Garage Sale Goodies

All summer long the kids begged me to let them hold a lemonade stand.  Thoughts of sitting with the kids in the hot summer sun for seemingly endless hours on our quiet neighborhood street tucked away from any potential customers made me want to evade the subject each time.

They continued to beg, and beg, and beg.

And then I remembered the time my mom let us have a lemonade stand during a garage sale we had.  She even made homemade cinnamon rolls for us to sell--I was old enough to know homemade cinnamon rolls took a lot of effort to make, and I remember thinking that my mom must really  love us to do this.  Of course the cinnamon rolls were a big hit of our sale, and I remember neighbors buying several at a time.

So when I heard a family from our ward (Steel's) was having a garage sale along with several other neighbors I decided I should jump on the chance to create a great memory with my kids.  All their children are grown and they were happy to have my kids set up their lemonade stand during their garage sale.

And of course, I made cinnamon rolls for my kids to sell--so they would know that I loved them enough to do that too.  (It was a good thing too since the morning we held our sale it was overcast and cool.  A perfect day to sit outside for a couple of hours, but not the perfect day to sell ice-cold lemonade.)  Scott helped think of the slogan for their signs "Garage Sale Goodies."

We all had a blast, and I'm grateful I had this opportunity to create a positive memory with my family.  The Steel's and their neighbors were very generous with the kids and made several purchases.  Brother Steel taught my kids about sales and so all four were yelling, "Ice-cold lemonade, Homemade Cinnamon Rolls" to every potential customer who walked by.  The kids manned their sale for about an hour and a half and made about $30 to split between Kaitlyn, Brynn and Jared.  Not bad for a summer day!

Best Quote of the Day:
Jared was beginning to get thirsty and complained to me.  I told him he was welcome to have a cup of lemonade (I could already tell the bulk of the profits was not going to be from their lemonade sales) or I had a water bottle in the car.  Jared quickly jumped on the water bottle choice and exclaimed, "I don't want to give us a bad bargain!  I'll take the water." 

The idea of a "bad bargain" kept all the kids from eating and drinking their products.

Book Reports

Before school starts again, (only 10 more days of summer for us) I thought I should write about Brynn's 1st grade year of book reports.  To challenge Brynn, whose reading level was already several grades ahead when she started 1st grade, her teacher had her read a chapter book and then do a book report "project."  She made a Candy Land type of game based on the characters and plot of one book, she made a diorama for another and a mobile for another.  She read so fast and finished her projects so quickly her teacher told her she was going to run out of ideas for Brynn.  That made Brynn only more excited--she had plenty of her own ideas!

Her last project took her a bit more time.  Brynn read The BFG by Roald Dahl and wanted to make a timeline of the book for her project.  I was thinking beginning, middle and end.  Brynn obviously went well beyond that.

Brynn had a full page written for every heading--"Before the Beginning", "Beginning", "After the Beginning", "Before the Middle", "After the Middle", etc. After each written page she illustrated it with wonderful drawings.  She was very careful throughout the entire project. 

Her finished report was over 20 pages long.  She taped them all together in a time line fashion and literally had one of the longest reports ever!  I was impressed by her hard work, and her teacher was amazed again by her creativity and writing ability.  She is one smart cookie!

Can't Get Enough!

Every one of us is mesmerized by this little boy.  How can we not be...just look at him!

Nathan is already 8 months old!  I realize more now than ever how fast time flies by.  Nate barely has some blonde peach fuzz on his head.  It sticks straight up and reminds me of his cousin Sam.

Nathan loves to eat real food and threw a fit today during church when the Sacrament was passed--he was not about to let us leave him out of a little bread and water!  (Obviously he'd like to eat the grass too).  He loves a tray full of Cheerios or baby food puffs and even enjoyed our fresh bread this weekend.  It is nice that he can feed himself some of these finger foods now so I can put him in his chair while I fix dinner, and he is content.

He has the highest pitch squeal you've ever heard--it's piercing to the ears and can either mean he's very happy or he's very mad.  I think a couple people at church got an ear full of it today.

Nathan definitely prefers his mom to anyone else.  It looks like his first two teeth are on the verge of poking out--we can finally see them.  He is so easy-going and puts up with a lot from his siblings--especially his little Ellie mom.  He even seems to like some of the antics she puts him up to. 

Nathan leans forward from a sitting position and puts his hands down like he is going to crawl, but his feet are in the way.  It is hilarious, although he gets frustrated.  It is nice that he hasn't been in too much of a hurry to be mobile--life will take on a new level of excitement when he's on the go.

Broken?

Thanks to Brynn's insistence, we have Ellie and her "broken" leg documented.

On Sunday morning (July 4th) Ellie and Jared were jumping off the stairs and onto cushions they placed at the bottom.  Apparently Ellie jumped but missed the cushions and landed on the tile.  She was very upset and would not walk, but I largely suspected she was over-reacting due to the fact that we arrived home late the night before from our two week stay in Utah.  I picked her up and buckled her in the car to leave for church, and didn't really think twice about it until she tried to walk on it during Sacrament Meeting and fell to the ground. 

