Sea World

After our tour of the mission and San Antonio; Wayne and his family had to head back home to Utah. We stayed an extra day and went to Sea World. We figured it would be one of those things where we go and take the kids once and enjoy it. We got there shortly after the park opened and stayed until closing. The first thing we did was head for the water park. I went down the water slides with Anthony and Grant took Madeline and Spencer down the lazy river as well as the kid area. We played for a few minutes before it was time to head for the shows. The kids were a little unsure at first but once the whales started doing their tricks they were hooked and enjoyed every minute of it. After lunch and one show, the kids were starting to get hot so we found a splash area and splashed around their for a minute to cool off before the next show which was Azul, featuring the beluga whales. That show was my favorite especially when they had the acrobatic divers do their tricks. Those were the only shows that we were able to see, and so after that we toured the penguins, walked around a few gift shops so the kids could pick out their treasures with their money that they saved, and towards the end of the day we went over to feed the dolphins. Madeline was going to feed them, but when daddy picked her up so she could see he forgot to tell her what he was doing and she got scared thinking that he was going to throw her in the water with the dolphins; so that ended her feeding experience. Anthony enjoyed feeding them, and Spencer wanted nothing to do with the dolphins or their food. After looking around a little bit more, the kids were tired and done and so we headed back to the hotel a little sunburn and very tired. Sea World was a fun trip and something the kids were looking forward to doing all summer long. Grant and I went for our first anniversary so it was neat to go again ten years later and experience the fun through our children's eyes.

Lost Tooth

Anthony's tooth was really lose and just hanging there, but he would not let anyone pull it out. As his mother I could not look at him with a tooth hanging there, but despite my best efforts at encouraging him to pull the tooth out he would not budge. Anthony was perfectly content letting it hang their until the tooth itself fell out. I on the other hand visioned in my mind his tooth getting caught in some food and he accidently swallowing it. Anthony being the smart boy that he is saw a golden opportunity to negotiate with the tooth fairy on getting his tooth pulled. After a few minutes of going back and forth, the tooth fairy and Anthony finally reached an agreement (which will remain a secret) and with one easy pull from daddy the tooth was gone and Anthony became a little richer.

Royal Feast

Madeline's crown with her place setting; the place mat that I made for each child to remind them to be constant like the North Star; a view of the whole table with lanterns and all.

Another back to school tradition we have is the night before school starts we have a Royal Feast. This year my Mom, Jonathan, and Mr. Gates joined us for the festivities. With our Royal Feast, I bring out the fine china, make king and queen crowns for each of the children and decorate the table according to our theme. This year our theme was Let Your Light Shine, and we talked about how we can be an example to our teachers and friends at school this year. I chose to talk about President Hinckley's analogy of the North Star and to be constant like the North Star. I used the North Star as my decor around the room, from their place mats to the lanterns on the table. I tried to sprinkle the North Star wherever I could as a reminder to be a constant example to others. After our dinner which consisted of Hawaiian Haystack, we shared our testimonies and then Grant gave each child their back to school blessing. I always look forward to nights like this; it just sets the mood for going to back to school and I feel that I arm my children with words of wisdom that will help them throughout the year. The kids get excited too and love the special treatment they get on the night of their Royal Feast.

First Day of School

Anthony Third Grade; Madeline First Grade; Spencer Preschool

San Antonio

Our big summer vacation this year was down to San Antonio. Wayne and his family came for a few days and then together we caravan down to San Antonio so see Aunt Daphne and Uncle Gene and see the sites of San Antonio. The day we arrived in San Antonio we were thrust into the mayhem of what is known as rush hour traffic. After coming close to colliding with other cars as we tried to navigate our way through changing freeways we made it safely to our hotel. It was past dinner time and the kids were hungry, but I was in no mood to go out into that crazy traffic again so we ordered take out and Grant braved the traffic and brought dinner back to us safely where we enjoyed it in the comfort of our hotel room. The next morning found us leaving bright and early to head for the Alamo, where we walked around helping the kids complete the treasure hunt and where we also watch a brief movie about the Alamo. After our visit we walked a few blocks to the Riverwalk where we took a boat ride along the river. By that time it was getting pretty hot and our tummies were grumbling so we headed over to the food court for lunch. After lunch we bought tickets to go up a tall tower where we could see all of San Antonio from the observatory deck. I chose to spend my time by some table and chairs as I am not a fan of heights. Afterwards we zig zagged our way through downtown where we found the water gardens and the kids were able to cool off playing, splashing, and running through and around the sprayers. When we were all cooled off we hoped in the car to drive to San Juan Mission, when we got their Madeline and Spencer were asleep so I stayed in the car with them while Grant and Anthony joined the crew touring the mission. After all the tours it was time to eat and we were treated by Aunt Daphne and Uncle Gene to delicious Mexican food at one of their favorite Mexican Restaurant. After dinner, we headed back to their place where Grant and Wayne helped Uncle Gene with his airplane. By this time it was late and the kids were exhausted and gladly welcomed going to bed when we got back to the hotel. Though our visit was short, it was nice to see and spend time with family.

