Random mobile pics

Giant mushroom we found....

Ryanne and I had a girly afternoon. We had rootbeer floats and painted our nails. Of course, we had to go and buy nail polish first b/c I didn't have any. ;) We did french manicures to mine and Ryanne's were sparkles.

With white toenails. Unfortunately, she touched her toe before it was dry and then wiped it off on her foot. LOL! So, she had a little white spot on her foot when this picture was taken. ;)

Then she and I went outside and played tag then hide and go seek and then baby. Then we went on a walk with our cat, Baker. When we got home we realized we had locked ourselves out of the house so we had to wait for Paul to get home to let us in. hehe... oops!

Climbing in the tree after church.

Aiken's Makin. I gave each of the kids $10. I don't know if you can see it but they both have rock candy in their hands, there is cotton candy hanging from my purse. They also both bought wooden tops and Collin bought a geode rock. I think it's amethyst crystals growing inside of it. He loves rocks (it's a science so, of course he would, right? ;) and learning new things about them so now he knows how those are formed too. ;)

Beading jewelry with Mi-Mi/

 I decided to try Hilary Weeks' challenge. She heard that the average person has 300 negative thoughts a day. So, she decided to test it. She got a clicker and clicked for all her negative thoughts. By the end of the week she felt miserable so then she decided to click for all her positive thoughts. She said it was amazing the different focusing on the positive thoughts. So... I started it this past week.

After two days, this is what my clicker showed. I don't think that is possible though. I asked my family if anyone messed with it and they all said no but, I did the math, I would have to hit the clicker once a minute for 19 hrs straight to get this number. I did hit the clicker a lot but I don't think it was that often. I dunno though... it could have been. I still think someone messed with it but it's a cool think anyways. If you want more details then go to billionclicks.org. I love it b/c anytime something frustrating happened I found myself flipping that negative thought into a positive. I seem to be more empathetic and understanding as well. Awesome!

You've all been wondering... maybe not....

I know you've all been wondering how our first couple weeks of school have been! :) Today, we completed week 3 of first grade and week 1 of 4-K. So exciting!! Here are some pics. :)

 Art class! He is texturing his bunny with a fork.hehe! He was learning about texture in art this day. :)

 First day of first grade photo.

 History class.... he was reviewing geography from kindergarten and placing the proper animals on the proper continents.

 He is keeping a record book this year. It's awesome! I love it b/c it gives Collin a chance to choose his favorite part of the lesson and draw a picture or write about it. It gives us an opportunity to review history each lesson too. :)

 He is learning how to add two digit numbers and carrying the one and all. Awesome! These are some of the manipulatives he uses for math.

 This year, SCVCS now gives a Reading Eggs membership to students. Woot! Collin is so excited about this.

 Somedays, he does school in his shades. ;)

 Phonics outside. Each of those tables is a bunch of words, some are random and others are words with double letter endings. He had to toss a penny at the table and if it landed on the double letter ending we were working on in that particular table then he had to read the word. If he could, then he got a point. ;) Yay!! He had to get 5 points at a table before he could move on. We did -zz, -ll, ss, and -ff. :)

 Some days are a little more stressful than others.

 Scientific Method -- Question: Will a popsicle melt slower in the shade than in the sun?
Hypothesis: Yes, a popsicle will melt slower in the shade.
Procedure: 1 pop in the sun and 1 in the shade and Collin is documenting his observations every 10 minutes until 1 has melted.

 Frozen pop...

 Melted pop... Conclusion: Collin's hypothesis was correct. The one in the shade melted slower than the one in the sun.

 Collin checking the popsicles.

Ryanne's 4-K picture!! Isn't she too cute? She is going 3 days/week and goes from 9-11 so it's a very short day but she's having fun and it makes me feel less guilty that she is getting ignored while Collin and I do school. Next year, she'll be doing school too w/ SCVCS too so it won't be so bad. We'll just be doing school all day! :)

Fast and Testimony Meeting

Today is Fast Sunday which means it was one of my favorite meetings... Fast and Testimony Meeting. For those of you not LDS, this is a day when latter-day saints stand up in front of the entire congregation and declare what they know to be true about the gospel. Most of the time there are incredible things said and the spirit is amazingly strong. Sometimes someone will get up and the spirit is gone and it is just awkward but those moments of spiritual highs are completely worth it. The thing is, today, I wanted to get up so badly but getting up in front of all those people absolutely terrifies me. I decided to just blog about what I was going to say.

Let me just start off by saying that I am so behind on journal-ling so there hasn't been much posted here. I am sorry. I am working on catching up. That is why I was reviewing Judges 6. This is the chapter where we are first introduced to Gideon, one of the judges of Israel. I'll talk more about him later but the Israelites were captives again. This time is was by the Midianites. The Israelites were help captive by them for seven years. Finally, when everything else had failed they prayed to the Lord. I wonder what would have happened if they had turned to the Lord first. My immediate thought was, "Duh!" But, then I started thinking about my life. When I'm driving around lost and I cannot figure out where someplace is... I just keep driving thinking, "Oh, it'll be at the next place." Or, if I've lost my keys I just keep searching, sure that I will be able to find them on my own. Or, with parenting. So many times I think, "I can handle this temper tantrum. It is my job. I am the mom." But, then I was thinking about how much easier my life would be if I would just immediately turn to the Lord in prayer. How much better would my parenting be if I turned to the Lord before I had a heart to heart with my child about a choice he or she made? How much easier would everything be if we all just turned to the Lord first and let him help to guide our lives.

