July 2024 Part 1: All the Birthdays

July always begins with the COOLEST kid's birthday. He was so hard to shop for this year! We looked and looked and looked at things. It's hard when his idea of a gift and mine are a little different. I may understand how he wants money to buy skins for Super Smash characters, but it was important to him We also FINALLY found the black and gold World Series hat. It was from last year and hard to find! He got his favorite, Panda for lunch and Shrimp Boil for dinner. We also found moose tracks ice cream. which weirdly enough, it hard to find here. Texans love their Bluebell too much for other ice cream to be popular, I guess. 

Grayson's feet are officially bigger than Tyler's. It's weird. Back to school shopping means adult shirts and adult shoes. Let me tell you, that stuff isn't cheap! 

Our Eagle Mountain ward had a 4th of July party already planned and they were VERY clear that old and new members alike we invited for one last hurrah. We had such a nice time! It's always a breakfast to beat the Texas heat and allow people the evenings with their families. I love the idea of "both" on a holiday. There was breakfast, a water bounce house and horse rides! Was I the only adult who rode? Yes. Do I regret it? Never. It was wonderful to chat and enjoy the company of our friends. And commiserate. It will be a big adjustments for many people we know and love. Grayson even helped blow up the watermelon. 

Later that evening we noticed that we could see a TON of fireworks in the back yard. Tyler and kids jumped in the pool and enjoyed the show. Let me tell you. Texans take their fireworks serious. There are so many people in every square foot of North Fort Worth that every where you turn, there are fireworks in the sky. It was fun. I only have 10+ mosquito bite from the 5 mins I was outside. 

Nolan has a lot of Pokemon cards. Thanks Mitch and Emily. And when I have the proper tools, I LOVE to organize them. It calms my soul. One day, the kids actually played with the cards and the bug hit. We finally organized the huge lot he got from Mitch and Emily a while ago. 

Grayson does this thing were he ignores loose teeth in his mouth. Then one day he will just pull 4 out and be done with it. He finally lost enough teeth that we hit up the orthodontist to see if he was ready. We expected a yes, come back to get them at the next appointment. Nope. The orthodontist said, he's ready we can get them on today. It really was for the best, so Grayson didn't have time to obsess about it, but he still had time for a panic attack before. The hardest part was getting the frame in his mouth to keep his mouth open during application. His mouth was too small for the frame so he was pretty uncomfortable until it was all the way in. Nolan got an adjustment and new band colors. It's crazy how much younger they can do braces now, but they DID give me a discount because Nolan was already a patient. They were both sore for a couple of days, but all better now. Nolan won't get bottom, but Grayson will in September. 

Look at these good looking boys! 

Lyla lost that other top front tooth! It's been loose for MONTHS. She just ignores it. Sounds like a family trait...... Anyways, she cried and cried when I said it needed to go. Then she faked us out by pretending she couldn't do it. She all of a sudden surprised us with her tooth and a hole in her mouth after pouting on the couch for 5 mins. She was so proud of herself and the joke she and Tyler played on the rest of us. 

One afternoon, the kids found a cool lizard. They caught said cool lizard. Scared cool lizard. Killed cool lizard. We got to have a talk about how we are in charge of not torturing the animals around us, even on accident. Not our best afternoon. 

Tyler already has a calling with the YM Teachers in our ward. One activity was broom ball. It's on ice, but you wear regular shoes instead of skates and brooms instead of hockey sticks. It sounded suspiciously weird, but there a rink in Arlington with an official league and everything. Our Bishop is part of the league and was able to arrange the acitivity. It sounded like everyone had fun. 

Grayson turned 12 and much to his siblings jealousy, he got to have a super extra birthday. He asked for the hardest cake yet, but I think we did alright. We decided the boys were old enough to watch all the Jurassic Park movies. We have done Jurassic World, but they were too little the last time we tried the first three. It was so fun! It should have come as no surprise as to what theme Grayson picked for his cake. Even better, the Spinosaurus has always been one of his favorite dinosaurs, so I did my best! 

For being 12, he got to pick an extra family activity. He pick Cidercade an all you can play arcade. It was VERY cool. We like arcades, so there were many of our favorites with no limits! We played many Jurassic Park and Star Wars games. There were tons of pinball games and ball games. 

We really enjoyed this muti-player pong with magnets involved. We played and eventually the birthday boy won! 

Grayson had some BIG Lego wishes this birthday. I don't know how I did it, but I found BOTH of them for WAY less than listed price AND within the birthday budget. They are such cool sets. When he asked for them I explained why they would be hard to find and if he had any different ideas. He was so excited to get both. 

In Branson, Grayson traded Mitch for some throwing hatches. They have sat around because we didn't have anything to throw them at. Tyler used a bunch of his saved wood to make a throwing target. 

We enjoyed watching the Olympics and learning ALL the things to share with Tyler each day. One of those days our AC broke. Like broke, broke. Like we ended up paying $9200.00 to get a knew one. We are grateful this is something that won't bankrupt us, but definitely not on our 2024 Bingo card.

This last one is random, but interesting. We have these random holes in our yard, turns out they are spider holes. If you fill them with water the spider will come out. The size of summer spiders is astound me. They are huge! 

Next up, we spent 4 awesome days in Branson!

Until next time...