My Attempt at Shelby's Senior Pictures

Due to some unexpected and very expensive car repairs this summer, we were unable to afford traditional senior pictures. So I told Shelby I would take some pictures of her when we were on vacation to see if we could get some good ones and here are my favorites....

I am sad that we can't get pictures done this year, but was really excited about how these turned out. She is so pretty and I found her incredibly easy to photograph!

End of Summer Beach Vacation

Ever since the snow in February, we have been looking forward to our beach vacation. We spent countless hours when we were snowed in searching beach houses, but in the end, decided to return to the same condo on Topsail Island where we have been going for several years.

Who could resist this view?!!! Sitting on the balcony made us feel like coming home! The kids were so excited to be back at the beach that as soon as they carried their required bags up from the car, they were right out on the sand! They spent most of their waking moments boogie boarding, searching for seashells or building elaborate sand castles and then watching them be destroyed! (and yes, I KNOW that Joshua looks like we starve him to death in the picture below....he is my pickiest eater, so I let him choose our menu for the week at the beach! I think he ate more than he has ever eaten in his life, but just burned it all off running around in the ocean!)The boys kept reinforcing this castle even when the tides were coming in and it was flooded with water. They wanted to see how long they could make it stand! But at some point, you have to throw in the towel and acknowledge that the waves are mightier than you!
Savannah kept begging me to build a sandcastle with her, but since mom is not the best sandcastle builder, I drew her a picture in the sand (no, I am not the best sand artist either!)....

We invited all Chris' family who live near Topsail to come spend a day at the beach with us. It was fun having cousins to play with and Chris and I enjoyed visiting with the adults. Shelby, Savannah and I went out shopping for food for dinner and ended up coming home with these cute beach cakes! They were a hit, of course, and there was nothing left over!

A favorite stop on our way home has always been the aquarium. The kids love to see the fish up close! I thought this was the coolest picture with the kids sillouhetted against the fish tank! Savannah and Chris were off talking to the shell lady about different kinds of shells that you can find on the beach, so she is missing from the picture, but it is still very cool!

As a side note, when I posted this picture on Facebook, my sister Rachel pointed out to me that Caleb is now taller than Shelby! I hadn't even noticed that! So I made them stand back to back and sure enough, he IS taller! A few days after we got home, I had to take Caleb in to the doctor (he has swimmers ear....yuck!) and they measured him at 5 feet 4 and 3/4 inches. Shelby has topped out at 5 feet 4 inches. We are so glad that Caleb is finally growing! Sadly though, I noticed that the jeans I bought for him in June are now too short!

Anyway, back to the beach trip.....

I cannot say enough good things about Topsail Island. We absolutely LOVE it there! The pace is so unhurried and relaxed and there is not much to do besides go to the beach and that is exactly why we love it! We cannot wait to go back!

Hazy Days at the Craft Shack

If you came to visit my house, you would never think that I was a crafty person. I am creatively challenged when it comes to decorating my home! You won't walk away with any cutesy ideas or want to bring anyone here to see what I have done, that is for sure! But for one week each year, I morph into THE CRAFT LADY at cub scout day camp! I spend months searching for great craft ideas and filing them away to choose the best ones for use at camp. I can make things you would never imagine out of paper and tape (paper rockets, anyone?) and I even learned how to use a woodburner this year! This was my 5th year working on staff at day camp....the first year I was in charge of the tot lot and the other four have been in crafts. It may be my last and that is a little sad. I did not sign up to be the craft lady next year because I am unsure what life will hold with Shelby graduating and going off to college.

I even get a little misty-eyed when I think of it. I can't imagine a summer without one sweltering week in the heat crafting with a bunch of 7-10 year old boys who think I am the best crafter in the world!

Who knows.....they may not be able to fill my position and I could be persuaded to come back!

Savannah Swims!

Savannah has really been working on her swimming this summer and I cannot believe how much better she has gotten. Check out this video of her swimming at our last meet of the season!

