This and That

Another trip to the Children's Museum with some friends:

For some reason we always pick the hottest day of the week to go.  This time, I thought I was being smart by picking a parking spot in the shade, but it ended up being a pretty far walk to the museum.  We found a cute little ice cream place right by the museum and quickly ate our scoops of ice cream on the way back to the car.  Alison said it definitely helped her survive :)

The air conditioning has gone out a few times at the base gym and they've only cancelled practice once when it happened.  Last week, Eli and I were pouring sweat just from watching Alison practice.  Only in the dessert...

Colin has been such a trooper through this LONG basketball season.  It seems really long, but maybe that's because it's consuming our life right now.  4 days a week of watching basketball and he's still smiling!

Then there was that awkward moment when Colin checked out this book from the library, and the librarian kept looking at my stomach and I couldn't decide if I should just tell her, "I'm NOT pregnant." or if I should let her mind her own business and suck in my tummy.

We took Alison to her well-check up.  All of the sudden, Eli scooped up Colin and held him in his lap.  I've never seen this affectionate towards him.

Alison is healthy and doing great.  As always, she's super tall and skinny, but this time the doctor asked me to try and get more calories in her as it looks like she's in a growth spurt.  Story of my life.  More calories in, while trying to still eat healthy.  My solution for the week was chocolate milk.

Alison and I finished a mosaic project we started in June!  It was for history and we only have 1 chapter left, so I figured we either needed to finish it or throw it away.

Cheers to chocolate milk and the last week of school and basketball!!!

Alison's 9th Birthday!

We started birthday celebrations on Saturday since Alison's birthday was on Sunday and we'd be at church for a good part of the day.  After basketball games, we went to see 'The Secret Life of Pets' as a family.  Alison has been really excited to see that movie.

Then we went Famous Dave's for dinner. 

We surprised her this year with the birthday plans, so she woke up with balloons covering her bedroom door and her party all set up. 

She came downstairs to a new trampoline!

We had breakfast corndogs and opened presents before church.

Eli got her sour gummy worms and lemonade gum.  Colin got her a Barbie convertible, Nana and Grandaddy sent a leotard and hair bow, Grandma sent 'Little House, season 5', Katherine and Maggie sent Barbies and Ben and I got her a Kindle. 

After church, we brought home Maddie and Alison with us to have an Olympic gymnastics party. 

Dinner was Papa John's pepperoni, sausage, bacon pizza; her favorite!

Then she opened presents from her friends and boy, were they generous!  Alison got her an "American Girl" (really Next Generation) horse and Maddie got her a pet vet play set.  Both gifts were absolutely perfect.

The boys helped me make the oreo cake.

After cake, the girls made some ribbon wands and hair bows.

 

We watched a few videos of ribbon dancers while they worked.

 

While the girls crafted, Ben built a balance beam for the party.

I was so surprised by the boys.  They wanted to participate in everything, including the crafts and the gymnastics routines the girls made up.  Eli was worried that he didn't have the right gymnastics outfit, so he pulled off his shirt and said, "There, now I'm ready!" 

The girls made up a routine and then we handed out medals. 

We had such a fun day celebrating my favorite girl!

 Happy Birthday sweet pea!

This week

My best helpers, cleaning the bathroom:

We met some friends at the Children's Museum (it's only in town a few more weeks) and Eli built this tower that was taller than me!  Kids walking by were giving him hi-fives!

 Eli also made 6 baskets at his basketball game!  6!  He turns into a whole different boy on the court and gets into the game like I never imagined he would.

Eli's #4

Our neighbors went out of town for the weekend and said we could use their pool while they were gone.  With temps around 115°, we were excited, but were a little disappointed to find the water was HOT.  It was too hot to not be in the water, but the water was not refreshing.  Going in the evening helped the situation some and it was fun to watch the sun set.

Exploring Point Loma

I light of the sunburns, I took our tent the next day to the beach, but it was work to get the kids to take breaks in it.

Ben had that afternoon off to "study".  It takes him all of 2 minutes to study, so we went exploring.  We explored Point Loma and started at the Cabrillo National Monument.

We went down to the tide pools, but we hit it at the wrong time.  The tide was in and you couldn't see any sea creatures and the water was really rough.  We did sea a sea otter close to the shore!

I would really love to plan another trip to see the tide pools for real (they say January/February is the best time to go) and to actually see a museum at Balboa park.