Commencement

I can blame my lack of posts on numerous things.... soccer season, busy kids, I'm busy, etc. But it comes down to Lots going on, but not so much to post about. I should have posted about my trip to Boston to watch my sister run the Boston Marathon but I never did. I haven't done a lot of things that I used to do and I'm not sure why. What I have been doing a lot of is stressing, and worrying. It's not healthy for me, and I need to stop.

Well I will quit worrying about why I haven't posted and finally get around to the reason for this post and that is Mikaela's graduation! Yea! She made it with NEARLY a perfect GPA. It was so close she could taste it. 3.98. IF ONLY has been said alot around here mainly by stressing, worrying me. One teacher gave her a B for a 89.7 %. He was supposed to round up to 90, but he refused on his own principles and gave her a B instead of an A. The other B was for a PE class that was so big she didn't have time to complete her final and she got a B in that. Other than those 2 B's she did amazing in high school and I couldn't be any prouder of her. She ran cross country, played soccer , Jr. class President, and Sr. class Vice president, a school play her freshman year, and orchestra for 2 years. She took 3 AP classes and we are anxious to hear if she will have to take Biology 100 at BYU. Yes her plans are to attend BYU in Provo in the fall. She wants to major in elementary education. She did her Sr. Project in a 2nd grade classroom. She taught them to do sign language. She enjoyed it quite a bit, and the teacher said she will make a great teacher.

Mikaela's class thought they were jinxed. Their Prom was post poned because of a big snow storm, their Sr. Project presentations were post poned because of another snow storm. So they thought their graduation would also be post poned. Wouldn't you know it Friday was supposed to be rainy and cold. But it turned out to be better. The sky was even sunny during the ceremony which was in an outdoor ampitheater. It was perfect. The next day was a graduation party for

7 friends. The weather was perfect for that too until the last 1/2 hour when the sky opened up and it started to rain. Yea! we had a great weekend with Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

Congratulations Mikaela! We Love You!

Happy Birthday Anna! We had an amazing "Spy Birthday Party" last night. I think all of the girls and 1 boy had a really fun time, and I must say that I really enjoyed putting it together. At first we looked at the brand new bounce house that just opened to have the party there, but when she realized that there would not be a present and a big expensive birthday party, she chose to have the party at home, and I think we chose wisely. We googled "spy parties" and got some great ideas, but here are a few of the things we decided on.

Invitations I made on Photoshop, and one mom said I forever ruined her daughter on Target invitations, because these were so fun. We put them in manila envelopes that we printed "Top Secret" on the Front.

We decorated with silouettes cut from a roll of black paper of Anna & her friend Kyle in trench coats looking in a magnifying glass, and binoculars and shooting a water gun. (That sillouette was a hit the night of the party because the kids would crawl under it when they went past it on the stairs.)

Games: First they had to be fingerprinted, and I made ID badges with their pictures. They came in disguises, and some of them were hilarious. While I made the id badge my helpers did the fingerprinting, and then they began spy training.

Spy training was an obstacle course we made up that they were timed on. Then we did target shooting with water guns at hanging paper plates. Then we did a disguise relay with 2 suitcases with trench coats, bolero hats, sunglasses, and a pair of womens high heels, and mens shoes. Then we diffused bombs (small black ballons) that I had inserted papers that said pop in a few of them. If they found a pop they got a package of pop rocks. Then we finished spy training and were awarded a certificate, and we had pizza then opened presents.

Now that they were officially "spies" I gave them their first mission. An evil spy stole their goody bags, so they went on a treasure hunt to recover them. I mixed up the clues appropriate to 8 year olds. In photoshop I flipped the type over so that they had to read it in mirror to read some of them. Some of them I gave them a number code so they had to figure out what the letters were. Some of them I scrambled the letters so they had to unscramble them, and some of them I did the font in size 4 so they had to use a magnifying glass to read it. We had 12 clues so it took them about 20 minutes to do the whole thing. I used brown lunch sacks that I wrote "the contents of this bag are classified" in old fashioned typewriter font and ran them through the printer. Very cheap. We found fun spy stuff for the bags (sunglasses, bolero hats, binoculars, toy camera, fake money, clue notepad & pencil, and a water pistol, and pop rocks).

