Let the Projects Begin!

Except I have to say, Savannah pretty much did this one by herself. I helped her come up with the idea and the process, but she did the whole experiment. She wanted to know what would take permanent marker off a penny the best. So..

She colored 10 pennies with permanent marker...


Put a tablespoon of each liquid in a cup and put a penny in each one...

Then we put it up high and let it sit for 24 hours.

Here is the poster with the results. By the way a special SUPER THANKS to Marcie, who let me use her Cricut for this as I am the only living person on this earth without one of my own (HAHAHA).

I think it turned out so great!!!!

First Day of School

Believe it or not I started this two weeks ago (that is when school started). I totally thought I would have this done by now, but life has gotten in the way. Life tends to do that, eh? Well at least I am getting it up. So here we go...

You know, sending my kids off to school always fills me with so many emotions. Sad, cause I have loved having helpful older kids to help around the house and to entertain my younger two. Happy, cause I don't have to break-up fights all day long (or even just listen to it). Scared, cause what if the other kids are mean to them. Excited for the things they will learn. Pride, cause I know my kids do so well in school. And probably a hundred other emotions that I don't have time to write about. So of course the moment their alarms went off they were up and at 'em (if only I could figure out how to wake them up like this every other morning).






















I love walking my kids to school. I get a chance to talk to them about their upcoming day. I get to hear all about their excitement and I get to be the last person they give a hug to before they go off to school. Just a little reminder for them that I love them (not to mention for me). I love catching Saige's kisses.


Here is Saige in her 2nd Grade class.


Sierra in her 5th Grade class.


And Savannah in her 6th Grade class.

As I walked back home I felt such a swelling of pride as I heard over the intercom the Pledge of Allegiance. I cannot help loving that the Pledge is still said. LOVE IT!!!!

Then came the HOT walk home.






As you can see Sierra was a little sad by the end of the day. She had a great day, she was just a bit concerned about her friend who was still on oxygen related to her asthma. She was so afraid for her. That is just Sierra, she is has so much concern for others.

I LOVE MY GIRLS!!!!!!! (and I love my boy, but this post is not about him. And I love Sedona, who is a girl but this reference to "girls" did not include her, and again this post was not about her)

Let's Ride!

So these are picture before Sedona's accident that I previously posted and you can see how much she is enjoying her riding her bike.






Now it is a different story. She won't ride at all if I am not holding onto her. She just screams and cries. She says "I just want to walk!" It is so sad. I am determined to get her loving her bike again. It just may take some time.

Summit has been so anxious to be able to ride his bike without training wheels. He has two friends down the street that ride like pros and he really wants to join them. We have taken them off several times only for him to more-or-less give up and have the training wheels put back on just so he can ride. So a week ago Summit came in and asked if I would take his training wheels off, again. So like a good mother I went out and took off his wheels and held onto the seat so he could give it a go. Well, he took off!!!! He got a little nervous when he noticed I let go, but he stayed up and kept going.











It did not take him long to decide that he didn't even need me to help him start. And right off he loved going up and down the end of our drive-way.

Sierra has been so excited that she now knows how to ride with NO HANDS!!!!! So it begins!

Can you tell?

Okay, so for Christmas Savannah got a sewing machine. She was so incredibly excited about this gift. As most all of you know I am not a sewer. So this has been quite the challenge for me to be able to help her. This is our second big project that we did.

Savannah really likes this!

And just in case you could not tell click on the following picture and pay attention to the face.


I should have taken a picture of her wearing the finished product. Um!!! Well, perhaps I will get that posted a bit later.