I am so grateful for the scriptures and all the things that I learn from them daily. I am also thankful for the power of prayer so that I have the ability to ask my Heavenly Father for help. All I have to do is humble myself enough to remember that I cannot do this on my own and we were given prayer to communicate with our Father in Heaven. What a wonderful blessing. The scriptures are true and the power of prayer is real!

Vacation with Friends

So, it's sort of an annual thing. Several families get together and go on vacation together. Tons of fun! Normally it's just three families but this year we added a fourth family. So much fun!! Here is the one from 2011 and the one from 2010. It's tons of fun and I am so glad that I have friends to go vacationing with. Is vacationing a word?

Day 1: We all arrived at different times and fended for ourselves for dinner.

Collin looked so grown up in the car with his crossed legs while he read a book.

Ryanne, not so quiet, and decided to fake sleep for a picture. :)

 We went to Fatz for dinner! Woot! :) And... my veggie loving son ordered tomato soup and salad. The rest of us ordered regular food. It just always surprises me what he orders and loves. LOL!

 We finally made it to the house!!

 Did I mention the house was on a lake with a dock?

Here is a view from the back of the house. Isn't it pretty? And, yes, that's a hot tub on the basement porch. ;)

Day 2: We started the day with a short hike to a waterfall. Okay, the hike was only half a mile one way. Easy Peasy! However, the drive to get back there was scary. I was sure we were lost and driving to our doom. The road was incredibly narrow and I could see the drop off on my side. I was sure that Paul was driving too close and we were going to crash. I wanted him to make our mini van hug that mountain. But, he thought it was funny that the drive scared me so he made the most out of it. LOL! =P Anyways, we arrived to the trail head safely.

Here is a shot of the whole group at the top of the waterfall!! :) Do you see all those preggo bellies up there? Not to mention the new born? Yeah, that's why we chose a short hike. ;) Then, my kids being the wild hoodlum children that they are decided they wanted to play in the water. But, another family joined us with her wild children as well. ;) They had so much fun playing in the icy cold mountain water. Here are some pictures of their fun!

And a video...

On the way back to the car, there was a hollowed out tree stump on the side of the path. Of course, being the incredibly cautious parents that we are, we stuck our kids inside. :)

Just so you can get an idea of this... Collin and Ryanne were both standing up.

The rest of the afternoon of day 2 was spent (after naptime and Collin and I finished school work) was spent playing in the lake. For obvious reasons I did not have a camera down there. My husband did push me in once so... yeah. Better not to have a camera or phone in the pocket when near a lake with him around. ;)

That night, as usual, after kids were in bed the parents were found gathered around tables playing games. So fun!!

Day 3: That morning, Collin, Ryanne, and I had breakfast and then hopped in the hot tub while it was still cool and before everyone else was up. It was fun sitting in the mountain air with just the three of us. We turned the heat down so the hot tub was only about 99. It was like bath water with lots of jets and chlorine. :) My dark blue shorts became much lighter with a slight green tint to them. Yeah, a lot of chlorine.

Later in the morning, all the moms took the kids to the park to play! Yay for free entertainment!! :)

 Collin sitting in a weird spinning tulip type of thing.

Here are the older 6 of the 8 kids we had with us. :)

We had Collin take a picture of us moms. It's a little fuzzy but I think he did pretty well considering he's 6 and it was the camera on my phone. :)

After this, we went horseback riding. Well, the dads, me and four of the oldest kids. Soooo much fun for the kids. We went on a trail on the mountains through a national forest. I didn't take a camera with me because I was afraid I'd drop it but one of the other moms took a picture of us on the horses.

 Collin was lucky and got a buddy saddle. Isn't it cool? I've never seen one before. It buckles onto the back of a regular saddle. Collin and I rode on Delilah. She was the shortest of all the horses so she walked a bit slower than Uncle Buck (you'll see him next) who rode in front of us. Unfortunately for the Monsons and Gipsy though b/c they were behind us. :) Delilah was a good girl though who went where ever I told her. She did not like mud though so she did whatever she could to avoid it. ;)

Ryanne did not get a buddy saddle. She rode on the front of Paul's saddle. Paul and Ryanne rode Uncle Buck who was not as well behaved as Delilah. He, apparently, did not like Paul. He tried to bite his leg once. I am glad that I had Delilah and not Uncle Buck.

After we got home from riding horses (it was only a 1 hour trail ride) we played in the lake again! YAY!! That night the parents stayed up and.... ready for it.... played games!! :)

Day 4: This was Sunday so.... Paul took the kids out to the lake and taught them to skip rocks while I packed up the kitchen stuff. He took a video of it. Maybe he'll post it later but Collin was having trouble getting the throw right. Paul finally told him that it was like a double block in TaeKwonDo... Collin got it right then. ;)

ETA video: 

We all loaded up the van together and we listened to Scripture Scouts and EFY CDs all the way home. hehe! We were worried b/c we forgot to get gas on Saturday but we made it all the way home on half a tank. Woot! No breaking the Sabbath for this family. Hooray!

And... that was our third annual group vacation.

First Field Trip of the 2012-2013 year!!! :)

Ryanne in Eddie's brain.

Ryanne shopping in the children's grocery store.

Collin building in the block room.

Construction zone!!

Collin built the arch and learned about keystones.

Rainforest!

African drums on TV!!

Sahara Dessert

Fishing

With Eddie (the giant boy the kids play inside of), Paul and I had to position ourselves strategically to prevent them from getting lost. So, from where I stood, I could see a hottie at the bottom with a white shirt and jeans and just had to take a picture of him. Yeap! That's my hubbie! Such a cutie. ;)

So, if you can't tell, we were at the Children's Museum for our first field trip. It was pretty cool b/c only members of our Virtual school were there. How fun!! It was still incredibly crowded though!