September 2010

September was busy with back to school curriculum nights, parent teacher conferences, activity day girls, running Brenton to scout merit badge classes and camp outs, stake conference, oh and homework.  Only a couple of events for the month worth blogging about.  
September 6th Labor Day
We decided to go up to the Tennessee Aquarium.  This will probably be the last time we use our year pass. After going through the 2 buildings, (which doesn't take very long on the 3rd time going there in 9 months) we decided to go explore around the buildings.  Across the street is a river so we went to check it out. On the way back we walked on the other side of the aquarium and found steps to walk up and on those steps it was covered with water.  I'm not sure how long these water steps have been there, but this is the first time we ever noticed them.  It was a hot day so we let the kids have fun on the water stairs.  They played there just about as long as we were in the aquarium.  Of course, they only have the water running during the hot months, so in the colder months they are just plain old boring stairs. 

Brenton kicking back watching the fish

Hayden

Butterfly garden

Connor and Hayden in a shark cage

Jelly fish

Brenton

Hayden

Payton and Hayden

Brenton and Kennedy

Hayden on the water stairs

Payton

Connor, Jon, and Brenton

Talmage

Kennedy

Hayden

 Hayden was off of school the whole week of September 20-24th.  This is one of the reasons why his school started 2 weeks early.  I wish our county had these days off.  It would be the perfect vacation time.  Still warm pretty much anywhere and not crowded pretty much anywhere.  It was nice to have my sidekick back for a few days.  One of the days we went to my sisters subdivision pool and swam.  I think this is the latest we have swam in Georgia.  Usually by labor day it is too chilly in the morning to keep the pools warm.  This has been an unusual summer for us very very hot and this September was no different most of the days were in the 90's.  I used to know how many were above 90 but can't remember.  I know it was way more than half the month.

September 24th
Talmage taught himself to ride a bike.  Our neighbor gave us a kids bike they don't use anymore. He went outside and it only took 10 minutes and he came back in and said, "Mom, I just taught myself to ride a bike".   So Kennedy and Payton got excited and went out  about 5 minutes later both of them were riding too.   Payton has had a bike for a couple years now but never really got into trying to ride it until now.  The only problem is 3 kids and 2 bikes and the bike the neighbor gave us is really too small for them. 

Talmage

Talmage

Payton

Kennedy  See what I mean too small



August 2010

August was a busy month for us.  Here are the highlights of the month: 

This is the first year that Kennedy wanted a party with friends.  I wasn't sure how great the turn out would be with it still being summer.  We had her party on July 30th because Jon was going to be out of town on her birthday.  She wanted to do a gem hunt (hunt for cheep plastic shiny gems in the grass), pinata, make body glitter, and make lip gloss.  All the girls had a great time and there was just the right amount of girls any more and it just would have been pure crazy. 

Kennedy with her sugar cookie pizza cake

blurry picture of the girls 10 in all



Kennedy ready to swing at the cute butterfly



hunting for gems

present time

The day before Kennedy's birthday, August 1st, we let her open her presents since Jon was going to be gone early the next morning.  Ever since Payton got a camera for her birthday she has been wanting one.  So she got a camera, memory card, camera case, and a couple other small things.

Kennedy with her new camera

August 2nd  Kennedy's 8th birthday.  Jon just left for a 3-4 day job in Birmingham, Alabama.  He is going to be putting in a generator at the temple there.  That night was the annual Roswell Rec pass holders pool party.  I believe 2 of our kids got picked out of the raffle this year.  We love the Roswell pool party.  Hot dogs, hamburgers, chips cookies, lemon aid, and you can bring floaties to play with in the pool.


August 6th  Hayden's first day of Pre K
We live right next to 2 other counties and since Hayden's school is in another county he started school 2 weeks earlier than the other kids.  He didn't seem to mind.  He will be having more vacation time during the year to make up for starting earlier, because they get out the same time as our county at the end of the year.  I can't believe my baby is starting school everyday all day.  He is having a great time.

