Joan of Arc

We are learning about Joan of Arc, a little more hands on than a text book and Kennedy is ecstatic. She's gone through her family history and found a family member who was within a days walk of where Joan fought for France. Kennedy's reply was, "Good. I don't want to be English, they're mean." Ha!

This is the girls piano teacher, Giselle, as Joan.

We all had to dress in 1400 time period clothing. Grayson was beyond happy to be involved and pretending to be in France. However he wanted me to know he was "Merlin" and not a boy wearing his sister's stretchy pants and his mom's shirt.

Kennedy loves learning history. All she can talk about is what Joan might have done when she was alive. It's only been a week, but MacKenzie has decided she wants in. At first she couldn't give up her Mrs. Hobson, but after she saw these pictures she's been beside herself with envy. She's joining homeschool starting this morning. (Wait, what? Did I just say we're home schooling out loud? Yes, I did.)

The Swing Set

We have gone back and forth over swing sets for years. Wood will rot, cheap ones are cheap. It's got to be heavy duty to survive our family and 300*-10* weather changes in the high desert. So that leaves you with nothing to choose from in our price range. And then I was on Costco.com... I saw this and bought it immediately. Couldn't help myself and I'm SO excited. Even better we had it up and working in about an hour!

Pure joy. How could you not smile at that face?

Nothing says good morning like sleeper jammies and boots.

Justin can't handle all these new changes. Cats, swings... he got this weenie dog for free last night to even it all out? We're calling him "Hotdog" (the dog, not Justin).

Shootin' at the range

I'm really good at trash talking, but for real I'm kind of a wimp. The first gun I ever shot about ripped my shoulder off. The second made me deaf and turned me off altogether. When the girls kindergarten teacher heard about my experiences she took me under wing and had me shoot a 22 (translation: smallest bullets/least about of kick back/beginner gun)... not so bad. In fact a little bit fun for the first time. I now am excited to get out every now and then for a shooting date with my teacher friend. Here's from earlier today.

I'll leave out the part where I invited my other friends Cassie and Brandon to shoot with us today. They brought their 9mm guns (cop guns with LOTS of power) and I took one shot with Cassie's and about pooped my pants.

I'll stick with my wimpy guns for now.

Sparky the cat

Justin HATED that I brought Tiger home, until the next day. Then he was SO SAD that Tiger won't let anyone hold him (my favorite animal of all time). He took Kennedy and MacKenzie cat shopping and adopted Sparky from the pound. This animal is Justin in cat form, loves to play and socialize. The kids are in animal heaven!

A few days ago neither of us would admit it, but we're cat people. I've got my mouse hunting antisocial Tiger in the garage and everyone else has Sparky.

We have a cat

His name is Tiger!

I don't know why we didn't get a cat forever ago. Since he's been in the garage I haven't seen him at all. He pees and poops in his kitty litter, makes no noise... best pet ever!

Photos by MacKenzie

High Desert Living

My little Clovis Cougar

Thanks Amanda and Brad Harmon for the awesome warm ups! Parker looks so cute in them and every time it reminds me of water polo and swim practices and meets.




And speaking of high school, here's a little video I ran across on facebook:

My recent obsession with Carol Tuttle

I can't stop talking about the positive influence Dressing Your Truth is having on me and my family. It all started when I told my friend Sarah how AWESOME she looked! She immediately told me, "Oh it's this program I've been doing." Of course I wanted to learn more, right? Who doesn't want to look and feel awesome every day of their life?! I started reading the Dressing Your Truth book... couldn't put it down!

I think that's why I haven't been blogging as much. However, I've been obsessed with thrift store shopping and reading more about my own natural tendencies, the way God created me. I've come to understand my bumpy acne skin... part of my nature as a rich/dynamic woman. And why do I always say things out loud and then want to pick up and words and shove them back in my mouth? Oh, because I'm active and reactive. I was born that way! (and I have a bright animated mother as a role model) Does that mean I can say whatever I want when I want, not really, but I can embrace it and love myself for being true to my nature.

Anyway I just love the creator of this program, Carol, and can't wait to meet her someday. She's changed my life forever and I'm grateful!

We've got an impromtu vacation goin on this week

It's birthday week around here. My plan for Kennedy's birthday was to go to Sea World on Wednesday... but when I filled up the car on Friday afternoon I immediately wanted to go somewhere. We took off to Fresno to visit all our grandparents there. My mom and Manuel took the 3 big kids to the "sweep mop" and zoo Saturday. My dad and Pennie celebrated Sunday afternoon with lots of food movies. And who wants to drive home late at night? Not me. And since the kids were going to be absent and miss one day, I might as well miss 5 days and call it independent study right? So we had to swing by Taft (because it's on the way home?) and complete the grandparent tour. The kids are having a blast. Kennedy couldn't be happier on her 7 years old birthday and Grayson wants to make sure he's staying away from home for at least 10 days!

I've got no pictures from Fresno, but she's had candles on her birthday cup cakes, a birthday cheese cake and tonight it sounds like she and Justin are getting combined birthday brownies. What a lucky girl. Thanks to all our grandma and grandpa's for making this trip fantastic!

Parker wants in the bath

Mom, it's already summer time

Every few days Grayson asks for the pool to be put up. "I need to go swimming RIGHT NOW!" Me too Grayson. Here's a video I finally uploaded from last year.

