Tumbling, touchdowns, and T-Rex

September has been busy finding our weekly groove between school and extracurriculars. School is going pretty well for both. To illustrate their personalities a bit, listen to these recent notable quotes. As Owen says, "Trying your best all the time is so tiring!" And when we were discussing college one day, Hadley replied, "I can't wait to go to college. You get to live at school! That's my dream!" That's them in a nutshell. For Hadley, extracurricular means gymnastics! She still loves it.

And for Owen, that means football. He's playing flag football for the Seahawks and they are 2-0 so far! They are pretty fun to watch with minimal practices, so it's great so far!

Owen had quite a second game. He deflected a two-point conversion (and subsequently got tossed high up in the air by the coach), and then he caught the game-winning touchdown in the back of the endzone. Naturally, that was cause for celebratory ice cream afterwards! We will capture one of his moments on film eventually...

In the interim, Owen spent nearly all of his money on a new Lego set. He was obsessed with the construction of this Y-wing for a couple of evenings and considers it a good investment. Nearly 700 pieces and zero questions from this guy.

We also made it to the last day of the neighborhood pool being open, and the kids still remember how to swim! Hurray!

Since it's still 90 degrees, we now have to swim at the neighbors' house! And sometimes a dinosaur stops by...

Banister Makeover

Everyone likes a little color change every once in a while. Since I had some leftover gel stain from the front door job, I figured it would be a good idea to put it toward the staircase banisters. They were low on the priority list, but as you can see, the previous owners replaced the floors and stairs with dark wood, but left the banisters in the classic 90's honey oak finish. Not a big deal, but once it was pointed out to me, it made the list!

Much like the front door, there was lots of cleaning, sanding, taping, staining (3-4 coats with 24-hr dry time), wiping, and top-coating (3-4 coats with 3-hr dry time). At least I didn't have to paint the spindles! But, I did have to try to avoid getting stain on them. It was an involved process, to say the least. No turning back now!

Here's the full before and after of the front; I think it's a good change. Someday we'll get the paint color updated, change the light fixture, and maybe smooth out the hexagonal doorway... There's always something to do!

The back stairs weren't as noticeable because they are carpeted and have different tile near them instead of the dark wood floor. I forgot to get a before picture, so this one is halfway through the first coat, but you get some of the idea. I managed to wipe off less and get by with just two stain coats, which shaved off a couple of days from the nearly two-week project. On to the next!

Horns in Houston

We had the opportunity to drive just half an hour and see the Longhorns play in Houston, so we gathered a group of college buddies and made it a date. They were playing Rice in NRG Stadium, and we thought it might be fun for our future pro-football player to join us and see a real football game in person, too! I think he was pretty impressed with the stadium!

Our seats were up a few levels, but they were on the 20-yard line, so it was a decent perspective of the game. The attendance did not fill the stadium, by any means; I think they were overcharging for the competition. Anyway, someone actually offered us free tickets down low, but they were in the endzone, so we stayed put.

Hadley's level of interest in football did not justify the price of admission, and she was ecstatic to stay home with her beloved baby sitter. Here's our group! Most of the other offspring stayed with grandparents, but one boy made the trip to take it all in with Owen. Hard to believe that we've known most of the group in the left picture for over 20 years!!

Halftime was probably more entertaining than the actual game. The Longhorn Band looked and sounded great, although they were pointed the other direction. And the Marching Owl Band was goofy and offensive, as usual.

It was great to see old friends, and I think the next generation enjoyed it too. They flossed their hearts out trying to get on the dance cam to no avail. Seriously, they did this move for over 5 minutes with the hopes of making it on the big screen! But the cameraman couldn't find us on level 5. Haha!

Ranch Labor Day

Labor Day is the official end of summer. Let's see how we did on Hadley's Summer Bucket List... Pretty good, I'd say! I'm not exactly sure what "beach food" is, but we did eat a lot of popsicles, watermelon, hot dogs, etc., so I'm counting it!

With our extra day off of school, we headed to the ranch to check in with Granna and Grandad. It was too hot for most of our usual, outdoor ranch diversions, but the kids made an exception for their favorite... Uncle Michael's air rifle! However, this was a bit of surprise to me this time!

Hadley enjoyed it as much as Owen did. Both got really close to the bullseye from about 30 feet away. It still makes this momma nervous, but I guess they can put it on their resume someday. Ha!

Beating the Heat

The end of August was mostly about finding our rhythm in a new school year routine. It's been too hot for the kids to go outside for recess at school (heat index above 105F or something like that). I know why! We spent about 10 minutes at the neighborhood playground on Saturday morning, and I was ready to go back to the A/C! We're all ready for it to cool down - even just 10 degrees would be nice.

Speaking of heat, I heard about the Taylor marching band's march-a-thon, so we met up with them at the kids' elementary school cafeteria for a concert. Then we biked and followed them a block down in the neighborhood. These high schoolers march around all day on a Saturday through neighborhoods and schools, playing at various yards and schools that have sponsored them. A fire engine and police car follow them around too. What a hot day!