Hayden's first day of school

August 6th 
While Jon was in Birmingham, I found an awesome foreclosure house while I was picking up a business check in a nearby neighborhood.  I couldn't find a listing for that house on the Internet.  I guess it just got put on the market.  So this morning it was listed and was an amazing price (still a little more than we want to pay) but for the size of the house and location the price is unbelievable.  So Jon and I looked at the house and it is absolutely perfect.  Yeah, it needs some work but it is all work Jon can do easily and everything that needs fixing is pretty cheap.  Only problem is we don't have a lot of extra money and we have a house we would need to sell.  I hope things work out so we can buy that house.
That evening, we had our ward pool party.  Jon and the Elders quorum presidency put on a BBQ dinner before the pool party again this year.  The food was great and the pool party was a lot of fun. 

August 9
We had a realtor come to our house this morning and went room by room telling us what we needed to do before we could list our house.  It is all things we knew would have to be done.  Basically paint and some touch up things.  Then we talked about how much we could get for this house.  The realtor shocked us by a pretty low price.  We found out later that this realtor as well as many Realtors under price houses because they want to sell them and sell them fast.  If we do decide to sell our house.  I am hoping to break even after all the closing costs, and fees.  That means we will have to come up with 3% to put down on a new house out of our own pockets.  So it looks like we wont be doing anything until we get our taxes back.  I don't think that house will last that long but boy do I hope so.  In the mean time, I am going to do some of the work on our house that doesn't cost much money like painting.  If we don't end up selling it, at least our house will be that much more beautiful for us.

August 21
Kennedy got baptized today.  She was so excited to finally be baptized.  She had kids do the whole program.  Taylor played the piano, Morgan (not so much a kid at 20) led the music, her cousin Lincoln did the talk on baptism, and Payton did the talk on the Holy Ghost, and Talmage, and her cousin Sonoma gave the prayers.  It was a great baptism.  I am so proud of her for wanting to be baptized.

Kennedy

Kennedy and her dad

Mom, Kennedy, and Dad

The whole family

Tady and Trebilcock kids

August 23rd
Today is the first day of school.  We started 2 weeks later than previous years which means our summer vacation was 2 weeks longer than usual.  Boy was I ready to get them back in school and I think they were too.  Most of our family fun was during the first half of summer so the kids were getting pretty bored.  Our school is getting out a week later than the last few years and they took out another week for budget cuts and added 10 extra minutes to the school day.  So they start school 5 minutes earlier and get out 5 minutes later.  I guess this will save the school millions of dollars by not having to pay the hourly employees that week.  The bus drivers and lunch staff people like that. 

Kennedy starting 3rd grade

Talmage starting 1st grade

Payton starting 5th grade last year in elementary school

Brenton starting 8th grade last year in middle school

Connor starting 7th grade

All the kids love their teachers.  Both Payton and Kennedy even have one of their cousins in there class.  Kennedy's teacher is also a member of our church so that is kind of cool.  She goes to a different ward and stake.

Aug 28th
Today I, being one of the Activity day leaders, had the opportunity to go to the Stake Activity Day activity.  The theme was putting on the whole armor of god.  They started out with a modesty fashion show with girls for different wards dressed up for either church or school modestly.  Then they had a bunch of mini classes that we rotated around each of the classes taking a different topic on the armor of god, like breast plate of righteousness, sword of truth, shield of faith, etc.  They were really great classes and the teachers did an excellent job at keeping the girls attention.  After that was over, the girls had lunch.  I was very glad I got to go and sit in on all the wonderful classes. 

August 29
Today, I filled in again for the pianist in Relief Society.  Only this time they want me to keep filling in until they get a new pianist called.  The previous one moved a couple months ago.  Here I am way behind in blogging and it is now the middle of January and I am still filling in.  The plus side is I get to pick the songs.  I made it a goal this year (2010) to start playing again and until now only played a handful of times so I guess this is making me keep my goal which has been a good experience.

July 2010

Besides going to the free movies almost every Wednesday morning this is what we have been up to in July.

