Last random things….

One day for school the kids gotta make fossils out of clay, well pretend ones.  They would find small objects around the house and the idea was to imprint it in the clay, we would cook them, then bury them out in the dirt hill and later they could go find them.  Well unfortunately Savannah and her friend found the clay, and since it was still soft….figured they could wad it all up and play with it again.  Bummer….fossils gone.

Also pictured:
Emma’s bandaged up chin so she won’t keep splitting it open!
Playing in the bath on her birthday….her favorite thing

 

Our neighbors and friends, Michi and Bryan, had their baby girl last week.  We got the pleasure of having their other two kids at our house for a couple nights.  A few days after they were home we were able to go to their home to visit and bring in a meal. They even let Maliyah and Ky hold the darling 4 lb 13 oz baby!

And yes, she is sucking her thumb in that picture….how cute!

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The kids were asking how to cross eyes and I explained to duck that I can’t very well.  Either my eyes are crossed facing down, or if I move them up, then one eye starts to go straight! So we both tested our cross eyed abilities.



The kids finished up their session of swim this week. Savannah did awesome for her first session. She never did make it off the board, but she got really good at walking up to the edge to show the teacher her toes, and then would jump off the side.  The rest of them LOVE the diving board.



Fun Friday this last week was a trip to the childrens museum. We didn’t used to go much because the daily price was, well, pricey. But we finally got the year membership so I think we’ll go a lot more often! We stayed for a good 2 hours and the older three weren’t ready to leave and hadn’t even visited half of the museum (and it’s not that big, just THAT fun!). 

A quick run down!

(there is a second page of posts again, so feel free to look at the previous posts!)

Update:

It’s been a crazy busy week as I hurt my back the beginning of it, so that slowed me down quite a bit. But knowing we would be potty training this next week and i would get nothing done, I worked hard the rest of the week to try to catch up! I even was able to make 3 skirts for Easter today!
After our little update, there are a few posts that have been sitting waiting to be posted for months….so yes they are outdated. But just some family sessions I had done this last fall.  It’s not even close to all of them and I probably never will. Sorry.

Moving on…..

Jayden is SO close to swimming! Our requirement is that before they can do any other extra curricular activities or sports, they have to be able to swim the 15 ft across the pool by themselves.  Jayden is ALMOST there!!!



I’ve been trying to spend more one on one time with the kids during the week.  Thursdays Maliyah and Kyson visit an elderly lady in our ward, so this week my activity with Jayden (while the little girls were sleeping) was making this super hero cape! Not too bad considering we didn’t measure anything, didn’t iron anything and used scrap fabrics.  I let Jayden write his Initial for me to put on it.  After cutting it out, I laid it on the cape getting ready to pin it. When I came back from getting the pins….he had ‘fixed’ it and put it backwards again.  Love it.



Getting ready for St. Patricks Day!



Jayden had been wanting to make these bird feeders forever and we finally were able to squeeze it in!



Girly PLay date!  Good thing we have TWO doll houses. Thanks Tracy!



Sunday, St. Patricks Day, we invited some friends over for Dessert. We played Don’t eat Pat, and ate these yummy marshmallow cookies!





This week Savannah had her little friend Sammie over to play. They hadn’t played in a long time, and were too cute together. They played in the hall playing with their little animals and playing make believe forever!



Splish Splash!!



Last night before spring Break started we had a late night and got to make cookie and candy creations.  Savannah was trying soooo hard to get her tower to stay up!



Too cute!



Love this cute little girl that has such a HUGE imagination!~  God help me remember my intense love for her this week as we begin potty training!



