August 1st

Today would have been Mom's 75th birthday. We've been thinking of her all day and miss her dearly.

Summer Fun!

Yummy Light Bulbs!

I'm Personal Progress leader of the teen girls in our church. This was a cute little light bulb jar I found this summer in Utah - I knew our girls HAD to have these for a little incentive treat!

They're even cuter in a group :)

Patriotic Cake!

Is this the cutest and most clever cake you've seen?! My sister, Cathy, made this for us for 4th of July. It was so fun how every piece cut looked like a flag - LOVE it! I'm making this next year for sure - unless we're at her house - then I'll leave it to the expert ;)

Before the cutting....

Cathy slicing the cake with Tess waiting in great anticipation

(I think I hear a tummy growling!)

Ryan's start to Summer

Ryan is always busy outdoors - he learned to ride a unicycle up at his cousin's in Utah. He would just practice and practice until he could finally go down the whole street. Now he's figuring out how to buy one here!

Ryan made the baseball All-Stars for the 3rd year!

Congrats Ry - we love you!

Cake Decorating

Each summer I teach cake decorating and sewing to kids. Tess was so excited because she was finally "old enough" to participate. She made this Hello Kitty cake and loved the week since she was at a table with FIVE of her good friends!

This was my morning class (yes, I did this in the afternoon also!) - 30 fun and silly girls entertaining me all week! It gets a little hectic but it's really super fun and so cute to see them all learning.

Animals in Utah

Great things about going up to Utah for Tess are the animals! Aunt Louise's friend breeds Yorkies - so she got to play one afternoon with all the puppies - total bliss!

We always miss our two kitties at home but cousin Katie has a Ragdoll cat too!

We love KitKat - she's a cousin to our kitty, Sugar :)

Tess rescued this cute mouse in Aunt Cathy's yard. She lowered a bucket into a window well and just waited and waited for him to run in - then she pulled him up to safety and named him Mo Mo. She wanted to keep him and bring him back to Texas - I quickly vetoed that and convinced her that he needed to get back to his own family - whew...close one ;)

Sad start to Summer!

This summer one of Tess' BEST friends moved :( Tess loves Callie because she is a total animal lover and is so fun to play with - they can play for hours taking care of their animals! We got to have Callie over for a couple days and the girls went to Build-A-Bear to make matching Dogs (of course!) so they will remember each other.

We miss you Callie (and the rest of the Lelands)!!

Post Girl's Camp Post :)

Our Camp T-shirt this year... I loved the metallic ink (gray colored in the picture). It was so fun to see something I designed on 100 girls!

The Youth Leaders t-shirt that they all wore the first day to set them apart.

All the Goody bags lined up ready for delivery :) The bow color went with each age level.

The Goody Bags had the girl's lanyard with name tag and Princess charm, their Secret Sister's name in a little envelope, a headband for the age level color they were, their welcome bag of gumballs with their level name on it, a cd with Royalty themed songs, and the Theme announcement sheet (see below).

Coffee Filter flowers we made and hung on trees, railings, and all over camp!

Trash Bag Couture - the girls designed Gowns out of trash bag and other trims. Then they had a Runway show - it was so fun and they were so clever!

This was one of the crafts I had the girls make. It's a 2 week Birthday Countdown. They hang it up and flip the little numbers until they get down to their Happy Happy Day! I think they all loved it.

Girl's camp 2010

I'm Stake Camp Director at church (my 2nd year) and love getting everything ready for the girls. Here are a few of the goodies I've made for meetings - I can't show any more since it's still all kind of secretive until camp :)

These are candy bars I handed out to the leaders to introduce our theme this year~

"Heavenly Ever After"

This week we had a meeting with the youth leaders and I made these cupcakes with the theme and sub-theme~

"Seems like a Fairytale...but it's REAL!"

You can't have cupcakes without a cute themed water bottle to go with them :)

I'll post more later - can't ruin any surprises!

Easter Sunday 2010

Happy Spring Everyone - it seems like our weather has jumped to Summer already!

The kids on Easter morning after hunting down their baskets!

We had the Rossi's and Leland's over for Easter lunch.

I love using this china because it's the Wedgwood that Jose's parents got as their wedding gifts.

Adult table :)

The kid's table - close up

Seriously the cutest kids - Tess, Raegan, Sydney, Luke, Ryan, Callie & Cater

Waiting to run out for the egg hunt!!

Ryan getting his "hunt" on!!

We love these friends - Rae, Callie & Tess

Baby's birthday :)

Our Baby turned nine years old yesterday! How does that happen? One more year and she'll be a double-digit girl. How is it that this little picture seems like it was taken a few months ago?!

Happy Birthday to our little Tess - we love you!

Houston Rodeo 2010

We had so much fun this year at the Houston Rodeo. We took the kids and four of their friends yesterday. We spent the day riding the carnival rides and visiting the livestock. Each night there is a concert in the big Reliant Stadium. We saw Lady Antebellum (a country group). We're going again this week to see the Black Eyed Peas :)

Devin, Allie, Tess, Kurtis, Marisa, Keith & Ryan

Keith & Ryan hanging upside down! They were brave - I'd never do that!

Ryan & Keith in the front car

Ryan Mutton Bustin' ;)

Tess won this HUGE dog playing the game below - Ring-A-Duck!

She got in on the first try!!!

My cute Tess

Ryan and Keith - a couple of monkeys :)