Fort Worth Fun

Summer has gone by SO fast. I realized that I hadn't been up to Fort Worth at all, so we had to squeeze a quick trip in before summer was truly over. We went up on a Thursday morning, and we went right to NRH2O. Dad and Brandon went with us, and we had so much fun! We only stayed for about 4 hours, but we could have stayed all day. They had one of the funnest water slides that I had ever been on in my life there. It's in the background of the picture of Dad and the girls. We rode it at least 4 times! The funniest part of the day was that we could get Brooke on a tube ride that she loved. It was a pretty high slide, at least 4 stories up, and she sat in the front of a double tube with me. Her booty was too little, and she would slide all the way down, so she had to sit up on the edge. She loved it! We literally rode that thing at least 10 times. Every single time down she would yell, "This is so crazy!!!!" My little daredevil! We had such a fun time, and I was really glad Brandon was there to help so we could ride some of the big rides a lot easier.

We had to stop in at Old South Pancakes House for breakfast, and Brooke was so excited about her Texas waffle! What other state has a waffle shape?

We decided to hit up the mall (my least favorite place) in hopes to find a couple dresses for Hannah's wedding in Michigan. The girls were pretty good, and Pops was very patient while us girls shopped and shopped.

We didn't find very good wedding dresses, but the girls loved their new Descendants sweatshirts (which we did actually use in Michigan)!

Coco loves having new laps to sit on and snuggle! She usually hides during the chaos of the day, but she always comes out at night.

On Saturday morning, the Mastersons invited us to the Kimball Museum. They have a drop in session for kids, and we had so much fun! These first few pictures are in a little play area that they have. When the session started, we went into the museum and looked at two paintings. The moderators talked about different aspects of the paintings like texture, color, and style. Both Adilyn and Kacy were very in to answering and asking questions. After that we went back to the studio, and the kids could decorate pictures of themselves. They were supposed to make themselves a costume. Brooke made the best and most-filled up collage ever, Kacy and Adilyn took a little more time. The final products were amazing!

Later that night, we met my friend Lindsay for dinner and we went to a star party at the museum. It was pretty cool, and we saw Saturn, Jupiter, and the moon in different telescopes. It was great to see Lindsay, and we loved looking at the planets!

Our last outing was meeting Mom and Greg at Ihop for breakfast. She brought the girls little fans, and we had a great breakfast to fill us up before we headed home. Another great trip "up north" :)

Dork Diaries

I bought Adilyn the first Dork Diaries book, because I thought it would be something she would like. I can't get her to read a "real" book yet. She gets bored with all the words. :) These Dork Diaries are written in journal entries with some drawings and some doodles. She loved it! So, then she got on a mission to read all 9 of them this summer. They are apparently pretty popular, so we had to request them from the library. It's been so cute seeing her get all excited about reading. Every time we would get an email that one was waiting for her, she always wanted to rush right up and pick it up. One time I even took one away from her because she had a major fit one day. You would have thought that I took away a million dollars or something! I love that she likes to read, and I know one day we will be sharing book titles as adults like Mom and I do now. A family of bookworms - love it!

The "Talk"

I am usually very honest with my girls about body things. They already kinda know about periods, why girls shave their legs, and how babies come out. I had pretty much answered them honestly about everything, and usually I get an "eww" or "yuck" when they learn their new found information. Sometimes I'm pretty sure they wished they would have never asked! Anytime they asked about where babies came from, I usually just said that God put them there and that was usually enough. The other day, they asked a little more detail. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to say when the time came, but I figured I would just wing it :)
Of course, I didn't get too terribly graphic. I just talked about girl parts and boy parts and how they go together, and sometimes a baby is made. They were pretty quiet, and then Kacy piped up, "I mean, I want kids, but I do NOT wanna do that! Can you just do it once?" Hilarious! Adilyn was just embarrassed, and she didn't say anything. It was pretty funny!
A couple weeks later, Kacy made some comment about being willing to "share" her privates. I was like, "What?!? Wait - hold on a minute!" So, we had to have another discussion about when it's okay and appropriate to "share" her "virginia" (as she calls it). I am sure there will be many more discussions about sex in the future, but I am glad that I am comfortable talking about everything. I sure hope it makes them more comfortable coming to me with their issues later.