Also, if you wanna see my photo's from my March submission for Project.12, go here

Girls Camp {Commitment Hike, Crafts}

This year for Girls Camp I was asked to put on the Commitment HIke at the end of the week. This is a spiritual hike that kinda sums up the whole theme of the week, comes after the Stake Presidents Fireside and bring the girls to the location of their Testimony meeting. When asked I was completely overwhelmed by what I felt were great expectations. Last years hike was phenominal....talked about forever. They also asked a presidency to take care of it last year, not just one person. Honestly due do other evens and situations I was pretty overwhelmed by it all up until the day of when it all came together. And it did come together. It was amazing. Seriously amazing. The committee that I pulled together worked so hard. Our speakers were just perfect, the hike was very spiritual and ended just perfectly with our Temple President and his Wife as our final Presenters. The girls final destination was the temple and we decorated this 'lower amphtheatre' with tonz of pictures of the temples all with spotlights, a slideshow of the temples with hymns,white bows and flowers, and starting with the beginning of the hike up to the temple location.....hundreds of mason jar lanterns. Still very simple compared to what they did last year, but certainly just seeing those lanterns lining the beautiful dark woods...left an impression on me. The quiet, the sniffles, the powerful words of our presenters, then to come to the temple and be greeted by a sister in white....it was just amazing. It definitely made all the work worth every moment, especially when one particular young woman got up to bear her testimony later and shared waht she learned from this hike. She picked up on every bit of symbolism. If there was a girl that missed it...they now got it. Amazing.

The girls left that night with their own Mason Jar lantern along with waterproof matches (dipped in YW color wax) inside a film container and a quote on the label that went perfect with our whole theme of Hold High Your Torch.



(all ideas come from others genius, and not my own....FYI)

For the jars that we gave the girls, we put flame stickers on the jars, frosted them, peeled the stickers off and then the flame shone through that clear spot really cool!  The idea we found online had used various shapes, then one idea they actually ordered vinyl in shape of the young womens torch to use as the stickers, but we didn't have time for that. Thanks cricut for the next best thing!  Just used the basic frost spray Wal-mart carries and it worked great!




The display the girls saw as the arrived at the 'Temple'.







One of the crafts this year (yes I helped in the craft cabin too....whew I'm glad that's all over)...we had these glass tile necklaces. We had so many that we were able to use the leftover to make Temple necklaces for all the girls to get at the end of the hike as well. 





This image is one I took and edited...if you are interested in it, feel free to contact me.  I'm too lazy to post it right now.

On the way home from Camp one night I wanted to take a picture of the moon and it's reflection on the lake.  I pull over (it was nearly midnight) and as soon as I roll down the window the car alarm goes off! I couldn't get it stop either! I freaked out that some crazy person was going to come up to the car and either want to help me or get mad at me so I quickly called Duck and woke him up to help.  Lol...never stop to take pictures on a scary highway in the woods at midnight.


Oh, and remember those hundreds of mason jar lanterns? Yeah those were just for us to borrow (minus the frosted ones of course) so guess who still had to go and clip wire off those jars after we had just finished wrapping them all!!!?  Sheesh...what a job. It was worth it though!!!

Fun times with Grandma, Cousins and Aunt Neenie

I may not be posting all about our trip, but I will share the pictures my mom and sister got of their activities with the kids! They were awesome to take on such a large job, and were prepard with fun activities and crafts!

This is just before we headed to the airport.





The laughing game?  With 8 kids under 8!!!





This is one of the crafts that they made.  They didn't take a picture of the final product, but I will try to and post next week.

Glue Crayons onto a canvas.





Blow dry until melty



Let drip to desired design



The one on the right is the one they finished for us and they added flowers at the tops with pics of the kids in the centers.  It really is super cute!



Aunt Neenie is the best pizza maker!



Eating their homemade pizzas!



Aunt Neenie also made this amazing cake with a treasure hunt that went with it.



At the end they each got to keep a figurine and enjoy the yummy cake!



All the kiddo's with Grandma at McDonalds.


Thanks again Grandma and Aunt Neenie for making it the best week ever!

Dates, BBQ's and BABIES!

