Northwest Age Group Sectionals 2009....

Emily made the qualifying time to swim against the fastest 5% of swimmers in the NW section of the USA. She swam in four relays and one individual event, the 100 free. She did not have her personal best time on the 100 free but she place in the top 20 for 12 year old girls.
Kennedy, Emily, Coach Neil in his yellow shirt, Irysh, and Lauryn, these are the girls from the relay.





This is a $400 suit that her friend Lauren got for a $1 and was kind enough to lend it to Emily for the big meet. She loved wearing it. She returned the favor at let her other friend borrow her good competition suit for the meet. Girls at this age really can be nice!

Snow again!

The girls love the snow... that means less school work in the day time while they are enjoying the elements, but they do not like the evening when they have to make up for the lost time. Oh you would think I was the worst mother ever! I let them know that students that are in the public school will have to make up the time at the end of June! Oh they didn't like that either. Life can be so unfair when you are 9 and 12.

This snowman's name is Mr. Happy. He was made quickly because this was northwest snow and was all gone by 5 pm.

Happy winter to you and your family!

Do you enjoy what I find on my camera.....

Rex the wonder dog......

So who do you think took all these, I think it is the girl in the photo.....Emily and her favorite animal!

Jumping girls: Kelly and Ella

This spring marks the 5th year anniversary of
our trampoline, who would have even known the joy that it would bring!
Now that it is light past 5 pm the girls can jump after dinner! The winters sometimes seem so long, but much better than Alaska!
This is the view from the kitchen looking through the home school room/office.
Kelly before she knows that some one is filming her! This is what happens when the girls see you taking pictures! They get all hammy. Kelly is such a clown for the camera. Ella was earlier in the shoot, but Kirk couldn't quite catch her.

New Guitar....beware it is a long (Cindy version) post!

Two days before the talent show Kelly had a melt down moment about her guitar. As a mother these are times when your heart breaks and you would do just about anything to make you child FEEL better, but it is not always the best time to purchase items or make large changes in life... just because your child is freaking out. So what was happening? In the fall we rented a 3/4 guitar for her and then in December we paid the balance on it, the entire package with gig bag was $150. It was a CHEAP guitar and that was part of her frustration, the teacher could tune it at the beginning of class and by the end of class it needed to be tuned again! We got what we paid for! In my defense, I was not sure if she really wanted to play or if she would play longer than one year, with that in mind I was thinking short term.
Well, after a few practices as a group (prior to the talent show) she wanted a new guitar, and not a cheap one. We had a 30 minute discussion and more tears, and then she said she was more than willing to pay for half!!! This is a kid who gets $20 a month for allowance and she was willing to spend up to $200 of her own money for a guitar. (she said, you know that is almost all my money for a year, she is really good at math)
So we went downtown where we had purchase the first guitar, and I asked about an upgrade. The man was so impressed with how well the guitar had been taken care of he gave us credit for the entire amount of the 3/4guitar towards the purchase of the newer upgraded guitar. Kelly only had to spend $100 of her own money and she got a new guitar, that is rather nice.
Two really good things came of this melt down. One, I learned that it paid off to buy from the local guy (even if I had to pay a little more the first time), and two I found out that Kelly really does love playing the guitar and she was willing to put her money behind her tears.
Since she has a new guitar her playing is better and she has more confidence, we actually don't mind if she leaves her door open to practice!

Guitar girls

The girls have been playing the guitar since September and last month they were part of the school talent show. Here are a few pictures of them practicing with there friends. Of course they did a group thing. Kelly is sitting on the red couch, Emily Noelle is next to her on the stool. They were too spread out to take a good group photo. After all the practicing, I think that both the girls and I were sick of the song they did.

This is the night of the talent show, it best shows the back of Clark's head, you can barely see the girls, I really should find out if Annemarie got better photos, she has fancy pants camera! They did a great job, and felt accomplished.
Have a great weekend, we are heading north to play in the AWANA Games, it should be alot of fun!

The many faces of Riley...

Riley has such a rubber face, and when she is being kind it is soooo perfect, her face could really be made into a doll! Then she tells me to "SIT DOWN OR GIVE THAT TO ME NOW!" with an attitude and I forget how beautiful she is. Then she flashes me this smile and gives me a hug and says "sorry!" Having her around on Thursday is sometimes hard but always a blessing, to think that she is almost 3 1/2 makes me wonder where the time has gone. I am so thankful that is has worked out for her to just be with us one day a week! I am not sure she is always thankful for it, but time will answer that.

Our cheeseeee Riley!

Oh, and her favorite question (the last two months) is: "What color is your birthday?" Not when is your birthday, but what color. The funnest part is that she knows all of our "birthday colors", what a crack up!!!

Wacky girl!

It is fun when I upload my photos, I never know what is going to be on there, here are a few of my surprises from last week! Emily has her own camera, yet I get plenty of this kind of weird stuff on mine, I think it might be because my camera gets put away in the same place.... so it can be found! The joys of being Mommy!

Have a great day!

Jimmy is married!!!!!!!

Jimmy and Susan Bennett

Her name is Susan, she and Jimmy have been dating on and off for the last year or so. He wanted to take her away to Mexico for a trip but wanted to take her as his wife, so today was the big day. Jimmy was so happy today, I am happy for him. David took the kissing picture because he thought it was perfect timing.

Of course Krissy cried through the whole thing, I am glad I was not sitting by her, Katy was so she too got to cry! My mom and dad were so happy, too their little boy finally found a great girl without a ton of baggage! She is real, funny and sweet, she and Jimmy make a grand couple.