hair and skin

It's no secret that Maddie has gorgeous hair.  I love the unique color that it is and that it is so incredibly thick and beautifully curly.  Maddie finally likes her hair just fine, too, but she also really enjoys straightening it from time-to-time because she can do so many things with it.  She can be seen running her fingers through it at any given moment when it is straight, but she also does the most amazing hair-dos.  Which is really great for her, because her little sister IS NOT good about cooperating and letting her play with her hair.

I should probably take pictures of ALL the cool hair-do's she does.  I think she said this one is an eleven strand braid?!!!:

And it may be a sign that I am getting older, and I am noticing changes in my own; lately when I look at her I always notice her lovely skin:

Really rolling in the dough...

in more ways than one! Isabelle's been baking AND earning money:)

Isabelle is very motivated about making money right now.  And she is finding every chance she gets to work on making her bank account grow.  She has watered plants for neighbors who go out of town and made $42.00 so far doing that. Her biggest money maker thus far, however, has been her baked food sales.  She has participated in three so far, and made about another $50.00 doing that. Her friends have also walked away with that much - not bad for a ten year old!

The first time, she held one with her friend Ella Bjorn in Ella's neighborhood.  Then she held one in our neighborhood with her cousin Ainsley, and then in Ainsley's neighborhood the day after that.  I got some pictures of the one by our house:

They picked a very windy day to do this and had to keep everything covered up so that it wouldn't dry out!  They baked food all morning and finally got this all set up around 3:00:

The boys cracked out their walkie talkies and did all of the running around for the girls in exchange for free treats:

She and some more friends have more bake sales planned in more neighborhoods, and she is also looking forward to picking and selling raspberries at her grandparents this summer.

All of this money earning is so good for her.  She is really learning how to budget and save for things she wants.  She pays her tithing (10%), puts 60% in the bank and saves up for things she REALLY wants with the rest.  Her first purchase was a pair of sunglasses.  Now she is saving up to go to the water park:)

Meanwhile, she is sure spending a lot of time in this one:

I could find her swimming in the pond almost every day there for awhile:)

She really kicked it!

 Maddie just got back, with her team, from soccer camp at SUU, and Isabelle did her usual wecome home:

So sweet! She had decor, all around this sign, hanging from Maddie's bedroom door.  She did something similar for Caden last week, when he was gone for Boy's State.


Spring soccer is officially over.  This was a good little team, and they had a nice ending to the season because they ended up winning the last tournament of the year!

So exciting for the team!  It has been a fun season watching them play.

And fun to watch Pace enjoy the games in his own special way:

...making friends with complete strangers;)

happy

I was reading out on the porch this evening when Pace came and got me.  He said, "Bunny!"  and motioned for me to follow him.  We have a lot of wild rabbits hopping around in our side and back yard all the time, and I thought that was what he wanted me to see.  But there, on the ground under the garage windows was a tiny little bunny. I have NO idea how it got there, but our cat kills them all the time, so the kids knew it needed to be protected right away.  It's the size of a mouse and still doesn't have it's eyes open, so I am surprised Pace could recognize it for what it is!

Anyway, if we can keep it alive, I suppose this is a new pet (sigh).  Pace is very taken with it and has informed everyone that it is "MINE!!!"  and says it's name is Happy.

Boys state

Caden left for a week at Boy's State one week after school let out.  It was strange having him gone for that long, but he had a really great time.  He was a lawyer for the first part of the week and participated in mock trials, and then half way through the week he ran for the supreme court.  He had to take a test and do well on it to even be considered, and then he had to give a speech and be voted in.  I can't believe he is brave enough to do things like this - I NEVER would have had the nerve to get so involved.  He made it and had a great time.

Cade and the other members of the Supreme Court:

The last day, he and all the other members of the supreme court were impeached for embezzling money, haha. They didn't even know they were doing it:)  However, the Dean later told them that it was illegal for all of them to be impeached at once, so to consider that it didn't really happen.  Made a good story though!

At the State building:

Graduation

It's high time to get Kami's graduation in the books.  Here she is singing in the Bel Cantos choir during graduation.  Boy was it beautiful!  She and Caden also sang in the "pre-show" with the Vocal Spectrum choir, and that is always fun for us to listen  to:)

Kami graduated with highest honors - we are so proud of her.  It seemed like graduation was over in no time, with as many students as there were, and before we knew it we were all filed into a huge gym where we finally found each other:

We left all the little boys at home with a babysitter.

Abby and Kami:

Jodi and Gracie:

Aunt Linda:

Ellie:

Eli:

I love Kami so much!  She is such a great person and friend and it's going to be hard to send her off to school this fall.

Pace has a blast- pun intended- and I can't believe he said this!, Volume 12

Today I finally did what I set out to do two years ago.  I took Isabelle, Nolan and Abram to the bank to set up savings accounts before all of their money gets lost:)

This was actually an exciting, fun part of the day for them.  It was an exciting day for Maddie and I as well, albeit for different reasons....