Lastly, because they were too full after dinner we had the birthday cake. It was a funfetti sheet cake, then I made a small round cake and a small loaf pan cake that I used to make a magnifying glass. I wanted the words under the magnifying glass to be bigger, but when I also found bigger round sprinkles, it made it even more perfect. I sprinkled the tiny sprinkles on the sheet cake and the bigger ones on the magnifying glass. The kids didn't get it maybe, but I thought it was genious, and they LOVED the funfetti, several kids said it was the best cake they ever had.

In the end I think we all had more fun, than a bounce house would have been. The kids liked it because they could use their imaginations and dress up, I liked it because I saved a lot of money, and I had a lot of fun coming up with creative ways to make it seem more spy like. I must say I couldn't have pulled if off without my 2 teenagers, and a friend, and my husband. The teenagers made the games more fun, and played along with the spy theme.

Yea, not another party for 2 more years now!

Snow much Fun

We had some decent snow on Monday. Enough to take the girls sledding after our lift/spin class on Tuesday. We had to hurry though as the temperatures were going into the 50's. I'm sure that Chrystal or Sally or whatever her name ended up being, didn't last more than a day, but it was fun to make her, and to watch the girls having fun sledding.

Remember Me

It is so hard after a long absence to write a blog again, because where do I start.... so much has transpired since the last post of nearly a month ago. Namely Christmas, visit to family in Utah, the New Year.

It has all been fabulous. We had a great time in Utah, enjoying all of the snow that they have, and we haven't gotten much at all. We visited and played with cousins and had a great time.

Since returning Mikaela and Derek have gotten back into school and their hectic lives, David is back to work, and Kamryn, Anna, and I are enjoying our extended time off compliments of year-round school.

I enrolled them in swimming lessons at a swim lab, and it has been extremely helpful to both of them. Kamryn has gotten video tape analysis of her strokes to do them more efficiently. I tried critiqueing her stroke to help her swim straighter, but she wouldn't listen to me. When she can SEE what she is doing and how she is supposed to do it, it clicked and now she is doing it right after only 2 sessions. Anna did a group lesson to get that breathing thing down. She did 5 lessons in a row, and she can swim across the pool now. So I think it has been money well spent. For the next 2 weeks we are going to hit the lap pool and keep practicing. This is good for me too since I haven't been able to drag myself into a lap pool for the last 6 months.

We also got a new computer for Christmas, an iMac. Let's just say my learning curve is quite a bit longer than ALL of my kids. They had music, pictures, and movies all downloaded within hours of opening the box. My attempt at doing anything other than just opening the internet has brought me to a crashing halt. I attempted to download a movie of Kamryn swimming, but my kids are all asleep, so I failed.

Happy Birthday/ Anniversary

Yesterday was a BIG day around here. David and I celebrated 20 years of being married to each other and he celebrated his 4_ Birthday. He said in 2 more years he will have been married to me as long as not being married to me, so you do the math.

We always do Something for our anniversary, but it may not BE on our anniversary. Being the big 20 this year we had high aspirations to go on a cruise or somewhere, but then things we would like to have come along, and soon poof! the trip idea goes out the window. Since the completion of the bathroom the corner has been begging for a TV, so I got David a TV and wall mounter for his gift. We virtually do not have to come out of the bathroom anymore. With the heated floor it has been by far the warmest room in our house lately, so we pull up a chair and watch our favorite Christmas shows in the bathroom, or do like Kamryn & Anna and put pilliows in the bathtub and lay there.

As for me, for the last 5 years I have been thinking that on my 20th anniversary I "needed" to have a new wedding ring. I have waited patiently for 5 years for this time. I gave subtle hints over the last 5 years, which I don't think he ever really got. So a couple of weeks ago I started giving bigger hints, maybe not so subtle. He got the hint. We went ring shopping on Saturday, and I got a beautiful ring that I really love as much as the first one.