The Young Women in our Ward were having their Fundraiser this Saturday and although I couldn't make it, I signed up to make a dessert for their dessert Auction.  It's one of my favorite treats (when I'm watching my calories), White Chocolate Popcorn. We tried to color the popcorn in the Young Women Value Colors.  The red turned out more pink (despite how much coloring we put in) and then white just didn't stay very white (the popcorn was micro with butter already in it) but I know it's yummy and still turned out pretty cute!  I found the veggie trays at Wally's on clearance and even though I didn't necessarily need the different sections, I figured it left someone with a fun little tray to keep!



The first Saturday of the Month is usually when we schedule dates with the kids. This Particular Saturday was VERY busy and we weren't sure if it was going to fit in, but we forgot about it last month and the kids were counting on it, so we squeezed them in! Duck took Jayden to his work to ride the forklift (Jayden's request), Maliyah went shopping with Dad (also her request) and Jayden and I went on a hike and water gun fight! I did have to kinda trick him into this one, but when I knew I wouldn't make it to the GYM, this was one way to get in a little exercise AND my date!  It was really fun, he was a great hiker, and totally soaked me with his water gun. 




A more panoramic view of Klamath Falls.  I should have pointed it out, but you can see my house in this picture!



We spent the rest of the afternoon with these two little cuties! They are my friends Foster kids and Maliyah is just in love. Okay okay so am I!  I can't help it...they are too cute!



He was mad because he couldn't get the little 'cars' flip phone open and I wouldn't help him unless he said please. I'm mean like that.


That evening I was supposed to take Maliyah's 8 1/2 yr pictures, but we got invited to a last minute BBQ Birthday so we didn't have enough time for pictures.  I'll have to see if I can pull it off tomorrow although today would have been perfect becuase it's cloudy!  There's just too much going on today. I have to play the piano at Seminary Graduation in an hour, then we have the missionaries and a new family in the ward coming over for dinner.  Then starts a SUPER busy week for me...but I'll for sure squeeze her pictures in. Jayden's 4 1/2 ones too!

Catching up {homeschool, kids sewing lessons, swim}

I didn't get a chance to finish blogging last week so the following is all of last week and part of this week

For Friday Fun day last week I took the kids to a ceramic shop called 'Next of Kiln.' They each got to choose something small to paint and soon they will be ready to pick up! I'll take pictures of the final product when we get them back.









Saturday night I went on a photography walk with Maliyah, just taking pictures of whatever we saw along the way. I explained to her about Sillouhette shots and took a few to show her.



Maliyah is a great walking partner. She is pretty good at keeping up if I'm walking fast and it's always fun to have someone to talk to!



Thursday of this week was a BUSY day! In the morning our Preschool group had a fieldtrip at the Bowling Alley. I think the favorite part was going in the back to see the machines that pick up the pins.



This machine is what strips and oils the lanes.



We went from there, straight to swim lessons. I think it's funny that Jayden looks scared in this picture. He is on the Diving board...but he LOVES the diving board. Not sure what the face it all about



This little guy is just too cute. He was adopted and brought here a year ago from Africa. He is so tiny, but today was the FIRST day that he jumped off the diving board on his own. It's amazing how much we can learn from kids. He has been scared to death of jumping off that thing but after watching the other kids had developed enough faith that the teacher would catch him.



After swim the kids ate lunch in the car as we drove around delivering these:


Poor Baby Madalynn is still not doing really well and is all the way up in portland. Her Dad stays here for work and drives there every weekend to help mom with the kids. The gas is killing them! So we are trying to help ease that burden a little bit. We have a box at Pet Medical Center, Blue Dot, and CED. If you want to help them out please find one of those boxes! Or, if you know a great place to leave one of these boxes, I still have two more.

Thursday afternoon we also had sewing lessons here at the house and History. Sewing classes are going really well and I've been typing up our curriculum as we go so if you are ever intrested in what we do, or for lessons for young kids I would be happy to email them to you.  It was a busy day, but full of good things!