July this and that

CRAZY HAIR
One day, Alyssa requested a specific hair style:  2 pig tails and 2 braids.  The braids were to be in front--out of the pig tails.

Then she added a few bows--flower right in the middle (like a headlamp) and 2 clips on a headband on the side. Nice.

She was loving it.

The boys were at an evening birthday party, so Michael and I took the girls out to Olive Garden to fulfill a long overdue gift card.  Alyssa wore this hairstyle out and got many compliments.  Cali enjoyed handing Michael everything on the table.

4TH of JULY
We were supposed to be on South Padre Island the 4th of July weekend, but the first hurricane of the season decided to come super early and to the exact spot we were to be.  So we had to cancel--boo hoo.  Our neighborhood had a little parade and donuts on Saturday the 3rd at 8:30.  Cali woke up at 8:15 and we all rushed to get ready and out the door.  Free donuts!  We all threw on what red, white, and blue we could find.

Cali actually wore an outfit I got for Alyssa years ago and she never wore.  She wasn't a fan of the hat.

In the afternoon, we had a family bike ride to the pool and took some fun underwater pictures.  We hadn't done this bike ride in a while and I actually had to go get a new tire for the trailer before it.
Oh yeah, and Cali must have gotten sunscreen in  her eye b/c a huge rash broke out on her face.  We flushed it and everything, it eventually went down.  Scared us a bit.

I love having an underwater camera.

On Sunday the 4th, our friends the Hansens came over for a little BBQ.  They were set to go with us to south padre, so we bah humbugged together. 

The kids helped me make some fun 4th of july ice pops with gatoraide and clear koolaid.  It was fun to watch them devour them.

I love this face of Matthew's--sucking with all his might!

Eva's windblown hair

I liked both of these shots...Alyssa above and Tyler below...they were all watching cali walk with her popcycle

I guess it was good that we didn't go to south padre because we were having guests come on the 6th of July.  I started to make a quilt with my friend Liz and ended up finishing it in the weee hours of the 5th.

THE QUILT

I had this idea to have a bright and colorful quilt for my photoshoot with emily's girls.  Liz Hansen helped me design it and do that math (crazy that math is involved with quilting!) and cut and sewed the squares.  Easy part done.  I smashed in the batting...

...cut off the excess...

...and began to sew....till my machine broke.  I spend time on the phone with my mom trying to fix it.  Even sent her a video of what was going on and we couldn't figure it out.

My friend Emily Molina helped me sew part of it on her machine and fed the quilt through to me as I quilted the long side.  I just did random wavy lines with a straight stitch.  I then was able to borrow the machine of my friend, Mary Ann Switzer and finished the rest.  I was done about 1am the night before Emily came.  I washed it, got it all crinkled, and voila!  Such a sense of accomplishment.  To see the pics I took of Emily and her girls, CLICK HERE.

One last random pic of my kids and the Switzer kids huddled over my touch (that was lost for 3 weeks, we thought it was stolen because it coincided with someone stealing our credit card info and opening an itunes account and spending a few hundred dollars--then Tyler found it in his sheets).

Monsterous birthday post coming up next....