August With Us, or at least what I took pictures of...

The sifties had a temple trip/tour with their Primary. It was OK, except that it was the middle of the day at the beginning of August in Houston. Ugh. We walked around outside a bit and took pictures. The idea being that I would get a beautiful, memorable shot of my sweet children for distribution at a future holiday... Here's the first shot:

Then Oliver decided to bug Horatio...

Who threatened him with a look...

At which point Oliver wondered if maybe he shouldn't have been teasing Horatio...

And Horatio moved to do something physical about it...

At which point I believe Oliver decided a defensive posture was warranted...

And Horatio decided mid-hit to turn it into a funky dance, I suppose. All the while Isa and EJ were being their very reverentest and Angel was looking about as cool a tween as possible.

Then they decided they were done with the picture taking (fie on digital cameras!).

The we all got to go inside and have a snack.

yummy.

I did some henna this month. Here's my oldest sister with a dragonfly on her leg...

and swirlies on the opposite side.

and Isa chose this HUGE butterfly/goddess/fairy thing. She still has traces of it on her leg, but it was pretty.

The biggest thing this month was when Stephanie came to visit! We got her for a whole week and I think I took only a dozen pictures the whole time. Lame. But here are some from the beach. I made a sea turtle and someone decided he needed sunglasses.

Here's the crew waiting for the word that they can do the "Mexican Sand Stomping dance". It's tradition. I like to build sand sculptures when we go to the beach and they like to smoosh them; but they know I will get mad if they do so before I give the word. They are being so patient!

After the beach we had to go to the Olive Garden, way too late. By the time we got there Horatio was out (it's a long drive home from Galveston!), and by the time we had eaten we had 3 sleeping.

Here's the Jane:

Here's Horatio:

Here are the awake sifties, might be due to the caffienated soda... ?

And here's Isa, with the best pillow she could find:

On the last day, I remembered to pull out the camera, at which point Isa was in mourning mode, but did consent to show off her purpley blackish fingernails which Stephanie painted for her.

Here she is grieving Stephanie being gone before Stephanie even left.

And here's the whole rotten bunch -uh, I mean cute bunch, yeah.

We got an exciting phone call a good week or so before expected that the kids had a new cousin, V. She has the coolest name ever, and Horatio thoroughly enjoyed holding and kissing her. Here she is fresh from the hospital (we got to go see her right after dropping Stephanie at the airport):

Zach had his 16th birthday, so we brought over a cake...


The girls and I ate some nachos.

I have no idea why Robert felt this needed to be photographically documented.


And I took some pics of the 3 oldest sifties for our new school year. Here's my Angel (almost 12!):


Here's my Olibear (almost 10!):


And here's the Isa (cute as a button at almost 6!):


So that's some of our August. Did I mention that Robert & I celebrated our 13th Anniversary this month, too? It has been a blessed and lucky 13 years. Scumps to 13 more and eternity...