{pretty, happy, funny, real} Pretty People and Cute Clay Cakes!

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

Pretty baby with my parents last week

{happy} 

We found a fun park in the Heights area of Houston last week.  We could've stayed forever, if only it had a bathroom and we didn't have museum plans that day.

{funny}

I keep finding these photos on my phone and camera.  The girls are enjoying playing cake makers with clay this summer.  Their other favorite things are to play dance studio recital where they plan out a bunch of dances, and imaginary families where they make slide shows and cards on iPhoto, renaming all our friends and family members!  Today they played cards for awhile and baked cookies too.  I'm so glad the girls can occupy their time; I just wish the boys were better at it!  Here are some of the "cake" creations...

This is a "cake" with a hanging spaghetti sauce jar!

And I believe this was a 50th birthday bb gun cake!

a twin "pea in a pod" cake

twin birdies in a tree cake

and the girls with a REAL cake creation they threw together a couple weeks ago and brought to our priest's anniversary party.  It was SO good (strawberry filling inside) and was gone quickly!  They worked hard on this with several baking catastrophes, but in the end it was worth it!

{real}

I'll end with a few more photos of Ellie from the other evening.

Well, I've made it past the halfway point! This has been a long week, because my entire summer motivation system crashed, literally.  Each day the kids had to do a few subjects of schoolwork, several chores, and play with a sibling before they could have their timed hour on the old computer upstairs.  And...the computer won't turn on this week!  Not to mention we're still recovering from an eventful week in Houston and missing our family and friends.  Today was the best day so far, but I was still feeling "done" by 3pm.  Steven has been exhausted all week, and I think we're all ready for the weekend!  Thankfully it isn't a full swim meet this Saturday, just a short time trial.

I started exercising again!  Katie turns four months old tomorrow, and I still don't fit into the majority of my clothes.  I'm ready to lose some of this weight.  I'm using a Couch to 5K app, just walking and jogging around the block every day.  We will see if I can keep it up!  Tomorrow we are finally having an outing, to the Botanical Gardens for our last Nature Club.  Today when Steven got home, Thomas was excited to tell him how "We went down the street to get the mail!" Poor child, that's the most exciting event of the day to tell his dad!  

But the best thing that happened today was the encouragement I got, along with another mom of five, from the swim coach this morning.  He asked if we were stay-at-home moms and we said yes, and I said that we homeschool.  He was gushing and encouraging and telling us how important our job is.  He told the kids how grateful they should be and that they need to thank us when we get home!  He has been partly a stay-at-home dad and said it's the hardest job he's ever done.  It's so nice to feel appreciated when I'm in the midst of what already feels like a long summer without much social interaction or activities to do.  I hope in my heart that I will be able to look back on these difficult years and know that it was worth it and I tried my hardest.  Thanks be to God who is giving me the grace to make it through.