Fourth of July in Houston

We made plans a few months ago to come down to Houston for the Fourth of July. We have loved coming down to see the Colemans and Bodines every time we've come--they are amazingly fun hosts and Dane and Graham are completely in HEAVEN the whole time we are there, because of the fun kids (and dog!) to play with. They run around playing the whole time, and the adults spend the whole time talking and catching up and we all really enjoy ourselves. It was a total party. My cousin Tanner was also there this weekend, so it was really awesome to get to catch up with him and talk--even though I didn't a picture with him (AGAIN--darn it!). But it's hard to remember to get a picture when all you do is talk for hours. We did get lots of pictures with the kids together, of course.

I have probably said this before, but I especially love going down there because I feel like it gives Dane a chance to have some real quality cousin playing time, the kind where you disappear for hours and get into your groove and run around and no adults are around or caring what you do. This kind of playing is something that I don't think Dane ever gets as a three-year-old in our highly supervised world, but I think it is SO important and cute and fun. I have such vivid memories of the hours and HOURS of crazy activities I would do with my cousins in Grandma Myres' backyard, or the sock wars we would play on the volleyball court at the park by her house, or the forts we would set up in her attic space. I want Dane to have that same chance--but it's hard when all you have are play dates that last just an hour or two at the park. He also gets to do this whenever we are in Utah at Grandma and Grandpa's house, playing with his Leininger cousins, but it's so nice that we can do that here too, with his second cousins.

Anyway, we didn't do anything too exciting on this trip--which was perfect. We went swimming a bunch of times, and played around at Kaylene's house, and ate lots of ice cream and watermelon. What's not to love about that? I wish we could have stayed later on the Fourth of July, and even watched fireworks with them (which I'd originally planned/hoped to do), but it just wasn't realistic to try and do that with the boys, who were so tired out by the end and needed to get home and not drive through the night. We had a great time with what we did.

We went to a neighborhood pool, and Dane was so brave to go off the diving board! He jumped off maybe 30 times and couldn't get enough of it! (Wearing his floaties of course.)

I love hanging out with my cousin Brittney. She is only a week and a half from giving birth to their fifth baby, so I hope she doesn't hate me for using this picture--but it's the only one I got with us in it. She is really fun to talk to.

Graham was such a crazy kid at the pool. He wants to run around and just throw himself into the water, face first. He does not care at all about getting submerged--the more water on his face, the better. He LOVED the slides and learned how to climb up and turn around and slide down on his tummy. It was adorable. Every time he had this enormous smile on his face as he went down.

Dane and Lily were little buddies this weekend. Usually Dane follows the big boys around, but this time, they played together so well.

All the kids eating ice cream in the backyard.

And then after ice cream, some more after-dinner swimming!

The boys all dressed up for church together. (Ethan Myres was down visiting for the week and came back up to Dallas with us.)

Reid Bodine was so sweet and took Dane to Primary with him, holding his hand.

The other thing that my boys love about Aunt "Kay-ween's" house is MANGO. Major heart-eyes all around here for Mango. Graham spent the whole weekend walking after her saying, "Da! Da! Da!" She was so sweet and patient with him smacking her the whole time.

Dane and Lily spent maybe 45 minutes together building a "railroad" out of these building blocks. They were so cute.

Fourth of July shirts!

All the kids went to see Finding Dory in the morning. Tommy had never gone to see a movie with Dane before and loved it.

Aunt Kaylene did this super cute art contest with the kids and had them draw pictures of something representing America, and colored in soldiers with the "armor of God" after her Primary lesson on Sunday. The kids were way into it and spent a long time working on it. Then she printed out awards and had prizes for them--some poppers for them to do in the front yard. 

I thought poppers were a great fourth of July activity!

I even got a picture with the popper going off. Boom!

I was super patriotic and made an America-shaped fruit pizza and an American flag one too. That was about the only patriotic thing we did all day.

We left at around 4:00 to drive back to Dallas. We have to do SOOOO many different things to keep Graham entertained in the car. Every single thing only lasts a few minutes. He liked the baby balloon popping game on the Kindle for about five minutes.

Dane is always so interested in the Sam Houston statue on the side of the freeway in between Houston and Dallas, and this time we stopped for five minutes to look at it. Pretty cool. 

Ethan even snapped a picture of us with Sam Houston's legs. 

Graham loves LOVES stopping at Buc-ee's, the huge Texas-sized convenience store where everyone in Texas stops on that drive. He just walked around pulling candy bars off the shelves for 10 minutes.

