Summer Beginnings - A Fishing Trip, a "New" House, and Some Summer Projects!

Our summer is in full swing and looking back at pictures, we have been pretty busy so far. I was going to do a post about just our visitors that came in June, but then I saw all the other fun things we had going on before that, so it has now become a post about the beginning of summer.

 

June 7th was a free fishing day in New Mexico, so our family took a trip to Grindstone Lake in Ruidoso, NM. We thought it would be a quiet day of fishing and trying to entertain children around a lake, but when we pulled into town, we saw all the signs for their Kids Fishing Day. It was a like a kid-palooza at the lake. It was good and bad. We had to park far away because of all the people and Tyler couldn't find a good spot to fish because it was so crowded, but they had so much stuff going on, the kids were entertained all day. The kids were immediately given raffle tickets, visors, goodie bags of trail mix and other snacks, and water. We stopped by the coloring table while Tyler set up our fishing stuff.

 

There were other booths for the kids to go visit like face-painting and getting a branded "cookie" which was a chunk of tree trunk that the forest service branded with their logo. The kids could even take a turn at using the two-person saw. They even got to meet Smokey the Bear (Taryn wasn't scared at all!)

 

 

 

 The best part of the day was the raffle give-aways. There were a ton of people there, but there were even more prizes to be given away. Aubrey's number was one of the first numbers called and she won a Vera Bradley backpack. It's purple, pretty, and she loved it! Abby's number was called later, and she picked out a small leather purse. Tessa's number was called near the end when they were just letting kids go up and pick something of what was left and she picked a small stuffed animal. Then they let everyone else go up who had not yet won a prize to get something, so we got another stuffed animal for Taryn. They then put all the numbers back in the box to call out winners for the "big" prizes like bikes and gift certificates. Tessa's number was called and she won a certificate for a free pizza at one of their downtown cafes. She was very excited to tell everyone after the fact that she had paid for our lunch since we picked up our free pizza as we drove out of town to go back home. We had also won another gift certificate for some free buffets at another restaurant in town, but we'll have to go another time to Ruidoso to use those. It was a lot of fun to leave with all our goodies, even though we didn't leave with any fish.

 

This sink planter was right outside the pizza place. The girls loved playing with it and pretending to wash their hands while we waited for our pizza. This other picture is of the "world's largest pistachio" which we drove past on our way to and from Ruidoso. I thought it was a picture we needed to have to say we saw the world's largest pistachio - too funny. We did not stop to buy any nuts however - maybe next time. We had so much fun on our little family get away, and can't wait to go back and find other fun family-friendly spots and to hopefully catch a few fish next time.

 

We spent the first three weeks once the girls were out of school stuck at the house while workers fixed our roof and repainted our house. We were definitely stir-crazy by the end of that time period, but luckily we had our pool to use in the afternoons and a few play dates scheduled so at least the girls could get away every once in awhile. I was at the house pretty much all day every day as workers blocked our driveway (and my car) with their equipment. They worked hard and now we have a leak-free roof and a brand new painted house. I should have taken more pictures, but I at least got a before (actually it's a during) and after picture of our exterior paint.

 

I've tried to stay busy and keep the girls busy during the summer, especially while we were more or less stuck at home with the workers around. I spent one day making felt food and used the girls to model them for my pictures. I thought it turned out pretty cute. Before and after this, the girls and I have made other food like carrots, pizza, tortellini, cupcakes, donuts, cookies, and kiwi. It's a fun project for the girls to help with, but this hamburger was busted out mostly on my machine, so it was fast and easy.

 

Another project we did in June was paint some patio chairs that Tyler had made. He finished the chairs one weekend and we decided to let the girls paint them. We had a few colors of paint already, so we bought a few more and decided on a similar design for each chair but let the girls pick the colors for their own chair. Here's how they looked before painting.

 

 I used my Cricut machine to add names and a few personalized stickers, so the girls love them. I did all the taping, but they did the majority of the painting. It was a fun project to work on all together and it made me want to paint more things. Here are some pictures of the final outcome. They love them!

 

This was only the beginning of our summer, but it started it off with a bang! We're enjoying every day.

