April 2015 Birthdays

Last month we celebrated Jeff and Kent's birthdays.  Kent's 11th birthday was the same weekend that he went camping.  He enjoyed the weekend and came home to have out family celebration.  He wanted to shoot BB guns, so Jeff and Kent set up some targets in the backyard and they had some fun.  The girls even got a chance to shoot the BB guns and Jeff went over gun safety rules with everyone.  Clark and Quinn stayed inside with me and watched out the window.  We had Golden Chick for dinner and Kent had a lemon cake with lemon frosting.

Kent's 11th birthday place

Happy 11th birthday, Kent

Present Time

Jeff's birthday was at the end of the month.  He came home early from work to go running.  It was a beautiful day and when he finished running he and all the kids played outside for a little while, before supper.  We had pasta with meatballs.  I didn't make him a cake, so we had ice cream and cookies for dessert.  We ended the evening with more playing outside and then a game of dice after Clark and Quinn went to bed.

Jeff's 2015 place setting

Happy Birthday, Jeff!  -2015

Presents

2-23 to 2-25 Sleet/Snow Pictures

2/23 - Freezing Rain and Sleet

Sledding down a neighbors driveway with friends

2-24  Day after freezing rain/Sleet

Kent and his small fort

 2/25 - Snow

Kent was out in it too, but he came in before I took the picture.

Fourth of July

We got up early to go with Jeff to the 5K Liberty run in which he wanted to participate.  There were many participants.  Jeff thought there were somewhere around 400.  He raced well and came in 29th over all and was in 2nd in his age division. 

After the race, we went to the 4th of July parade in Denton.  Then we ate muffins on the square before we returned home.  In the evening we went to Jeff's brother's home and enjoyed visiting with family from both sides and had dinner together.  Several of us went to watch fireworks when it started to get dark.  This was the first year that we had 5 crying kids that wouldn't calm down, so Jeff and I took them to the van.  Kent got to stay with everyone else to watch the show.  We returned home tired from our busy day, but enjoying the freedoms we have in our country because of those who have been fighting for freedom long before our time.

Family Picture - 2014

Jeff, Quinn, and I found a beautiful patch of firewheels in a state park.  We went back the next day to get a family picture.

My Life is Full - Part 3

In part one I share how my younger children fill my life.  In part two I shared how my older children fill my life.  This time I'm going to share the other things in my life that make my life full.

Jeff - My spouse fills my life with support for me and our family.  He's there when I need him whether in person or by phone.  He is a great help around the house.  He builds things for our home and play.  He watches the kids so I can take a walk some evenings after dinner.  He's strong.  He wants to be a good leader in our family.  He eats ice cream with me.  We sit together on the couch to watch TV.  He plays board or card games with me occasionally, even though he doesn't prefer to play games.  He helps the kids with their math if they are struggling with a concept.  He gives me a day or several hours a month to work on projects or do something that I would like to do by myself.  He does so much to fill my life that I can't write everything here or even think of everything at the same time.


My life is also full of the things I do for my home and family.  I shop, cook, and plan meals and snacks.  I make sure that the mountains of clean laundry get folded, eventually.  I like folding laundry.  I delegate chores to the kids that they can help with in the laundry room, bathrooms, kitchen or just around the house.  Then I try to do the things they couldn't do.  I try to keep decluttering things that I find we don't use, so that they aren't in the way.  I try to encourage the kids to play outside and I go out with them to keep an eye on the little ones.  I teach our homeschool and try to make sure that I am ready to start school on Mondays because my preparation seems to help everything go fairly smoothly.  I'm hoping to get my garden planted soon and then there will also be garden maintenance and harvesting when the time comes.


My full life helps me stay content in my home doing the things I'm supposed to do.  It's plenty of fun, has plenty of craziness, and yes, can even have days of struggling to make it to bed at the end of the day without going crazy myself.  I thank God for giving me this full life and as long as I remember to keep everything in perspective I'm happy with it.

Linked with:
Raising Arrows     

A Day at the Races

This entry to my blog is written by Jeff (my wonderful husband).