Road Wins This Round

In the ongoing battle of a boy and his bike vs. THE ROAD, another victim has been claimed.....(Shelby says this is way too gross to put on my blog, but hey, we document the good, the bad and the ugly here! Besides, this is 2 days later and looks SOOOOO much better than it did.) Anyway, for all the brute strength and coordination Samuel has, he seems to have more than his share of bicycle accidents. He has been flipped over the handlebars twice this year alone! Our neighbor has brought him home scraped up and bleeding from his crashes on the way to the pool. So when the latest crash happened, I wasn't too overly concerned. I was out shopping for day camp supplies (kill me now, but that's another story that I will share next week!) and got the call from the pool that Samuel had crashed and stubbed his toe. I hurried back to the pool and found Samuel happily eating a snow cone with his foot all wrapped up. He didn't want to unwrap it for me, and he wasn't crying, so I wasn't too concerned. However, about 5:00 pm he comes to me and unwraps it and I about threw up! The scraped up part on the knuckle of his toe was incredibly deep, like a big chunk had been taken out of it. There were pieces of black asphalt in it and I wasn't about to dig them out! So off we went to Immediate Care. They soaked it then xrayed it to be sure that all the road grit was out (there was concern that some may have embedded in the bone....gross, I know!) and then debrided it off all the dead skin, packed the wound and wrapped it up. They sent him home on an antibiotic to prevent infection. Then the next day, we went to his regular doctors office where we went through the whole process again (minus the xrays). We will go for one more visit Friday and then hopefully he will be good to go. Apparently the risk of infection is highest the first few days so they like to keep an eye on things. Needless to say, the bike is currently parked in the garage and there will be no more bike riding with flip flops.....at least not this summer!

In Training.....

Guess who's cheerleading this year?
Yesterday was uniform day and she was SO excited to run home and try hers on!
It was a little late, so the video is kind of dark, but cute nonetheless!

Summer Swim Team

I know I haven't posted about it at all, but we have been doing LOTS of swimming this summer! Here are some pics of our swimming in reverse order.... Joshua was awarded a trophy for most improved swimmer, which made his night! He has worked really hard this year and as soon as he starts to eat and gets more brute force, who knows what will happen???

Caleb at the swim team banquet making a very funny face! He didn't get to swim much this year between the state tennis tournament, scout camp, EFY, and youth conference. He missed it so much, he has asked me to keep swim team season open next year so he can hopefully qualify for champs.

Savannah in awe of her medal....it had a swimmer on it that "swims" when you move it side to side.

Samuel getting ready to swim at champs. He was the only one of our kids to qualify this year, and he did GREAT! He got 2 gold medals and one silver medal! That boy was born swimming!

Joshua assuming the "coaches position". He was really good at standing alongside the pool and cheering his teammates on. He even gave Savannah a few pointers that have really sped up her swim times! In every sport Joshua has been in, he stands out as a coach!

Samuel (in the bright blue swim cap with goggles on) waiting at clerk of course for his race. He is in the 9-10 yr. old age group and is swimming in the top heats with the best swimmers at age 9.

Not really sure what this look is, but it totally made me crack up when I downloaded it off my camera! Chris must have taken it while I was timing at the meet!

And yet another funny face!

Savannah and Coach Chris giving her a few last minute pointers....it must have worked because between Coach Chris and mini-coach Joshua, she ended up getting 10 seconds faster!

Quick Trip to Palmyra

After thinking about doing it for 10 years, we finally decided to attempt the trip to Palmyra for the Hill Cumorah Pageant! I have to admit to being the one who held back for so long....I really did not want to make the trip with the kids because I hated travelling with little ones. But we are now well beyond little ones, and our kids are really quite good travelers (well, except for Savannah who seems to need to go to the bathroom anytime she is tired of sitting in the car!) so we took off at 6:30 pm on a Friday night for New York. We got to our hotel about 2:00 am and slept in late the next morning, then spent some time in the pool (because we all know that is the favorite part of the trip!) Then we spent the day sight-seeing in Palmyra before going to the pageant..... Here are the kids with Wicked King Noah

Acting crazy at the Printing Shop where the Book of Mormon was originally typeset and printed LETTER BY LETTER! It really made me appreciate the technology we have nowadays!

