Double Trouble!

My mom and my Aunt Kathy taught my sister and I to double dutch when I was a kid. For those of you who don't know, that means that you jump rope with two ropes at once going opposite directions. We bought two long jump ropes in Colorado right before this trip and brought them with us. When I told Mom and Aunt Kathy that I wanted them to go outside during the birthday party and teach the kids to double dutch they thought I was kidding. Nope!

Everybody, even the adults, tried it at least once. I even have video of my mom jumping! She and Aunt Kathy were remembering the old jump rope songs they used to sing as kids and Aunt Kathy made a few up right there on the spot while the younger kids were jumping. All the kids loved it! That had to be one of the best parts of the whole party!

Happy B-Day Kathy!

My favorite aunt, Aunt Kathy, turned 29 again on Wednesday. When she arrived at the party Danya took off like a shot to throw herself into Aunt Kathy's arms. She and Rhema have just bonded to Aunt Kathy in a special way. I know the feeling. I absolutely idolized my aunt when I was younger. Then again, I still think she's awesome!

We made her all time favorite Pineapple Upside Down Cake for her birthday. My mom said she was going to get one for Aunt Kathy but I told her she was too late, we already had all the ingredients ready to make it. And of course it was the second question Aunt Kathy asked upon arrival.

"Is your mom coming today?" followed by "Is she bringing my Upside Down cake?"

Wet and Wild!

The Slip and Slide was the star of the first half of our party this Wednesday. Of course, once the kids realized I was taking their pictures, they started getting more daring and hamming it up for the camera. So we have pictures of Bekah surfing, Meridian splashing down in her 'rock star' pose, and Gloria cracking her head when her feet went out from under her.

Me: Baby! Are you hurt?!
Glory: No, can't you see me laughing?

Way to shake it off, kiddo! They also played on the big jungle gym climber toy out in the backyard and ran in and out of the house. Some of them took showers before dinner was ready and I got quite a surprise when I went to bed last night. They had climbed onto my bed, covered in mud and wet grass, to strip out of their wet suits. Then they left the wet clothes on my bed. I decided not to mention it to them until the next day...for their sakes. Otherwise, it was a great party!

3 Birthday Bash!

Wednesday night we had a cookout to celebrate Danya, Aunt Kathy, and Kevin's birthdays. Daniel made delicious barbque burgers (I'm still annoyed that I didn't get one with the Mozzarella cheese on it!) and the kids played out back in their swim suits. We used the Slip and Slide and the sprinkler toy that my mom gave the kids. They got incredibly wet and muddy.

The whole party was a success and my mom even drove all the way from Oklahoma City to be there. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I accidentally let it slip to Aunt Kathy that her sister would be there about 10 minutes before she arrived. Oh well. My friend, Glenda, her kids, and her in-laws all came to play and eat, too. We had about 14 kids altogether!

Grandpa's Eyes

Although Grandpa Clint isn't related by blood, he and Kevin share the same beautiful blue eyes! I mentioned that to Daniel when we saw this photo and he said, "I just hope I age as well as your Dad." He's right. My Dad sure looks good for 49.

My parents met us at McDonald's for dinner after we left Frontier City. They live just a few miles away from the amusement park. They gave Danya a "Slip and Slide" for her 7th birthday and gave Glory a sprinkler toy since they missed her birthday when we moved to Colorado last year. They were the perfect gifts and just in time for the cookout the next day. Kevin got a beach ball, but he was much more interested in Grandpa Clint's beard!

Frontier City Friends!

What started as an idea to go to Frontier City just me and Danya for her birthday, morphed into a homeschool adventure. Well, we signed up for the group discount under our homeschool name, "Choice Elementary". My bestest buddy, Glenda, and her 3 kids (pictured here: Qorban, Caleb, and Liliana, along with my girls and their cousin, Jason) came and brought Glenda's sister-in-law, Jessica, and her two girls, plus Jessica's friend and his 3 kids. We were quite a group! The nice part was that we got in for $15 a piece and Daniel and I didn't have to pay for parking because we were driving a passenger van!

The boys' favorite part was the ball pit. Gloria loved the "Wild Kitty" kid roller coaster. Danya loved getting soaked on the "Renegade Rapids" ride. Me? I just loved being there with my friends and family. Quick bit of personal trivia: My family only ever took one vacation in my entire childhood...and it was to Frontier City.

Techno Grandpa!

Some grandparents have difficulty dealing with new fangled technology. Not Great Grandpa Joe! He uses his computer daily to work on creating the newsletter for his nursing home. He even interviews the other residents and occasionally includes poems that Grandma Arlene writes.

