1st Saturday of Summer

This may been the busiest day of our summer...and it's only the first one!  We had so many things scheduled this day that we wanted to be a part of so we just made it work!

We stared bright an early this morning garage saleing!  We love this!  The best deal of the day was this!  I got all of this stuff for a whopping $5!!!  Most of it was brand new.  I was giddy about this!  I also got 5 new DVD's for the kids for $5.  It was a great day to garage sale!

After that, we headed to Florence church of Christ where some of our good friends attend.  They were having an open house to try getting the community to know them better.  It was perfect weather and lunch was provided.  I made the mistake of eating one Rice Krispie treat...which lead to three more.  I knew that was a bad idea, but I just can't seem to stop eating those...the good news was, they were much thinner than normal so I'm going to say I really just ate 1 slightly thicker than normal one.  Allen, who preaches part time there, and Shawn and quite similar in build and hair style...and today they were even matching in clothes!  It was quite funny...this isn't the first time they've dressed alike accidentally!

We went straight from their to Levi's last official swim class.  He rocked it!  I still am positive that if he feel in deep water, he'd drown.  But, he absolutely has the basics down perfectly and can swim in the water....but coming up for breath and staying afloat is something we'll need to improve.  I loved watching him, in just two short weeks go from not really wanting to get his face in the water, to a full out swimmer.  I imagine he will be swimming really well by the end of the summer.

We headed straight to our friends 8th birthday party at Pump It up, after swim lessons.  The kids had an aboslute blast playing here!  Shawn and I even got to play one game of air hockey.  I lost and I'm still mad about it.  7 to 5.  Mad.

Levi and Natalie

From Pump It Up, Shawn and Levi dropped me and the girls off at one of the city pools for our end of the year Girl Scout Pool Party.  The girls had so much fun for an hour....until it started to thunder. :(  The pool closed, but the girls weren't too bummed because they were both invited to their girl scout friend's house to have a sleepover tonight!  Score girls!  Score parents!  Having one child IS.SO.EASY!!!  

 Welcome to summer, where everything is supposed to slow down!

5th Grade Graduation

Last year, on the last day of school, I was at the school going to my girls parties and walked past the 5th grade graduation ceremony, and I started tearing up.  This was not good.  My child wasn't graduating with that class.  I have been a little worried about crying at this ceremony now that my own child was actually one of the graduates.  But I surprised myself and didn't shed a single tear.  Maybe it's because I feel quite confident that Elle is very ready to take this next step.  She has friends going with her to this new school and I will be able to focus better on each of my children this coming school year, since I will be a SAHM who has all kids in school!  Either way, it was a fun sweet ceremony and we are all excited to go through this next new transition together!

End of the Year Parties

Elle's end of the year party had to be changed because of the weather!  It was supposed to be at a local park....but the rain flooded that park.  Hers ended up being at school.  They had four stations to pick from with 2 being movie stations, one being a game station and one being a craft station....she went for the craft station.  So we sat together talking and laughing with a friend and cutting up pictures of people in magazines and putting them back together on another piece of paper.  I'm glad she still wants me to hang out with her.

Then we headed down to Ava's classroom for her awards and party.  Her teacher had the class vote on each student and what they were most likely to be.  Ava's class voted her most likely to be a teacher.  That is exactly what Ava says she wants to do and I thought it was sweet that they picked that for her.  She is a favorite for her teachers because she is so willing to do anything for them to help them.