The kids at 9 months

Parker

Grayson

MacKenzie

Kennedy

St. George, UT

We went through St. George, UT the week of my birthday and stayed the night with Aunt Phyllis. Justin got to catch up with he cousins, I got to be the Boggle champion and the kids got to play. Everyone's so happy in this pic... kind of. I think it's funny after a few hours of visiting Phyllis the kids always start calling her "Grandma". Thanks for another great visit!

Kennedy's targets this week

So I thought maybe it might have been beginners luck last week when she did so well shooting. Nothing to do with luck here... just a still, focused 6 year old! The gun club guy scoring her targets tonight took a look at her shots and said, "Wow. Every single shot was worth points." Her teacher made sure she would be back again next week. I am SO excited for her!

And last week the kids swept up a few of the neighbors leaves to play in.

While playing in leaves it's critical you have the proper eyewear.

Where does Grayson come up with these things? Hilarious!

The Killers

Junior Rifle Club, because all the other mom's take their girls to dance

While I'm sure MacKenzie would enjoy a good tap class, she has the wrong mother. It would be fun for her, but where's the practicality? Shooting, now that's useful. (Insert laughing here as I've only shot a rifle once... last week, but I was awesome at it). So with Kennedy's new fur outfit on she, MacKenzie and I went to the gun club last night to see how they might fair.


I started getting excited about guns a month ago. Up until then my parents wouldn't even let me own a water gun. So it's a whole new world for me... even if part of my bedroom furniture is a 4 foot wide gun safe. I'd not touched them really. I had no idea what to really expect last night and I forgot my camera. My little girls! There were 16 year old boys and a handful of smaller kids, but MacKenzie and Kennedy were the youngest last night. Here's an example of what the girls did with an instructor by their side.

Look at Kennedy's targets!!! She was SOOOO good and a total natural.

And MacKenzie! When it was her turn she went to the gun rack and picked up the biggest gun there. Her instructor tried to lead her to a smaller one. He had no idea what he was in for.


She got one shot close to the target;) After she was done she stood right up and yelled at the top of her lungs, "I shot SO many times mom!" Unfortunately she's a little too off to be in the jr. rifles this year. Maybe in a few more years. Kennedy will be going back as often as she wants.

Gallery Wall

I can't believe this is what it used to look like.

This was such an improvement last year.

(I must get the motivation to change things at Christmas time.)

Here's what I did last night while the big kids and Justin were riding

the "merry-go-ride" @ Bass Pro:

I had to bust out the ladder to hang those pictures at the top... and i didn't even fall down or break any more glass! I even got to sit down and enjoy it for a while before every one came home. It's happiness on my wall and I love it!

Photo session

We had our pictures taken the other day. Here's one of the finished photos.

Can't wait to see the rest!

Happy Birthday Grayson!

Grayson is now 4! He celebrated at In-N-Out with some friends and had a blast.

Do you love the Spiderman cake? My new friend Cassie made this DELICIOUS cake just for him.

This was the best of a group pic we got. I tried to capture the balloons from Sister Garcia. He was so happy with them until... they flew away. Oops!

A little funny fact about Grayson, he LOVES his cousin Brenden. What's funny about that? They've never met. Brenden lives in Texas, is 13(?) years old and autistic which means "he's a big kid and does really funny things". My sister posts youtube videos of him every so often on her blog and if Grayson catches me watching them we have to watch them 5 times before I can move on. So meeting Brenden would be the equivalent of MacKenzie talking to Justin Beiber or Kennedy seeing Rudolp the Red-nosed Reindeer. This morning the first thing Grayson wanted to do after opening his present was to call Brenden. We did and he was already at school, but in response Grayson got a little personalized message this evening. Thanks so much Brenden for making his birthday that much cooler!

painted chairs

I got tired of black chairs. So at the crack of dawn this morning I was at Wal Mart...

buying spray paint. Do you know how hard it is to get the spray paint cabinet open at 6:45am? I'll just tell you it's not easy, but totally worth it! Look how fun these chairs are.

I pulled out my thrift store frames to paint also, you know since I was already gettin' dirty. They're boring bronze, but will look so good with lots of pics in them. I've got to brag about the Boise, ID thrift store OUTLET. That's right the outlet of thrift stores! I got all these frames and a lot of other things for $7 total! So maybe $3 for all these?

My ring looks awesome. 3 different neighbors came to visit while I was making a mess this morning. 2 loved my chairs one rolled her eyes. She's secretly jealous, I know.

Halloween

It gets more exciting each year. I even got dressed up...

not quite sure what I am, but it was fun to do.

Grandma Kathy came to celebrate with us.

Good thing she did. Otherwise these may not have turned out so well. She did a great job drawing and carving all the faces on these pumpkins. Can you tell which child picked out what?

Bat= Grayson

Cat face= Kennedy

Regular old face= MacKenzie

MacKenzie the pirate

She was excited to wear makeup with her pirate costume to the ward Halloween party last night. First thing out of her mouth, "Mom, I look SO cute!"

Our 3,000 mile roadtrip

Here's a few pics:

Parker and Hunter (my brother's first little baby) in Modesto.

My Grandpa Ben up in Bellingham, WA

The Border. Justin and I will always think of this video.

Maybe those ears are from the Gage side?

Seattle with Justin's old mission companion Adam.

Riding horses in Spokane.

Grayson LOVED riding. He would've stayed all day.

There's a large gap of pics untaken. Like I never take any when I visit my sister Khristie. What's with that? But I didn't forget at Temple Square.

Such a great trip! I think we've got 4 mini travelers in the making. The kids loved everywhere we went and seeing all their family and friends they didn't know they had.