Burn School Burn! Bonfire

Liberty planned a Bonfire Party with some of her friends tonight. She is such an amazing girl that helps normal teenage boundaries disappear. (like "popular & nerdy" as Liberty would put it,  EVMS & Montana City students, "silly & serious", dancers & actresses)
All these girls came and brought armfuls of school papers from this year that they wanted to BURN!!!
Left to Right: Ann, Megan, Kara, Mikal, Liberty and Marcie

Brett helped them start a fire. Then, they let me come out for a tiny bit and take some pictures of them. Let the burning begin!!!!

Just let the frustration of the year burn away, girls!!!! LOL

It was fun to hear them reminisce about the year. Things like- "Oh man! Do you remember this? I hated that!!! Burn, baby, burn!!" or "You can help me burn anything you want except for my Animal Mitosis report. That one is mine!!!!" :)

I asked them to let me take a picture like they really meant it. I loved that they tore some of them in half before they burned them! LOL

I tried to keep my distance and let me just enjoy each other. But it was super fun to look out the window and see them out there visiting, roasting marshmallows and even gummy bears. Hannah came later so I ran out and grabbed one last picture of all them together as they roasted up their final gummy bears! Love these girls!

Last Day of School 2015

The last day of school was a half day with an assembly. I dropped the kids off to school, went and worked out, ran and errand and then headed home. Liberty and I made T-shirts for a friends that's coming to visit this week and then it was time to go get the kids. I took Liberty with me to get a picture of all my kids on the last day.
I forgot that I never took a picture of Liberty & her friends standing outside the school and waving goodbye to all the kids on the bus. She did it almost everyday!!! So here's my lame attempt at documenting that memory! LOL

Then we headed over the metal Mustang for a group picture of us, the Paynes and Mikal. The little girl in the pink is Sandra- Glory played a lot with her after school while she waited for the rest of the kids to get out. And then there's the Mom at the bottom right. ????? Perhaps I'm not quite ready for them to be home all the time yet? LOL

I just need to get my junk all together, make some plans to keep people off electronics, sleep in a day or two and then....

Bring on the Summer!!!!

Ring of Fire & Ice Cream Sundaes

Victoria's teacher this year was AMAZING!!! We love her! She is so smart, loving, positive, thoughtful and silly. She was perfect for Victoria! They are 2 peas in a pod!

All year, Mrs. Sharbono would have songs and poems and games for the kids to memorize that taught them valuable things like math facts, US presidents, poems about grammar, etc. For the end of the year celebration in her classroom, she acknowledged those kids that did an outstanding job! Of course, Victoria was one of those kiddos. She has one of the most amazing memorizing brains I have ever seen! 

For memorizing all her multiplication math facts, Victoria got 13 toppings on her ice cream sundae. 

For passing off her all of XtraMath (a program online to help you learn basic math facts in under 3 seconds), she was presented a "Ring of Fire, [SHARK BAIT OH HA HA]" {Mrs. Sharbono's favorite movie is Nemo}. 

Then, Victoria was also one of two kids to be presented a Sword of Bubbles for memorizing EVERYTHING that Mrs. Sharbono had asked them to this year!!! Way to go, Smarty Pants!

Here's a shot I got of Mrs. Sharbono's charts she used to keep track of the kids and their progress.. Victoria is the 1st one ***starred on the chart on the right. She memorized all 30 of those things. Wow!!

8th Grade Graduation Celebration

Liberty is DONE with Middle School!!! It has been quite the week long Celebration!! Montana City School is K through 8th so they make it a big deal when students are finished with their education here. Liberty even wanted to buy a new dress (she hates dresses) for the occasion. Mikal & Liberty went out this week to go dress shopping together. They looked pretty darling!!
The PTA {or possibly just the 8th grade parents- I didn't attend any of the Celebration Meetings. Oops!} had an extravagant week planned. On Wednesday night, they had a 8th Grade Graduation in the school gym. Everyone was invited in the evening to see the students get awards and their certificates. They played a slideshow put to music of all the students with baby pictures, current pictures and group shots while we waited to start. Then they played music as the 8th graders came out one by one.

The 8th Grade class all congregated in a section on the stage.

After a few speakers- the TA Teachers (the class they have for 15 minutes each morning that teaches cross-class cooperation and leadership skills) did presentations for the students of their extracurricular activities while in Middle School at Montana City School. Here's Mrs. Blaskovich reading about Liberty.

