activities Archives

I can’t help but sing “in Sum-merrrrrr” ala Olaf from Frozen. If you haven’t seen the movie, then the songs are probably not stuck in your head or being sung over and over again by your housemates. Great songs, but any song can get annoying after the hundredth time you hear it being belted out by your five year old daughter. Gotta love “Sum-merrrrrr!”

So, we’re off and the first week of summer is already behind us. I counted and I believe we have 93 days of summer. Meaning, we only have 81 days left! Aack! We better get to livin…

The first weekend of summer was filled with birthday fun. First, the hubs grilled burgers and hotdogs at his parents’ home on his birthday.

We had cake, of course and the theme is one that will probably be with us all summer long: B-A-S-E-B-A-L-L! So long 38 and hello, 39. Happy happy birthday to Moustapha!

We decorated with Moustapha’s vintage pennants. Here’s his beautiful momma with one from 1984! “Mo-stapha!”

A little attention needed for our little guy and then…

Time for a song and cake!

We all put up our Longhorns and little Leeland sported his peace sign proudly.

With my dear parents and sister.

Moustapha’s sweet Aunt Mary Louise even joined in for the party. She was visiting from out of town!

Our newest family member was also part of the celebration. We love all of our nephews!

We’ve had cake, and now let’s have some chocolate fudgecicles. Why not!?

Me and the birthday boy!

With his proud daddy.

And, then…we celebrated another very special birthday. Our sweet niece, Grace shares a birthday with Moustapha. She turned 3. Isn’t she lovely?

After the birthday celebrations, we had an adventure of our own at the El House. One afternoon, I went in to our daughter’s room only to discover the noise of a small critter coming from the wall. Something was stuck and not happy about it. That night, the oldest boys slept in a different room (they share a wall with their sister) in sleeping bags on the floor and our two youngest also slept in different beds then their usual spots. All to get away from whatever was nervous and clawing at the wall. The next day, Moustapha cut a hole in the wall, only to discover this little face looking back at him. A baby raccoon. We called the Texas Wildlife Center. They believed that the mom might come back for the baby. So, we placed the baby in this little bin and the baby stayed there all night. By the next morning, Moustapha was really worried about the baby, so he took the baby raccoon – the kids named him Racky- to the Wildlife Center. They said he was dehydrated, but otherwise doing well. We are allowed to check on Racky’s progress twice over the next 6 months. We will try to be patient!

Throughout the week, Maddux played in a tournament on a 7U select league team. His team, The Bellaire Bombers, won every game and they won the entire tournament on Saturday. Moustapha, Bakri and I enjoyed cheering them on to victory. Did I mention that baseball is going to be a big theme this summer? This is part of the reason for that. It’s our first time having anyone play select league. It could get interesting!

Maddux, getting his team first place trophy!

With me.

With Dad.

And, brothers celebrating at dinner!

I think that about sums up the first week of summer. It was a fun doozy! We’ve already celebrated another birthday this week- my father-in-law and we have more coming this week. I can’t complain. Summer, baseball, birthdays, family, music…these are a few of my favorite things….

Hope your summer is off to a great start too. The last few summers, we’ve had theme weeks at our house to give us purpose each week and to really help me stay organized and keep the Els active. Several of my friends shared this blog post from City Moms Blog with a bucket list of things to do with your kids this summer in Houston. Check it out here: http://citymomsblog.com/houston/summer-2014-bucket-list/ This is specific to Houston, but many of the activities would work in any town. I did have one child request the theme weeks again yesterday. I’m still contemplating that. I will update here if we decide to go that route or if we have our own bucket list this summer. I will definitely post our activities here. Keep busy, keep calm and keep cool!

– El Momma

So, you may have heard. We had a star-studded performance of Aladdin performed exclusively at our home this Summer. You didn’t hear about it? Well, here is the press coverage to prove it. Now that you know about it, you won’t want to miss what we are doing next Summer. It’s gonna be off the hook!

Here is the story of how this came to be:

Houston offers amazing Summer activities for kids: camps, events at the zoo, museums, theatres, etc. One of the things I was really interested in getting Bakri involved in (our four year old) was musical theatre. He loves music and loves acting things out. But, he is a four year old boy and his attention span is not yet cut out for intensive 3 hour rehearsals. So, my very bright husband said, why don’t you just do your own musical? hey. That is a great idea. I’ll teach the kids a musical that we can do at the house. It will give us something fun to do on those hot Texas Summer days and the kids will love it.

And, they did. It was super easy. First, I had to pick the musical. I chose Aladdin, because the kids were familiar with the movie and liked it AND when I did a quick google search, I was able to find the script right away online.

Through Amazon.com/mp3s I was able to download all of the music from the soundtrack and a few of the songs in the karaoke style(without voices.) It was perfect. We picked the most energetic song first and got to work…uhhhh….play. The first song we learned was “One Jump Ahead.” I choreographed it. Which basically means when the song says “Jump” I had the kids jump! And when it said “swing” I had them swing their arm. It was so simple, and so easy.

After we learned the first song, we moved on to the rest. The kids had their favorites, but we would practice them all.

The costumes were super easy too. I used white baseball pants and stitched patches on them. And I cut the vests out of felt. The Prince Ali costume was the most fun to make. I used a child size straw hat that I found at Goodwill and covered it with a white puffy silk material. I then placed a feather and jewel on it. It really looked nice.

The backdrop was also made of felt. I drew the castle and cut that out of posterboard. We had pottery barn outdoor lights which I used to make the stage more lit up. Over all, our house served as a very good location for a theatrical production.

So, if you are up for something to do next Summer with your kiddos, I would highly recommend this activity. It’s a ton of fun and very rewarding. Here are some photos of our Summer Musical 2009!

Dress rehearsal….what’s in this lamp?
Trying on his costume. Maddux played the part of Abu (the monkey) and the genie. Really both of the boys did most everything together.
Here is Bakri in his Aladdin costume.
The boys together.
The backdrop.
Last minute touches before opening night!
The show begins….

The audience (our family came to the house for my birthday and the Aladdin performance!)
Prince Ali!

Singing “A Whole New World” on the magic carpet ride!

The end!
Some after photos!

Actors can be so dramatic. 🙂

Tag: activities

And We’re Off to a Running Start- First Week of Summer is Done!

A Whole New World- A Night of Theatre at Our House