Visitors

A few weeks ago, Grant's brother Wayne and his family traveled from Utah down for a visit. About the same time Grant's parents came from Florida, and Grant's cousin Darrell and his family came from Oklahoma. For a few days my house was full of hustle and bustle; but I wouldn't have it any other way. Since it was August and in Texas that means hot, hot, and HOT so we had to get created in the activities that we did, which were mostly indoors. The day that everyone arrived we took them all over to the Omni Theatre (which is a big IMAX screen) and we saw Adreline Rush which was about sky diving; it was fun and enjoyed by all. On our way home we went by the spray fountains outside the museum and enjoyed an impromtu playtime with the fountain. The kids enjoyed getting soaked by the water and I am sure it felt good in the heat as well. The kids favorite was to wait for the fountain to shut off and then run over and stand over it and then wait again for the fountain to turn back on and get sprayed; they did that over and over I don't think they ever got bored of it. The next day we hurried off the local water park before it got too hot and too crowded and played their for a couple of hours. The kids had fun, especially Spencer. He had no fear with those water slides and enjoyed running around getting as wet as he could by all the water. Leaving was definitely hard, but we had to eat lunch and head over to the bowling alley where we met up with Darrell and his family for a game of bowling. The kids really enjoyed playing and cheering each other on. With the help of the bumpers the kids managed to get a few strikes, but Darrell was the lucky one with three strikes in a row. I don't remember who won in the other families, but Anthony came out ahead with Madeline a close second and good old Mommy came in last-even with the help of the bumpers I still cannot manage to get all the pins knocked down. After bowling it was dinner time and the highlight of the evening Nerf Gun Battle. After the Battle was conqured all the bullets found, those who wanted to stay up late did playing a Star Wars strategic game. It was definitely a busy day, but a lot of fun and lots of memories.

Wise Spencer

I caught Spencer one day playing with my glasses, couldn't resist snapping a few pictures before I told him clearly not to play with my glasses.

Poof!

One night Grant was making cookies with the kids and while Grant was putting the sugar away in the food storage closet, Spencer decided to do an experiment with the flour. He wanted to know what would happen if he got close to the flour and then blew as hard as he could, and the answer was.....POOF!

Back to School

In our house we have a tradition around back to school time. I take each kid out on a date and we pick out their school supplies, pick out an outfit to wear on the first day, and go out for a yummy treat. The kids really enjoy the one on one time as well as finding the supplies they need and crossing them off their list. I enjoy getting to know each child on a personal level and seeing their excitement for the upcoming school year as they buzz around the store finding the things they need.

Cabin Camping

Anthony, Jonathan (my brother), Spencer, and Madeline the cabin camping troopers.

Grant had a business trip during the first week of August and I thought it would be fun for the kids and I to do something exciting while Dad was out of town. The kids love to stay at hotels because you can watch cartoons with their cable tv and swim in the pool; but to me it seemed a waste of money. While brainstorming with Grant, camping came up. The idea was shot down due to the heat, but then I thought we could cabin camp. I decided to go out of my comfort zone and do something that I normally wouldn't do without Grant and packed up the kids and off we went cabin camping. Grant was surprised that I would do such a thing and I have to admit that I was surprised too; but I new the kids would enjoy it. The day before we were due to check in, we packed up the family and drove to the site so I would have a feel of the location while I had Grant available to help me with directions. I am glad we did, the location was awkward to get too, and finding parking and the exact location of our cabin took us a bit to find. Overall we had fun camping and the kids stayed busy with the activities that we brought. However, we won't go back to that cabin. It was dirty, small, and didn't offer family activities on site. I am glad that we went, but we are still looking for the perfect cabin away from the city.

One night we made our own lanterns using soup cans, a nail, and hammer. The kids had fun making their own designs and then we lit tea light candles in them and read stories by candlelight.

Before it got too hot outside we whipped up some sidewalk chalk paint and had fun painting the front porch of our cabin. The kids enjoyed painting each plank a different color of the rainbow; our front porch was covered with different sizes and kinds of rainbows.