Vincent

Nine years ago, I had to have my cat put to sleep. I had had that cat since about one month after I got married.  Elle was 2 and I was very pregnant with Ava.  I never wanted another pet again.  The kids have begged for dogs, cats, anything!  With each extra child, the conviction that I didn't every want any kind of pet grew stronger....I didn't even feel like I could add the responsibility of a house plant to what I was already caring for.  And then Ava come home talking about hermit crabs....specifically four hermit crabs in her classroom at school.  The teacher was going to draw names and give those kids the hermit crabs to take home, as long as their parents agreed to get all the necessary items to give it a good home.  I'm not easily moved by children begging....but there was something about how Ava's eyes looked when she talked about those hermit crabs and how desperately badly she just wanted to have a chance to get her name drawn to take one home. Shawn and I looked at each other, both able to read the others' expression so well....we knew we'd be getting a pet.  So we signed her permission slip and waiting for fate.  That Friday Ava came BEAMING out of school with a huge smile on her face.....her name had been drawn!  We had the weekend to get everything we needed.  On Tuesday morning, the day the hermit crabs were coming home, Ava went to her hermit crab and asked the teacher if she could check on it because it didn't seem to be doing much.  She picked it up and barely jiggled it and the hermit crab fell out...it was dead.  Side note: I was heartbroken when I got an email that morning from the teacher telling me the details of what had happened.  I wanted to be right there in that classroom rocking Ava and telling her it would be okay.  Now she wouldn't have been okay with that, but her teacher did say that she started crying.  Heartbreaking.  Back to the story.  So her teacher promised her that she'd go get her another crab and have it for her the next day.  Ava was pretty bummed when she came home that day.  That evening we were watching a movie together and the doorbell rang...it was her teacher stopping by the house to deliver her hermit crab!!!!!  I just grabbed the teacher and hugged her!  Ava was in disbelief that her teacher had actually come to her house to deliver her new pet!!!  After her teacher left, we put the hermit crab, which we named Vincent, into his new home and it was quite a funny scene.  We all sat there for a good 3 minutes, silently watching the shell that wasn't moving at all...waiting for something to happen.  We had read that sometimes it takes hermit crabs a few days to get used to their new surroundings so we crossed our fingers and went to bed...praying he'd still be alive in the morning.  The next morning we woke to find sand everywhere!  All in his water bowl, all in his food bowl, outside the container he's in (it has some holes in it) and Vincent had moved!  We were all thrilled!!!  Right now, he's the perfect pet for us...very low maintenance (and easily replaced if he dies : / )

Here's a picture with the kids and their new pet.  Ava's holding him and Elle made him a sign for his home....and he happens to be sitting under a Van Gogh painting.

Pre K Graduate

Whatever happened to the days when you just graduated from high school and then college?  Now we have Pre K, Kindergarten, 5th, 8th and 12th grade graduations!  Although I think pre-K graduation is a bit silly, it was still a fun day and the pictures I took will look grade in his senior slide show in the year 2028!!! 

Waiting patiently to be called to the front.

His teacher used one word to describe each child....Levi's word was "playful."  Why does that worry me?

Buddies since they were 13 months old!

Our last baby is a graduate (and still my baby.)

Swimming and Bridging and Picking

Levi started swim lessons today.  We wasn't sure whether he was excited or not, but after it was over, I think he loved it!  We signed up for a two week "fast track" program where he goes 4 days each week and I'm hoping at the end, he is much more confident in the water.  The class can have up to 4 kids in it but no one else signed up for this time slot so Levi is getting 30 full minutes of one on one time with his instructor!  It's awesome!

We had our last Girl Scout meeting tonight and got to watch Elle bridge from Junior to Cadette.  Next year Ava will bridge from Brownie to Junior!  We have had three great years in Girl Scouts with many more to come hopefully!

Levi and Gabby patiently waiting for the ceremony to be over...because cake was being served afterwards!

It takes four of us to keep our troop together!  We have Brownies, Juniors, Cadettes and Seniors all mixed into a big ol' group of about 20 girls!

Lastly, it's blackberry season, which means I go out twice a day and pick blackberries...or the birds get them..and I'm stingy about my blackberries.  The bush has gotten a bit out of control, hence the ladder....don't want to leave a single berry on the vine!  Heaven forbid!

This happened today

The day finally arrived....I signed my "baby" up for Kindergarten.  He was so very excited and acted like an old pro....of course he has been visiting this school regularly for the last five years!  I am excited to get to enjoy all these "firsts" one last time through his eyes.  Next school year is going to be adventurous if nothing else!

Our weekend and a few Extras

We stared our weekend with a picnic at the park.  

We told the kids that they had wide open spaces so GO PLAY!  This is what they kept trying to do.  We had to MAKE them go play while we got dinner ready.

Ava went to the closest tree and stared at it for a few minutes.

