Haircuts

This kid hates haircuts. I always used to bribe him with suckers when I'd give him haircuts.  *Note to self, wait til after the haircut.  Now he's older and he just has to deal with it, but there is still usually a fair amount of whining and complaining.  Someday when he has to pay for his haircuts he may wish I was still around to do it for him.

At least we can smile about it right?

Jungle Book- Children's Theater

Our community has a great children's theater that Adele has been wanting to be involved with.  They do mini-musicals where they practice daily for two weeks. We decided to do this one of the weeks when I had spring break. I decided to sign up Ian too because he needs activities.  He was kind of ticked at first but he ended up having a fun time. He was a monkey and Adele was an elephant.

Swimmin and Divin

These kids love swimming and they both have gotten pretty good at diving this summer.

Arrow of Light

Ian has worked hard to get his arrow of light. It came in the midst of the big "scout program re-vamp" so thing were a little crazy there at the end.  But we did it! 

Photos with Santa

 We went to the Frontier Homestead to listen to Kent and his group Half Step sing and got to check out all the fun Christmas activities there.  The highlight of course (besides the free hot chocolate and cookies was seeing Santa.

Wow. That beard looks so real...

Happy Birthday Ian!

This kid is 11!  Happy birthday to Ian!  We had to put his candle in the straw of his egg nog shake.  He decided he didn't want a cake.  

We still haven't had his "birthday friend get together" yet.  For his last birthday he ended up doing it in January. I guess I just find mid November birthdays difficult for parties with all the holidays coming up.  We will have to do this asap.

He got Minecraft Legos!

Soccer 2015

These kiddos love soccer!

Ian's first co-ed team.  There were only 2 boys. This team only lost 1 or 2 games.

Adele's team was awesome this season!

Crazy Hair 2015

This year it was crazy hair AND pajama day. (Holy crazy!)

Did I Mention Kids Destroy Everything?

Me: (relaxing in bed on a Sunday afternoon):  "Adele, why do you keep coming in and out of the house?
Adele:  It isn't me, it's Ian.
Me: Well, what is he doing?
Adele:  He's just spray painting.
Me:  WHAT?  WHAT is he painting???
Adele: Some rocks and his cardboard sword.

Then Kent gets up and finds this.  (Ian thought ahead to NOT paint it on the sidewalk, and NOT on the porch and NOT by the house.  (Thank you.) Unfortunately all this ahead thinking didn't involve using some CARDBOARD or NOT doing it on the little water-meter spot in our FRONT YARD.)

Don't be jealous neighbors.  Let us know if you want one too. We can hook you up.  And yes, it will last FORRRR-EVVVER.







And here is part II of this saga.  I went to the store and bought some stuff that is supposed to take off spray paint.  So this dude got to go out and scrub the sword outline off the cement.  It came out pretty well, and I'd say it is 95% gone. You can see it if you look closely but it is much better than it was before.

Hendrickson Lake Really Exists.

Since Ian didn't get to go on the first backpacking trip with all the girls Kent planned another backpacking excursion so he would be able to go.  Since the first Hendrickson Lake hike ended up being a bust he consulted more maps and Google Earth and found a clearer, better route to the lake.  They invited uncle Sam Wells, who is always up for some adventure in the wild and set off for the lake.

Archery

This kid begged and begged to sign up for archery because one of his friends did it.  Now we just gotta get him his own bow and arrows and he can go out in the back and hunt rabbits.

Makin a "Hooch" in the wild

That's the back of our house.

Our new house has a lot of wilderness behind it.  That is one of the reasons we wanted to live here. Our backyard is pretty much just dirt trails and juniper trees.  Sometimes there are animal bones out there.  And a whole bunch of trash.  For some reason people who are too lazy to drive out to the dump just drive out here and dump all their junk.  We have seen old tires, scrap metal stuff, old mattresses, big plastic containers and on and on.   The up side of all the garbage everywhere is that it is super fun for kids to play with.  (No, I do not encourage this.)  What they say about people's trash being treasure could not be more true.
One of Ian's favorite tv shows is "Man vs. Wild" where a guy has to survive out in the wilderness in different types of locations.  The guy in the show is always building shelters out of stuff, which he calls "hooches".  One of Ian's favorite activities is to use the old junk he finds out behind the house to make a hooch, or a fort.  We just gotta watch out for rusty nails, broken glass and rattlesnakes. Hmm, kind of sounds like the real wild.

Crash and Burn

Now that we live on the edge of town Ian has a whole lot of wilderness to explore.  He went with the scouts last week to see some petroglyphs that were not too far from our house. Ever since he saw them he couldn't WAIT to show us.  He rode his bike down a dirt and gravelly road while Kent and I walked behind him.  And then we saw him crash. Hard.  He had actually crashed (again on some gravel) in front of our neighbor's house just a few days before. This kid is an animal.    After the crash he was a kind of light headed and dizzy so we let him chill for a few minutes.  We stuck him back on his bike and Kent and I pushed him all the way home.  We didn't make it to the petroglyphs.   We will have to go back another time.  When we got home we cleaned up his arm and couldn't decide whether he would need stitches.  It was about 8:30 on Saturday night and I knew the Instacare closed at 9 so I decided to just take him.  He ended up needing 6 stitches.

