Faye's Music Camp

Some good friends told me about this fun music camp, put on by St. Luke's methodist church. So I registered Faye. It was a week-long camp, then they did a concert. This is Faye with her buddies at the ice cream social after the concert (left to right): Jansen, Faye, Jonathan, Kyra...

They actually did a musical called the "Solid Rock Cafe."

This photo brought back some memories--Faye made this face a lot when she was a baby. She's grown up so FAST!...

And here's a good one of her singing. It was so fun to watch her perform...

July Water Fight

It's soooo HOT this summer--Lubbock has already broken so many records for hotest month (in June, July, almost May), hottest summer, record heat, NO rain, etc. It has been pretty crazy. So...water fights!! Have fun, cool off, and water the lawn. :) The only down-side is that all the dead grass sticks to you--the stuff is like powder...

And yes, Mommy finally put the camera down and joined in the fun!!

4th of July

I know the 4th was SOOooo long ago, but I figure better late than never. :) On July 3rd, we were outside talking with our neighbors--Joe & Sarah, when they invited us to go boating with them for the 4th. Oh, yeah--much better than sitting around in the heat. We couldn't even have sparklers--it was a $250 fine for anyone caught with them and higher fines for bigger firecrackers.

So, I lamely only took one photo: my girlies with their friend, Makayla. You can kind of see the boat in the back-ground. It was so much fun! B and I got to water-ski, and I wiped out a few times. I never thought "wiping out" would ever feel refreshing, but it sure did...

It hatched...

Our chrysalis "hatched." Daisy was once again the one to discover the empty chrysalis. She also found the butterfly on a different wall. Sure enough, it was our black swallowtail. It was very beautiful, and ready to fly. I was prepared to let it crawl on each of my girls, so I could get a picture, but it just flew out the door and over the fence.
I think the whole process is absolutely amazing, and it was exciting to have our guest for a little while...

1 Year "Employed"

It has been 1 year, today, since Brian has been employed as a Pediatrician (and we stopped digging that deep hole, called "debt"). July 1, 2010 was also the day I officially started homeschooling. My, how time flies!! Looking back, it has been a great year, but at times very challenging--some months I will never forget...for reasons I wish to forget. :) I am amazed at how consistent Brian is and how he is always able to keep his priorities straight, even when he is severely deprived of sleep and time. I seemed to wind up tighter and tighter as times got more stressful, but not him. He's steady--I love that and rely on it, too.

Thank you Doctor Payne for all the daddy-daughter dates, for magnifying your callings, for providing for your family, for spoiling me whenever you got the chance, and for your quirky sense of humor through all of it!!

Chrysalis

Our beautiful pet caterpillars started not doing so well in the house, so I took them outside (yes, back to my parsley), but when I was letting them go, two were missing. I went back in the house, and Daisy and I found one underneath the stool their cage was sitting on. We looked and looked for the other one, but couldn't find it. Two days later, Daisy said she found the caterpillar's chrysalis on our wall. Sure enough, we pulled out our stand, and there it was...

Faye lost her second tooth--on the top this time. She has quite the lisp. Whenever someone comes to our house she asks, "Do you want to thee our chryth-a-lith?" Ha, ha. B is always trying to get her to say words with lots of "sssss" sounds in them. He had been calling her "Toothless Wonder" but because of the change of recent events, she is now "Checkerboard" (her spaces are top, right and bottom left). Poor girl-she's had 6 years of her Daddy's "sense of humor," but has many more years to go (and many more teeth, too)...

June Undertakings

"Ya'll wanna know what we've been up to??? Well, let us tell you..."

Hair trims!! I have never trimmed my girls hair, except once for Daisy, after Faye cut the ends of both her braids off 2 years ago. I did the trims voluntarily this time (they needed it)...

Fayelette (I always LOVE looking into those eyes!!)...

Daisy Dog (fun and funny girl)...

Lizzy-Lu girl (I love that baby!!)...

Church starts at 8:30am for us. That is mighty early, so Faye decided to prepare everything on Saturday night. I'm not sure why she wanted the bird book--maybe for the drive to church?? That is one organized girl. If you look close you can see her neclace and CTR ring at the very top of her dress)...

Liz wanted to help me make bread so bad, she even stopped getting dressed so she could snitch...I mean, "knead" the dough for me...