Joshua in the Sacred Grove

Savannah walking in the Sacred Grove

Our family at the Sacred Grove (Joshua was the photographer)

Savannah at the large Smith Family home

On the Smith Farm looking back at the Palmyra Temple

The small Smith Family Home where Joseph Smith first saw the Angel Moroni and was told about the gold plates in his upstairs bedroom. I believe they said there were actually 11 people living in this house!

We had a great time and were so glad we went. However, we made one fatal error and that was not lining up a hotel room for Saturday night. (Chris was debating whether or not to go on up to Niagra Falls so the kids could see it, so we hadn't arranged for a room) By the time we started searching for a room at 11:00 pm we were unable to find anything available. We decided to start driving towards home and kept calling hotels along the way only to find that everything was booked! Somewhere around 2:00 am, we realized that we were going to be driving ALL NIGHT! I fell asleep and Chris took over till 5:30 am, then I drove till 7:30 while he slept....it was ALL I could handle! So he took over and brought us the rest of the way home where we promptly crashed into our beds!

Yes, I am 40 and NO, I AM NOT A COW!!!!

Friday was my 40th birthday!

With Chris and Caleb gone to scout camp, Joshua spending the morning at a friend's house and Shelby gone out to breakfast with a friend, I was left with 2 kids to fix breakfast for. That was when I made my plan to not cook on my birthday. I scrounged around through our coupon drawer and found 3 coupons for free chicken mini's and Chick-fil-A, so off we went! Once we got there, we discovered it was "Dress Like a Cow" day and everyone who came in dressed like a cow got a free meal. I realized we could have Chick-fil-A for breakfast AND lunch FOR FREE and my "no cooking day" was looking better and better! We spent the morning at the pool, then after we got Joshua and Shelby back home, we went to work on our costumes. Shelby initially refused to dress like a cow....even my threats of "well you'll have to cook your own food" wouldn't sway her.....but then Aunt Rachel called to wish me a happy birthday and the bribing began! Needless to say, Shelby can't say no to money!

Here we are in all our bovine glory!

I would have to say it was probably one of my best birthday meals ever!

It All Started With a Piano.....

A few months ago, my youngest sister, Rachel, surprised us all when she called to say she was moving out of the country. Not that she doesn't move, mind you....she moves enough that her blog's address is actually "didwemoveagain"! But out of the country??? Well, that was different than just across the country (which she HAS done TWICE!). Anyway, she has had a baby grand piano that she has moved with her on all her many moves, but this time it was not going. She called me and offerred to send it to my house if we could pay to move it here. My kids have progressed so far at the piano, that it was time for me to step up from the spinet that we were blessed to get for $200 8 years ago. And the prospect of a baby grand for the cost of moving (which wasn't cheap by any means, but was still cheaper than buying a new piano) was too good to pass up. Soooooo....somehow that got the ball rolling and Chris and I decided to replace the disgustingly nasty white carpet that we have lived with for 3 1/2 years because it would be a lot harder to do once we had a baby grand piano in the living room. And well, then that turned into "perhaps we should repaint the living room" which encouraged "I think the dining room needs a new coat of paint" which then morphed into "wow, the foyer paint has a hideous green hue....we better repaint that too"! So.....

FOUR months, one major remodel, and $4500 later, my husband can tease me that this is the most expensive free piano we were ever given! Oh, and the foyer is still waiting to be repainted....

And I am hearing beautiful music from my living room! I love it! Thank you Rachel, we will take good care of your "baby".