Let me just be honest here.  I like hot dogs pretty well and if they are cooked on a fire they are even better.  But I always have a alterior motive when building a campfire...roasted marshmallows.  I LOVE them!

The kids and I started off garage saleing Saturday morning.  A neighborhood near us was doing a community garage sale!  Levi was able to get this claw, hat with microphone and the cars at his feet for a total of $3!

The girls put their money together and bought this set of Bakugan toys for a whole $2.  They are sort of like little transformers that turn into a ball.  They have been very busy with these since buying them! 

I was super stoked to get this strainer and pestle for making blackberry jelly, for a whole $3...they usually run about $30ish!

After the amazing buys, we headed to something called Pioneer Days.  I've never heard of it before, but this was it's 10th year!  It was GREAT!  There were 25 stations you could go to, to learn more about how the pioneers lived.  We started at the Maypole station.  We went around and around and around that pole twisting the ribbons down...and then were told we now had to reverse and untwist all those ribbons!  The kids had fun though.

We got there right as it started and this man took a liking to our little family and did something I'm pretty sure he didn't let anyone else do...he gave us hatchet and knife throwing lessons!  The kids are still talking about getting to throw a hatchet!

The girls also learned how to make these cloth dolls and learned how to make corn husk dolls.

They participated in sack races...Ava won...she's a bit competitive.

We played with "old fashioned" toys meaning, made of wood and no batteries!

The girls got to see what it was like to do laundry on a wash board and try ironing with one of those old heavy irons.  We were all very thankful for washing machines after this station.

We learned about how pioneers used corn for many things and also got to try out a de-kernaler.  I just made that title up, but that's what this machine does.  It takes the kernels off the dry corn.  It was pretty cool!

Then the kids headed to school.  The girls could have stayed in here and played all day!  They loved writing on their slates and taking a spelling test.

 Other things we tried or learned about: candle making, cloth dyeing, spinning wool to make thread, how to make lace, how to set a beaver trap, how to start a fire from flint and a piece of steel, all about how the fire station worked long ago and we also got to tour a home that is now a museum, lived in back in pioneer times.  Basically, I think we are ready to live off the grid.

While we were learning how to DIY on life, Shawn and some buddies were running the Tough Mudder!  He said he had such a great time and he looked so much better after his race than I felt after I did the Tough Mudder a few years ago!

Onto the "extras."  So this just happened last week...not for me...but for Elle!  

She was accepted into the percussion section of band for next year!  This is a foreign world to us, but we are so very excited that she had the skills to be picked to be in this part of band.  Then the hammer fell....we got an email with the supply list and needs for her to be in percussion.  Long story short: the supplies she needs add up to $275 dollars, the marimba that she will need to rent will cost us $60 per month (and it's about 4 feet long and will stay at our house!) and they highly encourage us to get private lessons which cost $20/session which is 30 minutes.  Whew.  That was a lot to take in at one time...and seriously expensive when you are a 6th grader that is just dipping your toes in this whole band thing.  We were able to find used supplies for the most part and will only pay about $120 for those instead of $275, but haven't figured out how to get around the instrument rental price or the private lesson issue....any grandparents want to help Elle become a possibly world famous female drummer??  Or maybe just help her parents not go bankrupt?!  Regardless of all these unexpected costs, we are thrilled and so excited for Elle...and she's excited too!

 The last "extra" happened Wednesday at church.  We held our 1st service lead by our young men and boys on Wednesday.  It was absolutely precious and made our hearts want to burst out of our chests with how sweet these little boys (and some big ones) did learning how to be leaders in the church.  This was Levi's first time to ever lead a song and he sang "Blue Skies and Rainbows."  He didn't falter one bit and had a smile on his face the whole time!  I wanted to cry I was so proud.  You would never know by watching him that night that the previous day, he had spent over a hour standing at this exact podium crying and crying and crying because he didn't want to practice.  I told Shawn that his (Shawn's) stubbornness had to outlast Levi's stubbornness.  And Shawn's did.  As soon as Levi realized we weren't letting him out of it, he pulled himself together and practiced that song with a smile on his face...never had another problem!  So excited for the next time these boys get to lead.