This past Saturday we ran our Shape-N-Race event (aka pinewood derby) for the Christian Service Brigade at Denton Bible Church. In CSB Shape-N-Race, we have 7 divisions, with three award categories and one overall trophy for each division.  Each division represents one of the age groups in Brigade plus one for the sisters of the boys and one for the dads.  The divisions are Tadpoles (pre-K - K), Treeclimbers (1st - 2nd), Builders (3rd - 4th), Sentinels (5th - 6th), Battalion (7th and up), Powder Puff (girls division), and Open Class (Dads and other family members).  The award categories include design, craftsmanship, and speed.  Design ranks cars based on the overall concept, looking for uniqueness and ingenuity.  Craftsmanship grades the car on how thoroughly the design is executed, looking for good construction, fit, and finish. Speed is determined by the track.  Our family entrants to the race had a very successful run Saturday with trophy finishes in all three divisions entered.

First we had Kent in the Builders division, who raced an orange and blue car dubbed 'the Bronco. His car took second place in the design category, first in the craftsmanship category, and first in speed. I should point out that the design was entirely thought up, sketched, and marked by Kent. I did the cutting, as I am not yet comfortable with him using the power tools. He sanded, painted, polished everything, and I helped him install the axles, since it is a bit tricky to get them set straight. At check in, he decided he wanted to add some more graphite to his wheels so I showed him how, and went about other things. He added graphite on his own and checked his car in. I am telling you all of this just to say how proud I am that Kent put the effort in to producing a winning entry. Yeah the paint job was a bit sloppy, and the car could have been sanded more, but the car was at least 90% his work, and he won the overall trophy definitively.  I had no expectations for that outcome and am still amazed.
The second surprise of the day was Felicity's entry. She just wanted a pink car, so I showed her some different designs and this was what she picked. Her class is allowed to weigh up to 32 ounces, but her car was around 8 ounces (if I remember correctly). She ended up first place in the design category, and first place in speed. Two blue ribbons were enough to win the trophy. Again, not the expected result...partly because she was competing against her sisters:

Katy is the resident artist in our household, so she came up with the idea of a duck car all on her own. She basically told me how she wanted to put it together, and I helped build it. She did all of the painting on her own including color choices. Her car ended up earning a third place ribbon for speed. I guess that duck had quite the doggy paddle skills, especially since it was the lightest car we entered.

I expected Kaomi's VW Van to be fastest, because it was the heaviest of the girls cars at just under one pound. It's obviously not only about weight, because her car wasn't the fastest.  She knew right from the start what she wanted to make, and we did have fun shaping and painting the car together.  She did get a third place ribbon for craftsmanship and she also placed fourth in speed, but there’s no ribbon for that.

Clarky had a football car. I suggested the idea, but since it was football season at the time, he really liked the idea at the time.  Since I was working with poplar hardwood, it was fairly challenging to make the football shape.  I had to borrow a belt sander from my dad in order to get it done.  Clark helped with some of the painting and Su did the rest.  It turned out well enough to earn Clark second place ribbons for both design and craftsmanship.

Lastly, I had been thinking of making a replica of our family van for an entry into the open class race for myself.  A few weeks ago, I found myself basically finished with all the other cars and I had a really nice Texas Saturday with temperatures in the upper 60s.  Since I didn’t need to work on the other cars, i decided to rough out my van concept.  I had it done and even detail shaping done that afternoon, so i was even able to finish the van in the next couple weeks before the race.  I carefully painted it to match the full size version as much as possible, and added weight to get it to 22 ounces.  My van was awarded first place for craftsmanship.  I have a friend that always enters a school bus in the race and every year, so my goal was to beat his bus.  Unfortunately, his 32 ounce bus was still just fast enough to edge me out, so I ended up getting second place in speed.  It was really close though, with the bus winning most heats by less than two-tenths of a second.  My first and second place finishes were just enough to edge Clarky’s football out for the overall win and the trophy.