While I sat at the table and gave the banker information, etc., Maddie kept track of Pace and tried to keep him quiet and as well-behaved as possible.  About half-way through the whole process, Pace suddenly frantically let us know that he needed to go to the bathroom NOW.  Maddie rushed him back to the bathroom, but soon reappeared to whisper to me that Pace had had a HUGE accident.  Turns out that he had diarrhea and it. was. everywhere.  I have never seen anything like it, and that's saying a lot! After a whole lot of clean-up, Maddie smuggled Pace out to the car, as inconspicuously as possible.  Which was quite a trick because he was wearing nothing but a shirt!!

We finally finished setting up the accounts and were getting into the car when I overheard this conversation:

Abram: "Shut the damn door!"

Maddie: (gasping): " Mom!  Abram just said to shut the dang door!!!"

Abram: "No I didn't!  I said 'shut the DAMN door!!'"

He was surprised to learn that this was a bad word.  This sure got some laughs out of the older members of our household!!

Vocal Spectrum

I think that I have mentioned that Kami talked Caden into trying out, with her, for the school's audition choir (Bel Cantos) this year.  They were pretty excited to make it into that, because it's a very impressive choir with a fantastic teacher and great kids. Then, at the beginning of the year Caden decided to try out for Vocal Spectrum, and talked Kami into trying out with him!  This is a choir that is run by the same teacher, but meets after school hours on the kids own time.  There are only 12 kids in the choir, and boy can they harmonize!!  I have LOVED watching and listening to my kids in this choir all year; it's been such a neat thing for them to do.

I never could get pictures that showed their faces with the spotlights shining on them, so I stole some pictures off of facebook of the kids with this amazingly talented group!

L-R: Brynn Pyper, Zach Winn, Rachel Felt, Travis Harrison, Mr. Hinck, Emily Thomas, Caden, Shayla Babcock, Jacob Barnes.
L-R bottom row: David Adams, Maryn Tueller, Kami, Andrew Adams

Most of these pictures were taken at their end-of-year concert.  This was a super great concert where they sang all of the songs that they had sung during the year, and also got to choose a song to sing as a solo.  Caden sang "Stars" from Les Miserables, and Kami sang "Send in the Clowns" from a musical somewhere along the line.  They were both so amazing!!  Shawn posted them singing on facebook and I think I got on and listened to them five times a day for awhile I was so proud of them and amazed by their talent.

A big group hug at the end:

These kids spent a whole lot of time together this year and made some great memories and friendships!

Kami with some of her best pals after her last concert:

Prom 2016

I was so excited about prom this year because Kami and Caden worked it out so that they could be in the same group! One of Caden's friends was over here one night as he and Caden planned out the date, and I told them that I would love to be in charge of the dinner.  They took me up on it!!

Prom ended up being a whole day project for Shawn and I, between helping Caden with the day-date and getting the dinner stuff ready.  For the day date, they canoed the river.  Shawn helped Caden get the canoes down to the river by our house.  Then after 2-3 hours we went and picked the canoes up and hauled them home while the kids stayed and played volleyball at Beaver Dick Park.

Kami and her date Cody Sharp on the day date:

We had been planning to have the dinner upstairs on our outside deck, but just as I was ready to go string lights up there and hang some paper lanterns that the girls and I made, a huge rainstorm blew in.  Soooo... we quickly changed our plans and put everything into the dining room.  Not as cool, but it still worked:)  We hung some sheets over the dining room door so that they would be in their own space and not see us hustling and bustling around in the kitchen.

When the kids came back to the house they were all gussied up for pictures (which Caden took with some timer device that he has):

Then they came in and we seated them for dinner l-r: Ashley, Caden, Kamille and Cody:

Grant and Kenna:

Caden's best friend Andrew with his date Kennalee:

Great group of kids - they were so fun!  We (mostly Kami) made a centerpiece that went along with their theme of the dance that was something about the 1920's:

The room after the dinner:

We served courses for the dinner.  I invited Cody's parents to come over because they are friends of ours, and I was so glad that I did!  I didn't realize how much I was going to need Cindy's help getting those plates loaded and ready for our waiters to serve!

We started with these strawberry hors' devours:

I have seriously been saving that idea for YEARS.  So glad that I finally got to use it!

Next course was artisan bread and a wild rice chicken soup.

Main course was asparagus, twice baked potatoes and some chicken malibu that Shawn and Blake worked on out at the grill:)

And finally some cherry boston cream cake:

These boys did such a great job waiting on the table.  They were a little hesitant to do the job at first so I bribed them with doughnuts or a trip to the dollar store:)  They agreed, but were nervous to do it once the prom kids arrived, and wouldn't go in and get going, so I brought them in with me and said, "I'd like to introduce your waiters for the evening..."  That seemed to break the ice and after that they were great and the kids got a kick out of them trying to peer up onto the table to see if they were finished with a course so that they could remove their bowl, plates, etc.  I could hear them saying things like, "How is your food tasting?"  "Is there anything I can get for you?"  They kept a really good eye on things:

They're still talking about how much fun they had.  I guess we all are!