Finn's 4th birthday!

WOW Finn turned 4!!  I can't believe it has been four years since we welcomed him into the world.  He was my first baby born at home and wow his birth was difficult but I felt such accomplishment after he arrived.  I did it!  He was so perfect, my only blonde baby out of 5.  His hair turned this lovely strawberry blonde colour.  I never thought I would have two blue eyed kids but he was our second blessed with those gorgeous baby blues! 

Here is Finn, Jeremy and I moments after his birth

The kids waiting for 4th of July fireworks

Finn's 1st birthday.  Check out his strawberry blonde hair, so cute!

Finn's second birthday

Eating icecream on his third birthday at Macaroni Grill

Here he is opening gifts on his fourth birthday, lots of Toy Story 3 stuff, he LOVES toy story!

Soleil loved the wrapping paper!

Finn wanted burgers for lunch, so we did our research and found Chips in Dallas.  The burgers were good but it wasn't set up for a family of 7 so we sat at two separate tables.  They claimed on their site to have an In-N-Out style burger which hooked us, but they guy there claimed they couldn't make it.  I think they were too busy.  That's ok, In-N-Out is coming to Dallas....yeah!

Soleil thought the fries were good!

Finn wanted to go bowling, we went to strikz in Frisco and waited a really long time but he was so excited that he was willing to wait 2 hours just to bowl!!

Here is the cake that Finn requested.  Many tears were shed over this cake, by me, not Finn.  Thankfully he loved it.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

June 2010

June has been an eventful yet relaxing month here in our house.  We saw Madeleine off to horse camp at camp tonkawa in early June.  She had a really great time, four straight days of riding horses, a horse lovers dream! 

Here is Madeleine in the TeePee when we were dropping her off at camp

Finn gives some interesting poses

Here Madeleine is riding Eclipse, they choose their horse on day one and ride and care for that horse for the week.  Madeleine went in hoping to have Eclipse as her horse, she was very happy that she got to ride him.

Today is the summer solstice, my favourite time of year but also sad because now the days will start to get shorter.  I love summer and want to enjoy every moment of it while it is here!   Our veggie garden is flourishing, we have tomatoes growing, cucumber plants, zucchini, radish and corn, as well as basil, parsley, rosemary, chives, thyme, mint and oregano.  I would love to live off the grid but since we are in suburbia we are making the most of it with our small raised beds.  

Last week we went to six flags with friends and then to humperdinks for dinner with some friends.  We had a great time at Six Flags and this year I was able to go on some rides.  Last year I was 8 months pregnant and waddled through the day very slowly, it took about three days to fully recover :) 

Unfortunately dinner wasn't so fun.  The service was slow, just to come and take our orders took probably 25 mins, then when the food was delivered two of our kids didn't have meals.  When questioning the server about the whereabouts of their meals she matter of factly said she didn't order their food because they didn't give her an order.   The kids said they ordered, I asked her to rush their order out because they had been waiting SO LONG at this point and were starving after a full day at the park.   Then the server decided to confront us and tell us it wasn't her responsibility to take my children's food orders.  What?  Isn't that the definition of a servers job??  She offered up a table visit from her manager, we accepted then she proceeded to give her opinion while her manager was visiting us.  It literally seemed like she might have short circuted, thankfully she was removed as our server.  OMG what an experience!  One I won't be repeating at their establishment, especially since the food made me sick too! YUCK!

We celebrated Father's Day on June 20th, we had friends over for a bbq.  Jeremy cooked steak and corn on the bbq, it was delicious!   We combined the cookout with a small birthday celebration for Finn and his buddy Izzy.  They are 8 days apart in age and both 4 this month.  They were so cute.

Here are the cupcakes for Finn and Izzy

Blowing out the candles

Still to come this month is a play, a birthday, six flags for the two biggest kids again, a girl scout camping trip.  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Last day of staycation -- Old McKinney

So on our last day we decided to go and check out our own hometown.  McKinney TX.  We don't go down there much because it just isn't very kid friendly, especially not 5 kid friendly :)

Mothers Day

On mothers day we decided to go to Old Red Museum it was Sunday (obviously) and the museum was EMPTY.  Perfect.  We had time to go through all of the displays in the museum without being in the way.  I really enjoyed this museum, lots of interesting TX history and artifacts.

Watching the first movie in the museum, each time period had a movie to watch

The kids were doing them some lerning, they were!

JR Ewings hat.....had to have a picture with it!

nuther movie

We went to BJ's for food after the museum, mainly because there was no wait for a table.  Mother's day is impossible to go out to eat on but this location being fairly new didn't get hit so hard I guess.

I had a really nice Mothers day, the kids were nice to me this year ;)  Madeleine even bought me a gift with her own money, three gorgeous pairs of earrings.  I was so surprised, that girl just blows me away with how thoughtful she is.  **Love**

Day 5

This day was spent doing what we usually do on Saturday's in spring, watching kids play soccer.

Soleil cheering for Madeleine

Ack?!

Owen

Actually using the necklace instead of pinching me!!!

Dallas Day 4

On our fourth day we decided to go to the Fort Worth Stockyards.  They were having an annual event there that lasted 2 days, we though Friday would be less crazy than Saturday.  It is a long drive from our home to Fort Worth, about 1 1/2 hours to the stockyards, maybe a little less.  We had no problem finding parking and just decided to wander around and see what there was to see. 

First stop a saddle set up outside a small restaurant

 

Beef Jerky, don't forget the Dr Pepper

Poor bunnies

A favourite Texas saying

My little cowboy

Some like it hot, especially here in TX

A view of the street

Dukes of Hazard flashback anyone?

We really wanted to eat here, the chef/owner was on Top Chef Masters but we weren't really dressed for it and I'm not sure how family friendly it was

So we ate here instead!

Fried creamed corn, actually quite yummy

My sliced brisket sandwich with their homemade bbq sauce.  This sandwich was delicious, best bbq I have had in TX

Finn starting making gang signs....should we be worried?

A blacksmith demonstrating in the street

He made this heart that I gave to Madeleine, very nice man

Parade

Longhorns parading

We had a really great day in Fort Worth, the people were SO friendly.