my soapbox. My favorite thing about this cup is that it looks like it says #2 DAD. Hilarious!

The girls said it is a #1 but it looks more like a 2 to me!! : )

 

 

Getting a Father's Day hairdo. Every dad deserves a little pampering on his special day!

 

I was pretty proud of the gift I gave Ben this year. I have a friend at work that is friends with Hunter Mahan's wife. Hunter Mahan is a famous (if you follow golf) professional golfer from Dallas. He was recently in the news because of this.  Ben is REALLY into golf and knew that I had a mutual friend with him and had mentioned me trying to get his autograph. I told him NO WAY. I was too embarrassed to ask. But secretly, behind the scenes, I asked my friend if she could get me something. She totally pulled through for me and got this autographed golf glove. Ben was really excited about it.





After we got back from Florida, we started swim lessons, dance, and karate. I posted about dance and karate here. I don't have any pics from swim lessons but the girls did a great job. We took from the Athletic Center like last year. They are able to swim all over the pool by themselves which is really about where they were at the end of last summer. Looking forward to next year when they can learn more about how to do the different strokes.


We recently had our patio extended. We had a fire pit built too. One night earlier this summer, Ben built a fire and we roasted marshmallows and made smores. They LOVED it. It was yummy but soooo messy!!

 

 

We've had lots of lazy mornings which is the best part of summer!

 

We have been doing a little practicing for kindergarten.

 

 

And then there have been those few, desperate times when I HAD to go to the grocery store and my only choice was to do it with these crazies. Fortunately we have a neighborhood market down the street and there is hardly ever anybody in there. So only the workers hear me threatening my children with harsh punishments every 5 seconds while attempting to buy some groceries. 

 

 

 

We went to a Rangers game with some friends. That is Ava and Macy's friend Jacob on the other side of Macy. Aubrey went too and did great. It was really hot but she didn't fuss (or sleep!) the whole time.

 

 

 

Ben and the girls also went to a Roughriders game with Jacob and his dad. The Roughriders are the local minor league baseball team. On Sundays, they let the kids run the bases after the game. Here they are right before running the bases.

 

 

Fun times in June! Stay tuned for July!