The Beginning

This year marks the beginning of many busy years to come-with kids life has a tenancy to always feel busy but we've now entered the realm of multiple extracurricular activities. For Eli's birthday we started her in Martial Arts (lessons at least twice a week). She's been asking to take lessons for a long time so I'm happy we found a place we could enroll her that is so, well, awesome (I made Sandy call a bunch of places to find a good one, since he knows a bit more about that stuff than I do)! Sandy and I have both been really impressed with her coach; this isn't your normal "show up and learn a few moves/kicks" karate class, thankfully. He takes this stuff seriously but still keeps it fun for his youth classes; Eli LOVES it!! She earned her white belt yesterday, as well as her first stripe, and is SO proud of herself (so are we).

Next week we're signing Livi up for dance class, per her request (though she changes her mind every time she sees Eli in her Martial Arts class). I think she'll really do well in dance. And, hopefully, piano lessons are in the near future-yes, I could teach them, and have started to, but I think they'd be more enthusiastic about it, and learn more, from someone other than mom :)

Another Party

Sandy's birthday is just 4 days after Eli's, and was conveniently on a Saturday this year, so we had our parents come over for lunch that day. I think the gift we gave Sandy this year got the best reaction of any he's received over the last 12 years (thanks to a brother in the know haha)! And, for having 2 birthdays so close together, can you believe not a single piece of cake was consumed?! Eli is inadvertently making it a tradition to have finger steaks and fries for the "grandparent's party", with Carmelita's for the birthday "cake".

A Mermaid Lalaloopsy-this one has color changing hair!

A card,  a book and money for more books!

It fits and he LOVES it!

B-Day Q & A: Eliana, age 7

I interviewed Eli for her birthday; here's her responses:

 

 

How old are you? Seven.

What is your favorite color? Gold.

What's your favorite toy? I don't have a favorite; I like them all.

What's your favorite fruit? I like them all.

  

What is your favorite movie? I like them all.

What's your favorite thing to eat for lunch? I like them all. (Pick a favorite!) Calzones.

     (she doesn't really like everything I make)

What is your favorite outfit? This outfit (grape smelly shirt/sweat pants)

What is your favorite snack? Oreos.

What makes you happy? Getting to go to the fair and circus and spending time with my mom and dad.

What's your favorite animal? Panda.

What is your favorite game? Mario Party 8.

What's your favorite song? Cotton Eyed Joe.

 What's your favorite book? Second Grade Rules, Amber Brown.

What is your favorite holiday? I like 'em all.

What's your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? I like 'em all. (Pick 1!!!) That bread with apples in it. Havrekaka. (It's a Swedish bread I learned from her Uncle Everett)

What do you think about when you fall asleep? I think of everything cuz once I think of something it reminds me of something else, then I think about that and it reminds me of something else!

What was your favorite present? (this changes every time I ask) My raccoon backpack.

What did you do for your birthday? I invited some friends over and we had ice cream, got our nails done, presents, Claire's, then we went to Kiwi Loco with friends.

What kind of cake did you have? I didn't have a cake! I had some ice cream and frozen yogurt.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A scientist.

 

Eli's 7th Birthday

Eliana celebrated birthday number 7 last week-wow, 7 years!! We gave her a few different choices to celebrate; she chose taking 2 friends and Livi with her to get nails done, with a stop at Coldstone and Claire's (naturally). Sandy took Shad for the afternoon so it could be a true girl's day out-4 giggly girls; what a fun afternoon! The day was sprinkled with presents and birthday phone calls throughout and was capped off with an evening at Kiwi Loco (SOOOO good!) with more friends. 

Our little bookworm! Along with a few books she got a coupon good for a trip to the bookstore with dad.

Still loves Lalaloopsy's

Eli getting her nails painted

Livi getting her's done

The four girls and their fancy nails

Reading what she got (signed up for a Martial Arts class)

knitting loom-she's been wanting to learn for so long!

Already busy making a hat; she had it finished by the next afternoon.