I Love You now David even more than when I married you 20 years ago. We have 20 years more wisdom and experience, and now we know each other so much better than when we married. We know just what each other needs to be happy, we know how to help each other through stress and hard times. You are my best friend that I turn to with good news and bad. I look forward to the next 20 + years!

David's work took him to lunch at an italian family style restaurant, then I made chinese food for dinner. He was full, but ate dinner to be polite. He wanted a simple chocolate cake this year, so that's what he got. Then of course he has to have ice cream with it. So after 2 big meals this was what he had room for desert.
Happy Birthday David!

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

Today's photo journal is brought to you by..... (I just had flashbacks to Sesame Street and telling you it was brought to you by the letters M, C and by the Number 8!) Okay, on with the photos.
This is a pre-view of our card we are sending. Benji wouldn't look at the camera, but it was good of the rest of us. Posed, but not too posed.

Yea! This was the year that I finally got my "pretty tree". But not without a lot of grief from my children that their ornaments had been downgraded. I wanted to get a live tree again this year, but the tree on the right was our first artificial tree bought on clearance in 1993. It has had a long life, and spent the last 5 years in our crawl space. It loses needles like water through a hose. David had a Charlie Brown moment and felt sorry for the tree and decided to give it one last harrah, so it became our kid tree this year. I think it is standing a little taller don't you? Even if it is a little bald on some of the branches, with all of the ornaments it looks very festive. Every year the kids get one ornament that says something about things they did or liked that year. So multiply that by 4 kids, with one being 18 Christmases, we have a lot of kid ornaments. Throw in all of the homemade ones from pre-school through Elementary school, and it is loaded. A lot of sentimental ornaments. This year Mikaela couldn't find 1997. She was very distraught that she couldn't remember what it was, so I guess the time has come to make a record of the ornaments lest we forget.

By the way, I love the pretty tree too, it is light green and brown. I got a lot of ornaments at after Christmas sales last year. The photo doesn't do it justice.

The first measurable snowfall, and no one wanted to go out with Anna to build a snowman, so she did it all by herself. Pretty good eh?

Grandma Molyneux brought a gingerbread house with her at Thanksgiving. This has become a tradition each year that we decorate a house. The kids thought up the powdered sugar snow to make it look wintery.

Today we put the lights on the outside of the house. I love Christmas Lights!

This was Kamryn's performance at the Littleton Downtown tree lighting. She disappeared while we were waiting. I found her waiting in line with all of the kids who wanted to go on stage and sing a song while we waited. She was the 2nd to last kid to go up, and she sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" She did a really good job, and wasn't the least bit nervous.

Stories in Hand

I reluctantly did an online class led by Jessica Sprague who I like to read her blog http://www.jessicasprague.com/ . She is a digital scrapbook teacher for Creating Keepsakes, and she has begun her own online digital scrapbooking classes. Anyway... the class was free so I thought what the heck. I am not a writer, but maybe it will help me to remember some of those forgotten stories I have hidden away in the dark recesses of my memory. It started last week, and I still haven't completed the binder that we were supposed to have printed and bound, and looking all cute, but I did get to the memory triggers. She compares getting our stories out to snorkeling and scuba diving. First you kind of flit around on the surface looking and remembering, and then you dive deep and find those stories. It worked! I started last night writing about the greatest life lesson I learned from my mom, and ended up writing about clothes that my mom made for me and even the time she really challenged herself and made down filled "puffy coats" for my sister and me. This was way before internet, so I am not sure how she ever found the resources for the down filled coats. This was in the 70's. My mom could make anything I thought, including down filled coats. Jump forward a few more years to when I was in junior high. My mom made my jeans. Unfortunately the jeans were harder to duplicate to the real designer thing. Even though she studied the pocket stiching and everything. She really tried, but the unappreciating teen that I was they weren't close enough. I wore the jeans until a boy brought attention to those jeans and caused me mortal embarrassment. I'm not sure what he said, but I remember the feeling I had. Isn't it funny that we can remember emotions like that so well.

Anyway hats off to mothers that do the very best they can for their children even when it can never be enough (according to the kids). I understand now that I am a mother how much you just want them to be happy.