So, we entered a total of 6 cars, and we walked away with eleven ribbons, and three division trophies.  Not ever going to be able to top this one!

Ice Storm Pictures 1

These pictures are from last Friday.  I enjoyed seeing the delighted faces of my children as we played outside.  We went out while Quinn was napping, so I could enjoy being out, too.  I didn't even hear anyone say they were cold until they had been out there for a while.  Thanks to some ski pants that Aunt Rebekah sent with Mimi and Pa back in April, Kent and Katy got to have the experience of sliding down the ice.  We also couldn't resist getting some kind of sled to use on the ice, so we tried out my laundry baskets.

Kaomi holding sleet

Felicity with an icicle

Christmas lights Friday night.

4th of July Quotes

This morning before breakfast I convinced Jeff to go swimming with me.  We left the older Kids inside working on their chores.  Katy opened the door and called out to us, "You guys are acting like little kids."


Jeff to me:  "If you squirt me I'm going to dunk you."


We were driving by a water tower that had the Texas flag painted in it and Felicity saw it and said, "There's the star of America!"


We went to the 4th of July parade.  There was a large group of loud motorcycles.  Katy told us later, "They made my heart beat so fast that I thought I was gonna die."


We were waiting for the fireworks to start and Kent saw one somewhere behind us.  He yelled, "Awesome!!"


When I asked Kaomi about the 4th of July.  She said she liked the parade and fireworks the best.  While talking about the fireworks she said, "I was a little scared at first, but then I wasn't."


Clark didn't actually say much, but he thought Uncle Eric's brisket was good enough to have more, Grammy's cupcake was completely eaten, and he enjoyed playing with Uncle Anthony and sitting with Aunt Heidi outside.  He's full of lively antics and pretty much goes all in to whatever he is doing.


Quinn just wanted his morning nap.  So he fussed a little and then covered up his face and was gone.

Clark's Birthday / Father's Day

Clark celebrated his birthday the same day we celebrated Father's Day this year.

Clark's birthday place

Jeff's Father's day place

Birthday Balloon

Jeff and Clark

Jeff played us a tune for Father's Day

Happy 2nd Birthday, Clark!

Tractor Cake

Even though I wasn't on top of planning the day.  The older kids stepped up and made both Clark and Jeff's special breakfast place settings.  Clark was absolutely thrilled with the balloon.  He watched me blow it up for him and wanted to blow it up, too.

Our 10th Anniversary

This month we also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  We had talked about doing a couple different things for this year, like taking a weekend trip with just the two of us (but Quinn wouldn't have let us) or renewing our vows with our children present (but we didn't try to make any arrangements soon enough for that).  When our anniversary arrived I hadn't had a chance to get anything for Jeff, not even a card, I was a little bummed, but thought maybe I'd come up with something.  I had an idea for a gift, but I didn't get a chance to go out to get it.

Jeff made coffee in the morning for me.  When I went to get a cup from the cupboard I found a new mug with a special note in it.  When I got the to the coffee pot I found another note and a Mr. and Mrs. Coupon book.  I found a card and a package of bright hair ties on the bathroom counter, a note and some duct tape on the corner of my desk, a note and package of children phrases stickers in my diaper bag, a note and a wind chime on the piano, a note and project idea on the bathroom wall, a card and book on my night stand, a note and movie on the entertainment center and a note and special paper to frame on Jeff's desk.  My husband was so thoughtful and gave me 10 reminders of his love throughout the day, besides a few text messages.

We thought about going out for dinner, but we decided that the next day would be better, so the day after our anniversary we had a nice leisurely dinner out at Texas Land & Cattle Steakhouse (Thanks, Dad and Mom for the babysitting services).  Then we stopped at Walmart and I let Jeff pick out the windspinner he liked best as his present from me (aluminum or tin for our 10th anniversary).

A Few Other Highlights from April and Early May

Felicity made Gingerbread men after reading The Gingerbread Man

Jeff's Birthday

Box House

Clark and Lissie playing

Dance Party on Daddy

Quinn 3 1/2 months