Family, Family, and More Family

A couple of weeks ago some nieces and nephews on Sandy's side of the family came from Virginia for a visit. These kids are some of the most well behaved, polite, amazing kids ever and it was so much fun getting to spend time with them!

hot day=sprinkler fun

a little kinect action

While they were visiting we headed to Blackfoot for a family reunion. We were hauling a "boat" (nasty looking river boat/thing that turned out to be the bane of our existence that day...) for a guy Sandy works with, and as we got on the interstate I thought, "My dad always sees cool or interesting/scary things while driving!" and had a flash of different things that one "might" see. About an hour into the drive we were all just busy talking and telling stories when Sandy yells, "WE LOST THE BOAT!" I looked in the mirror and, sure enough, the boat was about a 1/4 mile behind us making it's way down the interstate! Sandy did everything he could to warn drivers and make adjustments...we got SOOOO lucky! It didn't tip, veer, flip, or even skid, just kinda made it's way off the road and into the gutter where it rolled to a stop right next to where we had pulled over. Sandy and I pulled/pushed the darn thing back up to the truck and he got it hitched up again (correctly this time-as it turns out, another guy hitched the boat up wrong, forgetting a pin, or pinning it wrong or something...). Unfortunately the story keeps going-one of the tires was losing tread, bad. We decided to push on as far as we could, keeping a close eye on the tire, since the spare wasn't in much better condition. When we had gone as far as we dared we pulled into a rest area for Sandy to swap tires. The spare was located UNDER the boat but ON TOP of the trailer, so it took lifting the boat up and holding it while pulling the spare out; then Sandy finds out the spare's air nozzle isn't connected to the tire so the tire won't hold air. It took some rednecking it and duct tape to make it work but he fixed it enough to get us to the exchange. If that wasn't enough, and you know bad things come in 3's, when we got to the exchange location Sandy had to unlock the back of his truck to get a few things out for the boat, and left the keys on the bumper of his truck. The keyring had some pretty important keys (all of his keys for work) and he didn't realize he'd left them there until we'd been on the interstate again for quite some time. When we got to Blackfoot he finally couldn't take it anymore and decided to pull over and see if, by some miracle, they were still there, and wouldn't ya know it, they were!

A few days later my sister and her family stopped for a couple of days on their way to my parent's house where they would bless their new baby boy, Cael. So my kids and their boys had some fun cousin time:

enjoying the personal pizzas they got to make

lots of trampoline fun

loving a (much needed) bubble bath

A few days after they left, the kids and I headed to my parents for a few days of more fun. They got the boat out so we went in to the lake for two of those days; wow was that a blast! 

Eliana and Troy getting ready for their first tube ride of the year

starting out

and they're off!

I joined in the fun :)

This is the only good picture of Livi and Brock that I have of them in the tube-it was their first time ever riding it!          Livi, as expected, was almost too brave.

Livi and Aunt Lacy-yeehaw!

Shad didn't like the water and despised the sand but he loved the grass, and anything he could find to eat or drink :)

Grandma, Lacy and Cael, and Grandpa

Lacy and Cael

Sand Angel Olivia

Not so Sand Angel Olivia

Eliana

4 of the cousins-Olivia, Troy, Eliana, and Brock

Shad and me

Shad had quite the week with falls, bumps, scrapes, scratches and bruises- such a rough n tough little guy. I thought I had a picture of the fresh face wounds but I can't find it. This one still kinda shows the scratch by his nose from falling on a decoration, the bruise on his eyebrow and one in his hairline on his forehead; the one between his eyes from hitting the table is almost gone and there's also a scratch on his right temple that doesn't show here. He also has scratches on both knees, his stomach, and arms and bruises on his legs and back from various falls, bumps, and just playing. But he's still as cute as ever!

They blessed Cael that Sunday and had a luncheon at my parent's house afterwards. It was so fun seeing so many aunts, uncles, and cousins of mine that I haven't seen in so long! After all that fun, we're enjoying being back home, especially my little home body Shad. Everyone got some good sleep and I'm slowly getting my house back in order. But all that fun was worth it!

Critters

With a farm comes maintenance-lots and lots of maintenance. Weeds are, by far, the hardest to keep up with, so we had been talking about getting some goats to help us out a bit. My parents ended up finding a mama pygmy goat with 3 kids a few weeks ago that were just precious and my kids fell in love, though these critters were hard not to love-what personalities! So we got two of the three kids. Meet William (the one with the most brown) and Isabel (almost all white)-

 We kept them in our kennel for a few days while we procured all the "goat necessities" i.e. collars, ties, watering bowl...they are now happily munching away at their leisure and LOVE getting attention from anyone they can.