La Torretta - Year 2

We took the girls to La Torretta again this year because Mom found a great deal on Living Social, so we decided to go for a night. The girls love it there! They can ride the water slides alone, and Brooke loves the lazy river. It's all pretty small and easy to get around, so it makes it pretty easy for us to watch them and let them do a few things on their own. We had a great time playing in the water, and we ended up eating dinner at the little restaurant there. After dinner, they had a s'more roasting party by the lake. We roasted marshmallows and played in the lake for another couple hours. The next day we got up and had breakfast at our favorite little breakfast place, then went back to play some more. We stayed a lot longer than we thought we would, and stayed until about 5pm. Another great mini vacation :)

Beach camping - my favorite!!!

I love the beach, and I love camping! So, camping in at Galveston Island State Park is pretty much my favorite things combined! It's really hard to get sites there, so I actually booked this weekend way back in January. Cory ended up having to do a lot of work, and he wasn't even sure that he could go at all. I was super disappointed, but I decided right then that I was going to go no matter what. I knew that I could do everything myself, if I wanted to. I was really worried about backing it up, but I practiced the night before in the school parking lot. I felt like a big dork, but I got much better. I knew that I could do it! By Friday, it seemed obvious that Cory was going to be able to come out late that night. I decided that I still wanted to go early, so the girls and I headed out. We got a perfect site around 1pm, I backed it right in (well, after a few tries), and started popping everything up. It was hot and sweaty, and I had a little trouble in a few spots, but I did it! I was seriously so proud of myself. I know it's a little thing, but I was still super happy that I could do it alone. The girls were really cute, and they were proud of me, too.
After all that work, we hung out in the air conditioning and ate some lunch. Finally, we went down to the beach to play! There was a family down there with two kids, and they immediately came over and started talking to us. That always bugs me, but Adilyn buddied up with the girl pretty quick. Kacy was a little bummed because she went off and played with this new girl, but she still had fun with Brooke and I. We played for hours, and it was finally time to go into town and get some dinner. Cory got in right about bed time, and once again we were a family of 5.
Saturday, we got up pretty slow and headed down to the beach for the day. The highlight of the day was winning "Tallest Castle" in the sand castle contest. We had seen that they had a contest when we had checked in. I thought they might forget about it, but they surely did not! They both wanted to enter, and I was a little worried that it might be actual good people, but thank goodness it wasn't. Adilyn and Kacy were both pretty serious about the whole thing. Kacy even practiced before it started, and all the girls collected seashells for decor. They worked really hard creating "Henderson's Sweet Shop" - we had seashell gumballs, a sand dollar cake, ice cream cones, and a lot of decorations. I was really hoping that we would win "Most Creative", but at least we won one of the major categories, and the girls were really proud. It was pretty cute! We spent the rest of the day in the sand and the water. Cory fished with the girls out in the surf for a little bit. After we were worn out, we went to get some pizza for dinner, then came back for one last sunset walk on the beach and some crab hunting. It wasn't Gulf Shores, but it was better than nothing :)

Technology these days...

Sure the iPhones, Netflix, and other stuff is amazing to keep kids entertained, but sometimes something comes along that truly amazes me! I got Kacy a ColorAlive coloring book for her birthday. I didn't even know what it was going to do, but it is super cool! You color a page, put your phone up to it, the app turns what you colored into a 4D picture. It's like Barbie is right in our living room. The girls thinks it's cool, but I think it's absolutely amazing!

4th of July Fun

We started the day with an early morning neighborhood parade with the Hrobars. Notice the sleepy eyes! We definitely walked longer than the actual parade lasted, but it was still fun. The kids saw some friends from school, and we had fun watching the cars and catching the candy.

 For the last couple years, we have spent July 4th with the Griffins. Now that they are gone, we were lost without them...we kind of just hung around the house and watched TV and played in the pool. We were pathetic! Cory barbequed, and after dinner we went into Tomball to watch the fireworks show. It was the closest that we had ever been to a real fireworks. The girls were bored while they were waiting for "hours", but once it started they loved it! We still missed our Griffins, for sure!