Fireflies Are Nature's Glitter

A major perk of living in NC are the fireflies in summer. Alyssa described fireflies perfectly as nature's glitter. As the sunsets each evening the fireflies start their little romantic light show most often in taller grass. Fireflies make driving through the countryside magical. It is tragically awesome when they splat their eerie green, yellow or orange color on our windshield. 

Here are some closeups of the fireflies in our yard.

They are really docile and according to my children really dumb.  It is super easy to catch them even after they take off from your hand.

Here's my favorite photo! Fireflies sure are pretty little beetles!

Here's a video just for my dad. He's never seen any fireflies in person.
Hope you like it dad! Love and miss you so much!

The kids love catching fireflies as the evenings start to cool a bit.
We sure are grateful for nature's glitter this summer.

Our kittens have finally discovered fireflies. It's adorable!
(We have four kittens. I am not a pet person at all, but the kids are totally attached. The kittens were born under our home and a post about them is coming later this week.)

Elton John Concert

On Saturday we went to an Elton John concert at the PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte, NC. It was such a blast and the perfect 1st concert experience for the kids. Back in March I was so thrilled to see that Elton was coming to NC. Once I bought the tickets the count down to the concert began. The kids have been rocking out to his songs for months now and trying to learn his biggest hits. It turned out to be one of the best nights of my life.

This beauty was ready to rock out!

I am so grateful for the kind woman sitting next to us who took these photos. I love them! I am almost never in any good photos with the family. 
It is so nice to have all of us in the photos together.

The little ones were so thrilled that we found guitar glasses, feather boas and beads to wear. They wanted to dress up fancy like Elton.

Hotch is such a great dad! He totally played along.

We had awesome seats on the lawn. It was so nice being able to bring lawn chairs, blankets and even food to munch on. They kids chowed down on chips, guacamole, tomatoes and popcorn.

The opening act 2CELLOS (Luka Silic & Stjepan Hauser) were amazing!
It was awesome when they played "Smooth Criminal". 

The kids were so thrilled when Elton John finally stepped out. They loved the fact that he was wearing a sequined jacket and pants.

Alyssa kept telling me that it was totally awesome!

The second song he sang was "Bennie and the Jets" which is our family favorite! It started the night off well. My kids were so excited to hear him sing it live and that they knew most of the words.

Alyssa only captured a small bit of the chorus. 

We were definitely entertained by who we fondly called "Drunk Hippie Girl" and her interesting outfit. Let's just say she left absolutely nothing up for the imagination. At the end of the night we were entertained by her further when she got into some drama in the parking lot.

We were grateful for the jumbotrons!

Delaney and I love the song "Tiny Dancer"! We were so happy that we got to dance and song along to it. Alyssa captured the whole song on video.

These girls were having a wonderful time!

The photos below aren't the best, but we cherish them. (It was bummer that we couldn't bring in my nice camera and had to settle for using the lame 35mm.) Elton John sure did make our night! He is such an incredible singer.

Braxton was so happy when he sang "I Guess That's Why They Call Them the Blues" because he had just learned the whole chorus. He was so sweet when he cuddled into me as we sang and danced to his song.

I absolutely love this next photo of Alyssa! Her favorite Elton John song is "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)". As the concert was coming to an end (the second to last song) Elton John finally sang her favorite song. She started screaming and jumping all around. The joy on her face in this photo is priceless! She danced, sang and hugged me tons. It was a perfect moment!

Elton John signed some autographs and then walked off stage. The kids were wondering why we weren't leaving until we explained encores. 
They LOVED that he came back out to sing "Your Song".

We had an outstanding, incredible night!

No idea what these tired babies are doing, but they crack me up.

I am so grateful for these four treasures! They make my life complete! 
Going to an Elton John concert was such a blast and a blessing!

World Cup Is Serious Business

In our home we don't usually follow sports religiously. (The exception is the University of Utah football. I love the Utes!) Hotch loves sports especially baseball and football and he always seems to know what is going on. To this day I have never watched the World Series or Super Bowl. Since I've made it this long I'm sure I can go the rest of my life without ever watching them. BUT...

Everything changes when it comes to the World Cup!

We live for World Cup! I watch every single game unless something really important comes up. Otherwise I am glued to the screen for about a month every four years. Hotch and I get so stoked to get our World Cup on. This is serious business in our home. We always make up brackets and root for our favorite teams.  Personally I believe I out did myself with our huge wall bracket. We are mapping out the entire World Cup outcomes! Wish my photos did it more justice. It's okay to be jealous you don't have a huge World Cup bracket on your wall. Not everyone can be so awesome!

Here's the bracket we used to map our World Cup predictions. We might make a second bracket after the Group Stage to better predict what the outcome may be. Who knows we might have great brackets right now.

In order to get my kids pumped up for all the World Cup games I have printed out flags from each nation and we will research all of their locations, cultures, etc. We also have some fun activity sheets on the history of the World Cup and on the countries competing this year. Braxton is really interested in the past World Cup winners  and has his own little system set up to record World Cup stats. We have been talking about the past host countries and will be spending quite some time learning about Brazil. 
Here is a great link to some amazing World Cup printables.

My kids are so into watching soccer (football) this year which makes this World Cup that much more exciting! I love hearing them cheer and the explosions of joy or anger when a goal is made. Makes it such a blast!

Braxton and Delaney created their own game of soccer using Brax's Super Mario Bros. chess pieces. It was adorable and very competitive.

 Not sure what the outcome of the World Cup will be this year, but here in the Hotchkiss home we are stoked to find out! If you want to find us over the next month just check the World Cup schedule. We'll be avoiding the world and glued to each match for the duration of the World Cup! 

If your interested in getting your World Cup on too then check out the official FIFA website or print this PDF World Cup Schedule to find out when your favorite countries compete. (NOTE: Brazil is one hour ahead of EST.)

You can watch every match live streaming for free on Univision. Look for the video link with the countries playing along with the word gratis (free) or find the match link that says ver partidos en vivo (watch matches live). 
(NOTE: Everything will be in Spanish. We don't mind hearing the announcers speak Spanish the entire time because we are here to watch the games. Hotch just pointed out that the only important word is GOALLLLL and that's the same in English and Spanish.)