Tessa's First Grade Year

Tessa finished First Grade with flying colors! She loved her teacher, Mrs. Moreira, and all her classmates too. She was again known for being fun, happy, nice, helpful, and friendly to everyone. We took quite a few pictures on the first day, but forgot to take some on their last day, so here's the one I took of her alone on her last day and luckily one of the many I took on her first day was in the same place in her classroom! 

I did not do an entry for Tessa's school year around December because all of her school activities happened in the second half of the year. Besides the first day of school picture, the next thing I have a picture of is from their spring picture day in March. So here they are. You can't quite tell, but about two days before this day, Tessa was sent home from school early because her eye was all puffy, teary, and red. We decided she must of gotten something in it because it had been really windy that day and it just got pretty irritated. She stayed home an extra day because it took that long to go away. Even on the second day, which was supposed to be picture day, she went to school but you can still kind of see how her right eye is a little bit more closed than her left because the swelling hadn't gone all the way down. This was another reason I told the girls that we wouldn't be buying school pictures, but in our own photo shoot, she still looked great!

At the Fine Arts Night, Tessa's art picture is of a fish she painted using her hand. She called it "the best fish ever." 

At the beginning of May, our church holds a Teacher Appreciation Night. Anyone can nominate his or her school teacher and that teacher is given an award after a program. Tessa and Abby both nominated their teachers, but only Tessa's was able to come. Mrs. Moreira brought her baby Milo which Tessa loved; and Mrs. Moreira and I took turns either holding her baby or Tessa in our laps throughout the entire program. I forgot my phone and camera so I borrowed a friend's camera to take a picture of Tessa with Mrs. Moreira, which seems to be the only picture I have of them from the entire year so I'm glad I did. 

Tessa's first grade program was in May. Each class wore a different brightly colored shirt. Tessa's class was dark blue. They sang songs about the earth, recycling, and other Earth Day themed songs. Being one of the smallest in her class has it advantages. She got to sit during the program and she was in the front row. She's the one in dark blue, front row, farthest right. 

 Because half of the classes are dual-language classes, they learned half of their songs in Spanish. Those were some of Tessa's favorite songs to sing too. Instead of having individual classes do different skits having some in English and some in Spanish, they all just learned everything which meant half (and it seemed like more than half) of the program was even spoken in Spanish, so us parents with English-only families barely understood most of the program. Oh well, I guess that's how it goes when you live in Texas and near the border! Tessa still had fun and enjoyed it.

Funny story about Tessa's year. At the beginning of the year, Tessa said she wanted to be tested for their GT classes. I never heard anything after that, so I actually thought she didn't qualify. Then come May I find out that she'd been in GT all year long when she brought home the paper talking about their GT Fair, where you go to the school to see all the things they had been working on during their GT time. I told her teacher, who just happened to also be her GT teacher, which was probably one of the reasons I never knew, and we just laughed. In first grade, they always called it Enrichment, so I heard Tessa talking about Enrichment all year long, but did not know it was the same thing as GT. Too funny! Tessa's big project that was on display for the GT Fair was on animal habitats. Her group did the Grasslands, and Tessa did a page on the Tortoise. Her teacher also explained that her group was a smaller group (only 3 kids) and one of them missed a lot, so she was very proud of Tessa and her partner, Diego, who did this huge 4-person project mostly on their own. Tessa liked showing us all the parts that she drew on their Grasslands portrait including some of the birds and all the mom animals that are at the bottom of the page. Her partner drew the baby animals to match.

Tessa made some really good friends this year. She went to multiple birthday parties for her friends. This was a party near the end of the year at a country club swimming pool. This was Sophia R's birthday party. (There were two Sophia's in her class this year). Sophia's in the middle and Reese is on the left. Tessa had a blast. 

Tessa had an ice cream party on their last day of school. She was very excited to bring the maraschino cherries. They ate lots of ice cream, other goodies, and played a few games. They also each got a beach ball that they passed around for everyone to sign. This picture on the right is the best one I could get of her whole class since I was running back and forth between Abby's class and Tessa's class on that last day.

