UFC Fight Night

My gift to David for our anniversary was tickets to UFC Fight Night Live at the Frank Erwin Center. It was awesome! I love anything loud and crazy and this was definitely loud and crazy! The fighters weren't anyone major, but they were all really good fights, very entertaining, and we had a great time. I was excited to see Joe Rogan, Dana White, Bruce Buffer, and even MC Hammer was there! I told David next year is his year to plan something for our anniversary, but I don't know if he can top this :)

'Stache Bash

The church youth group was having a back to school mustache bash and told everyone to wear a fake mustache (or grow a real one) and we couldn't find a fake one, so Riley had me draw his on him. Doesn't he look cute?

Pajama Party!

I know I say this often, but I *love* our church! This week was a back to school pajama party and all the kids wore their pajamas (although Regan was afraid EVERYONE would forget and she would be the ONLY person wearing pajamas!) that was not the case! It wasn't my week to serve, but they needed help and I wouldn't have missed it for the world!

We had a waffle toss, where the kids tossed around frozen waffles (and boo-yah 2-3 won!) and then a relay where they had to pass an air mattress over their heads, put a sheet on it, pass it back, load it up with stuffed animals and pass it back and then top it with a pillow. It was fun to see them try to work that out! And then candy and Popsicles. See why I love our church? It's FUN!!

Young Chef's Academy

We had THE busiest day! It started off with a garage sale, our whole neighborhood was having a garage sale so I thought it would be a good time to clean things out and make some money for my trip to Romania. The kids wanted to help out, so we all got up before 6am and started getting things set up, and as usual, as soon as we open the garage door, we have customers. It was so funny because Riley didn't want to sell much, until he got some money from stuff, then he made several more trips inside to find things he really could live without! I let the kids keep any money from toys they sold, Riley made around $30 or $40 and Regan would only sell 3 things because she can't BEAR to part with any of her stuffed animals. She didn't care about the money at all, so she ended up only making about 5 bucks.

Then we loaded up the rest and dropped it off at Salvation Army and David took Riley to his football game, and I took Regan to a birthday party at Young Chef's Academy. We have always wanted to try it, but had not had a chance yet, so we were both excited to go to the party! Regan LOVED it! She always loves helping out in the kitchen, so she had a great time.

First, they designed their very own chef hat, and then they got to mix up some pasta dough. They each got a dough ball to knead for a while:


Then they each got a turn on the pasta machine. One would crank, one would lead the dough in, the other would catch the noodles. Then they would switch off so everyone had a turn at each job. This was the favorite part, watching the small dough ball turn into a long, thin sheet of dough, and then into long, flat noodles.


Then each kid got another job, some would tear up herbs, one chopped an onion, one mashed up some butter, and Regan got to chop garlic (which is now her permanent job in MY kitchen!)


And finally, while the noodles were boiling and the sauce was simmering, they got to decorate a giant cupcake!


Regan loved every minute of it, and wants to take cooking lessons now! I'm all for it, the sooner she gets INTO the kitchen, the sooner I can get OUT of it!!

And then we had to rush back home to get Riley to his school fun night out, and we met up with Joe and Mark and went swimming to cool off from our hot, busy day.

Mud Puddles

We had a lot of rain (a lot) from Hurricane Hermione, or whoever she was, and the kids were just aching to go play in the rain and mud. So, they had a great time, Riley had a mud facial, the threw mud on the front door and then hosed it off, and just enjoyed being messy kids for a bit.

Happy Labor Day

We had a low key day off, we went to Pam and Dave's with the whole family for burgers and chips and just hung out and visited and played with the kids. David got a call from a friend that he was getting rid of his smoker, so David and Matt made a mad dash to Cedar Park to pick it up. Now we have an extra smoker in our jungle of a backyard! Didn't take a lot of pictures, but haven't taken any of Stinky Sydney in a while so here she is!

Hawks vs. Eagles

(He's #28, on the end, this is before game prayer)

Riley had his first football game of the season, in Houston. We weren't too thrilled with the whole idea of it. The game was scheduled for 2:00, he had to be there by 12:30, and the refs ended up getting lost and pushing ALL the games back by about 2 hours. So we spent a lot of time sitting in the bleachers, waiting. Then Riley's team played, and Riley didn't get to play much. I would have understood if the team was making winning play after winning play, yeah, don't mess with a good thing. But we got creamed by the Eagles, 23 to 0. The Hawks kept using the same team, making the same plays over and over and over. It was so frustrating to watch, and especially knowing that we just wasted a whole day, and Riley was wanting to play so bad! When he did get to go play, he did great, tackled the people he was supposed to and all that. It was just a frustrating day. Reinforcing my dislike for football.

