Scottish Festival

 I know I called this a Scottish Festival and here are pictures of Romans. Well it was a big Scottish Festival and most of the stuff there was the same things we had seen at the Scottish Festival last March. We thought since this one was supposed to be bigger there would be different things to see.

The Roman armor was new. 

 We also saw some sheep dog trials.

 We saw lots of birds of prey. Falcons, Hawks and owls.

 There were clidesdales there and the kids were quite impressed by their size.

 There was dancing, lots of dancing!

Somehow I didn't get even one picture of the Kaber Toss competion or the bagpipers. I guess I just was too engrossed in the action. Either that or I was just trying to keep a little girl who "Just wanted to go home" busy or distracted.  But we saw some men toss the big pole. One even was able to get it to flip end over end. That really got the crowd excited!  We heard a number of bagpipe bands play  and even watched a drum major competition. So there were quite a few things that the other festival we go to didn't have. It was worth the trip. And thanks to a very nice neighbor, we got in Free and even had great parking!

My Grandma's house

We had an errand to run in a nearby but very infrequently traveled to city one day. While there and after completing the errand I noticed that we just happened to be in the neighbor hood of the house my Mom grew up in.

 This was my Grandma's house. It looks just about the same as I remembered it.  The neighborhood was not quite as nice. The park that we used to walk to from Grandma's wasn't nearly as clean and nice as I remember. 

I hadn't driven by this house since before it was sold. So it had been about 14 years and it brought back memories even if it was just a quick drive by and snap a few pictures.

One particularly hot day

Molly requested a ride on the carousel for her birthday but we never got around to going. So one particularly hot day this summer I took the kids to the mall to spend the afternoon walking around the air conditioned mall. I told the kids I only had 6 dollars in my wallet so that was all we had to spend for the afternoon. So we wouldn't be getting any food or any toys or anything. 

 Henry and Molly rode the carousel.

 Then we went to the arcade and played a few games of Skeeball.

 Played on the Mall playground.

And even got to say hello to spot.
Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Playing at the park

We went to the park quite a bit this summer. Even though my kids claim that the parks aren't as good as the parks we had "at our old house" they still wanted to go all the time.  Since Molly figured out she can ride on two wheels we often rode bikes to the park or around our city.  Mostly we just needed to get out. So early in the morning or late in the evening and sometimes even in the afternoon on particularly mild days.

We loved it when friends joined us to ride big wheels, scooters and such at the school playground.

 Sophie would make fairy houses most of the time.

 Molly usually had a stash of mini ponies to live in the houses

This girl can never get enough park time. Even when she is the only one at the park and it is 90 degrees she will run and climb and dance.

Legos

All summer my kids kept asking me for lego building challenges. They were particularly proud of this hobbit hole they made. We don't have any Lord of the Rings or Hobbit sets so this was made out of random bricks that we have in our big Lego bins.

 I had several rooms inside that hill.

 There are removable roof pieces so figures can be moved about.

 Since Henry never feels like he has enough legos he and Ian went in together to buy a Minecraft Lego set. They were so excited to finally get a Steve and a Creeper mini figures.

Henry even spent an entire day filming frame by frame a stop motion lego movie. I have about a million pictures of almost the exact same thing with just a tiny change from frame to frame.  My boys never tire of or get enough legos. They are always dreaming of the next set they would love to have.

Henry was even given the opportunity to display some of his Legos at our library.

 This is what Henry decided to display. Lots of Hogwarts mini figures his Minecraft house and Molly insisted Merida and her three brothers go on display too.

Totally out of the habit

So two months is a long break. I just haven't had much to share and I guess I am out of the habit of blogging. But since my kids love to read posts and get out the photo books that I have had printed of my blog posts I guess I should give it more of an effort to record our doings.

So my last post was before Molly's birthday and her party.

Henry spent a few days before Molly's party learning how to make some balloon animals. He really liked the monkey but I think the pony was the biggest hit with the kids at the party.

 Birthday Morning present was some new My Little Pony things. Sunset Shimmer was the requested pony so of course she arrived in her pony form and as an Equestria girl.

 The party that afternoon was fun. The kids decorated t-shirts and Henry made balloon hats and such.

 Then we pinned a tail onto Pinky Pie and played a few other games.

 Molly requested a fancy layer cake so this is what I came up with. I added some little plastic ponies around the layers  for decoration and that was that. Molly thought it was great!

So that was Molly's Birthday. We have had two more since hers two months ago but I will get to those in a bit.