Happy 4th of July!

We had so much fun today doing a few fireworks and playing a game of basketball in the backyard. I finished embroidering all the blankets for girls' camp so I wouldn't have to worry about them while we are on vacation next week.

The Dog Walker is still inundated with homework, so the holiday tomorrow will be interspersed with posting assignments, a parade, and the rest of the huge box of fireworks my sweetie picked up for the occasion.

I finally got a chance to hear from Teach today. She went to the temple this week so her p-day was Thursday instead of Monday. I'll share her goings-on in a day or two.

A couple of days ago I got a chance to attend the free color class at SuperCuts. I just love that place! Anyway, I think as a midlife crisis, I decided to have some real colors put in my hair. When I went in I was thinking purple, but my patriotism won the day and I now have red and blue streaks in it.

What do you think? They tell me it will only last for about 12 washings...

Happy 4th of July!

Blast from the Past - 4th of July, 2006

Sport

One of our favorite activities for the 4th of July is to travel to my sweetie's hometown and participate in the Children's Parade. The Dog Walker in particular just loves throwing candy and having everyone so excited to see him. And this parade is huge for a small town.

Dog Walker

The Children's Parade starts about half an hour before the real parade and it is made up of kids in town who decorate bikes, strollers, scooters, and even 4-wheelers and ride them in the parade. For a couple of years, Sport drove his little Lightning McQueen Powerwheels and got all kinds of attention.

Then last year Grandma was out of town, so we went on vacation. Remember we were in Albuquerque on the 4th?

This year the girls are marching with the Bruin Marching Band so they have 3 parades here on the Wasatch Front on the 4th so we won't be going down either. That is actually an amazing deal for them. Princess and Prima Donna are marching in about a dozen parades with a few rehearsals and they will each get $250 for the summer season. Not bad for a summer job! Princess is marching with her clarinet and Prima Donna is marching with the bass clarinet.

Crafty

But I digress...

So in 2006, we had just buried my mom the previous week. It was a difficult time. We almost didn't go to the parades. Prima Donna was baptized on July 2, so we were recovering from a big family party as well. 

But the Dog Walker was just so excited and all the rest of the extended family was going, so how could we say "no"?

It turned out to be a fun and memorable trip.

Scout

Scout is the cute little red-headed baby and just look at how blond Sport is! I love the pic of Crafty showing me her owie...That was taken on Grandma's driveway where we were putting together our "floats."

 Grandma bought all these cute 4th of July hats and purses and necklaces for the kids to wear. Just as a side note, do you realize that Teach will be home in 7 short weeks?!

 Hope you have an amazing 4th!

Teach

We Love Sports!

One thing you have probably noticed about our family is that we love sports! So when the folks from Fanatics.com asked me to write a post for their Family Fanatics campaign, I thought it might be fun. Fanatics is a leading retailer of anything sports related and although I've never shopped there, I'm sure they have some amazing things.

I have always loved sports of all kinds and it appears that I have passed that down to most of my children. It's a rare week that goes by when we aren't playing some sort of sport together. We have already had several rousing games of softball this spring. This is the first year we have actually been able to nearly field two complete teams! I play first base and I can play for hours until we wear the little kids out.

We have also played a bunch of basketball, at the local church and in our own backyard. Remember my sweetie had a court installed last summer? Sport is out there often shooting hoops. He hates it when I beat him at HORSE. And sometimes we just play a rousing game of two-hand touch football or a little badminton.

I used to be super-competitive, but as I've gotten older, I've mellowed somewhat.Teaching the kids about good-sportsmanship and losing gracefully is way more important than winning the game.

Tonight we spent the evening playing volleyball with some friends at the church. I love teaching the kids to play! I'm not a great player, but winning is not the key to every game. Most of the time the only thing that really matters is being together and having fun.
 

I have to keep re-teaching that lesson every time I beat Sport at another game of HORSE.

My Crazy Week

We also had 3 rehearsals plus the dress rehearsal last week!

I know I complain sometimes about the craziness of my life, but I am also very aware that I choose to make it that way. Most of the time. Other times it just sort of gets away from me... let me tell you about last week.

We started the week with Prima Donna's project looming on the horizon. There were so many things to do just to get ready for that musical! Except that there were 1000 other things to do first.

Monday was Sport's 11th birthday. I cooked dinner for about 18 people and made a cake and wrapped his gifts... you get the idea. All the while stressing over Prima Donna's project.

Sport's birthday

And Pack Meeting. Tuesday night was pack meeting and we decided to make foam rockets. I made kits for 30 rockets including cutting the pool noodles and running over to Kwal to see if they would donate the paint sticks to shoot them from. Fortunately, the Drama Queen helped me cut all the fins from card stock, and Curly helped me with reminder fliers. Pack Meeting went well, but all the while I was stressing how we were ever going to be prepared for Prima Donna's performance on Saturday.

Wednesday night was Curly's baseball team party and as the team mom, I was in charge. I bought hot dogs and made cupcakes. I also made up all the awards because the coach was super busy. So busy in fact, he totally forgot about the party so I got to entertain all these little boys and their families with only the assistants to help me. We had the party at the Zipline park which made it a little easier. Gamer even grilled the hot dogs for me and everyone was happy. But I was still worried about Prima Donna's project.

Thursday night was Prima Donna's 16th birthday (and Princess has all the pics in her phone). Again it was the same drill. Except that I made her a zebra cake (what a pain!) and the Drama Queen made her a lovely chicken pot pie which is what she requested for dinner. The project crowded out the excitement of the parties and everything else. I was just so worried about it!

Playing in the water at the team party.

I think the Drama Queen sensed my concern and offered to take over my scout meeting on Friday. She did a wonderful job of simulating the Hunger Games for the girls. I ran around to Home Depot gathering supplies on Thursday and my sweetie stayed home Friday morning to help Drama Queen with the scenery. I told you in the musical post about making muskets and paper hats, so all of that was in the mix too. Additional activities were taking all the kids and me for haircuts on Thursday. Tennis lessons for Sport and Curly on Tuesday/Thursday, and Dance Exams for Princess, Crafty, Prima Donna, and Scout. They were spread out and we literally had someone at the studio Monday through Thursday. Princess and Prima Donna were also volunteering 3 hours every day (Monday through Thursday) at the YMCA last week. And don't forget I'm supporting 3 college students right now! And we had a friend party for Kacy on Friday morning. Yeah. It was ridiculous.

Then of course our wonderful busy Saturday culminating in the an amazing show! Just when I was thinking I could actually sleep in on Sunday morning because choir is over for the summer, a member of the Primary Presidency called me and asked if Scout and Curly could do talks.

No rest for the weary.