Five Year Old Playdough

This week we went to the combined band concert. Mindy played clarinet with the sixth grade band and Maddy played the flute with the high school band. I was in-charge of refreshments as one of my responsibilities as band booster's president. During intermission I filled up 70 cups of punch, with the sixth grade boys acting like vulture ready to eat all the cookies. I warned them as I left to sit back down for the end of the concert not to eat any cookies until after the concert ended. At the end of the concert the band teacher announced that there were refreshments and that the students were to let the guests go first. I made my way over to the refreshments table just in time to remind the sixth grade boys that they were told to let the guests go first. One boy said, "Yeah, he said let Gess go first". Gess is the name of the elementary school that the 6th graders go to. He was sorely dissapointed when I clarified that it was guests first, not Gess.

Mackensey and Mindy at a Christmas performance. This is Mackensey's 3rd year in guitar and she is now using a full size guitar (Makayla is now taking guitar and is using the 3/4 size guitar).

Makayla, Ben and Marianne wait at the Long Term Care Center for Mindy and Mackensey's choir concert. I guess I was too hurried to realize that although all three children we technically smiling, a re-take might have been in order...

In their free time this week (after homework is finished), the children have enjoyed making creations out of playdough. This is actually plummer's putty that we had bought five years ago when installing the shower in our house. The large container of plummer's putty wasn't much more expensive as the smaller one and my dad suggested getting the larger one and the kids could use it for playdough. The good part is that it never dries out (we lost the lid to the container). The children don't mind that it is all the same color. Here Makayla is showing off her masterpiece (and elbowing her brother out of the picture).

Ben and Marianne have their photo opportunity.

Maddy saw Ben in his blue sweatshirt and laughed as she was planning on wearing her blue sweatshirt as well. This picture was taken before Maddy left for Seminary and Ben had just gotten up and dressed. He may not have been as cooperative for a picture with his big sister if he had been more awake. j/k

Family Christmas Picture 2013. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

'Tis the (busy) Season

Mindy and Mackensey have 8 choir/guitar concerts for the month of December. Add Maddy and Mindy's band Christmas concerts as well as church activities and work parties, this will be a busy time of year for our family. Here Mindy performs at the Christian Women's Organization, who helps pay for Choir shirts, etc. This concert was at noon on Wednesday.

Mackensey performed as well. Here she sings "Hip Hop Reindeer".

We went to the Santa Social. Ben sits on Santa's lap.

Makayla and Mindy sat on Santa's lap, but Marianne wouldn't even look at Santa Claus. Luckily the elf had compassion on her and still gave her a Christmas coloring book.

Marianne says "hi".

Ben says "Hi", too. 

Have a great week!

Do not read if you have a weak stomach!

Mindy chose a "kitty litter" cake for her 12 year old birthday on Friday. Luckily we had some tootsie rolls left over from Halloween...

Here is a close up of that picture, showing that we went to Spokane on Friday and Mindy got her ears pierced. All the girls went to watch and then we did some Christmas shopping and went out to lunch. Ben stayed home with Barry and they made Christmas fudge (for Christmas presents for sisters), played the wii, and went to Zips for lunch. This picture also shows that Mindy got her last baby tooth pulled so that her last permanent tooth will come in and she can get braces on sometime next year.

Mindy rode a little kids bike all summer and to cross country practice in the fall, even though she had really outgrown it. She was really excited to get her first big kid bike for her birthday. She was also very excited that it was pink!

The weather didn't cooperate and it snowed on Mindy's birthday, but she rode her bike in the snow. So did her siblings. Speaking of snowing on her birthday. That meant that Maddy drove home from Spokane during that snowstorm. Her first chance of driving in the snow. She did really well. We passed two cars that had slid off the side of the road. We were just taking it very slowly, which wasn't too hard when all the other cars on the highway weren't going faster than 35 mph.

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. Alan and Amber and their 2 children joined us from California and we had a wonderful time.

Lots of food, lots of fun!

We hiked in the forest to cut down our tree. The weather was cold but the Olsen's went on many hikes with us, which always ended in Elaine playing on the swings.

We had a hard time letting Alan and Amber take Elaine and Ethan home. They are adorable children and it was fun to have a baby around to play with. Ben doted on Elaine, which made Marianne incredibly jealous. Elaine would do fist bump with Barry every time she saw him. Every time she saw me she would hold up 2 fingers because one time I asked her, "How ARE you? and she thought I was asking, How OLD are you?" Too cute. For FHE we were playing upset the fruit basket and Amber told Elaine to go to Uncle Barry's seat and when he got up to change seats she followed him instead of Amber. Hopefully she will remember all of us when we see them at the family reunion in August.

The activity days had a daddy daughter dinner dance. Barry went with three dates (it was Mindy's last activity before she turned 12). This is Mackensey and Barry before they left for the church. Now we have two girls in YW, two girls in Activity Days, and in Jan we will have two children in Jr. Primary. My children are growing up.

Have a great week!

Fall Fun

Since we don't have a baby around, kitty is the next best thing. 

Mindy's last cross country meet was at the Chewelah golf course. I couldn't resist taking a few pictures with the beautiful background.

Mindy won "pumkin bowling" for her age category at the last farmers market for the season (at the Chewelah park). At least her bowling class with the homelink kids has paid off. She won a $20 gift certificate to the bowling alley and a bag of pumpkin spice hershey's kisses.

Taking Fall pictures at the park.

Maddy had "dress like your parents did in high school" day. I curled and ratted her bangs, she wore a baggy shirt, we pegged her jeans and she scrunched her socks. Pretty RAD don't you think?

Carving pumpkins

Maddy got out the drill to carve her pumpkin. She is taking woodshop this year and I think it is starting to go to her head.

