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!!

Little Miss Heidi Sue

This was several months ago, but I thought they were cute!  Again, you get to see into her personality a little.  

I think the pictures speak for themselves!

A little bit of everything

 The girls planned a surprise birthday party for Aaron this year.  We happened to have a snow day the day before his birthday, and they spent almost the whole day making decorations and setting it up.  Aaron was definitely surprised!!

Ellen is officially a kindergartener!!  She lost three teeth in two days, and she was already missing a fourth tooth!  We called her toothless!  It sure is fun to hear her talk right now!

 She came home from school and one of her top teeth had fallen out.  The other front tooth was barely holding on so it tended to center itself in the gap. 

 She finally pulled the last one that night.

 I've made a few dresses for Jacque lately because she had outgrown all her other ones.  We found out after we made this one, that Jacque doesn't care for square necklines, so this one ended up going to a cousin!!

 She loved this dress because she can twirl really good in it.

Dress #2.  She loves the higher neckline.  (Excuse the mess in the background!)

 Calista was baptized!!  This is the same dress I made for Jacque's baptism!  She loved it and I didn't have to stress about making another dress!

Samuel got new glasses!!  Yes, we really did buy these!  He loved them.

  Ellen loves to draw!  I like all the detail she puts into her drawings.  This is a picture of our van, she even made sure to make the windows dark, handles black, and we have our lights on!

I got my hair cut on Thanksgiving day!!  It feels so good, and I was able to donate my hair!

With the help of Danny and Aaron Polkowske, we were able to butcher three steers!  It was a fun learning experience and we aren't afraid to do it again!

 Fun times with curlers!!

More curlers!  Jacque and Calista had their hair done too, but it didn't turn out as well, and I forgot to take pictures.

And just so you know, we did buy other glasses for Samuel too.  These were his "fun" glasses that he wore to school for a day, before his REAL ones came in!  He was embarrassed to ask to buy them when he read on a sign that they were women's glasses.  But they were on sale for only $9!!

Fun Photo Shoot with Sarah

This post has a lot of pictures, but you get a good look at Sarah's cute personality!!

Her siblings are all jealous of her "googlie eye" that she can do on demand!