Happy Birthday Brittany and Devin!

Next Thursday Brittany will be 16! and my nephew Devin will be 13. They share a birthday, so Cassandra and I thought we'd do a joint birthday party at the church gym and invite the youth group.

Here's Katie, Michelle and Victoria

Callie and my niece Dadraina

David said, "Smile boys, you know this is going on my wife's blog." Where would he get an idea like that?

Hayden and Bethany

Travis

I took a lot of pictures, and they turned out okay, but I didn't get any really great ones. Maybe it was just the lighting in the gym.









The first casualty of the evening. He hadn't been there five minutes when Dylan and Tristan collided. Dylan got this HUGE goose egg, and Tristan didn't get a scratch.




Everyone raiding the food table. We served three kinds of sandwiches: Italian, Ham and Swiss, and Turkey with Pepper Jack, chips, pretzels and carrots.





My niece Emma

No, Justin Bieber was not invited to the party. This is Michelle's brother, Matt!

Timothy

Tristan and Nolan

Brother Chris eating a sandwich.

David, Youth Pastor Rob in green, Austin and Victoria

Bethany and Bailey

A game of Jungle Pong

Bailey enjoyed running around playing ball with the younger kids.

Brittany and Mackensie

Me playing ball with Dadriana

Cassandra and Travis

Everybody say "Fruitbasket turnover!"

Callie explaining the rules to fruitbasket turnover.

Half Rock band and Half Captain America (since Brittany is obsessed with Captain America right now.)

I hope we don't set off the smoke alarm!

"Come on, Brittany. At least wear the hat while we sing to you!"

Devin apparently letting Brittany do all the work!

Time to open gifts.

Cassandra and Marlo (Youth pastor Rob's wife handing out cake.)


Overall, it was a great evening. I know Brittany and Devin had a good time.

Why does it have to be so hot in Tulsa?

It has been averaging 105 everyday for at least three weeks now. And, it is still forecasted through next week. Was it this hot last summer? Maybe I don't remember because I was about thirteen months pregnant, sitting in front of the air conditioner addicted to Simply lemonade then.

In addition to trying to avoid heat stroke, I've had so many big projects to get done. I got homeschool finished and gave the last of the assignments for those stragglers to finish up, taught a group of 30 women for an evening, got 2 kids ready for a week long missions trip, got 5 kids ready for two different church camps and scooted preschoolers along at Pandamania Vacation Bible School.

I am currently planning four birthday parties (although two of them are together), writing a book, thinking about needing to start planning for next homeschool year, planning decorations for a church banquet and making sure the kids are doing their summer reading club.

And of course, there is the taking care of nine children who do like to eat and wear clean clothes.

Why do I always go into summer thinking, "Oh, we won't have much to do. We'll just sit around and watch movies and stuff and take it easy for a change."

And then summer actually happens.

And then I snap back into 105 degree reality.

BUT....

I am enjoying every minute of it.

In case anyone thought it didn't really exist.........

Click here to read my very first blog post. My friend Angie called it my "little hometown road in the hills". I love it!

Friends, Fireworks and the Fourth

We had such a busy, but fun day on Sunday. Our friends, The Stouts, were passing through Tulsa on a big cross country trip and spent the morning with us. We first met them about 11 years ago, some of the first friends we met when we moved to Columbia. Brittany and Hannah became fast friends at age five. There birthdays are exactly one week apart. We hadn't seen them since we moved to Tulsa last year.




Bethany, Hannah, Brittany and Katie

And what do you do when you haven't seen your friends in a year and a half? Flat-iron each other's hair, of course!

It's always been a tradition for the girls to go to each other's birthdays. They've only missed maybe 2 or 3 years together since they were five. Well, I knew something was telling me to make a pound cake last night and I'm glad I did. Laura Lynn said, "We should've picked up a cake and we could've done their birthdays together." And I said, "Well, I've got a pound cake and candles! We got to continue the tradition with the girls having a mini-birthday together.

Don't we look like a lively bunch?

Laura Lynn giving a homeschool geography lesson on the states they'd gone through so far.

Travis more interested in the legos.

Laura Lynn and me.

The two David S's. Better known as "Your David" and "My David".

One last pic before they headed back to South Carolina.

Last night we went to celebrate the Fourth of July out in the country. It was HOT, but right before the fireworks a nice cold front came in and cooled us off.

Every year a nice couple from our church invites everyone out to their ranch for a cookout and fireworks. The whole church donates money for the fireworks and it was a great show.

We all had a great time. Bailey and Travis LOVED the fireworks. Bailey got to do a sparkler by herself for the first time and David pulled his hamstring playing ultimate frisbee.

I had the four youngest kids over by myself to do the sparklers and I just didn't know how it was going to go with four children under the age of six and three flaming swords, but much to my relief, no one set themselves or anyone else on fire.

So, today we are going to just hang out around the house since David has the whole day off. And there may be laundry in my future since my husband only had a kitchen hand towel to dry off with after his shower last night.