Hanging out at the airport

What do you do if you get to the airport (with four young children) and discover that the flight has been delayed by several hours? Rather than driving home through rush-hour traffic we decided to pass the time waiting with our guests.

Down time at the airport

Cheesy sketches

Chuck-E-Cheese

This is not my favorite place to go, but it was first on the kid's list of fun stuff to do while their cousin was visiting, so we went on the last day of their visit. Weekday mornings really aren't too bad. I really like the sketching booth.

Summer fun - paper snowball fight

While I had six kids to keep track of, I decided to borrow an idea from Lucas Cub scout Pack and have a paper snowball fight. I didn't want to waste paper, so we tore pages out of old magazines and wadded them up. Each side built a fort of boxes or couch cushions and stockpiled ammunition. Here's what the living room looked like before it started.

Paper ball fight - during

Paper snowball fight - after

Here's what the livingroom looked like when they were done. The kids even had fun burying each other in the box we used to collect all the paper balls afterward.

Craft - Felting

Lucas and Aurora worked on a felting project. First they took the seeds out of cotton and combed it. Then they twisted some of it into yarn and dyed it all with kool-aid. Here they're felting the colored fibers onto a natural-co lord background. Aurora finished hers, but Lucas broke his needle by rubbing it across the Styrofoam. Jamie started a day late and was trying to felt onto a napkin.

chalk dust

Some kids write with chalk... my kids prefer to grate it into "colored sand" and make mud pies out of it. Funny how they still turn out brown.

Backyard fun

Despite the heat, we spent several hours in the backyard with the cousins. Here were some of our favorite activities.

Sea World trip

My niece Aurora had never been to Sea World, so we went today. Despite the heat and uncomfortable shoes, we had a great time. We started with the Shamu kiddie roller-coaster (while Zachary played in the Happy Harbor splash pad), then we saw the sea lion show Canary Row Caper and a wildlife rescue movie in the 4-D theater (it was in 2-D, but the air-conditioning was nice). We waited in line 30 minute for Texas Splash Down, saw the penguins, and had a late lunch. We were too late to make the 2 pm Shamu show, but there was no line for the Rio Loco ride so Grandma and the kids rode that twice. Then we played in the Lost Lagoon water park for a few hours and saw the dolphin and beluga whale show Azul before heading home. Didn't take many pictures, but here's a few.

Sea World August 2010

Fun on the farm

On Thursday we spent the night at my sister's farm to watch the Perseid meteor shower. It was amazing, we all got up around 3 am and spent an hour watching shooting stars. We left by 9 am next morning, it gets hot fast! The kids enjoyed roasting marshmallows, finishing up our sparklers from July 4th, and playing with sticks.

The last picture is Zachary watching the birds (soon to be out on the farm) currently in Meemaw's backyard. I've been checking in on them while my parents have been traveling. Zachary is fascinated by them, but they're not so sure about him. One of the birds is a duck, the rest are guineas.

Day two

Our second day together was Grandma's birthday. Timmy and grandma made blueberry muffins for breakfast. We started the day with a trip to the bowling alley with some MOMS club friends. Then we met Doug for lunch at Red Robin. We took it easy in the afternoon, the big kids played games while the little ones napped. We made a birthday cake using the recipe from Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off. It was an interesting recipe, it didn't use eggs, but did use a combination of vinegar and baking soda for leavening. I didn't have any powdered sugar to make frosting, so we tried putting regular sugar in the blender to turn it into powdered sugar. It kinda worked, just a bit gritty. Made it memorable!

After dinner we went to a baseball game, and ran into two families from Lucas's Cub Scout Den and another family from our church. Small world! The kids tried the climbing wall and enjoyed the bouncy house. For awhile the four of them had it to themselves. Zachary climbed all the way to the top of the slide on the playground and came down with his brothers. Now that he can walk he's going everywhere!

Florida Visitors day two

Visitors

My Mother-in-law from Florida like to come visit us for her birthday. The kids are enjoying the time with their cousin Aurora too. Our first day together, we got up early to go Jet-skiing with Lucy, then we met up with our Regina Mater friends at Brentwood park for a picnic lunch. It was getting hot, so we came home and cooled off in the backyard with the slip-n-slide, read books, and played Wii in the afternoon.

Florida Visitors Day One

Waco Museum

15 kids + 4 adults + Lego museum exhibit = a full day of fun!

Mayborn Lego exhibit

cup towers

We have a lot of plastic cups, so we decided to build with them.

sequence of events

I admit it, my house is a mess, but we've been having fun this summer!

Saxophone

Since I (briefly) had possesion of my saxophone, I thought we'd try playing it. It still works just fine, but I think the boys will need to grow into it a bit more. Too bad I don't have a soprano sax!

Regina Mater pool party

We had a great time seeing many of our Regina Mater friends Saturday at a pot-luck pool party. I didn't take pictures at the pool, but Lucas went off the high dive several times, and I tried it to! It was late, 8-10 pm, but we were having so much fun we stayed until they closed. There were lots of babies, and older kids too!