All the students then were asked to go and give their parents a thank you gift- a flower and a card they had made.

Next came the presentations of their certificates. The principal called their names, they walked across the stage and got their certificates. Then tons of teachers had attended to stand in line and say congrats to the kids. It was a huge line across the gym. (I took several pictures so you can see Liberty hugging people along the way.

All the kids sat in one section for a group pictures before they set them free to eat treats & punch and say hi to everyone. She let me take picture of a few people. Mikal Fife, Morgan Oie, Hannah Caldwell, Rylee Holman, Tanner Davis, and Mikayla (who was from EVMS but was there for her cousin)

Now--- onto the After-Party!!!
I took a bunch of girls over to the Bowling Alley. They had rented it out for the evening. They had a Luau with pizza, bowling, soda, and a photo booth. They said they had a fantastic time!

The next day, the school bused the 8th graders down to Fairmont for the day. Liberty and her friends did races down the slide and timed themselves. Mikal & Liberty kept getting the same time so they finally just declared them both the WINNERS. All the other girls bought them a Tropical Sno. Yum! What a fun group of friends! Here's a bunch of them jumping together into the pool.

They didn't need to go to school on the last day so...

There ends the life of our Middle Schooler!!!

Celebrating our 7 Year Old for Days

Brett was going to be out of town for Glory's actual birthday so we started celebrating her on Sunday. We opened a few presents. I have been working hard to finish up her baby book for her birthday. I finally got it done so we gave it to her as well. She had a good time looking through it.

Brett made her a special dinner.

We even made her an awesome "Chocolate & Caramel with Whipped Cream & Health Bar Candy" cake {the kids refuse to call it it's real name. LOL}

This morning (her actual birthday), we made her a special breakfast and let her open another present or two.

This afternoon, I got to spend some time at school with her. We ate lunch together. Her friends sang to her in the lunchroom. At recess, they impressed me with their jump-roping & singing skills. ;) I got to help out her teacher in the classroom. Then we handed out cupcakes and sang to her.

Tonight, we did Birthday Celebration: Part II. We opened the rest of her presents. She was super excited that she got "high heel" shoes. She's been dying to get her feet on some lately! LOL She also got barbies, a webkinz, a Frozen blanket, stuffed puppy and some tennis shoes.

We made her another special dinner!

And surprise but we had more cupcakes!!! Yah? ;) Anyone want to some for leftover cake this week????? These ones were made to order for the birthday princess- Strawberries ones with purple frosting & sprinkles!!!

Wowzer! What a party! Happy Birthday Girly! XOXO

Glory's Memories of Being Six

Memories of being SIX:

*Favorite color: Purple
*Favorite Food: Strawberries
*Besties: your family, Lilliann {Moops} (apartment), Quinn Fife, Kara, Kassi & Korbin Payne, Brooklyn Smith, Sampson Seedall (all Church friends), Every girl in Mrs. Myers 1st grade class, Teegan & Kennedi Trettin (neighbors)
*Loves to Collect bugs for pets
*Participated in the Montana Mucker, Cheer Camp, the Missoula Children's Theater & the Bible Camp
*Loves family walks and playing in puddles & the rain
*Loves school- Mrs. Johnson in Kindergarten & Mrs. Myers for 1st Grade
*Loves to smile
*Loves to be silly with your siblings
*Loves to dressup & play Imaginary games like House & Pokemon
*Attended the East Helena Rodeo
*Loves the TV Show- Heartland
*Learned to ride a bike
*Got a tooth extracted & a spacer put in
*Went to Fairmont Hot Springs on Vacation to swim while it snowed & froze your hair
*Went to Bozeman for a Fieldtrip to Museum of the Rockies
*Pretended to be Siamese Twins with Grammy
*Loves the Go-Kart, swimming & sledding

Glory-
You are such a joy in our family! We love your smile! You light up a room when you walk in. You love everyone to be happy & are very silly! You are so smart and love to learn. You make the best of many situations. So grateful that we have you! Love you! XOXO!

Fun at the Reef

Since we didn't get done watching kids for the Trek to the Temple until about 5 pm- we decided to spend the night in Billings. The Paynes & us took the kids to the Reef to do a bit of swimming! Fun times!

Everyone took turns on the slides (everyone could ride them this time! Hurray!)

Lilly Pads & Bucket o'Water

Wave pool & Hot Tub

We took a short break and ate pizza together outside. We were chilly!