We lost a lot of teeth in August! Hadley is down 3 teeth currently; Owen is down one with a wiggler. None of the replacement teeth are feeling an urgent need to fill in, so we might have hole-ly smiles for a while.

The end of August also signifies the beginning of college football season in our house. We didn't have the channel for the Longhorns first game, so we met up with a local alumni group to watch it at a local eatery. It was pretty crowded, so we spread out to get our own chairs. I caught this picture of the boys making the same posture during the game!

Hadley is less interested in football, so we ended up on the patio area, where it was probably still in the upper 80s after dark. It was a long game, so we made a trip across the parking lot to a gourmet popsicle place for cool treats. Who even knew that was a thing? For the cost of a couple of boxes of regular popsicles, we got two cookies-n-cream pops that hit the spot.

School is Back!

The second week of August brought us Hadley's favorite event, Meet the Teacher night! She had this day marked on her calendar and was seriously counting down the days until she could return to school! We are so happy that she loves school and hope she continues to have a positive experience there for as long as possible.

Here's her desk for the first few weeks of school! She got the teacher she really wanted too, so she was over the moon. I forgot to get a picture of Owen at his new desk, but he was not as excited to be there as his little sister. More structure, less free time is how he views school. So inconvenient! Note to self: school supplies shopping in Houston is a nightmare - save yourself a headache, and just go for the PTA pack ahead of time. Can you see the stack on her desk and the shopping bag full of supplies? Ugh. And most of the primary notebooks are not available in stores for some reason...

Anyway -  the obligatory First Day of School pics! Artist/gymnast/baker vs. soldier/footballer. I'll have to figure out a better lit spot for next year, but it's still too hot to stand around taking pictures outside before school. (Want to know how Hadley's nose got a scab for the first day of school? She was dragging her face on the carpet when I asked her to do something. So, that's how the end of our summer was going...)

Parents could accompany kids to their classrooms for the first three days of school, and Hadley asked me to do that for her on the first day, so I biked with them and waited to go in. As we shuffled through the doors with the other kids and parents, Hadley turned to me and said, "OK, you can go home, Mom" and gave me a hug. We went back and forth until she got to her hall and ran off. I turned to Owen and said, "Can you believe that?" Being the sweetheart that he is, he told me that I could walk him to his classroom. So I did, and tried not to embarrass him with any PDA other than a quick hug. Then I swung by Hadley's classroom to check on her, and helped her figure out the instructions on the board. I think she was glad that I helped her get situated, despite her trying to get rid of me. These kids are growing up, but I sure do love them!

Summer Fade

The last full week of summer was spent in camps. Hadley was really excited to go to cooking camp in the afternoons. She learned how to make guacamole, tostadas, spring rolls, potato pancakes, burgers, milkshakes, hummus, and lots more. Her favorite part was eating all the desserts they made, especially apple strudel.

Owen spent his mornings getting very sweaty at soccer camp. His favorite part was the World Cup that they played every day. He played for Team France and proudly told of each goal that he scored. The fact that his camp was in the morning and hers was in the afternoon kept them apart for most of the day, which actually was perfect for the end of summer when all buttons had been worn out from being pushed too often.

Although summer was winding down for school, Mother Nature certainly didn't get the memo. We tried to cool off at Typhoon Texas a few more times before school started. Owen and I even went on the big green drop slide in the first picture. Hadley's not tall enough, but I'm sure she'd be up there if she could!

And we hit up the neighborhood pool a few more times, too. Although, in most of August it doesn't even get cool enough at night to let the pool cool down, so the water was strangely warm during the day. Gross! Definitely not a refreshing dip in the pool! It actually felt cooler to get in and then out of the pool so that the water could evaporate off of you, rather than to stay submerged in the warm water.

Finally, on the last Sunday before school, we went to the Houston Children's Museum. We joined the Museum of the Rockies (cheap family membership!) when we were in Bozeman, and there is a network of museums that offer reciprocal memberships across the country (i.e. we got into the Children's Museum for free!). Also, note to self: flip flops are not allowed in the climbing tower. Ew!

The kids had a great time and stayed together for most of the visit.

The outside water part would have been way more fun if it had been at least 10 degrees colder. Sweat dripping off your face is a little distracting from the science of waves and flotation. We lasted about 10 minutes out there. Phew!

But eventually, interests differed and boys and girls split up for the last hour or so. I had to laugh that H's favorite thing was the pretend HEB grocery store. We spend enough time there in real life that pretending to shop there at the museum wasn't my idea of fun!

She was really into this nanoparticle simulation too. You had to pick up tiny metal beads with tweezers using large rubber gloves and place them in corresponding pits on the blue board. Her intense concentration made it easy for me to imagine her in a lab occupation later in life.