We figured out on the fourth of July that Dane didn't really recognize the American flag (he would only call it the "Captain America" flag--which I understand is confusing). He knows the Texas flag and points it out all the time, and he knows a bit of Texas history already because of us visiting the Alamo and explaining the battle there. But he doesn't even have a concept of America (it's very confusing to him that he lives in Frisco, and Dallas, and Texas, and America). But I decided to try and change that and had a mini-lesson with him on America and states and the Revolutionary War and the American flag (maybe 2 minutes of talking, haha). I think he's starting to understand the difference between the states and countries. And maybe now he will start to recognize the American flag now that we've painted it together. I don't want him to have only Texas pride, even though he IS a through-and-through Texan now.

I wish we could have done some sort of Fourth of July parade or something, because that sounds so fun, but it really was hot and swimming and relaxing was the best thing I think we could have done. It was so great to get to hang out with family for the weekend and it was a nice getaway. Happy birthday America!

June.

I was just organizing the pictures we took in June, and we didn't do a whole lot this month. It was actually really nice, to just spend a month hanging out here at home in between two big trips in May and July. I feel like we got into a good summer rhythm this month. Here has been our routine every day:

9:00-10:00: Graham's morning nap. Dane and I do "preschool time," which involves a big calendar, scripture practice/story, math and reading worksheets and activities, and reading together. 

10:00-12:00: Go out and do something. Errands, swimming (I'm giving Dane "swimming lessons" since I never signed him up for any this summer), library, finding someplace for the boys to play.

12:00-1:00: Lunch and reading.

1:00-4:00: Naptime/quiet time, then playing around for a while.

4:00-5:00: Gym.

5:00-7:00: Dinner, playing with Tommy, bedtime routine.

It's flexible, some mornings I go to the gym at 8:00 so we can go swimming at the huge outside pool in the afternoon, some afternoons we don't go to the gym at all and just hang around here at home. But it is working SO WELL for us right now. It's so nice to know what to expect. The gym is what is really making this whole thing work; it used to be so stressful to try and find something to do every morning AND every afternoon, because these boys do not do well sitting at home too much. Graham especially needs to get out a lot or else he is CRANKY. I have felt very cheerful most of the time this month, even though it has been so miserably hot (we just aren't going outside very much unless it involves water, like the splash pad or the pool). The sad thing is that this nice routine has to change soon, because Graham will soon be growing out of his morning nap, which I have been expecting to happen for months now. But we will figure something else out once that happens. And I am actually looking forward to that, because then we will have the freedom to go a little farther from home during the day and not be stuck to just a 15-minute radius, haha!

So here's to thriving in the summer heat!

We love the Fun Club! We've been swimming here 1-2 times a week, and I am surprised at how I can manage both boys by myself. They have life jackets for Dane, and I just follow Graham around while he plays at the kiddie playground. There is absolutely NO DOWNTIME while we're there, but it is still a lot of fun. And they both get totally worn out, which is nice for bedtime.

Snowcones! 

We came out one morning and saw that our next-door neighbors had a concrete mixer in front of their house. OH MY GOSH!!!

Dane and his little buddy Preston walking into Primary together, holding hands. (I am now the Primary chorister, and I absolutely love seeing Dane in there with his friends.)

Graham is the quintessential baby brother. Always wanting to do exactly what Dane does.

When Tommy went on High Adventure for a week, we had to drive his car. Dane loved having the sun roof and asked to have it open every time we got in the car.

Here is Graham throwing a major fit, totally melting down because he couldn't get a snow cone immediately when he saw Dane having one.

We took this shaved ice maker from my parents' house and have been loving it! So fun.

Graham was being a cute model baby one afternoon last week.

Graham LOVES riding around on our big Thomas.

We were so happy to have Daddy home from High Adventure after a week being gone! That was a LONG week without him. But I did so much better than I expected! I felt great and had a lot of patience all week. (Definite blessings since Tommy was gone serving in his calling.)

We go to the library and this is all they want to do. I am trying to teach them that we should be picking out books and reading at our library--but it's hard because the layout of our library really does not focus on that. There are computers and iPads everywhere.

Dane gave Graham a pillow in his high chair and he was very serious about it.

Climbing all over Daddy!

I have been trying to be a little more creative with Dane and teaching him things, and not just doing worksheets or workbooks (although those are good too sometimes). He loved counting puff balls and gluing them down on this paper.

We tried this science experiment with milk and food colors and it didn't work very well. I didn't have the right supplies, apparently. But he had a blast mixing all the food colors into a murky brown, so we had fun anyways. I have really enjoyed looking things up for our "preschool time." He is going to be doing Joy School in the fall with some friends, but I am planning to still do a little bit of this with him the other days a week because we are both having a lot of fun. And Graham will be able to join in with us.

The weather just keeps getting hotter--bring it on, July! We are ready for it!