Some of Tessa's memories of first grade include reading a ton and taking her first AR tests (she was 2nd in her class!), counting money, telling time, and "just learning." Tessa's teacher always talked about how helpful and happy Tessa was, however she did come home with her behavior on 'yellow' a few times this year. Tessa was just so much more social and loved talking to her friends even when she wasn't supposed to be. We had many talks about this throughout the year, but by the end, her teacher still loved her and would praise all the wonderful things she did to help around the classroom. Tessa was very excited for the summer to be here, but she did like going to school and being with her friends. Asking what her favorite thing about first grade was, her answer was always "lunch." That's our bubbly, outgoing Tessa!

Abby Completes Third Grade

The girls finished school on June 10th. Ever since our Spring Break in mid-March we were ready for summer break, so going all the way into June was like torture! The girls did well and still love school so that's a bonus. Abby took her first big STAAR test this year in April. She did great. High grades in both sections. She was very stressed about it as they prepared, but she ended up doing really well and we were all happy with her results. She spent the last 6 or so weeks after the test learning new things, but Tyler and I just kept saying, "well, she already took the test, so whatever" if she had to miss class or anything like that. They put so much on those STAAR tests, it seems a bit ridiculous, but at least she did well, so we didn't have to stress.

 

I know we did an entry around Abby's birthday in December that included the activities from the first half of the year, so here's what happened in Third grade from January to the end of the year. We start with picture day. I told the girls we wouldn't be buying any school pictures, but that we could take our own pictures, so after dressing up for the day, we went outside and took some nature-background shots. Here are Abby's. And the best part - they were all free!!

 In March, the school had their Fine Arts Night that included a Talent Show. The Honor Choir sang in the talent show and they sang a couple of songs. The kids' pick and favorite song they sang was Let it Go from Frozen. They sang really well. 

 They also display art pictures and have activities you can do in some of the classrooms. Here is Abby with her flower art drawing. The kids were also able to make tambourines with plates and beans, clay sculptures, self-portraits with paint, and some stain-glass window type pictures with aluminum foil. We had fun seeing all our friends who were also there and the kids had fun creating masterpieces.

 

Abby's final choir concert was in May and they sang songs from famous musicals like The Music Man, Wicked, and Grease to name a few. They each had speaking parts too, so it was very involved but a lot of fun. Abby wants me to include that her line for the program was, "That's right! Do you know what the 'M' stands for?" They had props and even some dance numbers. Here's the whole choir, Abby is on the left, about the third one in.

We took a couple pictures afterwards with her friends, so here's Abby with her closest friend from class, Abbigail. They moved in last summer and are moving again this summer, but it was fun for them to hang out this year - the two Abby's. And the second picture with some of Abby's other friends, from the left - Fatima, Alex, Abby, and Skye.

 

Abbigail had her 9th birthday party after school one day and invited Abby and Conner from their class. They had pizza and got to ride go-carts. Abby had a blast and these are the pictures Abbigail's mom sent to me.

 

This is another one of Abby's friends who is moving this summer. Alyssa lived one street over and they became good friends that way and through Activity Days at church. They had a going away swim party right after school was out to say goodbye and have one last fun time.

 

I was the room-mom for Abby's class this year along with Abbigail's mom. We brought cupcakes, pizza, and movies for their last day party. Here is one final picture of Abby's third grade class.

Mrs. McIntosh's room was full of boxes and empty shelves because she is moving up to teach 5th grade next year, so hopefully Abby will have her again in a couple of years. Abby had a great year with lots of new friends and learning many new things. Some of things she would remember about third grade includes learning cursive, the times tables, writing current events, and taking the STAAR test. She also did reports on Chester Arthur, the 21st president of the US and a travel brochure on the state of UT.

 

And here is our annual side-by-side pictures of Abby's first and last day of 3rd grade. We were happy to get one more picture with Abby's teacher Mrs. McIntosh, but I forgot to get one of Abby by herself that last day, so this is what I have - from Aug 2013 to Jun 2014. 