This was Barry and me at the golf course.

Imagine this sand pile twice as high and three times as long. That is how big it was at the beginning of this summer. With a dirt pile next to it, the same size. We have worked for an hour each morning as a family to move that dirt and sand, by wheel barrow, to spread it out over our rocky soil so that we can have a nice ground cover to grow grass (someday). We really wanted to have the project finished before winter, but were not sure that it was possible. Barry told the kids that as soon as we had it done he would take them to Zips for dinner. They stopped complaining and started working, HARD. We finished on Friday (yeah!) and everyone enjoyed cheeseburgers, fries and milkshakes.

Halloween costumes: Little Red Riding hood (Mackensey made her own cape w/hood, Cowboy, Doggie, Catnis, garden princess).

Maddy was scheduled to work on Halloween night. The theme of her costume had to be "masquerade". 

Maddy at work on Halloween giving away candy. (We just had to stop in and say hi and take a picture...)

Have a great week!

Dream Job

On the last Friday in September we were able to watch our niece Rachel get married in the Spokane Temple. The children stayed at the White's house (5 minutes from the temple) during the sealing, but we hurried out of the temple so that we could pick them up so they could see the happy couple as they came out of the temple hand in hand as husband and wife. Rachel was a beautiful bride and she deserves to be happy for making correct choices in her life. She is a good example to our children. 

We took pictures at the temple while waiting for the wedding photographer to take pictures.

Does the dress look familiar? This is the dress that Makayla wore to Alan and Amber's wedding.

It ended up being a very cold day (51 degrees and raining off and on). I had to take a picture after Benjamin offered his coat to his little sister. Such a gentleman, just like his dad.

We went to school for school pictures on Wednesday, and as we were leaving I couldn't resist taking a picture with the fall colors in the background. 

Marianne being a big tease (as always).

Saturday morning there was a cross country invitational meet where Mindy and Maddy both ran (at separate times). Mindy is really improving. The sixth graders usually run separately from the 7th and 8th graders, but yesterday they were all combined in one race. Mindy ran her best time and even beat girls on her team older than her (she was the only sixth grader there). She got her best time yet!

Maddy has been dropping her time at each meet. Maddy also PR'd (personal record) at the meet yesterday. But that is not the most exciting news of hers for the week. The most exciting news for the week is that she got her dream job. Last winter she worked as a ski instructor at the ski hill. She did well and mostly enjoyed it. It was tiring and cold and didn't end up paying very well (she only got paid when she was teaching a lesson. Some days she would go up there and not even teach a lesson). She had to let the ski hill know by Oct 1st if she wanted to return this year. She really didn't want to, but she wanted a job to earn money (she really wants her own cell phone w/texting which would cost $20/month to add her to our plan). She heard about a job opening at Akers United Drug (a Ben Franklin Craft store that has a pharmacy in the back and sells other merchandise as well.) This would be a walk in the park compared to working outside in the snow! She turned in her application, but didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks. She filled out her paperwork for the ski hill and was ready to fax it in when she got a phone call to schedule an interview... for Oct 1st. Well, she was hired on the spot and has been floating on cloud nine since then. They are willing to work around her last 2 weeks of cross country, and with drivers ed on top of it all, she is going to be a very busy girl! She can handle it, though. 

We enjoyed watching conference at home this weekend. Barry normally would drive up to Colville for priesthood and was excited to hear that it would be online. They did end up showing it at our church building, so Barry went there and said there was quite a turn out.

Have a great week!

Birthday Dash

We celebrated Maddy's 15th birthday. She chose key lime pie. Notice the jean quilt that Barry made her for her birthday. 

Mindy had her first cross country meet on Thursday. She did a great job! Notice Ben running next to her.

This was Maddy running a cross country meet on Saturday. She wants me to tell you that she was sick at this meet and that is why she is looking so sad. Watching a cross country meet is way different than watching a softball game. For softball you bring a chair and sit for a couple of hours, maybe even bring food to eat. At the cross country meets you watch the start, then run to another spot on the course to cheer, then run to another spot to cheer, then run to a spot 600 yards from the finish and tell her to sprint, then as soon as she passes, you sprint to the finish line to watch her cross the finish line. Next time I'll bring a jogging suit! The meet was in Spokane so we drove her there and stopped at the DMV on her to get her drivers permit. She is very excited to be taking drivers Ed in October.

Have a great week!

First Day of Real School

This was our second week for doing schoolwork, but our first week for "the extra's". This includes piano lessons, guitar club for Mackensey and Makayla, and Thursdays at the elementary school. They look forward to these outside activities. At the end of our first week of school Ben asked me when we were going to start school. I told him we had already started school and had been doing it all week. "NO, I mean REAL school." So here is a picture to prove that we started REAL school this week. If you magnify the picture you can read what Mindy's t-shirt says, "Bratty and cute, but I'm worth it." She got a lot of comments from others on her t-shirt. She told me that one boy, after reading her t-shirt said, "That is so true." She responded, "You think I'm cute?" I don't remember what he said after that but he was a little tongue tied. I imagined what he was thinking, though: "Sheesh, I tell a girl she's a brat and she takes it as a compliment!"

We gave Maddy breakfast in bed this morning. She turns 15 in Wednesday, but with Seminary we opted to do breakfast on a day when we have more time in the morning. Maddy has been busy this week with 2 cross country meets. She is really excited because her coach chose her to be on the varsity team and she got a nicer uniform than she would have being JV. She has done well preparing all summer (running in 90 degree weather) to be ready for cross country. She is enjoying being on the team. Mindy has also joined cross country and has her first meet this week.

Have a great week.