The Blaming Horse Rider

I think blaming things on other people to spare getting into trouble runs in the family. When I was a little girl my mom spent a lot of time making a pecan pie. The next morning when we woke up, amazingly enough all the pecans were gone off the pie! How could that happen? Well, my sister told me the cat ate them. It sounded logical to me. My sister told me that we didn't want the cat to get into trouble, did we? So tell mom that I ate them. I was about 4 or 5 and believed her, so that's what I told my mom when she came in furious wanting to know what happened to the pecans! My sister got off the hook for eating them and I got into trouble for supposedly eating them! Dirty trick! My mom later found out and took care of my sister! Fast forward 30 years to our house. Whenever I say something like, "Who left this out?" or whatever the case may be, inevitably, Averie is right there to say as she crinkles her nose, "I think Sydney did it."

So, yesterday I finally swept and mopped all the floor downstairs. Averie wanted to help mop, so I let her. She mopped all around and when she was done I said:
"Averie! Great job! When you grow up you're going to be a good mopper!"
She said, "No, mom. When I grow up I am going to be a horse rider."
"Oh, well then at least you'll know how to mop the floors in your house when you grow up."

Nothing much!

I don't have much to say. We just added our 3 favorite songs these days to this blog. Whenever we hear these songs, it brings a smile to everyones face and one or more of us starts dancing and singing! That's all for today!

JoBros!!!!

You know how much fun it is to have a teenager and an almost teenager in the house? Ok, it's not ALWAYS fun. Let's be honest! But one of the things that is so fun is going to concerts with them. So far we have been to Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, Clique Girls & Cheetah Girls, Demi Lovato & David Archuleta, and by far, the best so far, is Jordin Sparks & The Jonas Brothers that we saw last night for Sydney's birthday!!! They put on a great show!!! I look back at alllllllll the concerts I went to as a teenager and I have to say nowadays they are so much more entertaining (well let me back up a minute and say the Red Hot Chili Peppers were pretty entertaining!) Last night at Jobing.com Arena, the whole arena was opened up and it was sold out. The stage was HUGE. They had all kinds of lasers, lights and video and toward the end Joe and Kevin got up on this "lifter" that took them out over the top of the audience and they squirt everyone within reach with foam! Of course the crowd went absolutely WILD when Nick was lifted up on to the stage with a white baby grand piano and played for everyone. I think he is definitely everyone's favorite.

Way tooo much...

I have been such a slacker this summer. I need to catch-up before the next school year begins. You ready? It'll probably be all backwards...but here we go...

Lego Master in the House!

Josh is soooo into Legos. Lego Pirates, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars and definitely Bionicles. I think he is so diligent in doing his chores this summer because he knows he gets paid at the end of the month and that means he has enough for a new Bionicle. Yesterday, he was on the Lego website and found that he can create something Lego or Bionicle that is original and post it and then other kids can vote on it and you can see if yours wins. So here is his creation of a few Bionicles combined together that I'll be posting when I am done here. It's all he thinks about these days!

Kallie and Jason went to a fun Daddy Daughter Dance for Activity Days. Jason bought this shirt a few years ago and people make fun of him in it. So he brought it out for the dance!

Our next to last fun summer event was going to the Demi Lovato and David Archuletta concert. I thought Sydney was going to have a heart attack!!! She was DYING! She is sooooo convinced he looked right at her and waved! It really did look like it though! So, whether it happened or not, we are saying it happened! So, Sydney just walked in and read this post and said, "Mom! What do you mean 'convinced'???? He did! He really did! Erase that!" Oops! Here's the new favorite shirt of the summer she saved her money to buy, that was actually $15 more than she had that I had to kick in. When did concert shirts get so expensive? Remember the good 'ol days when they were only $20??Help me out people!

We went to the Science Center to the Lego exhibit. I need Sydney to show me how to send the pics from my phone to the computer and then I'll post some. We had fun that day!

I am posting all this backwards...sorry! Here are our other two favorite games of the summer.

I already posted about Sydney going on the Trek. She'll post about her Girl's Camp adventures on her blog. We had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Jordan which is always an adventure. When we are not talking politics or health, we are playing Josh's favorite game called Who Said. It's just like Charades, just LDS style!

