Rebecca’s Birthday

We celebrated Rebecca’s birthday over the weekend as a family.  She did remind me that it is an odd year birthday, thus it should be a friend party.  It’s always such a hard time of year with school getting ready to start so I promised her a friend party in a couple of weeks when life calms down a bit.

   

She is WAYYY into dolphins and penguins right now so we made a penguin cake.  She ALSO wanted cupcakes so we threw in dead looking fish cupcakes for the penguin…

When I went to take a picture of our finished masterpiece, I noticed that the little yellow fish looked a little “licked”.  Ashley quickly said, “I bet the penguin cake did it because he was so tired of just staring at the yummy frosting”.  You can guess who the actual culprit was with that quick reply of hers.

Anyway back to Rebecca, she LOVES to read.  She also enjoys writing stories and writing letters to family and friends.  She enjoys dance, soccer, volleyball, and the piano.  I’m hoping that this girl will marry into money because she is always talking about how her gardener will pull all of the weeds and how her butler is going to massage her feet every night.  Add her love for clothes and jewelry, she better marry a man with money!

We sure LOVE you Rebecca Rae! 

Summer Photo

I went out to take some pictures of Jacob shooting …

But then turned to see why Rebecca was talking about ants, and couldn’t resist snapping this one, It’s another summer photo to me…..

I just love it!  She has such pretty dark eyelashes, but I think my favorite part is her BLING ring.  She is outside playing in the sandbox with her sisters, yet is totally decked out for the day.  She is definitely my diva!

(We ended up googling why ants love sunflowers so much.  Ants actually eat the aphids on the sunflowers.  If sunflowers don’t have ants around they won’t thrive.)

Last Week

Library Day.  It was the end of the summer reading celebration.  Dress-up is always a favorite.

Bead Day.  My friend, Kim has A TON of beads and was so sweet to let the girls come over, choose to their hearts content and then help them create.  We had On the Border guac and salsa to keep us going.

  Science Day.  We so enjoy science day.  We sit around the table with a kit and take turns doing the experiments.  My favorite is Ash and how excited she gets at EVERYTHING.  She claimed that she made Rootbeer in one of the experiments, and blood in another.

     

You have to do the Mentos experiment if you are going to have a science day.  You also have to make Kick the Can Ice Cream as well, since it is a reaction as well.

Oh my goodness summer is flying to an end.  I always have so many plans and just run out of time.

Heart Atlas

It is time to celebrate yet another anniversary with Stephen.  I am so lucky to have him for my husband.  I can’t even begin to tell you how good he is to me.

ANYWAY, wanted to make something for him.  I had seen this idea in a Pottery Barn catalog a couple of years ago.  I bought an atlas at Target, and along with my world map, I went to town cutting out hearts.  I wanted to cut out a heart in Europe or one from Mexico or Australia or South Africa, but alas we haven’t been there YET.

I did manage to cut out places that are special to us and bring back memories.  It seems like just yesterday we were on the Oregon coast relaxing on our honeymoon or over in Singapore with Stephen’s work.  I was happy then, and am just as happy now six kids later here in Colorado Springs.  Each of these places are a part of us.

The frame is a big 11 x 14.  Although, I’m hoping to add to my collection of hearts, (hint hint…Stephen)  I also put foam board behind each heart to give it some dimension.

BTW, I think this would make such a fun piece of artwork for a military family that has been stationed all over the world.

Helping my Family‏

Successful companies hold regular meetings.  They are constantly watching and discussing ways to improve.  Employees are trained and offered workshops to help them be more effective and useful in their company.  Manuals are printed and studied at work trainings.  Evaluations are used.

If companies see the importance of meetings, evaluations, and  furthering education, shouldn’t we as families?!?   They know this is how to progress, so that they don’t stay stagnate and nonproductive.  We should see the importance of doing these same things for our own family units.  I feel like so many times we get comfortable and do the same things when other ways can make a big difference.

I feel like my own family is my little company.  I try hard to hold regular Family Nights on Mondays.  People always ask why I do that, to which I reply why not!  I have the attention of my family to teach them and address problems before they escalate.  I can’t imagine NOT having my family meetings!  My CEO, Stephen is always discussing with me ways to help each of our children.  We work very hard to teach and train them so that they will be successful when they leave our home.  If there are new ideas about parenting, we read them and try to find the value to apply to our family.

That’s why I’m very excited to share about “The Entitlement Trap” by Richard and Linda Eyre.  It will be released on August 22nd .  Check out the link about their book - HERE

If you pre-order it then you can get a 33% discount.

Every little bit you do, contributes to the success of your family, and isn’t that what we are all striving for.

Hotel

This past weekend we spent in Denver.  Stephen’s cousin, Spencer got married on Saturday.  Then Kaylee and Nathan were in soccer tournaments that started on Thursday.  We tried taking the kids to fun places in between the activities of the weekend, YET the favorite part the kids were excited about was the HOTEL!  Rebecca wrote about it in her journal today.  Ashley talked about it with her friends at church.  It just made me smile that something as simple as a hotel made their weekend.

The girls jumped on the beds, we had pillow fights, ate treats, went swimming late at night, laid in bed watching cartoons and snuggling.

 

MY favorite part was eating at Cafe Rio.  Nathan’s favorite part was winning second place in his tournament.  Kaylee’s team didn’t fare so well, but she still enjoyed playing with her new team.

Random Spillane Activities

When the Spillane’s came back up to the Springs so did Alesha’s two girls.  We went and played Laser Tag all together.  It was fun to see all of the glowing teeth grinning ear to ear as they chased each other around. 

We ate ice cream at our favorite shop.  Some STILL had scary teeth…

  We stayed up late playing Minute to Win it games AND Rook.

We made Shrinky Dink necklaces with cousins.

We did some photo shoots.

Played A LOT…

Army dodgeball was going strong day and night.  It was even more fun with a REAL Army man – AKA Ryan playing…

They look so funny hopping around on one leg or with hands behind their backs as they would get their limbs hit.  I’m sure Ryan played this with his troop in Afganistan.  :)

Anyway, that gets me all caught up with the Spillane’s visit to Colorado.  Now to get caught up with what we have been doing since they left and a few projects that I have done.