At the Circus!

Yesterday we headed down to the circus. The magazine I write for passed along free tickets, so that made it even better. None of us had ever been, and weren't sure what to expect. The line to get into Sprint security was LONG and it was warm outside. But I'm thankful they were taking security measures seriously, especially considering the day. The girls had never been to the Sprint Center and were excited about seeing it.

We didn't make it in time to attend the pre-circus festivities. You can see all the people down on the floor

The night before, Kaylin had spent the night with a friend, and was apparently VERY tired. She kept falling asleep during the 1st half--yes, falling asleep during the circus!! Who does that? I kept poking her, talking to her, and finally made her sit on my lap and not lean back. That seemed to do the trick.

Well, that and the massive amount of sugar in a bag we bought during intermission. Hey, it came with a hat too!

If you haven't been to the circus, I highly recommend it. We had a fabulous time (Kaylin did after she woke up). I always ask what their favorite part was, to the point where they know the question is coming as soon as we get in the car.

Bobby--the motorcycles inside the big dome
Me--the elephants and the trapzee artists
Macy--the tigers
Kaylin-- the tightrope walkers and motorcycle guy on tightrope

I didn't take any other pictures inside, but I can assure you it was awesome.

The big purchase

Macy has been watering our neighbor's flowers for over a month. She's been waking up at 6:30 on school days and on days off, and I haven't had to drag her out of bed once. She hasn't complained at all.

Because she had one goal in mind-- an iPod Touch.

Thanks to Pauly's extra generosity this week, she had $230 cold, hard cash in her hands and we had to make a trip to the store. We looked several places, but they were the same price no matter where you went,  and Walmart has the best return/exchange policy. We managed to eat lunch before the big purchase, then we were off.

I took a few pictures, but she was getting annoyed/embarrassed/giggly. I only put a couple on here.

And here she is with the big purchase... her very own iPod Touch, paid for 100% by her.

Words cannot express how proud I am of this little girl.

Happy birthday Bobby!

Happy birthday to my love... the champion of our family.

the hardest worker of our family

the most adventurous one of our family

the one who hates having his picture taken...believe it or not.

the one who has the most patience in our family

I love you, my dear. Have a great birthday!!

In a blogging rut...

I've been in a blogging rut for a couple months now. Finding it hard to find the time, motivation, and drive to keep up. At the risk of sounding whiny, no one even reads what I'm writing, so that's a big part of it.

So...I'll get out of the blogging rut soon. Thanks for hanging in there.

First day 11-12

Tuesday was the girls' first day--yes, I know this is 4 days late. I've been busy and so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.

Oh my word...how can she be 7??

And this sweetheart...almost 10!! She will pass me in height this school year, and you'll hear about it, I'm sure, in great detail.

Macy and her teacher, Mrs. Gustusfon. Macy was head over heels with excitement that she doesn't have a "real" desk, but a table with a computer on it. 

Kaylee, Jessica and Macy

Macy and Paige

Kaylin and her teacher, Mrs. Jacobsen. Not sure her teacher could be any sweeter. Had a class picnic before the year started, and has called to make sure all the kids had a good couple days of school.

Kaylin and Hannah

Working Girls (but not that kind)

Macy has her first official job. She has been recruited by our next door neighbor--a big burly concrete worker who has a ton of flowers--to water his flowers every morning for him. His wife won't do it, and he's tired of being late to work because he's watering the flowers. So he asked her to water them every morning, before the sun gets hot, for $10 a day. She is seriously seeing dollar signs in her head, and has done the math a million times to see how long it will take her to save for the iPod touch (30 days) that I won't buy her.

We'll see how it goes. He even offered Kaylin $2 a day to come help, but it is Macy's gig. She's been asking for a savings account, so when she gets her first weekly paycheck, I'll take her to the bank and start an account.

I started back today too. The first day is an accomplish nothing day, but I did make some to-do lists for tomorrow! I have ANOTHER student teacher, so I'll only be teaching the first two weeks, then picking back up in early November.

Back from camp!

Macy has returned from her first ever church camp. I was up there some to help, so she wasn't entirely alone. She would have been fine without me, I'm positive. She's pretty independent.

One of the things I did up at camp was take massive amounts of pictures and upload to a private Facebook page for parents to check. From what I've heard, it eased quite a few parents minds to be able to see their kid while they were at camp, and to see them having a great time.

Here's Macy at lunch on Monday. There's a really good group of girls her age at our church...Hannah, Maquel, Paige, Becca, Makyala, Desi. I'm so pleased she has such a good group of friends at church. I never had that, and feel I missed out on a lot.

We had to cancel all of the outdoor activities due to the heat wave we are in, and had to move inside. Here's some of the giggly girls watching Kung Fu Panda.

This is to show you the awesome water slide at camp. The owners of the camp bought it from a community pool in Iowa and brought it down on flatbeds. It was incredible, and such a hit with all the kids. It was pretty fun; I was "forced" to try it by Macy.

Here's Macy coming off the water slide. She went down it, oh, 500 times or so.

And you don't know these people--well, I guess you could know Dustin and his daughter Maquel--but I am in love with this picture--because I took it and how awesome it is--and if it wasn't weird, I would frame it.

She also learned to shoot a BB gun. Didn't want to at first, but we made all the kids try it at least once, and she ended up doing it twice. She's always been afraid of noise, and was worried it would be too loud. Once she figured out it wasn't loud, she was all set.

And then she returned home this afternoon. Full of stories, full of inspiration, full of God's word, full of crankiness from going on no sleep.

She's already talking about "next year", and Kaylin's already talking about "in 2 years." So thankful for our church family and the leadership that worked hard all year to pull this together.