We discovered 3 caterpillars (after they ate all my parsley). They are black swallowtails, or will be if they survive the Payne girls. We recently learned about butterflies, and of course..

At the first of the month, when it was the end of our Weatherford vacation, we made a trip to the Church cannery, where we picked up the food orders for the Lubbock Stake. Brian and I got up, drove to the Uhaul closest to the cannery, picked up a truck, went to the cannery, and loaded all 6,000+ lbs of food (with the help of a fork lift, thank goodness). Brian did the manual labor while I supervised. :) After it was loaded, Brian started the drive back to Lubbock. I went back to pick up the kids and get our luggage. It took me about an hour and a half. Brian beat me back to Lubbock by about 15 minutes is all. It was a heavy load, and quite the experience. Here's Brian and the girls right before we went to return the truck...

We finally decided (and were able) to visit the Lubbock Windmill Museum...

Liz and Dais standing on the inside of a turbine...

Faye at one end of the turbine (Brian is at the other end with Daisy & Liz)...

And all my girls on the turbine. I didn't get a picture of the whole windmill (in the background), but there are 3 of these turbines per windmill. They are pretty amazing, especially after driving through the windmill farms a few times and seeing hundreds of them together...

One Awesome Week

(said with a southern accent) Livin' out in the middle of west Texas makes it kinda rough to see my folks 'n kin, and makes me feel lack I'm in a whole diff'ernt world sometimes. :)

However, my brother Brady flew into the DFW airport last week, for a work conference, so I took the opportunity to go see him with the girls (B had to work). On the other side of Texas, my sister Camille had the same idea with her family. So, we both drove to the Payne's (thanks Mom & Dad for hosting us all), and commuted to the hotel where Brady's conference was--he was staying there. I took a ton of pictures, so here's just 20 of them to make ya'll jealous. :) It was so fun to see my siblings...

Here's my curly-girlies with Uncle Brady, pointing to his room at the Gaylord Texan Hotel (it's HUGE!!)...

The Cox clan arrived, and we got to refresh relationships and meet our new little cousin--Aisha. Sean & Camille adopted Aisha, who was born April 3rd. She was 4 weeks old when we met her, and such a tiny, adorable little bundle of heaven...

My camera was foggy from the cold rain we had, but Liz adores babies to no end...

Here's the cousins (minus Aisha) at the Hotel, in front of a train display: (from left to right) Jacob, Daisy, Tyler, Chloe (in front), Zetta, Faye, & Lizzy...

The Gaylord Texan had a huge conference center (to match the hotel). One night, we found a nice, quiet area where we could play, chat, and enjoy each other...at least it was quiet, until we got there. The carpet was fun to look at and very Texan...

There were so many fountains everywhere inside the hotel. Daisy just couldn't contain herself. Here she is flapping her wet jacket sleeves and watching the water fly off...

...and Daisy is a bit of a clutz when there's too many distractions (don't tell her I said that), and she won't watch where she's walking. After smacking into a rock-post on the way into the hotel, running into a hallway wall leading to Brady's room, and getting her arm stuck in the rotating doors, she figured "why stop there" and almost took down this big sign. It was very comical, but I was nervous she was going to brake something (including on herself)...

I love this shot of little Chloe. She is such an observer and thinker, and here she is observing a big guyser-fountain...

I never did get a good shot of all the kids on the rocks...

There was a riverwalk inside the hotel--this was the very high ceiling...

There were hand-sanatizing stations placed all over, and I think we hit just about every one...multiple times...

The Cox's had to leave a little early, so us girlies went and had a slumber party one of the nights. Early the next morning, Brady ran in a 5K run they had at the hotel (the Conference hosted the run). We got to watch him start from the hotel room, but I didn't get the camera out quick enough, so I just took a picture before we went down...

Look at that time!! ...and that's AFTER eating Pappasitos, Blue Bell ice cream, and the hotel's giant cookies all week, plus he's not use to all the humidity!!! That's my bro (nice run, Brady)! We especially liked watching the steam come off the top of your head when you were done :)...

I was grateful for the opportunity to see some of my family, especially because it's not an opportunity that happens very often. Thanks for coming to Texas, Brady, and thanks for taking the trip up, Cox Family. It was a wonderful week!!