Those Talented Girls!

I have such talented and artistic girls! Here's the proof!

This is the gingerbread house Ashton made at school in her culinary arts class. They made the dough, cut it out, baked it, built the house, and decorated it. It took them about 3 weeks to complete it and you know she had a blast doing all that! lol She brought it home yesterday. We're enjoying looking at it...and the boys are chomping at the bit to dig in! This is the back of the house.

This is the front.

Then there's Savannah. She's been drawing since she was very young....and always such interesting and unique things. I've saved bunches of them. Lately, she's gotten a little more serious with her drawing, even taking a graffiti art class online at home. This is a coi fish she drew just the other day. I don't know if she copied it from something or just drew it on her own, but on her own wouldn't surprise me a bit. I told her that once she added color it would be really pretty....and it is. See?

I don't know where they get such artistic abilities from, but I know it's not me!! lol

Happy Birthday, Ashton!

Happy 15th Birthday, Ashton!

Wow! I can't believe she's 15 already! What a lovely young lady!

Today, Ashton is 15 years old and we had a very busy day! We woke up early and one of her friends, Dallas, came over about 8am. She was here when Ashton woke up, so that was a big surprise! Then, we had ice cream cake for breakfast. Yes, it's true. (Bad Mom Award?? lol) Actually, a few days ago we were trying to figure out when we would be able to do her cake since she had plans for all day today. Her answer was for us to have it for breakfast! I laughed and told her no way, but after thinking about it, I thought, "Why not?" So, we did and that was a big and pleasant surprise for all the kids!

After breakfast, we all went to see the play "Alice in Wonderland" with our homeschool group. Yes, Ashton did have school that day, but since she's only missed one day this year (for illness) I decided to let her skip. (Bad Mom Award?? Hmmm...) Anyway, it was a lovely play and all the kids really liked it. After that, we went out to lunch and then I got rid of most of the children! lol Just kidding. But, 3 of them did have places to go. Indy and Savannah went to friends' houses and then I took Ashton and Dallas to Dallas' house, where they spent the rest of the day. Later that evening, Dallas' mom took them up to church, where the other children and I met up with Ashton. She had a wonderful and exciting day! I'm so glad! I love to make each one's birthday special. It's just a way to remind them how special they all are.

Below, you can see some pictures of Ashton. The first 4 are from years past, and the ones after that are all from this year. Enjoy!

Ashton at 3 weeks old.

Ashton at 4 years old.

Digging for dinosaur "bones" at the zoo's dino exhibit.

Ashton at 8 years old.

This year Ashton acted a part in our church's VBS, Jerusalem Marketplace.

Ashton at our church's annual picnic at the beach.

Ashton showing off her Bangladesh exhibit for our homeschool group's annual International Day.


For some reason, Ashton (and Savannah for that matter) just loves taking pictures of herself. It's so funny when I find misc. photos of her on my camera. They both have such a great time snapping away! lol She took this one with her camera in the overhead mirror in the car while I was in the grocery store.

Relaxing with friends.

Happy Birthday, Ashton! We love you very much!! Have a wonderful 15th year!

Youth Camp

Ashton left for youth camp tonight (I'm writing this on Sunday evening). Here she is as we unloaded the car with all her stuff. She couldn't believe I was taking a picture!! lol She should know I would be!

Here she is on the bus, with a friend, ready to head out. They are going to the mountains of NC, only about half an hour from Mamo. So, Mamo will be picking her up next Saturday and then she'll stay at Mamo's house for a week, until me, Savannah, and the boys get there, in two weeks from this weekend. She's going to have a lot of fun. But, if you think of it, please pray for her. That she'll be able to really grow spiritually during this week of camp and especially, that the church bus will make it up to camp without incident. It loves to lose the a/c, but it's been fixed, just this week, so let's hope it continues to work.

Mamo has a lot of plans for the week Ashton is there and they're both very excited. If you add the week of camp, the week at Mamo's, and then the two weeks we're there ourselves, Ashton will be gone from home for a whole month. She's been very excited, but I know she'll be very happy to get home again in a few weeks. We were all sad to see her go, but I know she'll have fun. Boy, if it's hard to say goodbye for two weeks, what's it going to be like when she grows up and actually moves out!! Yikes!!

Have fun, baby. We'll miss you!! :-)

New Beginnings

Well, I'm back again, and for sure this time. lol So, even though today is Monday, and I should be posting a menu, I think I'll do a family update instead, since I've been gone so long. Maybe tomorrow I can post the menu for this week. But first, let me just say a big THANK YOU to those of you who are still faithfully checking this blog to see if I've updated it. I can't believe you're still hanging around, but I do appreciate it.