Ian's 10th!

Happy birthday to this very special dude!  Isn't he such a cute kid!   We have a tradition of picking up out birthday kid on their day and taking them out to lunch wherever they want to go.  Ian wanted to go to the Chinese Buffet.  He was very adventurous there and ate lots of interesting stuff:  clams, oysters, and sushi with raw fish (which he said was disgusting).  He is definitely my most adventurous eater.  Now if someone could tell me why this kid doesn't like noodles...

 Since Kent and I went to Las Vegas the weekend after his birthday and then it was Thanksgiving, the party has been slightly delayed.  More to come on that.  And more pictures too.

Yummy ice cream cake.

Sewing

Between all the crazy new house stuff we have been doing, school, work and soccer, I haven't had much time for sewing.  A friend gave me a project idea that she wanted me to brain through and I finally got around to it.  While I was working on it I kept thinking about how much I enjoy sewing and how I had really missed it.  I decided I need to pick it up and do more sewing.  I decided that I wanted to teach sewing classes so I got on our local Facebook page and advertised.  There was a lot of interest at first and it looked like I'd have 4 adult students.  One bailed and one said she wanted to start in November.  I also got some names for another sewing class with kids.  I decided to wait to start the kids class until soccer gets over since I am way too busy after school with soccer practice.  I taught my first class last week and it was fun. I am excited to start my kids class as well. I am planning to reduce my hours at work (or maybe even go back to a temp status) because I just haven't had the time to do stuff that I need to do.  And also the stuff that I want to do.

Ian is going to be a scary clown for Halloween.

Soccer

When it was soccer sign ups this spring Adele really really really wanted me to sign her up.  She has done dance in the past and I really didn't think she'd like soccer but I signed her up anyway.  Surprisingly, she has loved it and has even scored a few goals during games.    Her team is the "Candy Crushers".  Ian's team is the "Black Dragons".  He has done well this year too and has scored several goals for his team. It has been so much fun to watch these guys play.  Little kids playing soccer is a hoot!  And they all look so cute in their matching uniforms too.  Unfortunately we have lost several water bottles this season and have left shin guards at the practice field several times as well.

What We Did this Summer!

We did actually do a few things this summer besides living in a rental house and building a house.  Life goes on right!?  Here is some of the other stuff we did this summer.  

While at a 7th grade physical we did a quick eye screening and found out that we needed to get Elise's eyes checked.  Turned out that she really needed glasses.  So we went and got her these. I think they look so cute on her!

And, to go with the glasses,  Elise got braces.  This was a very busy summer for Elise.

We went to Tuachan and saw The Wizard of Oz.  It was SO cool!  We all loved it.  Too bad Elise didn't have her glasses yet!

We went to the Happy Factory a couple of times and helped stain the cars that they donate to children all over the world.

Adele got a new bike and learned to ride it in just a couple of hours. 

And I worked and posed for pictures with dorky glasses.

A couple of other things:

• Ian had a Mohawk (I will have to go look for pictures. You can kind of see it in the Tuachan picture).
• Elise and Emilia went to girls camp twice.
• Emilia got into Success Academy, decided to do it and had to drop her band class.

PaRtY!!!

We had quite the time picking a theme for Ian's birthday party.  He kept changing his mind about the theme, the games, the activities etc.  The one thing that didn't change was the donuts.  For awhile he wanted an Indiana Jones party.   While I.J. IS cool, we thought it might make things a little bit complicated since he, (and probably none of his guests) had ever seen Indiana Jones.  We finally agreed on a Harry Potter party. 

The kids were sorted into houses, given wands and worked on some "schoolwork" puzzles with their wand pencils.

 We made potions that bubbled and "smoked"

Played "Bertie Bott's-- Guess the Flavor"

Opened presents and ate our donuts.   We had "pumpkin juice" punch bubbling with dry ice and had glow-stick straws. And just like on his birthday, no cake and ice cream anywhere to be found.  Ian's friend Dylan gave him 2 jars of pickles.  Just what he had asked for.  Happiness.

All the guests!  What a funny picture huh?  I can't get Ian to stop looking at his toys and smile for a picture!

Ian's 7th Birthday!



 It's a tradition at our house to have a candle and sing "Happy Birthday" at breakfast.  Usually this involves whipped cream and strawberries since that is a favorite around here.  Ian wanted Swedish pancakes for breakfast, which is another very popular birthday food.

Ian also got to pick what we were having for dinner.  He wanted to have mini pizzas that everyone could make themselves.

And here we are, having a dinner picnic with our pizzas.  Ian's birthday was very non-traditional, but he had a great time getting to pick all the food and getting to eat dinner on the floor.  Instead of a cake and ice cream he decided we should all go out for ice cream.  Works for me.  (Check out Emilia's awesome outfit!)