My "olympian"

This pictures are a little old but I wanted to share my girl's success. She hasn't wanted to participate in anything this big ever. So this first place medal is a huge success.

 Beat a girl in the next age bracket by a foot.

And two first place ribbons at the competition at school.

My Lorax

These girls are amazing and constantly have me smiling.

Busy summer so far

This is what has kept me busy lately.

The regular Monopoly wasn't quite enough.

We also had to play Monopoly 2000.

And we also had to do some sewing.

Fun pants. 

Random patches together.

We also did pancake made by the 7 year old.
Frozen yogurt bites.
Swimming lessons.

And a round of the flu.


Wonder what next week will bring us.

The Birthday Expodition Was A Success

My Hazel girl has been having a rough start to the school year. I love her emotions but they can be a little overwhelming at times. Which is why I usually keep her birthday party until the school year begins. And I am relieved to say that after all the drama of the new school year, the party was a monstrously huge success.

I collected 7 girls (plus my 3) from school and another 2 along the way. We did a treasure hunt the few blocks it takes to get to my house. On the way to school, my Violet girl and I dropped shiny beads for the girls to find. I asked them to choose as many random nature items from on the walk home. They just couldn't go in the neighbors's yards. The girls loved the challenge without knowing what the outcome was.

I was bummed that I forgot to get the camera out for pictures on the way home.

 

When I got the parade of 12 girls home, we had brownies and cookies and ice cream. I know my girls are always hungry when they get home, so I figured it would be best to sugar them all up right away. We sang happy birthday and then I released them to get creative.

With their wonderful treasures they found on the way home, they were to create a creation of inspiration on half of a cereal box. Then we had a voting period and the winner recieved that cute little pink backpack with a bunch of golden grapes inside (and a cute little book).

I did get some pictures of them creating and the final creations.

 

This one was my Hazel girl's.

 

This one was my Violet girl's.

 

 

This one was my Amber girl's.

And this was the winner.

From there, they had a choice of making masks or bracelets. Or my Hazel girl offered to braid their hair because her friends were amazed that she knew how to braid her own.

Then we opened the presents.

Yes, she sat on top of the newly added monkeybars to open all of her presents. She airlifted (dropped) them down to her friends below inorder to get the next one. Needed that for a space filler because my hubby wasn't home yet to hang the pinata. My Hazel girl bought the candy to fill it out of her own pocket. She's been wanting one for about 3 years now and came up with this deal.

 

Then all of the parents started to arrive and take their children home. It was an extremely successful party. Everyone got along. The dog only took out one girl (all the rest avoided him). She didn't get a ton of things and she enjoyed all that she got.

Then we had a party the next day for one of her best friends. Here is the only picture I took of the party.

They asked to be locked in. Hope your weekend was as interesting as ours.

Today's Adventure

We've been brainstorming around here lately. The hubby was thinking about putting up a green house so that we could grow things all year round. That sparked the idea that the girls could sell the plants next spring. The girls sparked the idea to have a lemonade stand too. Every weekend since, they have asked us to help them set up a lemonade stand.

Well, today was the day that Daddy took off with the adventure. Which has been really nice for me. He's had them and all their excitement and I get to watch through the window and get some desk jobs done.

Of course, I had to jump out and get some pictures before they sold out.

Hope your Saturday has been as exciting as ours has been.

Can you sleep in if you're not sure that you've slept?

This was the question I posed to the hubby this morning. We had a long night of little sleep. So glad that it's the weekend and that we're going to be in the car for over three hours to celebrate a wedding this weekend (note the hint of sarcasm in there). We made the executive decision not to leave until early tomorrow morning. A good night of sleep is worth a long Saturday.

The hubby and I had our date night last night with a good dose of counseling. We discussed kids going back to school, how much time a computer can suck from your day, and what is our purpose in life. Then we went to the library and stocked up on some good books. (I will try to get the list of them on here sometime today I hope.) Then we hit the grocery store for the milk and bread necessities and came home to find everyone in bed reading stories. Looked to be a great night on the way in.

