Viktoriia

We Love our Foreign exchange student.

We picked up our foreign Exchange student, Viktoriia from the airport last Tuesday.  She came all the way from Ukraine.   Did you know that Ukraine and Texas are about the same size?    I had no idea that it was that big.  

We really like her fun and energetic attitude about everything. It is so fun to rediscover Houston with her. We took her to Texas road house. She was shocked at how large the portions were. 

  I think I will learn a little Ukrainian while she is here. She has cooked for us and cleaned for us. 

  On Monday was her first day of school.

  She had a great time and was happy that she understood people.   

We are so happy that we decided to host a student this year.    And that we picked such an amazing girl.  

Greeley

There is nothing like a summer road trip.  We set off on our trip to Greeley, CO at about 2:00pm We drove up to Valeries and had dinner with her and her family and picked up my dad who had flown to Austin a few days earlier. then my dad, Rocklond, Knoxx and I all drove in my Toyota Sequioa for the next 18 hrs.  

We drove all night so that the kids would sleep. they did this and we were able to make it to Greeley at about 2:00pm the next day. 

 We went to a little beach in a neighboring  town that was really cute and fun.

I got a lot of good pictures of the kids. 

we all had fun building in the sand

My dad and Knoxx chose to sit in the shade most of the time. 

Another day we went to Chuck-e-cheese.   Rocklond, Asher and Bridger had worked hard over the last few weeks to fill up their achievement cards to earn free tokens. 

 the boys had a great time. 

Asher and Rocklond got along Super well. Here they are building a train they put the blankets on there all by themselves. 

My dad had learned several songs to sing for his grandchildren just for this trip here he is entertaining them all one night. 

On Saturday we got to go to Bridgers 2nd birthday. no birthday would be complete without my parachute making an appearance. 

the kids also played other games as well

Then the kids made little boats and raced them down a stream. 

next was the pinata. Emily had filled it so full of candy. I don't think Bridger was too happy about his fire truck getting smashed to pieces by hungry children. 

then opening presents

and finally the CAKE.  I made this one very simple with just regular frosting and a cake mix cake. it turned out really good and almost all of it was eaten at the party.  

I probably have about ten pictures of this cake. sorry I downloaded the one that is sideways. 

the boys all had so much fun doing everything together

It was so much fun to get to see how the cousins all interacted with each other.   our heavenly care free trip came to a frustrating end when Knoxx was inconsolable at church on Sunday.   we let him sleep off some of his pains once church was over but it soon became quite clear that we needed to get home.  with the help of some Tylenol he slept most of the way home and then went to the Dr. the next morning to discover that he had two bad ear infections.  

The drive home was really long.  I didn't have my dad's help to keep me awake all night but I did ok and we made it home.   

the boys had been fairly good travelers the whole time.  and we made it home just in time to pick up Viktoriia from the Airport.  

Viktoriia is our foreign Exchange student form Ukraine. she will be living with us this school year. more to come about her later. 

Henna Birthday

I have always loved henna. then I learned that I can draw the designs that i have always loved. So I threw myself a henna themed birthday party.  First I designed this cute phone cover for my new iphone. I drew the design with black pen on purple paper and then scanned it it and made some changes with photo shop. then I uploaded the picture to Shutter fly.

it arrived about a week after my birthday but it was worth the wait. 

I love how the design continues on the sides

and it has my name on it.

then on the day of my brithday I made my cake. I had wanted it to be a nice lilac color but Somehow it turned out in the same color as my phone. 

 I used a Ziploc bag to pipe on the design. it was SO hard!   I was happy that i had made a small 6in cake.

Yes I did turn 6 this year.    +20years

the cake tasted a little strange I wont use the recipe again, but it didn't crumble as bad as my cakes usually do. 

since I hadn't been satisfied with my piping bag before I made an actual henna cone. and filled it with icing. 

then it was super easy to make any design I wanted and as small and detailed as I wanted. 

We were tending a little girl this day and she was happy to let me decorate her hands with "henna."  

Rocky liked it too. I had to hurry fast to get this picture before he licked it all off. 

then henna began spilling onto my walls. 

this is my bedroom wall.  I painted it here  last year and I have lived with it's crazy pattern ever since. once I had painted it all the solid light brown color the whole roomed seemed tranquil for the first time ever. 

then I started free handing this design. 

 I haven't finished this all the way yet. I think I still might add some accents to the other walls in the room also.

 anyways that was my henna Birthday.
and no post would be complete without these silly boys.

this is the Kefir mustache. 

Both boys enjoying Kefir

and Knoxx getting into Rockys Yogurt. 

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