July 2nd

Scout camp family day

The last day of scout camp is family day.  Our whole family surprised Brenton. He had know idea we were coming.  There was only one other family from our ward that came.  He showed us all around the area.  This place is huge and has lots of fun stuff to do.  We ate dinner with his camp and then came home.  We didn't stay for the closing ceremonies because it didn't start until 8 pm and the drive home was 1 1/2 hours.   

turtle swimming in the lake where they do their fishing merit badge



July 3
Pre Independence Day fun
We invited my parents and Taylor to join us in some pre 4th fun since we wont be joining them on the 4th of July.  My family has chosen to not participate in any activities that particular family members will be at since we aren't getting along with them.  I want to be happy and have a great 4th of July and I wont be able to have a good time because I will be on guard if I am around one person in particular.  That is all I am going to say about that.  Since this blog is  about my family and our doings I will not go into any details about people not in my immediate family.  That is all for my personal journal. 

July 4
Being Sunday and all it didn't really seem like 4th of July.  Normally we are at the pool, have a BBQ, and just hang out with family.  I was really bumbed out that I wasn't going to be with my family watching the fireworks.  I can't remember a year that I haven't been to the fireworks without them.  Maybe once during the just over 3 years Jon and I lived in Michigan.  I was sad and the kids were sad that we didn't get to hang out with everyone and that we wouldn't be sitting in our normal spot with the rest of the family.  Even though I was sad about the whole situation, I knew we had to be alone and we would have a great time just the 8 of us.  The thing that brought the most peace was I didn't have to worry about a thing I could just be myself and not have to feel like I was walking on egg shells and at any moment one would crack and break. 
After we got settled in, the kids got used to the fact of being just the 8 of us and sitting in a different spot and they started to have a great time.  In fact, they all said they liked this spot better because of having more space to play.  Our usual spot is on top of a hill and is very crowded with people as the night goes on so much you can barely walk around your blanket and chairs.  We had lots of room to breath and toss a ball around.  Maybe this will be a new spot for us and hopefully we can bring the rest of my family there next year.  When the fireworks were over, we just stayed in our spot and got out the games and balls again and played.  Usually we rush to the car and make a made dash out of there.  This parking lot in the new spot would be kind of a nightmare to get out of since we weren't parked right by an exit.  It turned out to be a great evening.

Connor

Talmage

Payton, Talmage, Jon, and Kennedy watching the fireworks

Gretta and Hayden

Jon and Kennedy

July 5
We went to the beach with my parents and Taylor.  We had a great time even though the kids didn't catch any fish.  We went to a different beach and the fish were way to fast for us.  They weren't used to people like the other lake.

Kennedy, Taylor, Payton, Talmage, and Hayden



Talmage, Hayden, Kennedy, and Payton



July 12
We went on our traditional blueberry picking for FHE with the Bugee's and Tady's.  This year we brought step ladders so we could reach more of the ripe berries.  A few minutes into the picking it started to down pour on us.  It was really weird because off in the distance we could hear the rain and by the time we realized the rain was coming closer to us it was too late we were right in the down pour.  Luckily for us, it only lasted but a few minutes and then it was all blue skies and a double rainbow.  I wish I had my camera with me to take a picture of it.  It was absolutely beautiful.   


July 19
My sister told me about an event at the library that Talmage and Hayden would love.  They were doing a Star Wars adventure at the library with games, food, and star wars visitors.  Talmage and Hayden both dressed up as clone troopers.  It was a real fun event for them.  They had a drawing at the end and Talmage was one of the winners.  He got to choose a star wars book.

Talmage and Hayden before the Star Wars event

Talmage playing one of the game

Hayden playing the game

Talmage's turn at the pinata

Hayden's turn

Talmage and Hayden with some Star Wars people

Hayden and Talmage

Talmage and Hayden with the book he won

Talmage and Hayden with the Tady kids and some friends from church



During this crazy month our family was asked to do the Amazing Race put on by the sister missionaries in our ward.  You get points by doing missionary type things.  So many of our free nights Jon and I went out with the sisters on team ups.  It was a lot of fun and I was glad I got to get to know these great lady's a bit more.