Pics from my Phone

Lately I have noticed how I tend to take pictures with my cellphone more than with my camera, kind of sad but it is so convenient and plus I can decorate them ha ha. I have been trying to save them on my computer straight from FB since that's where I send them all to anyways so here is a collection from the last couple of months.

We signed up the kids for the half price book store reading program and they get each a $5.00 coupon each month for their minutes they read.  The cashier was confused and didn't know what to do because they passed their 300 minute (which is the requirement).  My kids are bookworms.

 And here they are getting their stuff with their coupons and reading at home.

 We started off the summer with our chore charts... we need to get back on track now but it really does help a lot.

 Rainy day= the kids jumping on the trampoline.

 I like to save money when it comes to expensive stuff, like my detergent.

 We made pizza pinwheels with the kids one night and they loved it.

 how do you beat the heat?  with home made smoothies of course.

 Also a trip to the pool.

 I wish I had taken a picture of what this looked like before I fixed it.  I went to my car after shopping at Walmart and discovered a bunch of idiots decided to use my parking spot as the cart corral, i had to move all the carts you see in the pic from the back of my car they were completely blocking my way out... idiots!!!

 My littles and me at the pool and Shayna below being, well Shayna.  She hates pictures now.

 How we do chores around here, don't mess with him....

 Home made doughnuts!!!  they were really good.

 Shayna and I at the Beehive retreat this year.

 Aaron being like daddy and trying to do some pull up.s

 Shayna has been working on a value blanket for a Young Women's project, she designed the whole thing.

 Shayna and I with our new Tshirts, she like Doctor Who (who??) and I like the Bing Bang Theory... too funny.

 Dan and I on our date last month :)
Fun times for sure!!!

Grandma Brown comes to Town.

About two weeks ago Grandma Brown flew all the way to Houston from VA and spent one week with the other Browns then a week with us or almost a whole week.  The day she came in Dan took a couple of the kids over to Steven's house to say hi, I had to stay home to wait for Tristan to be delivered from Cub Scout Day Camp and also was entertaining a couple of the YW from the ward so I could not leave home.
We patiently waited for our turn to come and have grandma over for a few days.  The kids were so excited and Victor happily gave up his room to have Grandma stay there and he went to the office.  He practically moved in with his Legos, books and many other things.  We picked her up on Wednesday so she could spend the night with us and the plan was for her to go with Steven and Amber to downtown for the 4th of July.  We felt we needed to have her come over that night and try to spend as much time with her as possible and we are glad we did.  We had to go over to the church for mutual for a little while but then we went straight home and had a nice visit with her chatting and also watching some TV with her, she always loves to see what new show we are watching or what movies are new to our collection, that's something Dan and her have in common, they love TV shows and movies :)
The next morning we had planned on going out to eat breakfast with her but our first option was opening late so we ended up going to Denny's instead and so did the rest of the town is seemed.  The place was packed but it was worth waiting a little bit, the food was as usual very good.  We took pictures with my phone so I don't have to share on here.

Shayna as always being helpful with Kahlan.

Grandma at Denny's (this pics were taken with my cellphone...)



After "brunch" we went back home to wait for her to be picked up and off she went.  We stayed home this year for different reasons, I know it would have been fun to hang out all together with Grandma but we know our limitations and how our kids do in hot, crowded spaces and since miss Kahlan is like the Energizer bunny, neither Dan or me wanted to spend the whole time chasing after her in such a crazy place.  I am dying to go back to Houston to see the fireworks but we will wait until she settles down a little bit more.  Last year we went to Kingwood and that was insane, the kids complained the entire time about how hot it was and we literally melted over there.  We still managed to have fun, we had some yummy food, made patriotic cupcakes and then went out to play with sparklers.  The kids got to watch the neighbors fireworks and Kahlan as expected freaked out the entire time which made us feel our decision of staying home was a good one.  Grandma came back really late but it gave me the chance to clean the carpet in the living room since it got some blue icing on it and it had to be cleaned right away.  The rest of the time we spent mostly just hanging out, having a good time. Saturday morning we went to the movies with her and took Victor along to watch "The Lone Ranger", which was entertaining but I am seriously tired of all the computer animation in the movies these days, I wish they woulds just do movies the old fashion way when things were still believable....
it was a fun movie in the end.  After coming back we took Grandma to the Lake Houston trading days which was about 3 minutes from our house, it used to be set up as a flee market but now has a fancier look.  It is indoors and the items they sell are more expensive.  It was still fun walking around.  Sunday we went to church and had a nice afternoon, I took a nap while the rest of the family watched a movie together.
On Monday we took her to the Harris County Mounted Police place to feed the horses which is something she had not done before, the kids had fun and I think she was impressed with the place.  She treated the kids to McDonalds on the way home and spend the rest of the day hanging out.  She also offered for Shayna and me to go shopping for a little while so we could spend some quality time together and that was unexpected and nice.  Later on Shayna babysat for us while Mom took us out for dinner, we went to a Chinese Buffet that we all like a lot, stuffed ourselves silly and then went home.

(I will always remember this pic, this lady is so into her hair and takes such good care of it, never leaves the house without her cap, so cute)

It was a very nice visit and I am glad Dan got to hang out with her mom a little bit, I am glad the kids got to make some more memories with her, specially the little walks they took every morning.  I can see how Mom has changed since the last time we saw her but she still stands strong and keeps moving, that is something I admire in her.  It was so sad to say goodbye and before she left she said the nicest things to me.  I know she loves me and I love her, really hope that she felt welcomed into our home and that she felt loved by our little family.  I hope it wont be long before we see her again.