Glory & Korbin were the very last kids out of the pool when it closed. They did NOT want to leave! LOL

We took our kids to DQ afterwards. What crazy people like to eat cold ice cream when they are wet & chilly??? ;)

We went back to our hotel- showered some people and sat by the firepit outside. What a great day!

Trek to the Temple & Justice 1st Time

Our Stake Presidency has been planning a big Trek to the Temple for this weekend. They scheduled it for a Friday and asked everyone to sacrifice and make the effort to attend. They scheduled all the wards at different times and setup for us to rotate and watch each others kids at the Stake Center after our time in the Temple.
We decided to get up early Friday morning (Brett took the day off & we kept the kids home from school) and head down to the Billings Temple in time to make it there by 11:30. We even drove through the clouds to get there. LOL

It was an extra special experience for our family because it happened to be Justice's 1st time inside the Temple. Since he turned 12, he was able to participate in the Baptisms for the Dead. Brian Payne was the Bishopric member in charge of our youth group so he pulled some strings so that Brett & I could be there with Justice & Liberty. How neat! I can't tell you how amazing it is to watch your kids make righteous choices and to be able to be there to watch them in the Temple. There's nothing like it! It turned out that 23 of our Youth came to participate in the Temple. Wow! {The youth groups before and after us only had 3 to 6 kids) It made it so it was a lot of waiting but so inspiring that so many would make the effort to come!

What a beautiful day at the Temple!

It was the 1st time for all three of these boys- TJ Smith (Fife's boy), Justice Seamons & Caleb Tubbs

So glad we could be there for Justice's 1st time!

It also turned out to be Jada Pierson's 1st time. Her family couldn't come down so we drove her down with us. This is the 2nd time that Liberty has been able to be there with her friends on their first trip to the Temple. SO special!

So fun to be at the Temple together & with friends! Can't wait until Victoria & Glory can join us.

P.S. There was a mis-communication about child care so we ended up leaving the girls & the Payne kids together at the Church without people to watch them. (The group of youth that was supposed to watch our kids got dropped off at the wrong Church building.) They eventually worked it out but we have some pretty awesome kids that would look out for each other while we were gone.

SIDENOTE: We calculated. It will be cutting it close but there is a slight chance that we will ALL be able to go to the Temple the 1st time that Glory can go. But Liberty will turn 19 a couple months before that. There is a chance that she would already be gone on a Mission before Glory turns 12. The next year Justice would turn 18 and then leave on his mission & be gone for 2 years. We're hoping that Liberty's mission call comes after June 2020 or it won't be until 2023 that our whole family could go to the Temple together. Oh trickiness of timing!

Family Prayer stack

On most nights-- Brett will find someone on his back for Family Prayers. Tonight everyone wanted in on the action! Silly kids!

Early Morning Bel-Av-Vis-Ex

Since September 25th, Liberty has been volunteering every school morning to participate in this program called Bal-A-Vis-X. She does it with her friend, Mikal under the direction Mr. Predmore. They help younger students do these special exercises each morning to "wake up" their brain.

Bal-A-Vis-X is a series of Balance/Auditory/Vision eXercises, of varied complexity, all of which are deeply rooted in rhythm. Bal-A-Vis-X requires focsued attention, demands cooperation, promotes self-challenge,  and fosters peer teaching. It is school friendly and just plain fun!

Liberty decided to make it her Good Works Project for Young Womens. She has volunteered over 12 hours of her time so far. Way to go, Sis!

Memorial Day BBQ on Faith Lane

Can I just say... I love having a home where we can have people over!!!!
We decided to throw a Memorial Day BBQ and have some friends over. It turned out to be quite the crowd! We were lucky enough to have the Posts, Fifes, Paynes, Earls, Tubbs, Ochsenbeins, Weavers, and Prescotts over to party with us! The skies threatened for a few moments before the guests arrived but then it was like a hot Summer Day! Love it!
My favorite thing about hosting is the fact that I don't have to make anything extravagant but always end up having a glorious meal! People are always welcome when they bring food! ;) We started up the fire pit and Brett turned on the Grill. We had tons of sides and even home-made ice cream! Awesome!

We are in love with our backyard. We had basketball games, trampoline fun, bug catching, visiting and kids even enjoyed the basement. It was really a perfect day! So glad our friends could spend time with us! We have so much to be grateful for. Happy Memorial Day!

We were all in love with my neighbors little girl. She was a up-ity "cheeser" at everyone but if we laughed at her too much- she would get pipping mad! It was so darling! love her!