He's even published a few manuscripts that he wrote entirely on a computer or word processor. This week he gave us a copy of a book he wrote for his 50th high school reunion. There are stories about all the alumni and their families and pictures. Also, the history of his high school. It's pretty neat! Then again, he's a pretty neat Great Grandpa!

Moffett Time

We spent some time visiting "the Greats" this week. Daniel's grandma and grandpa really enjoyed seeing Kevin. Arlene even held him for a minute, but only for a minute because he is one chunky monkey! She also played catch with him tossing a stuffed bunny back and forth.

We only get to see them a couple of times a year, so we're going to go back and see them again this weekend, hopefully.

Birthday Planning Conversation

Me: So, Danya, tomorrow is your actual birthday and we don't have any specific plans. What do you think we should do to celebrate?

Danya: I know! We could all go outside and use our new jump ropes!

Me: (laughing) Yes, but we can do that any time. What could we do that would be super special? If you could do anything at all for your birthday?

Gloria: Ooh! We could stay up late and watch a movie!
Danya: Yeah! And have popcorn!

Me: (laughing harder) That sounds much better than my idea. I was just thinking we could go to Frontier City.

Girls: *Gasp!* Yes! Yes! Yes!

DVDs to Go!

In our old van the fuses blew out so we couldn't hook up the DVD player in the car. This new van has multiple jacks, so on our trip down to Oklahoma this Sunday the kids watched several movies. We also rent videos from the library sometimes and let the kids watch them as we drive around town. If it's a long day we can even return those videos before going home.

Kevin will watch for a few minutes, but he quickly gets bored and ignores it. We need new headphones, though, because the girls can't hear the movie once we get on the highway or interstate and our current headphones hurt their ears. I still say that overall it's a blessing to have something to keep them entertained for a couple of hours on a long drive.

Playing in the Fire Hydrant

This video was taken May 2nd when we let the girls play in the fire hydrant near the park. I think I'm going to like this video feature! I'm really glad that Daniel told me how easy it is to do!

My First Video Blog!

We'll see if this works. I'm attempting to add a video that I uploaded to YouTube. It's a short one that I took on accident when I thought I was taking a picture of the girls the other day. If this doesn't work, you can try this link instead: homeschool girls

Ice Cream and Swim Suits

Today was a full day. It's pay day and we had to pick up some things for our upcoming trip home to Oklahoma. We're heading out on Sunday (and for any bad guys reading this blog, don't get any ideas because my neighbor Marge is going to be guarding our house like a hawk! lol) and we'll be back in about a week.

Everybody but me got new swimsuits today. I finally fit in one of my older swim suits, so I don't need a new one. We had to shop for Daniel's in the teenager section because they don't sell men's swim suits smaller than a size 30 waist. We also got him some shorts. Can you believe he fits in a boy's size 14?! Daniel thinks it's hilarious. He actually said, "Hey in a few years Kevin and I will be shopping in the same section!"

We also bought a ton of hamburger to freeze and bring to Oklahoma. We got it very cheap at Sam's Club. We're heading to the tiny town of Ripley, Oklahoma where the biggest local store is Walmart and it's a 30 minute drive to get there. We're going to have a big birthday party and cook out on Wednesday. We'll celebrate Danya turning 7, Kevin turning 1, and my aunt Kathy turning... um...29 again. We'll also be attending my high school reunion a week from tomorrow. I can't wait to post pictures of me in the dress I bought for the reunion dinner that night!

Oh, and this picture is from this afternoon when the girls, Kevin, and I walked a mile to McDonald's to return our videos at the Red Box. We had "How to Eat Fried Worms" which was a waste of a dollar to rent, and "The Nativity Story" which was actually pretty good.

Yard Work

Daniel has been working hard on getting the yard into shape. I know he wishes he had more time to get it done. I'm just glad he's not one of those guys who obsesses over the yard work. Instead, we can always talk him into taking a family walk with us and postponing the mowing.

This week he got the mowing and weed eating done, and we are finally starting to see some tiny grass growing from all the seeds he scattered over the bald patches in the lawn. He also trimmed some low hanging tree branches for us. I'm hoping one of his next projects will be to trim those monster bushes in front of the house. I've never seen bushes like these before, but they are everywhere in this part of Colorado. Daniel keeps saying he wants to buy a wheel barrow and start relocating the dirt in the backyard to fill in some gaps and level it out. I want him to wait until after our home is inspected by the social worker, so it doesn't look like we live in a construction site. It will all have to wait at least until we get back from our trip to Oklahoma!

