Haylie Baylie's 7th Birthday

 My Sweet niece Haylie turned 7 this week and we got to celebrate her on Saturday!  It was a great pool party with family and friends!  She asked me to make cupcakes and wanted them to be Star Wars themed...specifically Star Wars Rebels.  I made a Princess Leia cupcake with buns on the frosting, a yoda cupcake with yoda ears and green frosting, and a Sabine (from Star Wars Rebels) cupcake with crazy colored frosting hair and a spray paint can.  We had a lot of fun and once again I am reminded how blessed I am to live near family and be able to be a part of not just the big days, but the everyday as well!  Haylie asked me today today to call her Haylie Baylie Borghese when she is with our family...I love that chickadee!!

Summer Week 2

Here is a look at week 2 of our summer....It has been busy and I am looking forward to that mythical part of the summer where I get to actually slow down and rest and refresh....I am hoping it exists!!

All of our record rainfall made our lawn a little too happy...the grass went from a normal length to taller than our dogs in a very short timespan!  It took a while to hack through this...

...and luckily for me the Houston heat has kicked in in full force!  I had to take a couple breaks to get the whole front and back yards done and consumed quite a bit of water and gatorade!

A while back I got my nephew Jeremiah a set of KEVA planks.   It was the contraption set and has directions for building contraptions that you drop a ball through.  They are pretty cool!  The other night, Shonda fed us after a long day of VBS prep and my girls built this contraption.  IT was pretty awesome...you let the ball roll down the ramp on the right and it bounces off the platform in the middle and into the cone on the left and out the slide.   I tried to get a video after first time but stuff got knocked over and that was that!

On Thursday evening we watched the Virgadamo crew and while they were over I pulled out Olivia's tooth!  To get even with me, Amanda pulled out MK's tooth!  

We started with a chore and reward app this week.  The girls have the app on their tablets and I can add chores and they get points for the chores they do and lose points if they don't get them done when they are supposed to, and they can cash in their points for rewards like sleep overs and other fun things!  So far the dogs have been more well fed than ever in their lives!

Ben made a friend with Uncle Mike when we were watching him Thursday!  

As I said before we have been prepping for VBS all last week.  It starts tonight and it should be awesome!  Here are some pics from mid decorating.  We are using Orange's curriculum and love it!

Last Saturday was Bria's dance recital.  She does ballet and jazz.  Her cousins also do dance there so Saturday morning was busy with hair and makeup for all!

I love me some Haylie...she is growing up so fast!  I think she looks so much like her late Nana here in this picture!  She told me "Auntie Erin, I have never had sparkly eyes before!!"

And my Prima Ballerina!  So beautiful!

Shonda and her girls joined us for girly dancy recital fun!  This was Abigail's last day of being 3years old!

Auntie Erin gets a little silly

Gotta get some Essie in there too!  

After the recital we had a quick dinner at Chick-fil-A per the ballerina's request and then went over to the Virgadamo's house for some adult game night/kid movie night.  We had a lot of fun playing Trouble, Spades, and Go Fish...yep!  Apparently kittens were buy one get one free at the pound and so Ben and Olivia have new kittens....they are so cute.  This is Ben with his kitten Rocky!

For Father's Day it is becoming a tradition to take Mike to Hibachi for lunch.  Our favorite is Wild Ginger in Conroe.  

The Hibachi chef said..."small fire or big fire....of course we said BIG!"

The girls let Mike take a nap then made him cards and a crown to wear!  He is such a good daddy and they are lucky to have him!

Around 8:30 pm we were finally hungry from dinner and so we made some Brats (supposed to grill but we had MORE rain!) and I made a yummy warm southwest corn salad to go with it.  We started getting veggies from a co-op and there was fresh sweet corn which I cut off the cob and sauteed with garlic and onions and a poblano pepper and then tossed with diced cherry tomatoes and cilantro...it was so so good!

I am trying to snap out of my case of the Mondays and be productive since tonight is the first night of VBS.   It helped when I got the email from our Adoption agency this morning that we are all set with all of our trainings and paperwork and are ready to schedule our HOME STUDY!!!  Now to get our house ready....eeeek!  Hope your week was good!  

Summer Week 1

Last week was the first official week of summer for me and the girls and that meant the end of Facebook for me.  Here is a bit if what we have been up to (Fair warning: there are ALOT of pictures):

Little bit had her dance pictures for her recital next weekend.  She looks way too grown up!!

You would never know it because she is so shy, but she is the silliest!

My sister and buddy came back for the summer from Asia as she does every summer.  And she is continuing the pattern- every 2 years she comes back and has a baby!  That is #5 in there and I am trying really hard to convince her that Erin or Aaron is the way to go...she isn't listening though!  

MK chillin with Shonda's youngest (for now), the almost 2 year old NateNate

School is out and I am in full on VBS mode.  The other night we were all exhausted and I had been at church all day working on details and details and plans and details so we went out to Torchy's Tacos.  We LOVE Torchys!  

I got the Baja Shrimp Taco and the Taco of the month: the Tipsy Chick.  I highly recommend them both!  

This past weekend Mike and I left the girls with Kim and drove out to Snyder (near Rotan where we used to live) for Mike to perform the wedding of a dear couple we love!  On the way we stopped by the Seminary in Ft worth.  So many memories here!  

Mike wanted to make sure his graduation brick was still there...not like it was going anywhere, but he is particularly proud of it and I think sometimes he is still a little in disbelief! 

Still there!

And it just so happened to be lunch time so we stopped at our FAVORITE Chinese restaurant for our favorite dish: Asian Pecan Chicken

(and yes I realize I am only halfway through the post and have already mentioned food twice!)

Next we stopped in Abilene so Mike could say goodbye to his old friend...our Expedition is finally going to be posted for sale!  

Since we had some time on Saturday morning before the wedding, we went and renewed our zoo membership at the Abilene Zoo...yes I know we do not live there anymore, but the cost of a membership for 6 people at the Abilene Zoo is the same as one visit for a family of 4 at the Houston Zoo and the Abilene Zoo membership is good for free admission to the Houston Zoo as well..WIN WIN!  While waiting for them to get our card we decided to go see the new giraffe exhibit they had started when we were still living there.  It was pretty awesome!

They have a new feeding deck that is covered and you actually get much closer to the giraffes!  This is the new male they acquired and rumor has it he already got 2 of the females there pregnant!  

After the zoo we went back to our hotel and got ready and drove out to Snyder to celebrate Brandi and Justin!  Yall she is one of my dearest friends and I am so glad I got to be there with her and for her.  She asked me to pray over her and all of the female wedding party after getting ready and before the wedding...it was one of the biggest honors for me!  And of course she was stunning!!!

Me and My man all dressed up!

The ceremony took place under a gorgeous willow tree and the rain held off just for her!

Bonus:  I ran into one of my former students from when I used to teach 4th grade out in Snyder...she was at the wedding too!  I feel old...she is going into 7th grade next year...and do you see how she is taller than me!  Not ok!

Post Ceremony Selfie with the Bride!

Their awesome cake!  Not only was it delicious, but this really sums up their relationship!  Justin loves to work on his truck and go mudding and participate in mud bogs.  He actually proposed at a mud bog!  

We got home around 4 am Sunday morning and got a little sleep before getting to church for the day.  The girls were so excited to see us and we were super excited too!  But most excited I think were the puppies!  

Well That is week 1 for you...Week 2 is starting out unusually stressful for us as we are having to switch over all of our banking due to fraudulent activity we noticed on our account.  Hopefully it will end less stressfully than it began!