Color Me Rad

How do you spell fun? R-A-D! Keri and some girlfriends ran the Color Me Rad 5K and became human graffiti. Basically they ran and people squirted them with dyed liquid and dry, dyed corn starch based powder. So. Much. Fun!

My weekday running partner is Cherri, in the middle. Small but mighty!

Gorgeous! L to R: Cherri, Kari, Annie, Keri, Crystal

This is Crystal. Great, sassy pic of her.  What a cutie!

Fun!

Just threw scorpions, spiders, snakes, bats, and skulls in the kid's bath water!

National Walk to School Day

Displaying their homemade posters, Sophie, Rhys, and Keri joined their neighborhood friends and classmates for National Walk to School Day.  Upon arriving they received free bracelets and smoothies! Later the kids had their posters displayed in the school hallways.

General Conference

This year Keri posted several images depicting different principles of the gospel on one of our dining walls to start us thinking about topics that may be shared at General Conference this October. 

We also spent several weeks singing the names of the 12 apostles, as my kids mostly know the three members of the First Presidency. We sang it to the tune of "Smiles" in the Latter-Day Saint Children's Songbook. It goes, "Packer, Perry, Nelson, Oaks, Ballard, Scott, and Hales, Holland, Bednar, Cook, Christofferson, Anderson makes twelve."  This really worked well for our kids, especially our four-year-old, Rhys.

We spent many evenings playing a game to get to know our latter-day prophet and apostles better.  We laid out their pictures and played Don't Eat the Prophet!--a take from Don't Eat Pete! If you don't know what either of those are, I will explain--we put a treat on every picture. Someone who is "It" leaves the room and everyone else decides together who the designated apostle is. "It" reenters and begins to eat treats off each picture, in any order they choose, as we name the apostle pictured. When they take the treat from the designated apostle, everyone yells, "Don't Eat the Prophet!" It's a blast really and quite yummy too.

During two sessions, which we were happy to watch from home, our kids used bingo cards with key words/pictures and listened for them from the speakers. For another 2 sessions, they held a picture of the speaker, if it was an apostle or the prophet, and then taped it to the image depicting that principle of the gospel that we had posted in the dining room.  They did better this year attending to the speakers which was great.

We left up the pictures so we can discuss those talks/topics during our Family Home Evenings for the next few months.  We've found it to be a good way to revisit the important messages that were shared and to just keep gospel topics in our everyday conversation.

My (Keri's) favorite message of this October's General Conference was given by the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, entitled "We Never Walk Alone". In speaking about the ever available power of prayer and scriptures study, he shared this gem:

"Your Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there."

I love that.

Prayer

During the family prayer Rhys thanked God " for the cat not die." The cat's not even sick.

He Left Me!

Yep! Neal flew off with one of his buddies, Carter, to New Orleans and attended at Saints home game. They said it was LOUD in the Superdome. Real loud. They just took it all in and had a very satisfying experience. 

The next day they walked. A lot. Which was good because they had to work off the muffaletta, po' boys, and beignets they sustained themselves on. They toured the French Quarter, took in a Haunted tour, and visited the WWII Museum.

Previous Quote of the Blog

Knowing that the gospel is true is the essence of a testimony. Consistently being true to the gospel is the essence of conversion. --Elder David Bednar, Converted unto the Lord, Oct. 2012

Bargain

We got a bargain on pomegranates and have been popping the arils (the juicy seeds) out over the course of the week. Tedious. 26 down, 6 more to go. Our freezer will be stocked with antioxidant goodness before the weekend!

Hot Air Balloon Festival 2013

So this year we knew our traditional Friday night viewing of the Plano Hot Air Balloon Festival launch was going to be cancelled due to weather so we made it out to the Saturday evening launch which was...also cancelled!

We still picnicked and enjoyed the viewing of the balloons. We didn't get to stay as long as we usually do because Keri had to chaperone a church youth dance but it worked out perfectly because we were all pretty tired by then. In fact we pulled our sleeping children back to the car in a wagon.  In actuality, Sophie pretended to sleep because everyone that we passed looked upon them with such adoration, smiling, and making comments like, "Oh look! How cute!", "How sweet!" and the like. She just ate it up. 

There was an Angry Birds balloon this year. Our favorite was the astronaut.

Joy

Sophie - "Mom, every time I skip, I just feel like singing. It's just fun!" Remember those days, people?

Art

Today our son's magnadoodle creations have included drawings of 1. "a monkey peeing on his bed" with "toilet paper with fiiiiiiive peeds on it", 2. a sheep with "goggles", and 3. "Jesus on the earth" with "wheels" for feet. Subsequently, Jesus became "cover with mud and die."...... I think we need to open the Bible more often....and maybe call a psychologist...maybe.

