A busy weekend...

We finally had roofers arrive on Friday to begin replacing the roof. They said they'd be here Monday to start their work, but we never saw them. Tuesday morning they rang the doorbell at 7 am and had me move the cars out of the driveway and garage and then came up with some wild story about the boss being in Vegas and not having left them gas money for the truck, so they couldn't go pick up our shingles and would come back the following day. Two for the crew were here Wednesday, but no shingles came until Thursday. So Friday they finally started the project of re-roofing in the HOT sun. We also had four other kids over here while their parents packed up their house for their move to Florida. It made for an exciting and LONG day. (The extra kids were here for more than 12 hours.) We did our best to get Zack and Kammie into bed around 10 pm because they had a swim meet in the morning even though the house was still full of kidlets. And James was over helping to load the moving truck until 11:30 pm or so.

Saturday began early with an away swim meet at Otter Creek. Kammie was a bit nervous because she was swimming in new events. She added the 25 meter butterfly and the 100 IM (individual medley). And she did AWESOME! She took 1st place in freestyle and had all the other timers commenting on her beautiful stroke. I was happy to say she was my daughter. She took 2nd place in the backstroke. And her relay team took first. Then came the new event...butterfly. They have three different swimming levels: gold, silver and bronze--differentiated by time. Kammie had never swam in this even before, so she was in the bronze category. She did great and won not only her heat, but took first place in the bronze division, but with a GOLD time. Her time even beat the girl who won first in gold. And once again people said her swim was beautiful. She's a natural! IM was last and she did it in 2:20. She was ahead the whole way until the breast stroke. Then a girl over took her. But Kammie was able to come back in the freestyle stroke and win her heat. (We don't know the final resluts, because we had to go after that.) But way to GO Kammie!

Zack also did well at the swim meet. He was 1st in freestyle and 1st in backstroke. His relay team took 4th-they had one slow swimmer. Then Zack was bored and tempted by the pool with some diving boards. He played in the nearby park, but that wasn't enough to keep him entertained. They started letting patrons in that pool area, but knew by his team swim suit that he was part of the meet. Finally, the life guard was distracted and Zack was able to sneek into the pool and off the mid-high diving board once before getting in trouble and being asked to get out of the pool. But at least he got to go once.

We hurried home and began canning our 75lbs of tomatoes purchased from some 4H group at James' work. All in all we bottled 28 quarts of tomatoes and 2 pints of tomato juice.

It was also Stake Conference and we had a visiting 70 who conducted a very interactive meeting Saturday night and did a bit of the same in his Sunday talk.

Now we need a vacation from our weekend.

Brothers

Zack came out of my bathroom having done his and Spencer's hair. What handsome little guys (with wild hair)!

Kate is 14!

Kate with all the presents. (As we began to sing Happy Birthday, Sidnie came out of her room all excited for more presents, since her birthday was just four days ago. She headed right for the gifts and cried when we told her they were not for her. I guess it's too hard for a little one to understand when we recently did all of this for her. Why not again?)

opening...
new (Sunday) shoes.
A new DVD was the only surprise. (Mom tried to sell it as teenagers don't like surprises. They like to pick out what they want, since she knew about most of her gifts before hand.)
Tri-level brownies made by Jordan on her birthday, until Mom could get to the real dessert she wanted.
Chocolate chocolate-chip cheese cake...with friends.
blowing out the candles--all 14of them!
My oldest "baby" is now 14. Where has the time gone? I still remember being pregnant with Katsie and being anxious when it was finally time for her arrival. We welcomed our little cutie, but were nervous parents. Now she will start high school in a couple of months. Hopefully we are doing an o.k. job with her (and all the kiddos). We sure love having her in our home and are thankful for her kind heart and watchful care.)

A Nighty Knight in shinning armor!

Spencer has been wearing some worn out hand-me-down pajamas that once were Zack's. Mom finally broke down and got him some new ones. She loves what it says on the shirt. And Spence was pretty happy to get them too, as you can see.

