Random. Mess. Dylan.

First off, a little random, but I found these pictures I never posted.  Nothing too exciting but the kids and I stopped by some little safety activity at the Youth Center a few weeks back...

Secondly, IS IT WORTH THE MESS?!?...

YEP!  Totally!  Everytime!  You give Kate a piece of paper and a pair of scissors and she will sit there and cut and cut and cut until she can't cut any more.  It makes her happy and occupies her for an extended period of time.  So despite my husbands complaints I will continue to do it :)

And lastly for now, Dylan.  Oh Dylan.  Summer is wearing him out.  Big kids always being home means he doesn't like to take naps and miss out on "fun".  So he falls asleep a lot when we get in the car now.  And he is our pickiest eater EVERS!  He's awful.  And stubborn.  And crazy.  But the other day I dared to make him a turkey sandwich and I set it in front of him expecting the usual whinny meltdown of 'I'm not eating that!  That looks yucky!  I'm NOT!'.  Instead he looked up at me sweetly and said, 'Oh thank you mommy that looks delish!'  Uh huh... It stopped me dead in my tracks.  And when I left my state of shock I had to capture the moment.  You may not understand, unless you've been at our house, or anywhere near us around dinner time... then you'd totally understand what I'm talking about.

Fathers Day (and a little fishing)

PJ woke up on Father's Day to find a duct taped cardboard box and peanut butter and "chocolate" sandwich (prepared by Brynn) awaiting him on the dining room table.  Can't get any better than that can you?! ;)  And we hurridly had him open the present(s) before he left for Sunday morning meetings.

I had actually been very on top of things and we did our Father's Day shopping and card making, etc several weeks ago when PJ was out of town.  I thought that was brilliant of me.  But apparently the kids had forgotten what we had done and were worried the night before that we did do anything for daddy.  Even when I reminded them of our previous preparations they seemed a little confused.  Whatever :{

 After church we had a relaxing fun afternoon which of course resulted in some "playtime"...

Then Grandma came over for dinner.  He had requested homemade pizza.  I think he had a pretty good day.

Also, the boys couldn't wait to take daddy fishing with our new poles and equipment once he got back from his trip.  So the other week our good friends the Mathews took us out to the Marina again (we still need their expertise) to get some more good fishing in.  And PJ actually enjoyed himself :)

Brynn's 9th BirthDAY

I think Brynn had a pretty great 9th birthday this year.  But in the weeks leading up to it she had a dilemma - she wanted to do it all for her birthday.  She wanted a gymnastics party, she wanted to go swimming, she wanted to invite all the girls from her class and all her other friends, she wanted to do crafts, etc etc etc.  She had a lot of thoughts running through her head.  So ultimately Preston and I narrowed it down and gave her two options to choose from - she could choose to invite all of her friends to a gymnastics party OR she could choose one friend to spend the day doing whatever she wanted with.  She thought about it and decided to go with the one friend option.  It came as no surprise that she choose her bestie from her school class Emma Gonzalez...

 

So her birthday started out as normal with her birthday clothes/present waiting outside her decorated door.  And she came down to find muffins and more presents awaiting her.  She was very sweet and even let the boys help her open the big one.

 

The present she was most hopeful and excited about was the gift bag full of fun decorative duct tape... yep I said duct tape.  It makes her very happy.  She likes to be crafty with it.
Then after breakfast it was off to Vacation Bible School (hence the shirt she is wearing in the pictures).  The older three are doing VBS at the Base Chapel this year and are enjoying it as much as ever.  Emma is going to VBS too.  So when it was over we just took her with us and started the day long celebration.  Brynn had an ordered list of activities.  First up was lunch at Chick-Fil-A.  Then we came home and changed and headed of to the swimming pool - where she got to use her new mermaid flipper... it was a big hit at the pool - strangers were lining up for a turn.

Next on Brynn's list was bowling.  Unfortunately we spent too much time at lunch and swimming that there wasn't time to go.  But she was okay with that because Grandma took the boys out of the house (they went to wash her car) while she and Emma cleaned up for dinner.  When they were ready they still had time to open Emma's present and spend some time working on crafts.  Last weekend we took Emma's family to our free weekend at Gulf World because they hadn't been there before (hard to believe but I didn't take any pictures of that day... gasp!).  Anyway, apparently after we had left Emma stayed behind in the gift shop and picked out a darling Best Friends necklace that had a dolphin on it.  So cute!

 So they continued to craft until Grandma and the boys got back and daddy got home from work.  Then we all went to Pepper's Mexican Restaurant for dinner.

Where she got sung to while wearing their hat... and then everyone else needed a turn too...

After dinner Grandma gave her her present - which she didn't understand at first...

...it was a certificate letting her know that she got to attend a day of Dolphin Day Camp at Gulf World Marine Park in August :)  Totally cool right?!  Then, per Brynn's request, Grandma took the boys to her house for a sleepover so that she and Emma could not be bothered by them during their sleepover.  The night consisted of the DQ ice cream cake she asked for, and a movie while I did their nails, staying up til 10pm, and then finally going to sleep.  Whew.   So I delivered everything on her list except bowling - which I promised to still do eventually.  And now she's really 9...

Random Catch Up

Tyler needed a hair cut.  His hair was getting too 'fluffy' and hot for this summer weather...

Dylan drew this picture of our family while PJ was gone and said that daddy needed it because he probably missed us.  And he asked me to help him spell the 'For Dad Love Dylan'.

He's getting good at his stick people.  But when you ask him to draw anything else he says he can't and doesn't know how.  So I've been working on that with him.  One day I asked him to sit down and draw me an elephant and lion.  I got his usual response but I told him to go do it anyway.  This is what he did :)

Our pool has been open for a while now and we've been enjoying it. 

 My girls...

One Sunday morning I asked Kate to go get her church shoes on and this is what she came back with...

 We spent Memorial Day on the beach with the DeSio's...

Tyler loves this foam plane.  He was so excited to get it and of course it broke within two minutes of him opening it.  But he keeps fixing it with duct tape and its been around way longer than I thought it would be :/

Our cute little friend, Macy Mathews, was so sweet and gave Kate this beautiful Sleeping Beauty dress that she had gotten at DisneyWorld (doesn't fit Macy anymore).  Kate couldn't believe how lucky she was.  The minute we put it on her she became a princess - attitude and all.  She insisted her brothers dance with her and they were very sweet and obliging and gave her a dance lesson or two :) 

That night she wouldn't take it off - and it isn't exactly the easiest thing to get on and off.  So it took both PJ and I to hold her down and pull it off so we could get her jammies on.  But here she is the next day all ready for a princess birthday party for her friend Tatum...

 Then she had a random day yesterday where she had a fever of 102.5 and slept all day.  I liked all the cuddle time I got.

 PJ broke our very sturdy chair.  Glad it was him and not me.

Another one of Tyler's projects he spent lots of time on.  He wantedme to take a video while he showed me how it worked :)