Salsa, Swim lessons, and Some fun

Salsa, Swim lessons, and Some fun

Salsa-ness!

Whoo hoo for salsa season! Hot salsa cooking on the stove is one of my favorite things. We had the whole family helping (except Marisa who was at work escorting a giant honeybee around…not kidding) and we made 7 jars of awesomeness!

Swimming

Alayna finished swim lessons and di so awesome! I even got a picture of her diving off the diving board! She can do all kinds of swimming strokes now and loves to be in the water. My favorite part was sitting and soaking up the sun reading good books. Now THAT is what summer should be!

(That’s Alayna diving off the board in the blue suit)

(Alayna in the center swimming with her teacher)

(Practicing being a lifeguard)

Some fun

Nature walk for YW this week:

Making Jello Beans:

A project of painting a desk (all Tylers idea and when they were done they looked like Avatars!):

Making homemade tacos:

(and she passed drivers ed!!)

Writing a novel about evil clouds:

"If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers."— Edgar W. Howe

Thank heavens school starts this week. The natives are restless. They start school on Wednesday and seminary Thursday. Crazy! They will be busy and I will be free as a bird. No more children literally wrestling over the “Hunger Games”, no more kids chasing each other around the house and knocking the mattress off my bed, no more “Im bored but I don’t want to do any chores”, no more midnight trips to walmart to buy “Mockingjay” because some people won’t share. Bring it on!

You can never appreciate the shade of a tree unless you sweat in the sun.-- Author Unknown

It’s so sad because it’s August now and we spent the week getting ready for school…

●We organized all the school supplies and went shopping to get everyone what they needed on their lists.

●For the 1^st time ever we took advantage of the tax-free shopping days to do all of our clothes shopping. It would help tremendously if the kids would just stop growing.

●Alayna has her last week of swimming lessons. I will try to get pictures on Friday.

●Tyler was chosen to be part of the MYFI group this year, so he helps the incoming 6^th graders through orientation and the 1^st day of school. He started his training for that this week.

●Kayla finishes up Drivers Ed this week. She even drove to Sam’s and no one died, so she is being successful!

●Our garden produce is starting to arrive. We have been making bruschetta and starting to can tomatoes. We are doing salsa next Saturday.

●Marisa has been reading Hunger Games. We plan to go to the movie for Kayla’s Sweet 16 if any of you want to go? Tyler and Kayla have been reading more Harry Potter and I am reading a new book called “Gone”.

(The sand temple)

(Sand church)

●Alayna has been busy this week learning how to latchhook which she loves and created a “sand world” in the sandbox that includes Mount Everest.

**Best news of the whole week is that my wedding album arrived and I LOVE it!!! I made it into a hard cover and as professional as I could make it and I am super pleased with the results.

I also got ALL the negatives that were put on cds, into files by year so I can start working on those blog books. Yes, I am obsessed. I found some REALLY old pics so some people were lucky recipients of ones I found of them. I even found my old glamour shots!  Yes, you are allowed to laugh!

Oh my GOSH!! She did it AGAIN!?!?

Oh my GOSH!! She did it AGAIN!?!?

Are you kidding me?? What almost 9 year old decides to cut her own flipping hair A-G-A-I-N?! So, here’s the story….

We all got haircuts this week. (See cute hair below)

Alayna really wanted to try out bangs so she could be cool. Anyway, they kept getting in her way. Late last night she raced in my room claiming she needed a bath and slammed the door. When she came out a while later, I asked if she had an accident or something and she said, “Mom, would you, um, hate me, if I, um, cut my hair?” What???? I race over and this is what I find…

Really?? Really?? Ever heard of a “hair clip” or “head band”?? Dude! Then she asked, as she was crying, if she could cut off the bottom of her hair and glue it back onto the bad part. Really?? Again, didn’t we go through this EXACT scenario when you were like 3? For the Love of Pete!

Why my “Domestic-Ness” should never see the light of day

Ok, so I decided now that my recipes are organized, I shall try a full week of new recipes and be the Mom OF Awesomeness!! (You should hear an echo when you say that!) So, I will say my intentions were genuine and honorable, but I basically suck.

On the very 1^st day of experiment week, my dishwasher broke!!! What the?? So, I have been doing dishes nonstop. I have a new appreciation for my sister who has 3 kids and hasn’t had a dishwasher for 10 years! I would have bought stock in the paper plates company, that’s for sure.

For the 1^st night, I made zucchini boats. We have zucchini coming out of our ears! The kids were actually very excited because they looked very cool. However, when they tasted them, from the looks on their faces you would thought I had presented Barf Boats instead. I was SO proud of them for trying anyway and being honest in their opinions.

We also made 12 mini loaves of zucchini bread!

Day 2: I tried a new sweet and sour chicken recipe with pineapples, cranberry sauce and orange juice. Sounds good right? Well, I think the cider vinegar ruined it because it tasted like “vinegar poop”. Again, hoorah to the kids for trying it. Boo to me for picking out a loser recipe.