Another big project we did was mosaic. I thought it would be fun to teach the kids how to do mosaic and I thought it would be fun for them to take home with them a souvenir of our cabin camping experience. This project was perfect to do during the heat of the day as it took a few hours to complete. The kids enjoyed making up their own designs with the tile and gluing each piece in its perfect place. Afterwards they all took their picture in front of the cabin for them to place in their frame.

Friday Night Fun

Sometimes the simple things in life are fun; like sleeping altogether on the couch bed. Life can't get much better than that!

Chalk Paint Fun

Continuing our quest to having a fun filled summer, we adventured out to the back yard for fun with side walk chalk paint-homemade style. With 2T of cornstarch, 2T of water, a few drops of food coloring, and a cup cake pan we have paint and hours of fun and creativity. We of course had to do our activity in the evening because of the heat advisory we are under. The heat is too hard on Madeline and can make her sick. We don't get out much during the summer months, but we sure come up with lots of fun things to do inside and thankfully it stays light well into the evening.

What a Quack

It's Jam Time!

I decided one afternoon to be brave and make jam with the kids. Strawberry jam is pretty easy and there are plenty of things the kids could do to help out. They cleaned the strawberries, cut the stems, took turns mashing the strawberries, and took turns stirring the strawberry goodness in the pot. When the goodness started to boil, Mommy took over from there. With there help we were able to make lots of Strawberry Jam that will last a while not to mention be delicious on our homemade rolls. Hopefully the kids are learning lots of new things, that will help them when they leave this nest.

Making Bread

Carrying on with our tradition this summer we combined our cooking activity and learning something new by learning how to make rolls. These rolls are absolutely delicious and the kids love them. Their favorite part was being able to mix the dough with their hands. While the rolls were cooking we whipped up some homemade butter. I think next we will use the roll dough to make some yummy cinnamon rolls, they should love sprinkling cinnamon and sugar. With the kids in charge could be some sweet cinnamon rolls.

An Unbirthday Party!

The kids wanted to throw a party, so we decided to have an "Unbirthday" party. Anthony and Madeline spent all week planning all the details including activities and food. After looking over their plans I did have to scale things back or we would be celebrating for a week. They wanted to set up the food like a restraunt where we order our food from a menu, and they then prepare the food a call out a number when our food was done. I decided to just go for it and prepare everything that was on their menu since I cut a lot out of the activities. After our food we played a good round of life game followed by movie night. It was a fun way to spend time as a family and has sparked a new interest in our family...party planning. I believe Madeline is planning her next party I think she told me it would be a music party. This time there will not be an extensive food selection.

A Trip to the Store

In keeping with teaching my children new things and good life skills, I took them to the grocery store for a lesson in grocery shopping. I divided my list among each child, they had their own basket to put their items in. They learn how to locate the items on the list making sure they selected the right one, and they learned how to find the best value. The kids had fun and it sure made what could have been a stressful situation a lot easier. I just might have to do this again.

Oklahoma Fun

For Fourth of July Weekend we headed up north to the great state of Oklahoma to see Grant's cousin's family (Darrell and Staci Bartholomew). They have kids about the same age as ours and for the whole weekend we never saw the kids for they were busy off playing together. We met them up at the Oklahoma City Zoo and were able to explore for about an hour before it closed. I have lived here essentially for my whole life and I have been to the Fort Worth Zoo so many times that it has lost its excitement, so it was neat to see another zoo and to explore the fun activities that they have; it was also nice that it was a lot smaller than the Fort Worth Zoo. After the zoo we embarked on Braums for dinner and some refreshing ice cream. All that happened on Friday. Saturday started out with rain and ended with rain, but that didn't hamper a fishing trip. Staci and I were smart and stayed home while the Dads and kids went out fishing. All the kids were able to catch at least one fish. This was Spencer's first time fishing and the report I got back was that he didn't know what to think when he saw the fish hanging from his hook, but the fact that he didn't hook anyone else or get is fishing line tangled with another line was amazing. They had so much fun fishing that they brought those beastly critters home to eat. I am all about catch and release, I believe sea food stays in the water and not in my tummy; lucky for us the fish never got fried up while we were there...darn. After dinner on Saturday we actually caught a break in the rain and went for a family bike ride, which was interesting to say the least. Spencer didn't understand why he had to stay to the side of the road, Madeline didn't know how to break going down the hill nor did she understand that you cannot watch your feet while riding your bike, and Anthony didn't like riding his bike at all. Through it all we made it to the lake and back in one piece, not all people in our party were happy but we all made it back alive. After being medicated with root beer floats we were ready to shoot off fireworks, which was amazing for Anthony because we live in the city we are not able to shoot off our own fireworks. Madeline hung out inside the house where it was quiet and shortly after Spencer joined her. Madeline will at least look at fireworks from a distance, but Spencer on the other covered his eyes and kept them that way. Anthony was in his element and for a couple of hours was having fun shooting off fireworks after fireworks. It was a good thing that we did our own fireworks because it rained on the fourth of July and we were left to watching fireworks on tv all the way from Washington D.C. It was a great show and best of all Spencer and Madeline both enjoyed them, not too loud and not too scary. A win win situation for all.