June 28th was Jessie's birthday. We have had the dog for 9 years and have never celebrated his birthday. How shameful. You all celebrate your animals birthdays, don't you?! The kids weren't going to let us get away with it this year, after all he is 63! So I did a search for a doggie treat that is both good for human and dog consumption. The treats were actually pretty good! I may make them again! It had honey, oatmeal, wheat germ, and egg...I can't remember what else. So here are a few pictures of the festivities!

We went to Slide Rock the Saturday the kids got out of school. It's always fun. Sydney brought her friend Erica and they people watched all day, laughing at all the people falling. Josh had other plans. He had to complete "missions" and by the end of they day, he dragged Kallie into it. Only Jason and Kallie were the brave ones to actually go down the slide. The water was FREEZING!

Next, I think was our wonderful chore chart creation! Each kid gets a chart each week plus their "Daily" stuff. They have their assigned chores for the week so there is no confusion (at least I can only hope they won't fight about it) At the end of the week, we rotate the charts and they have a new chart for the week. This way if one person doesn't do a great job, hopefully it'll get done better the next week, if I haven't done it already! So far, so good. Hopefully it'll continue it once school starts with minimal murmurings from the kids! Everyone has their own system, this works for us.

Way tooo much...

Kallie and one of her best friend's Samantha went to Ridemakerz at Westgate for her 11th birthday. It was sooo fun! Have you ever gone? You need to! It's just like Build-A-Bear but for cars. It can come complete with remote control, lights, and sound. Design it anyway you like.

Kallie ended the year with being nominated "Student of the Year" for 5th grade! She was unanimously voted once they narrowed the voting down. She was SOOO excited. This girl is a HARD worker- tears night after night and all- and we were soo proud of her!

The Pioneer Update...

You saw the before picture of Sydney getting ready to go. Here is the 'during' and 'after' picture!She had the absolute BEST time! She was put with a great "family" and they laughed and worked hard! They walked 16 1/2 miles the first day and just got 2 biscuits and a tin cup full of broth! Each family killed 2 chickens for dinner, had a run-in the some Indians, the Mormon Batallion was formed, and when the men were gone, the girls had to push the handcart uphill. They decided to sleep under the stars every night, but on the last night, it rained so much and they got soaked! They all got up and sat around the campfire the rest of the night. They had a hodown (how do you spell that?) and played pioneer games. The rest of the time they hiked only about 5 miles the rest of the day. The Pony Express even came and delivered mail to them. She smelled like a big campfire and was pretty sunburned when she got home. She was sooooooo dirty!She didn't even wear the bonnet I made for her because she was afraid to get it dirty!!She was right! Thanks Syd, but that is what it was for!!! Kallie is so excited to go in 4 years. Sydney wants to do it again too. There were 14 families with about 13 people in each. She made some good friends and she'll always remember this experience!

The Pioneer

So, this is Sydney at 4:15 Wednesday morning getting dressed to leave for the Trek. She wasn't too thrilled I took her picture. When we got to the stake center all the kids were in their pioneer clothes and looked great. As we are walking up to the group she says, "I am not a big fan of this bonnet or this dress. I don't think I want to go anymore." Well, she instantly met up with a girl she knew from camp and she was a little apprehensive too. This girl thought her dress was too big. It was fine. Sydney and this girl get along really well and have fun together so I am glad they were together when they left. Anyway, all day yesterday I was thinking about Sydney and what a great experience this is for her to go. Ok, I worried a little about her too! Today and tomorrow I hear they are camping and doing alot of fun stuff. I'll let you know how it all turns out when she gets home on Saturday!

Brace yourself...

Have you ever before in your life seen a 4 year old and a 7 year old lift a table and chair over their head unassisted????? It is so effortless for them- they are smiling! This is how we spent our morning- practicing lifting things. I told Josh he's probably so strong because he ate 3 waffles with peanut butter on it this morning and drank all of his milk. Amazing.

Planets...

Josh loves learning about the planets. I even taught him the names of the planets to the tune of the primary song that teaches you the names of the books in the New Testament. My mom also made a solar system out of paper lanterns of different sizes all painted and labeled and they hang in the playroom. He has this huge book my Papa got at Costco about planets and he's always checking out books at the library on planets. So, this morning he says, 'you know... Pluto shares the orbit with Neptune'. So matter of factly. Ok, I really don't know much about the planets. He's a genius.

Lookie...Lookie!

Look what I found!!!How many of you are jealous?haha it's ok, raise your hand, if you want!! I am just kidding! I can't wait to see what New Moon is going to be like! I was excited to find this and add it to my blog!!!We are officially counting down!!!Can't wait!