After 9 years

My little girl turns 9 today.  Time has flown by.  It is her last single digit birthday. On Saturday we had her birthday party.  She wanted a butterfly theme, so spent a long time cutting out butterflies and following her wishes.

 That is a butterfly net and there are butterflies on the straws

 The bags were time consuming but so cute. They had the first initial of each of the girls that came. (All those that were invited came. 11 girls from age 6-12)

 She specifically wanted lanterns. I am very grateful Hobby Lobby had them.

 The best butterfly curtain I could manage.

 The butterfly garland

 We had a couple of girls show up early. Anneke opened her present from her cousins and they spent about 1/2 an hour putting on fake tattoos.

 We played the "I have never..." game with Skittles and Evie won.

 We rolled the dice to get 9 and have a chance to dress up, cut the candy bar and eat what you could before the next person rolled a 9. (Anneke chose the number, but it was more difficult to get than I thought.)

 This is more like what I had in mind. (That's Rachel.)

 The cotton ball game was fun. Rachel got the hang of it and emptied her bowl winning the game. This is her twin sister Rebecca and Marcus.*

 I made Anneke a dirt cake in a pot complete with gummy worms. The little girl in the background is Anneke's best friend Maggie.

 Mallory helped herself

 Anneke got some good gifts.  She had a lot of fun.

 Marcus was the life of the party. Anneke got facepainting crayons and the girls had fun decorating him.

Anneke really wanted her cousins to stay over. Evie made it! She stayed all night!
L to R - Mallory, Anneke, Luke, Evie, Bella and Marcus

The girls that came early stayed late. We had been invited to swim, play games and eat at a friends house.  The girls stayed 2 1/2 hours after the party was over! Andy took everyone while I waited and waited. At 6:30pm when they started asking for dinner I was ready to scream. But, Anneke loved it and that is what counts.

*Marcus took a shower (without being asked) and got all dressed up for Anneke's party. He was being kind of a jerk and acting odd.  Well, turns out he has a crush on Rebecca.  He is so funny about it and now I have put it out into the world. He is going to love me for it.

Summer Fun

If it rains I try to let my children play in it if possible.  It does not rain often here during the day, so that is either a good thing or bad thing.

This one makes me smile every time.

 On my "Summer Bucket List" I wanted to play a game called Paintman. It is hangman outside using paint on the person instead of drawing a hangman.  However, when it came down to it, I could not make the mess.  Instead we used water guns and shot the person.

 First the face/head.

 Then the arms, one at a time.

 Then the legs one at a time.

 The game took less time with only 5 tries. Next time we will try to fix that. Luke stumped us all with his 3 letter word. It was not a word, but an acronym, CTR.

 Andy sang on a night of music on Friday.  He sounded pretty good. While he took care of the sound board and such, I chased Mo around and watched the rain from the church foyer. Someday I will get to watch a whole performance. 

But, then I will miss the times when I couldn't.

Utah Vacation

I really wanted to do Independence Day elsewhere.  Not much happens here and I wanted my kids to have a memorable 4th of July. For the first time in a long time Andy did not teach this week so we went to Utah.  We visited with Andy's family.  We watched Monster's University, went to the temple, went 4 wheeling and shooting, went swimming (Anneke loved the high dive at the AC), ate too much junk food and just played in the cool Utah weather. (Yes, I know it was in the 90s but for us it was quite pleasant.)

Then I remembered I had my camera.

On the 4th of July after visiting with Popi and Grandma Doreen we headed over to the park for festivities. Andy got wrapped up talking to his family and we got bored so we got some shaved ice. (Marcus and Anneke had money and were thrilled they got to roam by themselves for once.)

 Andy was still talking when we finished so we played miniature golf with Bella and her best friend. Luke was pretty good.

 Mallory finally started throwing the ball and putting it into the hole herself.

 Anneke found us and wanted to join, too.

 Marcus just watched and tried to help Mo. It was a losing battle.

 They participated in the candy scramble. My children are so funny. They did not get much because they would let others take it or give it to those with less. It made me smile because they only had one or two pieces each anyway. We then ate Miller's Bakery burgers for lunch.

Anneke and Luke spent the afternoon helping Grammy with the face painting booth. They even got paid!

We watched fireworks on temple hill.

 Mo's fake smile

Luke, Michael and Marcus

 This is my favorite shot of Anneke.

 I saw a lot of people that I knew but did not seem to be recognized. Mrs. Liddell helped me in the temple and her husband was a part of it, too. Cory Poulson and his wife were at the temple. Jay Ward and Dan Kay were at the movies. Chad Cox was at the park with his family. (I saw all of them but Shelby.) We chatted with Brother Russell and he did remember us. Andy dunked him in the dunk tank. (Marcus almost hit him with the balls he threw, but when they both missed all 6 tries Andy jumped and hit the bar to dunk him.)

Last night we had a family dance at the church. It was a project for one of the young women's Personal Progress. It was really fun. Marcus danced with Brynn and I tried to get a shot of them. He was embarrassed.

 I did not get to dance with this guy much because his other 2 girls wanted some attention.

 At the end Mallory and Maddison figured out they were the same height. They were not sure what else to do, but it was cute.

I hope your Independence Day was good. We are now home and getting back into the routine of life.

June is Bustin' Out All Over

Since school got out things have been pretty good. We have been trying to keep busy.

Mallory is having a rough time sleeping and the potty training is not going well. I am tired and  would love to give up. I am not good at potty training. It took 6 months with Marcus and Anneke pretty much did it on her own. Cari helped with Luke and now Mo is looking like it will be more Marcus than anything. It has been a month with no real progress.

 Father's day went well.

 A belt buckle, as usual, this time Avengers

 We decorated his cream soda.

 As part of our Summer activities I wanted to try foamerators. They were easy and fun.

 We used a whole container of bubbles.

 It took a little while for the toddler to figure it out.

 Marcus did a lesson on the Armor of God. He had Luke be his model. Then we threw fiery darts (wads of paper) at him.

 Of course Mo wanted a turn, too.

Then the camera died and I kept forgetting to charge the battery. But, I did today, the first day of a new month. Stay tuned for our further Summer adventures.

Oh, and no job news.