in the past 30 days: birthday celebrations

Our girlie turned 8 this month, and we had lots of fun celebration! It started the week before her birthday, with a trip to the "American Girl" store to have her doll, Molly's ears pierced. We surprised K. by letting her get her own ears pierced that day too!

Then on her actual birthday, we had dinner with both sets of grandparents, with cake, ice-cream and presents:

 And finally, about a week later, we had three of her best friends over for a sleep-over party!

 These are sun-catchers we made from melting pony beads, a great craft for the morning after the sleep-over!

I think everyone would agree it was a good birthday!

family summer adventure: rodeo and patriotic fun

This past weekend's adventure was a trip up to River Valley Ranch, a Christian camp up near the Maryland line in Manchester, MD. They were having an early Independence Day celebration amd it looked like the best time to catch fireworks with the kids (as I will work early on July 5th and won't want to be out too late on the 4th). What a fun afternoon and evening we had!

The craziest thing that happened the whole day was that as we pulled in, who should pull in two cars behind us but a family that has been one of our very best friends for the past 10 years. We had no idea they were coming, and after an hour-plus drive, how funny to pull in together out of all the thousand of people there! It was great to spend our time together for the day.

at the Rodeo- with our friends boys in cowboy hats on the left!

We arrived just as the Rodeo was starting and it was fun to see the various events from bull riding to steer-wrestling (called Chute Dogging) to a crazy form of musical chairs performed on horseback, and rodeo clown stunts with exploding watermelon. We would have stayed for the whole thing but it. was. HOT.

So off we went to the "Chuckwagon" barbecue dinner under the trees, followed by letting the kids splash around in the creek that winds its way through the property.  My miniature engineer boy immediately found a group of kids building a dam across the creek, and jumped right in to help. Girlie got involved too, and they all had a great time until they were turning into little blue popsicles from the cold water.

dam engineering

There was a nice patriotic concert by the Westminster Municipal Band, and then finally--finally! It was time for the fireworks. It was a good show! The kids had seen fireworks before at Disney (in Jan 2011) and a couple other times but didn't really remember them, so they were thrilled to see the beautiful show "up close". Their mom was pretty thrilled too...nothing beats watching fireworks from a lawn chair in the beautiful outdoors. The clouds were pretty impressive too as storms skirted us on several sides but never came too close.

And thus ends a long but fun family adventure. One of my common themes for this summer so far is my kids both asleep in the back seat of the car as we travel home from our various days of fun. Its a good way to end a day.

crazy kids with glowsticks!

Happy summer adventuring, everyone! And happy Independence day!

pool fun and friends

This has been a great year for the pool! The kids are old enough that they are both swimming well enough to be in without an adult right next to them...allowing me to sit under the umbrella and take lots of pictures! We've had friends and lots of fun.

And, just because, here is a silly picture of the boy and his buddy being, well, just silly:

monster trucks invade baltimore!

(subtitle: How to make a 5-year-old boy really happy)

When the boy turned five last month, we decided to skip the traditional kid party at home (which may or may not have been decided when mom couldn't come up with adequate enthusiasm for a "Cowboy party". Not sayin'. But it might have something to do with that.). Instead in a moment of inspiration, I suggested we take a couple friends to see Monster Jam when it came to town. Thankfully (!) that idea was met with great enthusiasm. And today was the day!

The day actually started on Friday, when there were several "celebrity appearances" around town and hubby, Papa and the kids got to go see "Max-D" up close and personal at the local Wal-Mart, and came home with autographed photos and a lot more excitement for today.

Then today we met up with two families with boys who are friends with ours, and had a blast watching all the great monster trucks!  "Max-D" remained the boy's favorite, while my girlie cheered on "Madusa" (with her female driver), and others cheered for Grave Digger, Spider Man, Higher Education, Captain's Curse, Crustation, or the Grinder. It was really loud. It was silly. It was so much fun. And it was perfect for a five-year-old celebrating his birthday.

Hopefully I will be back blogging here more frequently, again, friends! February saw me fighting off minor illness that just dragged on and on and I just had no energy...not to do fun activities or crafts, not to take lots of fun photos, not to blog. Thankfully, I think its all behind us now...and spring is coming!!!

summer wrap-up, part 3

Our last big outing of this summer vacation was on Thursday, when we went into D.C. with some of our best friends. These kids have been friends since they were tiny, and I love that they are just as close today as ever:

These are our "stair steps": ages 4, 5, 6, and 7!

We went to the Native American museum, which our friends hadn't seen. They have such a fabulous kids area, I think that they would have been happy to play there all day!

kayaking...

on a buffalo skin rug at storytime...

 Enjoying rainbow light from prisms, drumming, and a great view of the U.S. Capitol dome from the 3rd floor windows...

 We had lunch over at Air and Space, and saw some of their exhibits. There was a great new exhibit of art depicting U.S. Marine Corps Aviation, celebrating 100 years this year. And the kids always enjoy looking at the rockets and the Wright Brothers airplane. The pictures all came out a little too dark, though. So you will just have to use your imagination.

 And of course we made time for ice-cream treats before we headed home on the Metro:

One of my favorite days all summer. Nice to spend it with such wonderful friends!