Press Play

We had a free concert at church, Press Play and Matthew Barnett from the Dream Center. It was awesome! We were hesitant to go at first, we had been at Pioneer Farm all day and were tired and had been rained on, and just kind of blah. But then Riley said he didn't want to go, he just wanted to play on the computer all night and I yanked him up and we left. We're not gonna sit around on our computer when there's an opportunity to be at church! And the kids had a blast, we were all so glad we went. Riley used his own money to buy cd's and a hat, and I caught a shirt for Regan out of the shirt shooter gun! They got to meet the band, get all their autographs and we heard an awesome message from Matthew Barnett and learned more about the Dream Center. What an incredible ministry they have out there. His stories were just crazy! But it was a fun concert, Regan's first, and it was so cute to see her with her friends, standing on a chair in church and jumping up and down praising God! Riley was up front with his friends in the mosh pit. I love our church!!

Celebration Home School Small Group

Pioneer Farm

It's Small Group time at Celebration Church! This time around, David and I both signed up to be Small Group Leaders. David's is a father/son disc golf group, and mine is a home school group. Our first outing was to Pioneer Farm for home school day. Admission was cheap, we brought a picnic lunch and met some new friends!

We watched Little House on the Prairie for the kid's first time ever before we went, so they had a good idea about what life was like back then. We got to watch the blacksmith pounding iron into different shapes and telling us about what all a blacksmith would do back then. And the girls got to make corn husk dolls with scrap material. And they loved the outhouses. They couldn't get over having to walk across the yard to go to the bathroom!

The weather was nice too, it rained a bit when we first got there, but then it was nice and cool the rest of the day. And at the end of our tour the kids got a snow cone (which I don't know how that fits in with pioneer days, but they enjoyed it). Overall I think my first small group meeting was a success.

Water Camera

I had a water camera that I used this summer to take pics while we went tubing and at Sea World, and I finally got the pictures developed! It was funny, I had found a bunch of old disposable cameras and ended up getting about 10 developed at once and it was so funny to see what was on those cameras! Riley at camp when he was 7, and he accidentally got someone elses camera about halfway through camp, so we have a bunch of pictures of some older girls that we don't know!

Here are some from tubing (with Trista, Chris, Kenzie, Gary, Joe, Mark and Tristan!):





And from Sea World (with Tina, Bennie and the kids):

First Day of School

Today was the kids' first day of school! They are both going to a one day school this year. Riley goes to a middle school where he learns American History, Life Science, and electives Geocaching, Cartooning, Mythbusters and Photography. Regan's is all specials, art, PE, music, speech and Spanish.

They both loved their schools! Riley's has a boy's club that meets a couple times a month and he's already met a lot of the boys from school and Regan's school has a monthly park day, so they are both happy to be out making new friends again.

End of Summer

It's been pretty boring around here lately. I thought I would finally tackle the carpet, and started ripping out one hallway and realized the padding had been very heavily glued down, and the tack strips weren't coming up without some serious tools, so I abandoned my pursuit of wood floors for a bit. At least until I get better tools, and my big strong man is home from work to help!

And then we had to put the truck in the shop. The rear a/c hadn't been working in a while (it would click whenever we turned it on) so we had just been running the front a/c on super high, until that started clicking, anyway, with 100+ degree temps this time of year, the kids were sweating, and then we were sweating, it was time to get it fixed, but required me to be stuck at home without wheels for almost a week! Which if you know me, you know that's like a death sentence!

So we've been stuck at home, trying to organize and get ready for school to start back. I spent the last couple of weeks ordering curriculum and now that it's all in, and piled on top of the dining room table (I mean, the home school desk!) it's time to sort through and get it all ready to go on Monday (wow, summer is over already!).

And here's the Mont-ster, he has decided he wants to be an outside cat, but we haven't come to that conclusion yet. He just likes to sit and stare outside, until a door opens and he tries to kill you by running right around your feet to try to get out. He's so cute though.


And here's Regan at a birthday party recently, she had fun sliding down the water slide. She asked me on the way home if I thought she was too young for a boyfriend. I was like uh, why? And then she asks how I knew that dad and I would get married. Ack, a little serious for 8 years old! But apparently there was some boy rocking a Spongebob bathing suit that she thought she could see a bright future with. I'm not ready for that!


So, that's the update on our end. Not a lot going on, just getting ready to get back to our routine and get some order in this house!

This is a test...

I’ve been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Regan's Video

Forgot to post this last week, but this is Regan on the trampoline at the mall! She did great, and loved it, keeps wanting me to take her back there.

Suncrest Farm

It's been a pretty laid back week for Riley and me, we just stayed home, ran errands, and got stuff done to get ready for school. But Regan spent the week at Suncrest Farm! Since it never worked out to have her birthday party over the summer, she decided she would take a week of horse camp instead of a party. And the great thing was, 2 of her Girl Scout friends were going the same week, so she had buddies there.

And she had a great time! She came home every day exhausted and full of good stories. She got to "adopt" her favorite horse, Louie for the week, she took care of him, brushed him, fed him, saddled him, and rode him all week. One day they learned about the mounted police, one day they learned about vets, and one day they took the horses to the lake and got to swim with them. That was her favorite day!

So this is the official end of summer for us. I'm waiting on a few last curriculum orders and as soon as they get here, we will be back to the daily grind!