Still figuring it was more from being tired and wanting attention then anything, I took her to Nursery and mentioned that she was not using her leg and to get me if it continued.  I felt bad when two hours later when church was over I picked her up from Nursery and the Nursery worker had held her the whole time.  She said the one time she put her down Ellie crawled to where she needed to go.

I began to suspect she might not be over-reacting.  I took her to our Dr's office which is open on weekends and they sent her for x-rays.  They told us she fractured the growth plate at the end of her leg bone and put a full leg splint on her until we could see an orthopeadic surgeon. 

Ellie figured out how to scoot around with her big splint, but I still had to help her a lot.  She complained about the splint, and I was imagining how awful it would be when she got a real cast on.  I pushed her in the stroller everywhere I could with Nate in my arms.  I was quite a comical site. 

When we finally saw the orthopeadic surgeon he took more x-rays and didn't think the leg looked fractured after all.  He wanted to keep it splinted for 10 days, and if she hadn't used her leg by then he wanted to see her again to cast her.  Gratefully, after about 8 days of wearing the splint Ellie started bearing weight on her leg.  We never had to get a cast, and I was grateful to have Ellie be independent again!

Did I Mention Kaitlyn Turned 9

Kaitlyn turned 9 on June 3rd--right in the middle of our Children's Music Theater.  It was hectic so I didn't get to write about her, but she did get to bring brownies to rehearsals.  She also had three of her friends from school come swimming with us at Scott's work.  Afterwards we had pizza and ice-cream sundaes with tons of toppings!

Look at this cute curly-haired two-year old

Kaitlyn is a smart, sweet girl.  She loves to read and we often have to make her put her book down to eat.  She is very responsible and showing it more and more.  Just today she made lunch for everyone without being asked, since I was not home and Scott had knee surgery yesterday and can't move around very well.  When I came home and saw everyone eating I was so proud of her for stepping up and helping out.  She always does her homework right when she gets home from school, and I never had to remind her about any school projects that were due--she was always ahead of schedule.

Kaitlyn also has a great talent for creating the mood in our home, and I love when she chooses to bring peace and love by getting along with her brothers and sisters.  She has many friends, and I am proud of her for making good choices. 

Kaitlyn is also a great swimmer and has done very well this season in swim team.  She loves our garden and looks at it almost every morning and watches closely so we're sure to harvest everything on time. She also loves playing the piano, and is a great artist.

At Arches National Park

We are so grateful to have Kaitlyn in our family!

Welcome to the Jungle!

For the past two summers my friend Sharee has headed up a summer children’s music theater program. My kids were able to participate in last years show, “Davey Crockett,” and loved every minute of it. Because Sharee was expecting a baby at the end of June she was not going to do it this summer. After a conversation Sharee and I had at the park one day we somehow got the idea that if we worked together we could make it happen this summer after all. I love this kind of thing, and wanted to learn how Sharee made it all work.

I organized everything and took care of all the logistics and most of the set, and Sharee mostly ran the rehearsals. She has a music degree from BYU, and it was fun to see how she taught the kids the music and came up with the choreography. There was definitely enough work for both of us—I can’t believe she did it all by herself in years past!

Here's some of the set without the banners and flags.

We had 47 kids participate this year—more than other years and I was nervous, but they were such a good group. We rehearsed for three weeks and then held one performance. Our main play was “Welcome to the Jungle” based on Aesop’s fable The Lion and the Mouse. Since it was only twenty minutes long to beef it up we added two other Aesop’s fable skits and songs. The younger group (entering Kindergarten and 1st grade) did The Tortoise and the Hare and the older group (all others to 11 years old) did The Fox and the Grapes.

To simplify costuming since our cast were all to be jungle animals we ordered t-shirts in four different colors and face painted the kids different jungle animals for the final performance.

Jared was the Hare in The Tortoise and the Hare and had two lines taunting the Tortoise--he was hilarious and one of the best parts of the show if I do say so.  I didn't know he could be such a ham!

The day after the performance we left for Utah to help before Abby's wedding.  We flew Mom out to help me drive out since Scott couldn't miss work.  I was so glad she could see what I had been working on, and we put her talents to use as she helped face paint the kids.

Two of the parents in our group had performed in Cats on Broadway.  They organized the face painting, and I can't believe what a fabulous job all the parents did.  All the kids looked awesome!

Kaitlyn was the cutest hippo!  I LOVED her eyelashes.

Brynn made a darling Zebra too!

This banner in the front of the stage matched the front of our t-shirts.

I was really glad to be a part of this and had a blast.  I think it was such a good experience for my kids and all the kids involved.  It was a welcome change from the monotony of motherhood and a chance to use my talents in a different way, however it was nice to get back to a normal routine. 

Say Cheese!

Abby had a photo booth at her reception with unlimited prints.  People could get their pictures taken and then got to take home a copy for them and put a copy in Abby's guest book with a note.  I thought it was so cool and told Scott I wanted to take a million pictures in it.  Scott told me that was weird.

I wasn't the only one who wanted to spend all night in the photo booth.  Brynn and Kaitlyn went in a million times--they watched the line like a hawk and jumped in as soon as no one was in it.

We even got some pictures with Max and Cheryl.  I love how Jared disappears in the last shot.

I love the big orange glasses on Scott. Unfortunately I was busy most of the night and couldn't take more than a couple of pictures.  I want to do it again.