I'm going to list updates in no particular order, just as I think of them, so here goes: Savannah won her one year contract with the modeling agency. We have to pick her favorite picture from the photo shoot and have it put on these 5x7 and 8x10 cards for her to use at auditions. Once we return some of the cards and the signed contract to the company, she will get a password for their website/bulletin board where they post upcoming auditions. She can then go on there and pick which auditions she wants to participate in. The company does not take a commission from her until her contract is upgraded to the professional contract. Right now she is in the "development" stage and they want her to go for these small jobs so she can get experience and build her resume. Their aim is that after 9-12 months, she will be able to upgrade to the professional contract where she gets the "big" jobs. I think they liken this "development" time to a weeding out time, where the ones who are serious will really use this time to build their resume and those who aren't serious will sort of dissipate, ya know? I plan to let Savannah go which way she will. If she's serious, she will check the bulletin board and if not, she'll "forget". We'll see what happens.

Today I start school with the boys. Yes, I know it's July, but to tell the truth, I'm already behind by 2 weeks. I really wanted to start back on June 15 or 22, but it just didn't work out. Ugh. I was determined that I wouldn't start school until I had finished the back room, which I finally have! Whoo hoo! Well, mostly anyway. I took some before pictures, and after I finish getting the stuff put away from this weekend and our 4th of July party, I'll take some after pictures. I'll post those later this week. Anyway, back to school. So we're starting today. Indy is starting 2nd grade and Levi is starting kindergarten. This is going to be veeeerrry interesting. lol I do have a neat new curriculum I'm trying and it looks like it's going to be fun, yet "gentle learning", if you know what I mean. Not too high stress. I'll let you know how it works out.

Ashton is working this week at our church's children's camp. She's working 9-5 each day this week, Monday thru Friday. She worked one week in June also, and she was gone so much it was like she wasn't even in town. I really missed her. I will this week, too. Unfortunately (for me...lol) next week she'll be going to youth camp in NC with our youth group, so I'll miss her then, too, and she really won't be here. THEN, the following week, she'll be at my mom's house in NC for a week, all by herself with Mamo. She's going to have a lot of fun, but I will miss her. Somewhere around the 24th or so, the other kids and I will be going up to NC to spend a couple weeks with my mom and see my brother before he goes over to Iraq (or wherever they send him) again. Nicky's going to stay home and work, but he'll have 3 whole weekends to work on some stuff around the house. I think he knows what he wants to work on, but I don't know. It'll be a nice surprise for me when I get home. We'll see what he gets done. Fun, Fun!

Speaking of Ashton, as I was driving her to church this morning, we were talking about her going to school in the fall...well, next month, really. I am so sad thinking about her being gone off to school. I was like this before Savannah went, too, but once school starts and I ggt back into the swing of baseball, field trips, park group, school stuff, etc. I got over it and I was ok. I know it'll be the same with Ashton, but right now when I think of her going to school, I get sad. sniff, sniff! I know I'm really going to miss her.

And again, speaking of school, in case you didn't know, Savannah's going to be homeschooling again. She decided she was sick of all the drama and nonsense and time wasting that goes on in school. So, she's going to be continuing in the vet class/program at her school, while doing all her other classes at home. She's doing some of the classes online and some in books on her own. She's very excited and even made me get her geography assignments set up so she could start today, too. It's funny. She's still working on a class online from this past school year, but soon, she'll finish that one and starting the new ones. We've ordered her books for the other classes, so when we get back from NC, she will start on those, too. Oh, and she's doing great on her driving. She drives me almost everywhere now and she's getting much better. I'm very proud of her.

Well, I guess that's our updates for right now. I'll try to do the menu tomorrow and maybe the pictures of the back room on Wednesday or Thursday. Hope you all have a great week! And, thanks for hanging around!!

Homeschool Promotion

On May 7, our homeschool group held a Promotion Ceremony. The kids in kindergarten, 5th and 8th grades got diplomas, because they were promoting to the next grade grouping (like "into elementary", "into middle school", and "into high school"). All the other kids got certificates of completion. It was a very nice evening.

Some of the kids did talents like piano, recitations, etc. Indy recited 3 Bible verses and he did great. I was so proud of him. :-)

Here are some pictures of the ceremony....

This is Indy receiving his certificate of completion, from our homeschool support group president.
Indy sits and checks out his certificate. He's so impressed!! :-)

Ashton receiving her middle school diploma from Ms. Sandy, who's been our girl scout leader and friend for many years....since Ashton was in pre-K actually! My how time flies.

The "graduates" showing off their awards.
It was a very nice ceremony and afterwards, we had cake and punch and the kids got to run around Ms. Sandy's yard and play...which they always love doing. Congrats, kids!!