Tyler 11th Birthday

 Tyler is now 11 years old. My sister Kim came down from OR and wanted to do a party for Griffin on Tyler's birthday. So we decided Tyler could have a party before in the afternoon and Griffin would have it after Tyler's in the evening. We did a Fiesta! We even made a pinata! I held up to my brother Weston and Gio the foreign exchange student.

 Here are the duo! They were the best entertainment.

 Katie cracks me up.

When it was time for Griffins Party we donned the mustaches and sombreros.

Past couple of Months

 My beautiful tree is gone. The storm months ago cracked it. It was the tree that shaded our bedroom. After it was gone our room was so much hotter. It makes me sad for next summer.

My Tyler has worked so hard and earned the highest cub scout award. He earned his Arrow of Light. He was pretty proud of himself.

 What a sweetie!

 He got to shot and arrow across a bridge. All the boys loved this part.

 Meema got to come and watch he boy earn his award. She was so sweet and gave me a gift. She gave him a head lamp for his arrow of LIGHT! I love it!

 Westwood was celebrating 50 years of being a high school. My youngest brother is still there for his senior year. They let young girls come and cheer for the homecoming game. Both girls were so excited to be able to go and be the cheerleaders.

 The had almost a 100 girls out there with the cheerleaders.

 This was their Cheerleader. Yes that is a boy behind. Lucy and Gracie were paired up with the only boy there!

 My girls were playing school with their dolls and animals. It was so cute watching them teach them.

Projects

 All 4 of my kids are now in school. Granted Gracie is only in pre-K, but she is still gone a couple of hours four days a week. So to keep myself from being lazy I am trying to do projects around the house. Most of them are boring, but I have one I am proud to show off. This is Lucy in her dress back in this year spring time. She has loved this dress and it is so cute on her that I wanted one for Gracie. A week ago all the grandkids at my parents house were wearing Grandmas material as capes. The one Gracie was wearing was huge about 3 yards of material. I decided that was the material to make the dress out of.

Here is the dress all done. I took at the measurements from Lucy's dress and just recreated it.

 There is enough material to still have a cape!

 She is happy to have another dress! She loves wearing dresses.

First Day of School

It is the first day of school and this is what Hunter is doing. Poor little guys is sick to his stomach. I guess this is going around right now. He was fine yesterday and got to meet his teacher. Then he woke up feeling horrible. He will have to have his first day of 3rd hopefully tomorrow.

Here are my 5th and 1st Graders. They are super excited for their first day. They want to see who is in their class and maybe make some new friends.

Skirts

At Franklin we have a strict dress code. The boys have to wear pants. The girls are allowed to wear skirts or dresses to their knees. They do not make skirts like that very often. Lucy wants to wear more skirts and she has her favorites that are not long enough. I have been adding to them to make them long enough. This yellow one is one she loves. It was not long enough so I had to change that. You can't tell in this picture because the flash made it glow, but the glowing stuff on the top of skirt is orange and red. So I thought it would be cute to add an orange ruffle underneath. Actually it was Lucy's idea to add it under to have layers. I was just going to add it to the bottom. I am glad she suggested it. I think it turned out so cute. I had to share.

 This is one I did a while ago. It is fun to go through your material and find on that matches pretty good. I have a couple more skirts to change. I just don't have any material to match right now. I guess I have a good excuse to go to Joanns.

Cub Scouts

I love my calling! The boys are so sweet and excited each week. This past week we went to an airplane museum. It had lots of cool airplanes. Best of all it was free for all the cubs. The only thing I would change is go at a different time of the year. It was not very cool in there. Live and Learn!

More Cabin Fun

 I spent a lot of time at the cabin towards the end of the summer. I wanted to live up there. The weather was beautiful and so were the surroundings. We even spent a whole week up there. I was even alone with the kids for almost two days. It was weird to think about how that is how most of first settlers were. The didn't have neighbors for miles and didn't see them very often. It was a bit lonely, but relaxing too. I read lots of books and just had lots of time to think.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids putting on a play of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It all started with Hunter looking into the fire that was really hot and saying to my Grandmother "I wonder what it would be like to burn in there" So Grandma Jean pulls out her bible story book and has them read the story. She helps them find costumes. Hunter is the King Nebuchadnezzar. The girls with the three in the fire. It was really cute!

 I love how sticks can become swords! My kids have the best imagination.

 Hunter was having fun with the bow.

 Check out these eyes!

Tyler talked his Dad into letting him drive the quads by himself. He was one happy boy.

 When we were alone we would go on long prowler rides. This is what I would look at in the back seat.

Hunter would stick his face over the prowler when we would go over puddles. This is what he would look like by the end of the ride!