Daddy time

Even though he had plenty of things to do/catch up on around here during his days off for the storm, we all enjoyed a little bonus Daddy time!

Harvey's Farewell

Mariana, Cecilia and I went for a walk yesterday evening as the skies finally started to clear from the storm. We were rewarded with some of nature's beauty!

Thank you, Hurricane Harvey...

for our new backyard pond to play in.

 

And if that gets boring, you can play in the street water with the neighbors!

Other happenings...

Mariana had her first Robotics club meeting as president this year.

Pawpaw generously bought Mariana some of the spiral leg ice skating pants that all of the experienced skaters wear. She was SO thrilled! She has made some huge improvements lately. I will have to get some videos to post soon.

 This little one has taken a few tiny "steps" crawling. But she is still pretty hesitant/cautious. I guess that is a good thing! ;)

Sweet smiles

Stephen is getting better at making this girl smile. She really loves grabbing his face and hair, and he willingly obliges just to get a smile or giggle out of her. So sweet!

And still trying to motivate her to crawl. She is so close!

First Day of School!

Mother Nature provided us with some great science for our first day of school. We enjoyed watching the eclipse...however we all decided it would be much more impressive if it were a total eclipse. We did wait in a long line at the library Saturday afternoon for the free glasses. I didn't realize until way too late that we had to have special eye wear to watch (duh, I know).

Last Days of Summer (sort of)

Summer in Texas doesn't really end until November, I think, but we are starting school.
So these are our last few days of coming home from the pool and playing board games on the living room floor!

 And we had our Marriage Group families  (sort of a summer tradition in our group) at our pool. The kids always love it when we get together as famillies!

Pawpaw time

Cecilia loves to explore Pawpaw's buttons (he always has them) and pockets which always have glasses and a cel phone. She has gone from crying when she sees Pawpaw and Manah (many months ago) to getting super excited when she sees them, so much so that I often can't get her to finish nursing if they come over!

Maybe a crawler?

Cecilia is looking like she will break our family streak of no crawling girls. She keeps getting on all fours and rocking or reaching to grab a toy and then pushing back to a sitting position. It's so fun to see her growing and changing...just wish we could slow it down a little. We're going to miss our sweet baby soon!

4 H Swim party

Our family attended the annual 4H swim party last night which is what our club does for it's first meeting each year. Allia didn't go because it was her first swim practice after a 2 week break and her first practice with her new group since she just moved up (YAY!!!). The rest of us had a great time.

4 H Awards Banquet

We attended the annual 4H awards banquet yesterday evening with the 3 older girls and Cecilia in tow. We were very proud of them, as all 3 won awards for their record books this year. Allia placed 1st in our County and 1st in District, Mariana 1st in County and 2nd in District, and Gloria placed 3rd in County (at her age they only compete in at the County level).

 

 

 This is how Mariana spent much of the day leading up to the banquet. Her Robotics club was decorating their table with structures from the original lego city that came out in the 1950's. They only had red, white and a few select other accent colors. She was in charge of the church, so we pitched in and helped her gather all of our red and white pieces to try and recreate it as closely as possible to the original. It turned out nicely!

Harmonica boy

Sebastian got out the musical instruments yesterday when we had some friends over for an early birthday lunch for Austin. He really likes the harmonica and was wanting to play this morning, but we had some late sleepers. I was encouraging him to play outside, and one of the older girls cleverly thought to ask him to play for the birds. So he happily started playing for various creatures on the back porch, dancing to his own music, and then coming in to tell us who he played for. It was pretty adorable!

2nd Tooth!

Cecilia cut her second tooth yesterday. She was fussy and wanting to be held a lot. Usually Mariana is quick to pick her up when she fusses, but Mariana AND Gloria were recovering from a cold (and therefore up in their room resting/watching netflix). So instead she kept wanting Allia and was even wanting to go to her from me! By the end of the day, Allia was begging other people to hold her. It was somewhat humorous, at least to me. ;)

And as if to be even more like Mariana than she already is, we keep finding her sleeping like this....Mariana was the other baby that did this regularly!

Such a happy girl most of the time!

Cake Show!

We had our annual baking craze for the 4 H cake show. We started some of the baking Sunday and finished baking and decorating Monday. It always makes me glad I am not a full time baker. Whew! The girls worked hard...Allia chose to do a chocolate sheet cake and cherry pie, Mariana made a 4-H cake and a pecan pie, and Gloria made a dairy free banana cake and an oreo truffle cake. They were all delicious!

 

This photo is actually from the Eagle online...she made it into the online newspaper!

 Gloria's banana cake won 2nd prize it its' division.

Reading and selfie

I just love family reading time...

And Cecilia's first selfie

Of course I took it, but we thought it was funny that by trying to steal my phone she made it look like she took the photo! I was actually trying to capture how her hair is getting really long around her ears and starting to curl. She looks like baby Pipi Longstocking!