The Rest of our 4th Celebrations

After the parade we headed back to my parents' house and had a barbeque lunch. During lunch, my little nephew Adrik decided he would take his first steps! Then after lunch we pulled out a little splash pad for some water fun. My brother-in-law and I spent about 15 minutes setting up the splash pad (he did most of the work). Then the kids had a blast in it for all of 5 minutes! Ha!!

Adrik and Mig:

All that partying really wore PopPop out! 

We had planned on going to the city's firework show, but it didn't start until 9:00pm - WAY past my kiddos bedtime. I'm not sure it would have been fun for anyone! Instead, we broke out some glow sticks, made glow drinks and ate patriotic popcorn the kids and I made the day before while watching the PBS firework show on TV! PopPop loved this idea - mainly because we got to sit in the air conditioning in our pjs to see them!

It was a super fun day and a great way to celebrate our independance!

Belton's 4th of July Parade

We have had a fun, but BUSY summer!! I have a lot of catching up on the blog to do! I am going to make a bunch of seperate posts on here from our Belton trip this week and then I think I will be caught up. I am starting with the Fourth of July Parade. We met Papa Serna and the Froese's  in front of the court house, dressed in Red, White and Blue to see Belton's annual 4th of July Parade.

We even knew a few of the participants!! Here is Jeremiah marching with the Belton Marching 100....he's  the one just left of the center of the picture.

 AND it was also Jonathan's first time marching with the band! (Again, just left of the center of the picture.) 

Selah LOVES Jacob! She sat in his lap nearly the entire parade!

Mig and Auntie Nicol:

Gabe got kind of bored of the parade after awhile, but it didn't keep him from being super patriotic!

Mig, on the other hand loved the parade! He waved his little flag and screamed and shouted at every parade entry. He especially loved the tractors and big trucks!

Selah with Papa Serna and Ana:

It was hot, but we had a great time and made lots of fun memories!

Celebrating Cow Appreciation Day!

Today is Chick-fil-A's Cow Appreciation day! The great thing about this is that when you go to Chick-fil-A dressed as a cow you get free food! And I am not talking about some skimpy freebie - you can order ANYTHING off the menu and not pay a cent!

Our family loves to dress-up as a cow and get our free Chick-fil-A each year and now you can dress up, too!

I have put a mask template up on Google Docs to share with anyone who needs a cow costume. This is so easy! All you have to do is print this template on cardstock:

Cow Mask

You can also get free printables straight from Chick-fil-A HERE. This is where I got our signs last year.

Cut around it, and cut out the eye holes. Color the "nose" pink or make an extra template to trace the nose onto pink paper and paste to the template. Attach a string, or what I like to do is get a few old sunglasses (or 3D movie glasses), punch out the lenses and hot glue the mask to the glasses. The great thing about that method is that they are easy for the kids to put on and take off and you can wear them on your head and still look cute!

Now go get you some free chicken sandwiches!! 

The Greats!

Two days after our last day of school, the kids and I headed down to Belton for a week of extended family time!

There will be many, many more pictures to come of our time in Belton - we had tons of fun - but for now I just wanted to share this picture of Memaw and Papaw with my kiddos and thier cousins. I really wanted to spend some quality time with Memaw and Papaw during the week, and we were able to do just that!

In case you were wondering which baby is which, from left to right it is Gabe, Papaw holding Tali, Charli Kate, Memaw, Adrik, Selah and Mig.



Our End of Year Celebration!

June 27th was our last day of homeschool for the 2011-2012 year! We homeschool August through June with one week off per month. In June we only do school 3 days a week, then we take the entire month of July off. The kids accomplished so much this year and I am so proud of the work we have all done! We had a big party to celebrate the end of they year.

We turned our front room into a homeschool gallery by hanging up and displaying art projects, writing samples, and other work we did during the year.

During the school day we worked on our memory books. We use these freebies from Confessions of a Homeschooler. (I LOVE her site!)



I also set out all of Gabriel's notebooks. For almost everything we do, Gabe makes a notebook page with a narration. It was so much fun to look at all of the pages he made throughout the year!

We ordered pizza for dinner and had a family presentation time. I asked both Gabe and Selah to think of something to do to show what they have learned this year. Selah chose to read a book:

When she was finished, our "principal", Daddy, presented her with her Certificate of Promotion to Kindergarten!

Gabe decided to sing two of the Seed's Family Worship Bible Verses we learned - and Mig helped!



Gabe was also presented a Certificate of Promotion to the Second Grade!

We had an outstanding school year! I am excited about what the next year will bring!

Happy 4th Birthday, Selah!

It is so hard to believe that four years ago today we welcomed our precious Selah into our family. She is the sweet creamy center of our oreo cookie! The only girl surrounded by brothers. She is sweetness and sunshine with a little spunk! Happy Birthday, Selah! We love you!

Family Portrait Time!

Byron has been wanting to update his family pictures at work and we finally got a chance to take some family (self) portraits. I love the way these turned out. I have already printed a lot of them out and they look fantastic! These were taken in our backyard. The ivy growing on the wall is so pretty, I knew it would make a great background for our portraits.