Happy Girl!

Taylor spray painted the post of her hand me down basketball hoop because it was all rusted. The long mark across the whole yard is a shadow from the light post, but the other marks are paint.  It's a good thing grass grows fast now.

Dad and Taylor putting on the new hoop, as the other one was all bent up from falling over too many times.

The outcome...yeah!  She was one happy girl!  Doesn't ten feet look really high?

Hair... After and Before!

Well sorry about that!  I added the photos backwards.  So you will see the after shot first then the before shot.  Taylor just had a trim.

Sydney had just come from school and it was pajama day.  She had her pajama bottoms on and her rollers in her hair.  This was her before photo, but it didn't show how long it was.
This photo was taken about a month ago and doesn't show very well, but she cut six inches off her hair and she loves it.

Taylor

Taylor turned twelve this past Saturday and wanted a swim party.  So she invited a few friends over.  We hate hotdogs, chips, jello pretzle salad, watermelon and lemonaide.  After we ate and they jumped a bit on the trampoline, we headed to Hazen High School's pool for free swim.  I wish it was free!  No really it was pretty inexpensive for eight people to swim.  I am so glad my kids are not afraid of the water and are all little fishes...shishes as B would say it!  

This is Taylor, she is such a good swimmer!  She will not need to take lessons this summer unless she wants to continue on in swimming.  The highschool has a swim team...
On her actual birthday, May 30th, Nana and Louise came into town and took us all to Red Robbin's restaurant.  It is tradition when they come into town to eat there.  The waiters sang to her and she got a sundae that she shared with everyone.

Among other gifts she had seen the Snuggie on tv and wanted one, but now it is in the upper eighties...hot, hot!  Nana and Louise brought her their neighbor's old basketball hoop and stand and gave it to Taylor.  Last night we went and bought a new rim and spray paint!  It is going to be so cool when we are done with it!  She is so excited about it!  It's a gift and a project!
My little Taylor is growing up too fast.  This past Sunday was her first time in Young Women's at church, this is where the 12-18 year old girls go to class.  She loved it.  She is very compassionate and thoughtful of others.  She loves to create things out of whatever is around her at that moment and never ceases to amaze us!  I am so glad she is my child!

End of May Activities

Can you see Sydney at the bottom of the pile?  We were at friends for a Memorial Day BBQ and goodbye party for a family that was moving.  The kids are on a huge bean bag and loved it!

Bryant playing with the bubble maker and  J. eating her big sister's play food!
Have I told you before how much we love playing in the creek?  Here we are once again, this time the kids (Taylor as ring leader) built a dam further up the creek where it was a bit shallower.  As I was taking the photo, Taylor asks if I was taking a bum shot of her...yep!

Seattle Aquarium Field Trip

I decided to be brave and be a chaperone for Taylor's sixth grade field trip.  The original trip was to a play in January, but it was snowed out and cancelled.  Yesterday we hopped on a bus and headed down to the pier in Seattle.  With 600 sixth graders from our school, and other schools too, it was a crazy place!  I saw one small family and told them they had picked the wrong day to come to the Aquarium.  She agreed, and said she has just been running them over with her stroller!  

I must say I did have a great group of kids.  They stayed right with me or at least kept coming back and checking in to make sure they knew where I was.  I even got some nice thank you letters from them!

Did you see the sting ray?  Taylor took this photo.  He is half buried in the rocks.  It was a fun day and she wasn't even embarrassed to be seen with me!

Creek fun!

Last weekend we took our friends to this creek we found last year and love going to to cool off and play in.  The children decided to make a dam.  The dads could only take watching them for so long... then they had to join in and it became a serious job.  

Then right before we left Dad Justin broke the dam and let the water rush through, while the children watched in horror.  For all their hard work was gone in seconds!
Up on the bridge we were watching and waiting with a few of the younger ones.  Bryant put his finger in Baby T's mouth and then said, "He bit me.  He did not ask!"

Walk a thon... Sydney

Here is Sydney's Elementary School's Walk a thon.  It was the perfect day today, the sun was shining and we had a slight breeze and that kept it a perfect temperature!  Bryant and I walked the first lap with Syd and then we played on the play structure and pulled the wagon around.  Bryant is on the left of the photo and Sydney is in front of that lady... Krista Mitchell.

Bryant and Sydney have a love/hate relationship...they play so well together most of the time, but then he'll make her mad and she'll push him away.  We keep telling her in a couple of years he will be bigger than her!  She doesn't quite get that yet.  He can already bring her down and then he'll get on top of her and she can't get up... it really is quite comical, of course she doesn't think so!  But this photo is so precious!
Look at the water line!  We eventually cut them off because there were more of them in line than walking!  It was only a half hour walk by the way...