Super Glue is a Miracle Worker

Before I get too far into this post, I have to tell you that we lost our camera. Yes, we were at the Fourth of July Rodeo and some where amongst all the barrel racing and bucking we lost our camera. Actually, it was Saige's camera we lost cause our camera has a chip in the lens and the screen on the back is not working (grrr!!!). So besides loosing the camera we also lost our pictures from the event, which is what I am most heart-broken about. So that is why there have not been posts about my girls swim meets, or the rodeo or anything else. But when this event happened, the one I am about to tell you about, I decided I better just use my broken camera and get some pictures. SO............. Yesterday I took the three oldest to our float practice (the kids are on the float for Saturday's celebration of July 24th and they needed to know what they were doing). So while I was gone with them, Blake took Summit and Sedona out for a bike/scooter ride. Well, at the end of our street there is a bit of a hill and then the road turns to the right. Summit was up ahead of Sedona and he got going pretty fast on his scooter and started getting really close to the turn. Well, Blake could not see if there was a car coming and kept trying to yell to Summit to slow down. Of course what kid wants to slow down???? Speed is what it is all about and parents are just trying to ruin the fun, right? Anyway, so Blake ran up to Summit to get him to slow down. Meanwhile, Sedona came to the hill and she started going fast. By the time Blake turned around she was really picking up speed. Unfortunately she does not understand how to stop on her bike. So sure enough just before Blake got to her she hit a dip in the road and went right over her handlebars and face planted in the rocks on the road. Blake brought her home and got her cleaned up and put some band-aids on and she was set. But before Sedona went to bed I took a quick look at it. She had a bit of a gash in her head, as you might imagine, and a small rock still lodged in her head (imagine David and Goliath, just on a smaller scale, with the rock just totally stuck). So I got the rock out and decided that the gash needed to be closed up. I remember a couple of my friends telling me that they had closed up some wounds with Super Glue, so I figured I would give it a try.






Now the question I have is, how long does the Super-Glue stay on and do I ever need to re-apply it?


By the way, Mom & Dad, it was not to the bone so it was not as bad as mine.

Summit's Swimming Lessons

The first day Summit was not so sure he wanted to be in the pool, but by his last day he was sad to get out. He had sooooooooo much fun!!!

Oh, and to explain the "construction" goggles..... he has been wearing these in the neighbor's little pool and so he figured they would work well for the big pool too. As you can see, we fixed that pretty quick. I thought the pictures were adorable though.

Where is the "E"?

Last Saturday we had a bunch of friends over for homemade pizza. We had so much fun!!!! I think total we had 13 kids and 5 adults in, and out of, the house (Blake had to work, gggrrrrrr! one day he will be able to schedule work around family instead of the other way around). It was such a party!!!!! The following morning when I came into my kitchen I noticed something was a little off.


I am sure you see it, but just in case.


The "E" was totally gone! I know it was there the night before because one of my friends had commented on how much they liked my green wall with the red accent from the "apples." So I started looking, I mean there are only so many places it could have gotten to, right?

So logically I look on the floor right in front of the pantry. It only makes sense that it would come straight down.


No "E!"

So perhaps, I thought, that when the "E" fell down the pantry door was a little bit open and it fell into the rack I have on the inside of the door.


No "E!!"

I was starting to feel like I was on some kind of Sesame Street Hidden Camera thing and at any moment Cookie Monster or Big Bird or Elmo was going to jump out and start singing. I tried to put that thought in the back of my mind as a possibility so I would not be so taken by surprise when it happened.

Then, I thought maybe if fell into the trash. Our trash sits inside the pantry so there is no real logical way that could have happen, but let's face it by this time I was past the logical.


Still no "E!!!"

By this time I had enlisted the help of my oldest children. My thoughts were that when the "E" fell down one of my friends kids had taken it somewhere. We were searching high and low (well mostly low since that is how tall most of the kids were). Then we asked "THE BOY!"


Don't let him fool you as he did me. He is sooooooooo adorable with his angel smile and snuggling ways, not to mention his intoxicating laughter. When we asked him if he had seen it, he led us straight to it without any hesitation. Guess where it was...........


Of course, under MY bed. When I asked Summit how it got there he simply said, "I put it there!"

Then all the pieces started fitting together. Before I could open the pantry door I had to move this


That is when I remembered that on Saturday night as we were getting ready for family prayer Summit was throwing his pillow up in the air. After several times I asked him to stop and come to kneel down. He then told me that he just wanted to do it one more time in the kitchen. I told him I didn't want him to throw it in the kitchen cause it could land in the sink and get all wet.


Apparently, he threw it anyway (imagine that! I told you he was tricky), it knocked down the "E," he knew he could not come tell me what happened cause I told him not to throw the pillow, so he quickly thought up a plan and tucked it under my bed so as not to get into trouble. Then he came to prayer as though nothing had happened.