Jacque turned 10!

Jacque's birthday was yesterday, April 21.  She is a whole decade old!!  Jacque loves horses, so after school I picked the kids up and we went to a friend's house (Holly Hellberg for those of you who know her) and rode horses!!  Jacque was so excited!  When I first told the kids, Jacque was the only one really excited.  Calista said she wasn't going to ride the horse and I told her that was fine.  This was Jacque's present and anyone who wanted to could ride the horse.  This horse, Shasta, was such a good horse and by the end everyone loved her and didn't want to go home.

Ellen decided it looked fun to ride the horse, but didn't want to do it all by herself.

Seeing two people ride the horse made it look safer (I guess), so Sarah joined to make 3

Jacque was the favorite person to ride the horse with, which didn't hurt her feelings any!

Samuel thought he could do it without Jacque's help.

Heidi wasn't too sure at first, but by the end she was waving and rocking in the saddle!

Jacque got to hold the reins.  Shasta still followed our friend's daughter around, but you feel very grown up holding the reins.

 Eventually everyone (but Heidi) got their turn of riding Shasta all by themselves.

 Shasta is smiling!

 Can you believe Calista is petting the horse?!!  If you look in the background, you can see a dog.  Calista pet the dog and even played fetch with it.  She did such a good job!  For those of you not familiar with Calista, she's very afraid of most animals, especially dogs.  She's never been hurt by one, but if one comes close to her, she tries to climb up the closest person and starts screaming.  So this was a big day for her.

Ellen's birthday

February 14th was a special day for two reasons:  Calista got baptized (and I didn't get any pictures taken.  Luckily my mom did, but I don't have them yet), and Ellen's 6th birthday!!

Aunt Tiffanie made this heart shaped cake out of a square 8x8 and a round cake! Ellen decorated it with marshmallows, sprinkles and heart shaped candy.  It's a good thing that Ellen loves hearts and the color red.  She was born on the right day!

We didn't actually eat the cake until the day after Ellen's birthday because everyone had valentine's parties on the 14th and that meant too much sugar!  Ellen is always nice to put it off a day!

 Friends were over for the cake!  I told them they had to each have a piece so I wouldn't have to eat it all!

Calista turned 8!

Calista had her 8th birthday last January, but I finally got the pictures off of my camera!!  She had a "Frozen" themed party.  We only do these kinds of parties when the kids turn 8 years old.  I think I'd go crazy if I had to do one every month!  But its fun when it's only once in a while.

We played the penny game (no Frozen theme here), then we had a Frozen dance.  We played music from the Frozen soundtrack and everyone danced.   However, every now and then someone would freeze the music and everyone had to stop right then. The kids were a little shy at first, but I got up and started doing it with them, and that seemed to break the ice!  Then we went in the backroom and pinned the arm on Olaf (no picture sorry) and last of all we dressed each other up as snowmen.  I did actually get pictures of that:

 We had left over butcher paper from butchering cows this fall, and we put it to good use.

 We also made our own pinata instead of a birthday cake, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before we tore it apart.  But it only tore on the seems where we glued it!  We got the pictures off the Internet and Calista colored them.

She was pleased and everyone seemed to have fun!

Locks of Love

I was brushing Sarah's hair last Friday, April 4 and I noticed it was to her bottom.  That meant she had finally grown it long enough to donate her hair!  So the kids and I made a trip into town, bought our groceries for the month and stopped by the beauty salon.  We don't usually go to a shop to get our hair cut, so this was a special treat for everyone.  I'm not sure if the lady has had this large of an audience :)

I forgot to get a before picture! 

Her beautiful hair!

  Sarah had fun making funny faces in the mirror and to the camera!

 The finished look!  Her hair is wet so it looks darker.  It is still blonde, but I think she'll end up having the same coloring as Jacque because it isn't as blonde as it used to be.

The next morning look!

More sewing projects

When we were in Ontario last, JoAnn's was having their pattern sale 5/$5 and I couldn't resist.  Along with some dress patterns, I picked up a cute bag/purse pattern and had to try it out this week!  It was so fun and pretty fast and easy!  I gave the top one to a niece, but kept the bottom one, maybe as a new diaper bag.  The best part about these projects is that it didn't cost me any money!! (other than the $1 for the pattern!)  They were all extra scraps from previous projects!

Samuel's experiment

Samuel is getting more and more interested in science experiments and seeing how things work.  He loves to be out in the shop with Aaron working on projects.  He made me a rolling pin as an early birthday present a couple weekends ago!  Aaron got a free motorcycle from a friend and he told Samuel that if he fixed it up, he could have it. Within a day or two Samuel had it running.  It still has some problems, but it was fun to see how excited Samuel got when he was able to go out and tinker with it!

He saw a couple egg experiments on youtube and tried them out.  One was a failure, and the other one a success.  This is a video about his success.  He soaked a raw egg in vinegar and it makes a rubbery egg.  I'm sure he can still break it, but it will squish in your fingers and bounce a little on the counter.  The shell just rubbed off.

His failure had to do with fitting a whole (hard boiled) egg into a bottle that is too small.  It might've worked if we hadn't used a plastic water bottle.  The water bottle collapsed instead of sucking the egg in.  I guess our experiment kind of worked, because half of the egg was sucked in. The other half didn't.

Samuel is over 5'1" these days.  He loves reading, scouts, camping, working in the shop with Aaron and other "boy" things.  Aaron got a four wheeler a couple of weeks ago and told Samuel that if he fixed it up, he could have it.  He's already got it running but it still has some problems.  It's fun to see his mind work and try to solve problems.  For Calista's birthday, we had an actual birthday party with friends and a pinata.  Samuel opted to work in the shop with Aaron instead of playing the games, after being told that he would get to participate in the pinata.  When it came to hang the pinata outside, I opened the garage door and asked if Aaron or Samuel would be willing to hang it for me.  Samuel jumped at the chance, and by the time I had Heidi ready to go outside, the pinata was ready and the girls were waiting in line!  Sometimes its handy to have grown up kids!

Jacque is a very sweet older sister.  She knows just what to say or do to make her little sisters happy!  She took Heidi in the backroom yesterday so Aaron and I could get a Sunday nap.  She brought blocks, books, snacks, water and blankets to keep her happy.  It worked because next thing I knew it was 3:30pm!  I must have been tired.  She also enjoys reading, but I think she's going to be my child that wants to play sports.  It seems like we have to ask Samuel if he wants to do a sport, but Jacque's already asked if she can play volleyball and basketball next year!  In the evenings, Aaron will take Samuel and Jacque over to the church and work with them on basketball fundamentals.  He has them dribbling with left and right hands, shooting, layups and  passing.  They really like it.  I took them one night and they let me know that I wasn't doing what dad does!  I think they were trying to get out of having to make 50 right handed layups (between all three of us, and not in a row).  We were short on time so we only had to do 25 left handed ones.

Heidi, my little ninja!  Actually those are a pair of bloomers that she found in Sarah's drawer.

Calista's baptism presents from the Primary Presidency.  The towel has her name written in her favorite color, and the date she was baptized.  Although since we had to cancel her baptism, the date is wrong.  I'd like to get the 14th written on it too.

We also bought her her very own set of scriptures.  We wanted to make hers different than Samuel and Jacque's, so we bought her a quad.  It also came with a pink scripture case and scripture markers.  She was so excited!!