Until I put all the math together this morning, with a little help from the hubby. Grandma took all the girls to Dairy Queen for Blizzards last night. That would explain why Hazel was wide awake at midnight or was it earlier? And would explain why Violet was having monster nightmares. At about 2am, hubby and I decided that it wasn't worth the fight and we all climbed into Violet's king-size bed. Yes, the baby has the biggest bed in the house. It was the only place it would fit nicely and she needed a big girl bed.

This morning I half attempted to create some birthday invitations for Hazel to take to school with her today. I didn't have all the numbers for the girls she wanted to invite so I haven't had a party for her yet. So, we're going to have it on my birthday because we're not going to be in town this weekend. My cousin is getting married! And we're going to go and hang out with my mom. Praying for some more sleep because I'm about to nod off and looking at the clock...it's almost time to go and wake the circus. First full day of just Violet and I. We may just vegetate today. We can start our school next week.

Wordless Wednesday

Having a really off day today. So as my day is almost 12 hours in...here is what I did today.

 
This is like one of those hidden pictures. This was 345am.

430am

530am

Yup, broke down and made it red again. Hazel is relieved that I'm not going to die.

Hmm...

Trying to get the brain reengaged still. Had a bad time last night at dinner. My equilibrium was off and I felt like I was going to pass out and hit the floor or puke. Since 7th grade, I have been passing out when my blood pressure gets out of wack. It would happen every time I was at church during the Our Father during the Catholic service. Took me until this past year to find out that I inherited low blood pressure.Yeah me. Constantly amazed at all the things I have inherited.

My Violet has been begging to learn the past two days. The hubby and I stopped down at our St Vincent de Paul and I found for 40 cents. She keeps pulling them out and asking me to read them to her and she's getting most of them right. Of course, Emerson has to help us

he's the Saint Bernard that goes everywhere with her.

She has just put Barbie shoes on each finger and sang me Twinkle Twinkle and in now making a hop off song.

My Amber suggested that we watch Sesame Street today to determine what letter of the day we should study and I agreed that was a good idea, we could do the number as well.

Today's letter is G and the number is 20. Wish me luck today. If you have Great G ideas, feel free to leave a link below.

Birthday Bash

Finally feeling better. This is day four in my jammies. Yesterday was a day for a post of it's own. But, I finally got the pics from the party on the computer. It was tons of fun.

Here is the birthday girl with MaKayla, her baby that has the same date thanks to Great Aunt Mary.

 
These are some art work that I was inspired to create after wandering through some fabulous homeschooling blogs. I've been searching for ideas to keep Tiny busy while her sisters are at school all day.

 

This in my introvert taking a time out for herself after asking me 3 times how many people were going to be coming to her party. I made sure to tell her how proud of her I was that she knew enough to get away and recharge before everyone got here.

 These are her pretending to be a pumpkin.
Then her fabulous orange painting shirt attracted a Monarch butterfly. It kept trying to get to her in the center of all of the people. Caused me to wonder who was coming to let Hazel know that they were watching over her. This girl loves butterflies and she misses her great grandmas that have gone "home".

The presents on the almost finished playhouse.

 Time for cake! OzCake! Yum!

Sister eating Cinderellas face first.

Birthday girl trying carrot cake first.

 Time for the presents. Only 3 toys and tons of clothes for the new school year. Oh and a new backpack and journal for my girl.

So darn cute in her new clothes the next morning.

Eating Sebastian.

 Some fantastically random cake eating pics for my sister to post on her website if she likes. She has decided to take the cake making full force and is learning as she goes. Everyone thought the cakes were delicious! My Hazel ordered a blueberry cake and wanted to try a carrot cake. She also wanted Cinderella and loves The Little Mermaid. And with just that little bit of information, my wonderful sister created this fantastic cake that everyone really enjoyed. Amber has already started her cake order and her birthday isn't until April. A good friend of ours has put in an order for a girl jumping out of a cake for his birthday next week. Can't wait to see how that one is going to turn out. Hope she posts pics on her site.

And this was the end of Sebastian and the cake. Hubby got to take the last two pieces to work yesterday (birthday girl's wishes).

And now back to my birthday girl.