Now it wouldn't be a trip to Grant's cousin's house without playing some kind of strategic game, and Gene had one that was both up Grant and Anthony's alley. I don't remember the title but it was an old Star Wars game. Now the short time that we were there the boys managed to squeeze in a couple rounds of playing and Joseph and Anthony played a couple of rounds by themself. So we are now looking on e-bay for one of our own.

Overall the trip was fun and a nice get a way from our crazy life!

Toy Story 3

Well we are still in full throttle for summer activities and in trying to do things with the kids that they normally do not get to do and to accomodate the heat I thought going to the movie theatre would be a fun treat. In looking at the prices for tickets I realized that it would cost 50.00 for our family to go to the theatre. Well I don't know about you, but there is a lot I can think of doing for 50.00 then going to watch a movie. Then a light bulb went off and I realized that Grant gets discount tickets at work for the movie theatre, well with his discount it wasn't so bad, so off to go see Toy Story 3. When we went to redeem our vouchers for tickets we told the lady that we wanted the 8:00 show, in which to told us that there wasn't an 8:00 show. Grant tried telling her that online it said they had an 8:00 show and but she just told us that times on line are not always correct. She did tell us that there was a 7:30 showing so we took it, after we had our tickets we saw that she gave the 3-D showing. The ticket lady was looking at the 3-D schedule and not the regular theatre schedule. Grant was not about to stay there in line any longer arguing with the ticket lady so he gladly took the tickets. So we got an extra bonus of seeing Toy Story 3 in 3-D for a major discounted price.

The kids enjoyed the movie and were entertained and Spencer did good as long as he had is popcorn and drink. Madeline and Anthony wore their glasses the whole time which surprised me. I on the other thought the glasses were annoying and after a bit my head started to hurt from having to see through them, but with out them the screen was a big blur so I was stuck wearing them. 3-D movies are neat, but they fall in the category of once is enough.

Sweet Angel Madeline

I cannot believe that my Sweet Angel is now six. I cannot believe that six years has passed since her birth and the hectic month after. It has not been an easy six years for her and there have been times that she has struggled to stay alive, but in these six years she has triumphed over every trial and every struggle, and she has done it with dignity, grace, courage, and the most beautiful smile ever. Madeline has taught me what it means to be courageous, what it means to embrace your trials, and no matter what to always smile through every storm. I am honored to be her mother and to enjoy her sweet spirit each and every day. I am glad Heavenly Father saw something in me that I did not see in my self six years ago and sent Madeline to me. It is a joy to walk along side Madeline through the ups and through the downs. I can only imagine if my joy is full now, how much fuller it will be in the years ahead. I know it will not be an easy road ahead for Madeline, there are still a lot of unknowns, but what we do know is Madeline will continue to shine and bless the lives of those that she comes in contact with. Madeline is truly a blessing and a joy to have!

Now to get on with business. Madeline is not much for birthday parties, she loves to spend time with her family, especially daddy. Knowing this it sure made things easier in planing her special day. We started off the day with her favorite breakfast, spaghetti. Yep, you read that correctly, spaghetti. You see Madeline does not like any breakfast foods, so for breakfast she usually has some kind of pasta or left over dinner. Spaghetti is her favorite and she can and will eat it all day long (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks in between). Madeline was thrilled when she woke up in the morning to find spaghetti waiting for her. Around lunch time it was off to spend the afternoon with Mommy, while the boys played with friends. First, we went to Olive Garden for, you guessed it, spaghetti, then we went to toys r us for Madeline to pick out her birthday present from Grandpa Croft and Sharon, and then off to the party store for her to pick out her birthday balloon. Our kids get to pick out a balloon at the party store on their birthday. It doesn't cost a lot of money and it is like gold to them, guess I can't complain about that. After our date it was time to head home for dinner and I am sure it is hard to guess what we had, yep it was spaghetti and again Madeline couldn't be happier. After dinner it was time for cake, well cookie cake that is with butterflies decorated on top (you know I wasn't going to leave butterflies out). After all of the festivities there was still one more activity for Madeline to do, have a date with Daddy. Madeline chose to go to the community swimming pool and splash around with Daddy. Madeline had a lot of fun, and at the end of the day she was smiling from ear to ear; I think she felt like a true princess that day.