As an end of the school year celebration, we hosted our very first cupcake decorating party. Eight of our school friends came over and iced, sprinkled and chowed down on chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. There is nothing like loading your kids up on sugar at 9:30 in the morning! I guess we are just getting ourselves ready for the craziness of summer. As you can see, Paige really enjoyed her cupcake! Yes, that is frosting coming out her nose. I was so busy with the kids I didn’t get a chance to take any other pictures. Just imagine how a kitchen might look after 11 kids devoured cupcakes. Oh well, they really had fun!!!

Sam lost another tooth! Now he is missing both front teeth on the top! How will he chew his food! Lucky for him, the permanent teeth are already coming down!

Alice has graduated from preschool and is off to Kindergarten! Good job Alice!!!

Today we decided to plant flowers. I know, I know, they will only last a couple days and the deer will eat every last one of our beautiful flowers but it is still fun to plant them and attempt to keep them alive. I have tried every recipe and idea to keep the deer away from my plants but I have to admit that I love seeing them (the deer) in our yard so much, it doesn’t bother me that they graze on my petunias. After church, we headed out to pick out flowers for our pots. The kids each picked out a couple special flowers for their own pots. Once we were home, they painted their pots with bright colors and filled them with flowers. Once all our flowers were potted and strategically placed (on top of the picnic table and hanging from the eaves) Sam, Alice and Paige played on the swing set for the rest of the afternoon. Another fun filled day down and back to school tomorrow. Only 4 more days for Sam and he will officially be done with Kindergarten. Alice’s last day of school is tomorrow and she has her preschool graduation. I really cannot believe that she will be going to Kindergarten. She just doesn’t seem big enough.

Two words that send shivers up my spine- SUMMER VACATION!!! Just kidding, we have lots planned and it will go by in a flash and I will be so sad come August when they all head off to school.

I hope that everyone had a great weekend. We sure did!!

Jennifer

Yesterday, the kids and I headed off to church for the better part of the day for a seminar that was titled Extreme Green Makeover. Since I am on the Green Committee at church, I thought that it would be great to get some more ideas for how we can make our church and the community around us more environmentally friendly. The presenter was Rebekah Simon-Peter. She was a wonderful presenter and gave so much knowledge. It was also my New Year’s Resolution (which I usually never do) to make our home and personal life a “greener”, less wasteful place. Here are some of the easy ideas that we have done to eliminate many bags of trash per week…

-Reusable grocery bags, plastic bags blow!

-making a weekly load to the recycling center with plastic, metal, glass, cardboard, Styrofoam

-changing out all light bulbs

-started using environmentally safe cleaning products and detergent. (I still use Clorox wipes! with kids they are a must)

-stopped using most paper products. We now use cloth napkins for meals and old washcloths for spills and cleaning. I still have paper towels in the kitchen, again, with kids they are a must.

There is still lots of things that I would like to change around here and I am by no means great at this but I feel like if I sort of work on my little part of the world it makes it a better place for my kids.

After we left church, I felt like I owed it the kids to give them a bit of park time.

We ended up staying at the park until dinner. What a day! Here are some pics of the kids having a blast playing together. After dinner and a good scrubbing in the tub, they all crashed out in bed.

Jen

Here is Paige, Friday evening, after a hard day of play. She fell asleep while I was trying to get dinner ready. She is so sweet when she sleeps!

My wonderful day started out with breakfast in bed and ended with three kids sound asleep in bed. It can’t get much better than that. This morning we went to church and then this afternoon we went to Waldo Canyon for a hike. Two of my favorite things to do! It was a gorgeous day to be outside. On our hike, we saw a couple lizards. The kids thought that was great. Every time they hear a rustle in the bushes, they stop to investigate. I prefer to keep moving. I am really proud of them, they are such good hikers. Sometimes I can’t believe how far their little legs will take them. They love to jump off every rock, point out every flower and climb every tree. After our hike, we were starving, so we headed for home and Scott put cheeseburgers on the grill! I could not have asked for a nicer day! I was wondering…maybe we should celebrate Mother’s Day once a month….just a thought?!?!?

In honor of Mother’s Day, Alice’s preschool had a Mother’s Tea. It was very fun. All the children came in singing, You Are My Sunshine, and holding daisies. (start waterworks). Alice and I had a really nice time snacking on fruit, crackers and pudding. It was very sweet and the kids went to a lot of work making the pudding and setting up for the event.

Sam lost his tooth! If you haven’t seen him lately, his top front tooth seemed to have been dangling for weeks! Everyone from grandpa to the grocery store clerk to our pastor offered to pull it out but Sam wanted to wait for it to fall out. Thanks to a lot of waiting and a well timed bump on the back of a kitchen chair, his tooth FINALLY flew out. Yes, I did say flew. The tooth fairy made a visit to our house and Sam is one dollar richer.

As you can see from the pictures Sam earned his gold belt in Karate last night. He tested last week and his instructor had to evaluate his test over the weekend. Sam waited very patiently throughout the entire class and in the last minute, he was awarded his belt. He is so excited and so are we! Great work!

This morning, I left Scott and the kids to fend for themselves and I went over to Garden of the Gods for a 5 mile race with my friend Kim. If you aren’t from Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods is a wonderfully magical open space park at the base of Pike’s Peak. Sandstone formation line the park and it is breathtaking no matter the day/time/weather. I think that it is my favorite place to visit so close to home. It was a bit chilly but overall a beautiful morning in the Garden. We finally finished the race 48 minutes later after huffing and puffing up and down, but mostly up, the hills of the park. Wow, what a way to start the day! Enjoy the pics. No, it wasn’t snowing but I love the picture so I added it anyway.