One of the best moments for me, her taking the time to read with Aaron, she was very happy to sit with him for a while.

I made a promise to take pics with the family members that come to visit my family.  Too many regrets of not having enough pictures with them!!

The kids and Grandma B.

Pioneer Clothing.

A while back my sister in law Tashia called me up and asked if I would be willing to sew the pioneer clothing  her daughter Savannah had to wear to the Trek.  I was so excited to do it because I have had this patter in my collection for a long time and wanted to use it but never got around to do it.  Long story short, after working on it for about 2 or 3 months, it took that long only because things kept getting in the way but it was finally finished.  I sent it out on a Friday and she got it the next Monday.  They called me all excited to let me know that it was perfect, right size, length and everything.
Now can I just say that holy cow pioneer clothing is so incredibly expensive.... I visited a few websites to see what the best style for the fabric would be, what not to do and to stay as real to the pioneer thing as possible.  I found a site that did just one dress for $150.00.... crazy!!!
I ended up doing one dress, an apron, a bonnet, bloomers, one skirt and one top.  I am really happy with how they turned out but mostly happy that they liked it so much.  Shayna was my model for the outfits because I really wanted to see what they looked like on somebody once they were gone.  Since Savannah is way taller than Shayna we sued a stool for her for the pics....
This was a very exciting project to work on.

 So the pattern for the bloomers was kind of funny.... I tried to find something that was as close as what they actually wore back then but they hand an opening in the back, I ended up twiking the pattern some and closing up the back but I had to used an elastic waistband instead which makes it a little bit bulky in the end but it solves the problem of having a giant opening back there...

 Here is the top and skirt, they were not pioneer patterns but I found some cute patterns on sale and I adjust the skirt one so it would have enough fabric to have that look and the top was perfect with the short sleeves. I am sure they didn't use the short sleeve that much but Tashia thought it wold be better since it gets really hot and I have seen some of the trek kids wearing short sleeves too.

 Here is the outfit all together with the apron and bonnet.

 And last but not least my favorite item, the dress.  It was so cute.  Apparently the pattern I had was used and it was old so when they cut it it was for a size 8 and I needed something smaller, again some adjusting had to be done but I had her measurements and just kept going back to them often.  The collar was not even matching the neckline so I had to create a new pattern piece for it and that was a new experience for me.  I was about to give up and go buy a new pattern but I made it work. The bonnet is awesome.

 I added a couple of buttons to the top to make it look cuter :)

Summer time!

School is out, is hot outside.... yeah it is summer time!  We have been enjoying our lazy days so far, well not so much other than we get to get up a little later than usual but we have been busy busy busy.
As soon as our summer started we already had stuff planned for Shayna and Tristan, she had to go to girls camp two weeks ago and it was for 3 days, somehow I got involved into coming to the "Beehive Retreat" (they didn't have real camp this year because the older kids are going to Navoo) to teach a sewing class, I had no ideas what was in store but I signed up anyways because I wanted to help and they couldn't find people to come do it.  So I signed up for two long days, since Dan could not get days off work I found a couple of wonderful ladies to help me those two days and they watched all 4 of my kids for about 5 or 6 hours.  I am so grateful to them for their help and still need to bake some goodies to bring them over.
So the sewing lessons were schedule to last one hour and thirty minutes which was crazy because the project lasted about 30 minutes all together but I got to meet some wonderful sisters that are in our stake and they are wonderful people. I also had a little bit of a trial during the second day but I will blog about it another time.
I got to see Shayna and the rest of the beehives there, it was fun to spend some time together with Shayna at camp.  The second day went a little faster and I got to eat lunch with my Shayna and her friends, didn't  bring my camera because I thought Shayna would be embarrased but I did manged to take a pic with my phone... took some convincing buty it worked.
Anyways that was the second week of June, last week it was Tristan's turn and he went for the first time to the Day Camp for CubScouts, no I didn not sign up to be a volunteer but I did end up driving one of his friends the three days that they went and his mom drove them back home the three nights so that was really nice.  His older sister came and spent two days with us while his brother was at camp and Shayna had a blast hanging out with her, we took her to the pool and had dinner together.  The last day another one of her friends joined in the fun and Shayna was in heaven.
And now we are getting ready to recive Grandma Brown who will be spending a whole week with us starting Wednesday.  the kids are really excited to see her and spend time together.  We area planning on taking her to some parks close by, to feed the police horses, maybe to the movies and watching movies at home but mostly just hang out.  It will be fun.
So far we have been able to go to the pool regularly and it is really nice to see Kahlan getting a little bit more brave in thew ater, this year the boys are getting braver in the water too. We have been working on little projects and big projects, reading books, watching our favorite shows and just bonding time with each other.  Of course they drive eahc other nusts and me too, sometimes I go hide in my room so I can keep my sanity.
I feel so much happier this year because last summer was kind of a bummer after my surgery and we didn't get to do a lot.  My goal is always to make the kids happy and I think we are doing a good job so far.  Stay tuned, who knows what adventures we will have.

 

 Shayna at camp with her friends.

 Tristan working on his bucket to take to day camp.

 Shayna did a little picture on it for him.

 On the way to day camp, three fun days for him!!!

 Playing with the Playmobile guys.