Happy Father's Day

We are grateful to James for being an incredible Father and husband! He is an extremely hard worker and has always given his all for us. We love you!

Swim Meet #2 of the season

Saturday, we had a BIG swim meet vs. a huge team from Sherwood (not the forest Dad). We were there at the pool for 5 hours Saturday morning. They began with warm ups at 7:10 am and then had the events in a different order than last week, so we had a bit of a wait before Zack and then Kammie had their first events. But they are improving.
Zack in lane 1 (Also #1 of course.)
We've got to work on his entry and make it more of a dive...

Zack earned 3 points for his freestyle 2nd place finish. (His time was 27.90-a bit slower than last week.)


Kammie improved her freestyle time from 20.29 to 18.47, and is now in the gold time category. She got first place in her division for her freestyle and earned 5 points for the team. One of the coaches told her after her relay team lap that she was beautiful to watch. And she said her motto always is "Swim Pretty"--that was a nice compliment.


Zack could have been disqualified in his backstroke, because he turned around to the front right at the end to touch the wall, instead of going into the wall on his back. But, the officials must not have seen and he placed 2nd again with a time of 35.30, moving up to the silver time category and earning another 3 points for the team.

Kammie ready to start...

the take off...

Kammie improved her backstroke time by 5 seconds with a 24.95 finish and earned 1 more point for the Maumelle Marlins swim team.

Yeah! We're done and we did great! (Zack's relay team did get disqualified. The third swimmer jumped a bit before Zack touched the wall. Oh well.)

Sidnie is TWO

Sidnie's birthday was Friday. I can't believe she is two...where has the time gone? It was a busy day, so we celebrated in shifts with parts of the family present and others missing. (Sorry for the boat load of pictures, but our baby girl only turns two once and we want to share it with those who are not close by so that they can celebrate with us.)
Jordan was gone to gymnastics team practice, Kate was gone babysitting and James was stuck in a traffic jam and not home from work yet, but Sidnie discovered her presents and began opening them, so Mom let her continue.
Sidnie was pleased...
New girl pajamas (not the baseball or dinosaur, or pirate hand-me downs from her older brothers)...

(two sets of new jammies...)

Sand/pool toys...
a really big gift...
It's a baby doll with a stroller...
Princess Sid ready for the pool party (I'm not sure why they wanted to carry her out like this, but she enjoyed it...)
The cake (made by Jordan and Kammie) decorated with an "S"...
and a 2...
Not so sure about the candles...
Getting protective care while getting ready to blow the candles out...
She did singe her hair a bit...
Smiles! Sid loved the M&M's on the cake more than the cake itself...
Sidnie with her new baby doll she has named "Melissa" with help from her sister Jordan. It's fun to see her mothering instincts shine at such a young age. She was concerned that night--she wanted to make sure her baby doll could see while I was reading her stories that night before bed.

We love having Sidnie be a part of our family. She's joy and blessing to us.

Grocery Shopping

I came home from grocery shopping this past week and found that the children had gotten into the dress up clothes box. Sidnie was decked out with a purse and necklace, but Spencer is the one that I was a little afraid of...



Looking a little too girly, Spencer was decked out in ruffles and a Cowboy hat.

Kammie all tired out

Kammie and Zack have been diligently going to lots of swimming practices. Some days they'll have them in the morning and then they will have an extra practice at night for specific things, like learning to start and learning flip turns, or a practice for those on relay teams. They've been working very hard. Here, Kammie has fallen asleep under a chair in our room while we were having family scripture study.

Earning their Camo Belts

On Thursday, (June 17, 2010) Kate, Kammie and Zack tested and earned their Camo belts for TaeKwonDo.
The yellow belt kids before the testing began.


Kammie and Kate in action passing off their form.

Kammie in action.

Zack in action (hiding his face with a move).

Zacky called up to get his new belt.

Zack bowing to Master Tammy after receiving his Camo Belt.

High Fives for Kammie.

Kammie getting her congrats after receiving her Camo belt.

High Fives for Kate from Master Tammy.

Congrats for Kate.

The three newly "belted" kids.