Kirk and I started our week celebrating our 22nd Anniversary.....
Kirk was with Scouts at Scoutarama....
And I....was at home with the girls enjoying peace and quiet.
We did take time away on Sunday after church.
We had Mexican Food at a local restaurant and discussed the happenings of the week.
Let me just say, that I knew I had to be organized this week or I would never make it.
We have already finished our classes at Star Academy with a bitter sweet ending. Yay, that I don't have to plan my classes anymore. BooHoo that it has ended. We will deeply miss our time together each week with all our friends.
Monday...
.get in as much school as possible with the feeling of being done! It is so hard to do during this time of year when we are winding down and getting ready for summer!
Victoria is begging to play with water.
Tuesday.....
Project Pillowcase.
The thirty teens from Star Academy have been working on sewing pillowcases to send to soldiers over seas. We have had bake sales to help buy fabric. Daphne and I spent an hour at Walmart at 9pm chosing fabric in yard increments with a compliment fabric for the band. I thought for sure that the cutting lady was going to freak when she saw us with our basket of bolts.....our HUGE basket of bolts. I am constantly surprised as to how nice people are here in our little valley. She was the sweetest little grandma who told us her life story in the half hour that it took to cut.
Needless to say, Tuesday was awesome working with the kids.
I organized stations. We had 4 kids cutting, about 6 pinning, two ironing and about 4-6 kids/moms sewing. It was awesome. Everyone jumped in and did their part. There were a few boys who after three adults trying to get them engaged in what we were doing without any luck. We decided that they had come to visit and that we were okay with that. I quickly found a way to get them helping by yelling out one of their names to get their attention and throwing a waded up pillowcase for him to turn right side out. They loved it and it quickly became a game. I think some of the other moms might have been concerned.....things could have quickly gotton out of hand. But they didn't. They started watching for me to throw the next kid a pillowcase. It was fun. They enjoyed themselves. We cut, pinned, sewed, ironed and folded 86 pillowcases for soldiers in 3 hours and 45 minutes. Now that is teamwork!
The deal is, let me get a serious picture and then you can do a goofy one.
We have a pretty good bunch of kids.
Wednesday.....
Victoria's last Homeschool Day at Stokes Nature Center.
Their field guides are completed and printed. Very exciting. Victoria was excited to hear that she is now an author and is published in a book that will be kept on display at the Nature Center. They went on a Scavanger hike along the Logan River. It was pointed out to us that this purple flower called the McGuire Primrose that grows along rock faces only grows in Logan Canyon. No where else in the WORLD, does this flower grow. All the kids were supplied with binnoculars and taught how to use them so they could spot this flower way up high on the rock faces above our heads.
I love experiencing the seasons here. Just a few weeks ago we hiked this trail and there was still snow on the trail.
The black kitty's name is Rooster. He catches the mice in the nature center and loves all the attention that he gets from the kids. He lets them pick him up and drag him all over the place. There are little toys lying around that he likes to play with and the kids use to play with him. One Sunday, we were walking by on the trail and Kirk went to look in the window and Rooster popped up into the window. He was rubbing his head all over the window trying to get pet. Poor guy. It isn't like he doesn't get enough attention the other 6 days. Oh, we also found out that the berries on the tree above is the choke cherry tree. And supposedly you can eat the berries. I have heard of people making choke cherry jam. That would take a huge amount of berries.
Thursday....
I finished preparing for the End of the Year Celebration for Star Academy/Talent Show and Art Fair. I wanted to display all the artwork so it looked presented in a way that would "WOW" everyone. And black always makes drawings stand out.
I finished preparing for the End of the Year Celebration for Star Academy/Talent Show and Art Fair. I wanted to display all the artwork so it looked presented in a way that would "WOW" everyone. And black always makes drawings stand out.
I paid Kaleb to paint three refrigerator boxes black. He did an awesome job.
I then spent 4 hours using sticky tack to stick all the drawings to the board in their categories. That was after the two hours that I spent printing out all their names and titles for the categories. And then I realized that I spelled somebodys name wrong and put someone elses name on the wrong drawing. It was getting a little comical. But it looked so good when I was done and got outstanding approval from my kids. I knew it was worth every minute spent on it.
Friday.....
I had to keep telling myself to not forget to bring food to the potluck that night.....oh and a dessert. All week we have had this enormous pile of art projects in boxes and on a table. It was getting a little overwhelming because I wanted to clean. Each day, meant one more week to having my front room back.
We had a wonderful surprise. We invited Kathy and Troy to come to our party. And guess who came with them......
Aunt Carol drove up from Utah to Idaho to drive over to us! It was a wonderful surprise. I almost cried. Love the shoes.....
There is a story behind those shoes. I will tell later.
We set up all the displays. I never did get one picture of everything from a ways back. We put the cardboard up on tables, so it stood about 9 feet up.
It looked just like I had envisioned.
I was really impressed with everyones art. Jared finished his Hobbit diorama just in time. I will take better pictures later and do another post on that. As well as our kids other projects.
We have quite a few artists in this house.
We had some wonderful talent as well.
Victoria played three of the Twinkles. Daphne has been teaching her these past couple months. Kaleb and Daphne both played their violins. Daphne has been giving Kaleb lessons ....kind of. He is mostly on his own and then has Daphne for help if he needs it.
Victoria's Twinkles
Kaleb played Hunter's Chorus.
Daphne played Otter's Holt, Patty the Piper, and The Swallowtail Jig.
We ended the evening with the kids playing games in the dark at the church while my friend Janet and I talked about the week and how we managed to accomplish it all. Truely amazing. It was a huge week but we pulled it off and it was wonderful. Jared and Daniel managed to make a frisbee out of 6 paper plates and tape in the parking lot of the church. I love that the kids have friends. I love that we all have friends and people to do fun things with, make memories with. We love it here.
Saturday.....I KNOW, I bet you thought we would be sleeping in after all this.
NOPE!
First thing Sat. morning we packed up for our first day of selling shirts at the Gardener's Market in downtown Logan. The site moved so it is across the street from our little zoo here. It was beautiful outside. Our kids are so good. Jared is truely becoming a young man and transitioning to adulthood wonderfully. He was a great right arm with setting up. Daphne has the experience of setting up for Farmers Market in Phx so she set up most of the shirts. It was a great way to spend time as a family. We saw lots of people that we knew. Our next door neighbor walked up and said he was wondering where we were off to so early on a Sat. morning.
As of 11 pm Friday night we still hadn't made a temporary sign for our booth. We just hadn't had time and didn't really know what we wanted. So Kirk cut a piece of cardboard that Victoria and I had painted with DIY chalkboard paint and I wrote Razzleberry Designs on it with chalk. It worked perfectly and was a good "phase 1" sign. This booth is going to be a work in progress. Daphne and I already have a huge list to dye this week including bedsheets!
We only sold ONE thing but that is okay. We are getting exposure and once people know we are there, they will come.
Victoria is signed up to be a Junior Vendor. She is sewing felt food. Her favorite thing. She has already made, donuts, carrots, strawberries, cookies, and orange slices. She has done very well and even traded another vendor some felt food for hair goodies. All blue....go figure.
The grass in Logan is plush. I still can't believe that grass actually grows like this. It makes for a perfect mat for a nap. We were so exhausted from our busy week we stopped and picked up Sams Club pizza on the way home. And ran into another friend that we know through Star Academy.
Life is good.