Kevin's Swing

When Danya was little we bought a tiny swingset with a swing that was suspended from metal bars instead of a chain or rope. It didn't really swing well at all. It also had a ladder, but that broke within the first week. Since then I've wished we had our own baby swing, but we never got one for Gloria. Finally, Kevin is the first one to get a real baby swing... except the kind we got was designed for a swingset, not a tree.

So Daniel spent some time this afternoon attempting to make it work on one of our tree branches in the front yard. We tried four different branches and three different trees before we settled on this pine tree next to the house. Kevin loves it! He was singing his repetitive little song "ah ah ah ahhhh!" and kicking his feet. He would laugh when we grabbed his toes.

I told Danya that when she was one and a half she used to call the swings "whee". She would see the swings at the park and point and say, "Whee? Whee? Wheee!" until we put her in them. For Kevin if we ask him, "Kevin, do you want to swing-swing?" he'll go nuts! He'll start breathing fast, babbling, and straining towards the swing. It's his absolute favorite thing to do other than eat, lol.

Homeschooled Spelling Champ!

The good news? A 13 year old homeschooler from California won the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week! I'm always curious about the parents. My first thought is usually, "so does the kid have genius parents?" But the answer is frequently, "no". This boy's dad is a subway train operator and his mom is a SAHM like me.

What bothers me, or "the bad news", is that I looked for the story on Fox news, my preferred news source, and they didn't mention that he was a homeschooler. So I checked out ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN just to see if everyone was ignoring that little fact. It seems they all practically copy and pasted the Associated Press (AP) story, but only CNN and CBS managed to leave in the part about him being a homeschooler. The other sites just removed that fact and left the rest of the story!

Here's a clip from CBS: "The home-schooled eighth-grader easily aced “serrefine” — a noun describing small forceps — to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee."

Here's Fox news: "The 13-year-old boy from Danville, Calif., aced "serrefine" Thursday night to become the last youngster standing"

Here's CNN: "The home-schooled eighth-grader easily aced "serrefine" -- a noun describing small forceps -- to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee."

Here's ABC: "The 13-year-old from Danville, Calif., aced "serrefine" a noun describing small forceps Thursday night to become the last youngster standing."

Here's NBC: "The 13-year-old from Danville, Calif., aced “serrefine” Thursday night to become the last youngster standing at the 80th annual bee."

Do they think that celebrating a homeschooled kid's educational success automatically means that they are some how hurting public schools? It's just ridiculous. ( and yes, I had to double check my spelling of "ridiculous", lol.)

Amazing Backyard Nature!

This afternoon we went on a nature walk along a trail near our home. The girls each brought a bucket and collected things like different kinds of wild mushrooms, leaves, a flower from a Yucca plant, and some other odds and ends. It's a beautiful day, perfect weather, and nature just seemed to be showing off!

We saw several different types of trees, birds, and rocks. Even people's yards were interesting on the way to the trail. One house had a type of volcanic rock used as decoration in their front yard, while their neighbor's had sandstone rocks. Part of the trail passed beside some marshy areas, so we got to explore the kinds of plants that grow there. The marsh was full of different birds that would fly out when we startled them. It was awesome finding so many interesting things just a few minutes walk from our house!

"Physical Education" A.K.A. "Family Fun"

We're trying to start the new school year out on the right foot. We're attempting to follow a more set schedule of three hours of school in the morning from 9am to noon, and another hour in the afternoon. This morning after our seat work was finished we all went out for a little "P.E." at the park.

It's so great having a park, playgrounds, and a tennis court right outside our front door! We use the tennis courts like a school gym, for playing ball games and using the lines to define game areas. I want to eventually get some new "P.E. equipment". I want to get bigger jump ropes, bases for baseball/kickball, and some scooters, and also maybe a batting tee.

Hi, Mom!

No bars can hold this little escape artist! The other day he managed to wiggle out of the seat belt on his stroller and tried to dive over the side. I caught him just as he was heading face first towards the sidewalk!

He has almost figured out how to climb into the bath tub, so we have to keep an eye on him. Daniel just recently finished hanging the last two doors in the basement, so now we keep all the bedroom and bathroom doors shut. Otherwise, he'd be into everything.

A New Look!

Did anyone notice the new title of my blog? Same name, but much more interesting picture. When we noticed the new feature on blogger that allows you to edit the header, the girls and I each added a photo. So check out their blogs, too!

I did more of a "custom" header on mine, but playing with the font tool in Microsoft Paint. I love this photo of the girls! I laugh every time I see it. Feel free to give your opinion in the comments section!