Labor Day Treat

We were so grateful to have Kira, Neal's sister, and David, her husband, come visit for what seemed to be a very short Labor Day weekend.  They do not have children so I am sure it did not seem quite as short for them.

We mostly just hung out, ate out, and played.  We did get out to Fort Worth to tour the stockyards in the near 100 degree weather.  Luckily, we had a pool available to cool off in that afternoon.

They are just great people that are comfortable to be around and they even told me how to clean my front load washer without making me feel like a loser!  See?! Salt of the earth.

Anticipation

First day of school was a cinch. Tough part is waiting for the freshly baked cookies!

And They're Off...

Sophie took the lead by starting school a week earlier than Rhys. She is in first grade now.  She took some time to warm up to the idea of returning to school because all first graders do is "work the whole time." But by the time Meet the Teacher night rolled around she was in the right frame of mind.

Rhys is 4 years old and starting the preschool fours class at a new preschool.  His parents prayed and did a lot of investigating/observing to make sure Rhys got the best fit for his learning style.  He was excited about attending his new school and has had a great beginning.

We love our kids and are glad to see them have a good start.  We love our traditions that we are beginning with them--special, preparatory family home evenings, father's blessings, school shopping, baking cookies, and a celebratory dinner.  We know each year will bring it's own set of challenges for each of our children but we look forward to supporting them through their hard times and celebrating the successes!

Reunion

Keri was thrilled to find her cousin, Barbara, and her family were moving to TX, close by.  She had not seen them since Barbara and Chad's wedding 11 years ago.  After they got settled in we finally got together for dinner and our babies all got to meet each other.  Hope we can get together again soon.

Summer Means...

swim lessons. dinner on the patio. taking a trip. staying up a little later. sleeping in a little more.

muggy, sweaty morning runs. ice cream sundaes. camping. concerts in the park. summer reading programs. spray parks. smelling freshly cut grass.

thanking God for air conditioning. farmer's market. hearing my kids play...and fight. fireworks.

swimming at Oma's and Opa's. drinking lots of water. birthday fun. cooking with the kids. wearing sandals. sleeping with feet uncovered. volunteering as a family.

science experiments, barefoot walks. making Popsicles and frozen bananas. enforced quiet time. one dollar movie theater deals, pedicures. adventures with the kids.  sidewalk chalk. life!

North Park Center

How to beat the 100 + degree heat, meet up with friends, exercise, and take in a bit of culture? North Park Center Art Tour is the answer.  We met up with our friends, the Huffs, and went on a sort of art scavenger hunt/tour with our camera handy. Afterwards we treated ourselves to lunch at the food court and perusing the Disney Store. We missed a few pieces of are here and there but it was just the right amount for our kids and we had fun!

"The Fresh Maker"

We finally tried the Mentos in Diet Cola experiment to our delight!  It was even more spectacular, thanks to our friends, Kari and Carter, letting us use their spout made specifically for this fun.

Love the look on her face!

Playing Downtown

After our Pioneer Day celebration we wanted to continue the family fun and headed go downtown Dallas to catch a ride on the McKinney Trolley Cars.  We boarded the Green Dragon and experienced the 'turn about' at the end of the line, and were off.  The Green Dragon was built by the St. Louis Car Co. back in 1913 and was retired in 1956 when she was stripped of her running gear and wiring to become a hay barn in far North Dallas.

She was cleaned up and put into working condition in the late 1980s.  She didn't smell like a barn, thank goodness, when we rode her.

The trolley ride was fun and we saw a lot of downtown that had been recently revitalized. We stopped in the arts district and headed to Klyde Warren Park. This park is also a recent addition to downtown and is built over a heavily traveled freeway.  It's so quiet and pleasant at the park, you wouldn't even know it.

See the freeway?!

Klyde Warren Park has everything and we spent a couple hours there just taking it in.  By the way God sent us weather in the low 80s--in late July! Some clouds, a nice breeze--it was awesome!

We played on the playground, walked the paths, had snow cones, sushi, and ice cream, petted dogs, read the kids books in the reading area, played Connect Four from their game selection, and watched the kids get soaked in the spray park.  And we missed a lot of other recreational opportunities but it was time to head home.

"Rosie" is the car that took us back.  She is 103 years old, and was manufactured by J. G. Brill Company for export to Porto, Portugal.  She served there from 1909 to 1978. Then she made her way back to the States and ran in San Franciso for a short while before making her home Dallas.  Because of her age, she only runs when the other cars need back up, so we were lucky to enjoy our ride back on her.

The kids standing aside Rosie while the 'turn about' is in action.

It was a great day to stay unplugged to technology and plugged into our family!