Holidays To Get Us to Summer

Every time my computer turns on, I see the last post on my blog. For months now I've been staring at Tessa's birthday post and thinking every time that I need to update, so finally I am trying to catch up a little now that we're half way through June. So the best way for me to do that is a post about the recent holidays: the ones between Tessa's birthday in March to the end of the school year in June. These holidays are Easter, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day. I'll then do a post about the girls' school years and then we'll be caught up to the summer!

 

So we start with Easter. We went to our church ward's breakfast and Easter egg hunt at the park. The girls had fun and even Taryn got the concept of finding eggs this year.

We dyed eggs as a family using food coloring this year. We thought they turned out really bright and colorful.

 

We also had Easter baskets that the girls woke up to Easter morning and our own family Easter egg hunt. It was fun this year to hide some of the eggs because as the girls are getting older, we can make the hunt more challenging for them.

The next holiday, that I have a picture from, was Mother's Day. As we came home from church, I made Tyler take a picture of us girls. It was pretty sunny, so it was harder than it should have been to just get one picture, but I love it anyway.

 

Since Abby and Tessa will each have their own post about school, I wanted to add these two pictures for Aubrey and Taryn. Some of Aubrey's closest friends moved right as the school year ended. One was her friend, Elle, who's dad just graduated from medical school here. They were best buds because we always saw them at exercise classes and volleyball even though her family was in a different ward from us. We had many play dates, but were super sad to see them go. I got a picture of them the last time they were over to play. And Taryn had the fun opportunity to go to a birthday at a Build-a-Bear store for one of her friends from nursery. She fell asleep on the way to the party, so she spent the first half of the party kind of dazed and grumpy in her stroller. When she finally woke up enough to participate in the party activities, the only pictures I could get of her were of her silly face. At least she knew I was taking a picture I guess. Her choice of a build-a-bear was a dog that Abby and I helped her name Cheetos. (still her favorite food.)

 

I also want to mention our weekly music class since I took a picture from our last one this year. We've had a pre-school music class during the school year and we'd sing songs based on a different theme each month. It was also another thing that we did with the Billings so it was one more picture with our kids together. The girls loved the class and would sing the songs all month long and teach the older girls sometimes too.

 

That finally brings us to the last holiday before the end of the school year - Memorial Day. We took the long weekend and drove down to San Antonio to stay with Scott and Nevla and Chloe. We had a blast. We had a few mishaps on the drive down with Taryn getting carsick, but once we finally made it, everyone was fine and had a great time. We spent the majority of the weekend just hanging out and playing games.

 

 

We did a little shopping and I got to pick dinner (it was my birthday that weekend too), so we got to eat at the Cheesecake Factory which was delicious.

 

 

We took an outing to a park where they had some pretty trees, so this was where we took the most pictures. 

 

 

They had a tree stump shaped perfectly like a seat, so we took pictures of Taryn there and Abby had Scott take pictures of her there too. 

 

The girls enjoyed dancing to YouTube videos and we couldn't pass up a picture once all the girls started climbing on Scott.

 

We also took a trip to the Bass Pro Shop. We did this last year and the kids had a fun time, so we thought we'd go again. Once we got there we saw that they were having a free kids activity day, so we picked the perfect time to go. They had a scavenger hunt to find pictures around the store, a sandbox where they could use metal detectors to find a prize, a gun shooting range, and after all the activities were completed, the kids got more prizes. It was really fun. We've been watching Diggers on tv so the girls were super excited to try the metal detectors.

 

We kind of had to talk the girls into trying the gun range, but the older three each took a turn with Dad's help and they really enjoyed it after being able to hit the target. 

 

 The prizes they got after completing the activities included a water bottle, a reflector clip, and a whistle. We could barely keep the whistles quiet while we finished in the store and as soon as we walked outside they went to town on those whistles. They blew them every time they were outside for the rest of the weekend. A couple of them had to be "lost" because we adults couldn't take the noise anymore - thanks for that Bass Pro Shop! But the kids did love it.

 

We had a fun time all weekend and the trip home was uneventful so that was nice too. We've really enjoyed making family memories every year and our own family traditions as we celebrate holidays together.