Happy Birthday Derek!

Yesterday was Derek's 36th birthday. I hope he had a happy day. I did try to keep the "nagging" to a minimum! He started his birthday off throwing papers. When he came home he got Chandler and Addie and took them fishing up at Johnstown's reservoir. (It's the lake in our neighborhood). Addie caught a nasty catfish and Derek and Chandler were snubbed. :) Derek came home to freshly made raisin squares (ewwww!) that his mom would make for him when he was growing up. I only make them once a year on his birthday usually! You have to LOVE raisins to like these. He then took Chandler and a friend to Ft. Collins to watch the USA vs Ghana game. Sadly the US lost......When he returned home I talked him into a drive to Milliken to see Steam Engine 844 which was stopping there on its way to Cheyenne. It was the last steam engine manufactured in 1964 I think it was....Chandler has always told me that steam engines were is favorite so I thought it might be a fun, cheap family outing! Upon returning home, Derek said that he was exhausted and went to bed. I feel bad, we didn't sing, I didn't make him a fancy dinner or anything. He bought his birthday presents a few weeks ago for himself....a fancy soccer jersey and a t-shirt. I think we're getting old! Happy Birthday Derek! Thank you for all that you do for our family! We couldn't do it without you! Thank you for sacrificing all your sleep to throw papers way to early in the morning....we sure appreciate all the nice things we have! Thank you for taking us fishing, on bike rides, helping with homework, and all of the many, many other things you do! We Love you!! Love, Jill, Chandler, Addie & Brinley

I quit!

I sure get a kick out of some of the things my kids say. On Sunday during the closing song, Brinley starts to cry. (This is typical of most Sunday's for her). So I pull her onto my lap and ask her why she is crying. Her response is, " Mom, I want to quit Primary." Too funny! Especially since she is only a Sunbeam. She still has a lot of years until she can techinically "quit Primary!"

PS. This is a picture Brinley took of herself. I still don't know when she got a hold of the camera but I have about 40 pictures of random things and a few of her....here's one that I loved! :)

Happy Father's Day! CHEESE!

Lemondade Anyone?

We are definately into summer mode over here! Our mornings aren't lazy because Chandler and Addie are doing swim team, but our afternoons are another story! We've been spending them, playing games, watching movies, swimming, playing with friends....typical summer activities.

This week Addie decided she wanted to make some money so she roped her friend and our neighbor, Avery, into starting a business. The two of them have been setting up a lemonade/koolaid stand and have been quite profitable if you ask me. Yesterday they made about six dollars and some change. They split the money and begged to be taken to Target to spend their hard earned cash. With this money, they each purchased a lip gloss, a candy bar, and a whoopie cushion. Then on the way home they enjoyed making all of the noise they could and laughing hysterically. Silly, silly girls!!

Then today they set up once again. I think because my house sits on the corner of the street and down the main road leading into our neighborhood they have a pretty good advantage. I also think their sweet toothless grins and standing on the corner with HUGE signs makes people feel guilty to pass them by, because you CAN NOT not see them! Today they made $13 dollars in 2 hours. Not bad for a hard days work.


Today Chandler and his friends decided to give them some competition, so they set up their lemonade stand over by the swimming pool. They only made seven dollars. :)

I do have to say that I am impressed with the people who live in my neighborhood. Who have turned around and come back just to buy a slightly warm, watery paper cup full of lemonade. I also have to say that a large majority of their "customers" have been teenagers. And lastly I have to say Thank You to all of their customers who took pity on two little girls by stopping for a drink....you have all made them very happy, wealthy 7 and 8 year olds!!

(The dark haired girl with glasses is friend of mine, who I was watching today so she helped Addie and Avery with their stand. She told me she didn't think it would be worth it, but ended up walking away with 4 dollars and some change!)

P.S. If you happen to be in the area, stop by for a cup of lemonade it's only twenty five cents!

Salt anyone? (2 posts again today!)

Chandler loves to play video games. In fact he would do them all day and all night if I would let him! A lot of his friends have been out of town with the long weekend and school just getting out, so I've been trying to find things for him to do that don't involve driving something, jumping over or on something, or shooting something. So, yesterday I decided he needed to cook something. He's made a few things, like PB&J sandwiches, microwave popcorn, cheese quesadillas, a cake mix. Nothing too difficult and usually with assistance. I got really brave and decided to have him make cookies.

I remember making cookies a lot at his age, so I figured he could handle it. I had him read the recipe. Get out all of the ingredients and showed him how my mixer worked. He did really good until he got to salt. He got the amount of flour and salt mixed up. So....we had 2 cups of salt and only a teaspon of flour. Luckily I caught it before the chocolate chips went in! Wahoo...talk about a heart attack!! He started over and the end result was pretty good! I even had him bake them, take them out of the oven all of that all by himself. The girls and Daddy are gobbling up his cookies like crazy! I think I might like having an extra "chef" even if he spills a lot, drops eggs on the floor, and adds a "tad" too much salt.

Today he made banana bread.....so far so good.....!

Summer

School's out! My kids have been out of school now for a week and a half. It has been a nice change to our routine. Chandler and Addie both have taken advantage of being able to sleep in. Brinley usually gets up and comes running into my room and the first thing she asks is if Addie has to go to school. My reply of course has been no then she asks if Chandler has school, and then she says, "Yes!" Then runs down the hall to jump on Addie to tell her she doesn't have school. She definately misses them both when they are gone. It makes me laugh.

Things changed drastically for Chandler and Addie this morning. They both had to wake up at 6. They both had swim team practice at 7:30AM. Today was their swim assessment. I wasn't sure how well they would do, but they both did awesome! They then had to swim laps with the rest of the team afterwards. I forgot what a workout swim team can be....remembering back to YEARS of swim team when I lived in California. They probably did roughly 25 or so laps this morning. I thought for sure after they saw what swim team was like they'd both be begging to quit, but they both got out and said how much fun it was. I am glad that they enjoyed it as much as I always did. It's definately hard work, but well worth it in the end!