Day 3: Success! I tried a cheesy/cracker chicken recipe. No one died or barfed and I got a “wow, this actually tastes good”. Yeah for me! Not sure I will make it again but who knows.

Day 4: My 1^st time making macaroni and cheese from scratch. Yep! You heard me- scratch! And I thought it was great, so did Bob and Marisa. The others only exclaimed, “MOM! You do NOT put onions in Mac and cheese! That is gross!”

Day 5: Asian Salmon. Finally a HIT! This was very yummy and everyone ate it.

Next week the kids are up on dinner duty. Each kid is assigned a night and gets to make or create whatever they would like, since I will be, like, “otherwise occupied”. Here’s to another week of fun meals?

Busy, Busy, Busy

●Alayna did Linn-Mar volleyball camp this week and loved it. She even tied for the 1^st place “Hustle Award” one day and she received the 2^nd place overall “Hustle Award” which she worked very hard for. Way to go, Alayna!!

●Every day this week, despite the HIDEOUS heat, we either went to the track or played tennis. I’m pretty sure I lost a few pounds of just pure sweat! Im grateful for my workout buddy, Marisa!

●Marisa and Kayla have been having fun with friends.

●Kayla started drivers ed. Her teacher is really odd and she is bored to tears but its all something we have to suffer through right?

●Marisa got accepted to compete in the Miss Iowa Teen pageant. Whoohoo! She just applied for fun and isn’t actually going to do it, but we were excited anyway. Yale wants her to apply to their school too. Cool!

●”Falling Skies” is my new favorite show! Just sayin….

●I LOVE being a mom full time and not working. It feels amazing. I would be so happy If I never had to work again. Even with the bad meals and all!

The pink fairy, heat wave, and teaching teens how to drive

The Dancing Pink Fairy

Alayna has been very into dancing lately which means I should probably break down and get her into dance classes. She choreographed her own dance, dressed up, and performed it for us. She loves to leap!

Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent ages as much as 20 years. ~Author Unknown

One of my least favorite things to do is to teach teens how to drive. My heart can’t take it. Kayla starts drivers ed this week so we have had to take her out to practice. Other than almost taking out the mailbox, pushing the gas when she should’ve pushed the brake, and forgetting she was the one driving, I think she is doing ok?

Called to Serve

Marisa got to be a missionary this week! She got to drive up to Cedar Falls this week and spend the entire day shadowing the sister missionaries. She said it was so awesome and loved every minute of it. Hopefully she will share what her day and experience was like?

Heat wave/ Freak storms

We are in the middle of a wicked thunderstorm that has thunder making me jump out of my skin! We had a bad storm Friday night which made us lose power for 3 hours. There’s nothing like losing power for 3 hours to make you appreciate and almost worship the times you DO have power!

We also went through a very nasty heat wave this week with the heat advisory causing temps up to 110-115! The air was so heavy it made it hard to breathe! You just can’t beat Iowa weather, right? You never know what you are going to get!

(We got chalked one night)

Me time?

I’ve had all these projects I’ve been wanting to do and I figured this week I was ready for some “me” time. I started a puzzle (I haven’t done one in about a year now).

I made, completed, and ordered our blog book on Hawaii.

I finished the recipe books and now we are trying new recipes.

I took ALL our negatives in to get them put onto disks to download on the computer.

AND after 18 ½ years I am FINALLY making our wedding album! How cool is that??

The death of a tadpole, a fish, an umbrella, and the lilac tree!

The death of a tadpole, a fish, an umbrella, and the lilac tree

So, the week didn’t start out too well with both the last fish and the last tadpole passing away. Once again, there is a reason I don’t do pets.

We also had a massive storm hit during the night and when we woke up we found out that our umbrella to the deck table was missing (still haven’t found it) and my lilac tree was trashed. Alayna and I spent the day taking out the dead branches only to find out that the inside of the tree was rotted out so we took down the whole thing.

Teen Week

The older 3 kids were at the Hart teen week from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday night. They had such a wonderful time and a special thank you to grandma and grandpa for hosting it! I hear there is a pretty awesome music video they all made and I cant wait to see it.

Kayla license

We have another driver in the family! Kayla got her permit this week- Whoohoo!! And she starts drivers ed this coming week.

OCD issues?

I have been working this week on a project that is long overdue. Our recipes have been a mess. Even though they were in sheet protectors and in binders, they were so unorganized that I could never find what we needed. So, this week I recopied, retyped, and color-coded (yep, you heard me correctly) ALL the recipes. So, here’s to hoping it helps to make life easier.

MISC

Kayla, Marisa, and Tyler were able to go see the final Harry Potter this week with friends. Sadly enough I think I am a few movies behind.

Alayna finished her 2^nd week of swimming lessons and went off the diving board this week as well as did her 1^st standing dive off the side of the pool.

(Garden onions so potent she had to use her swim goggles to cut them!)

Hart Teen Week (3 day)