Daddy of 5 girls? What do you think?

Memorial Day BBQ and Watermelon throwing contest!

We celebrated the beginning of summer with a Memorial Day BBQ and watermelon fun. The hamburgers turned out pretty good. Here is a recipe I found to add to your hamburger meat. We are not big burger people because we don't care for the taste. However, once you add all of the seasoning to the meat it was good!

1 lb hamburger
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. worcheshire sauce
1 Tbl Montreal Steak Seasoning
1/2 onion chopped well
1/2 c Hinze 57 sauce.

Mix well. Form patties. Grill.

Sunday Dinner

This past Sunday, we all noticed how perfect Ron had made his pile of mashed potatoes. We have to say, his gravy dam was most impressive. It was so impressive, we had to take a picture.

Tiffany added to our Sunday dinner giggles by eating her dessert with three spoons. I guess she was trying to get every last crumb!

It took weeks but...

It took weeks...the lily finally bloomed. It was worth waiting every day for it! Beautiful!

Tiffany kissing herself better!

Tiffany hit her hand with her "fishing pole" and kissed herself better. So sweet!

Tiffany is ready for Disney!

I found Tiffany today wearing her Mickey ears! She is so excited to go see Mickey Mouse and his clubhouse!

Look Mom Curlers!

Some of you have asked to see the final result of Tiffany's curlers. Let's just say, they didn't last much more than 1 minute after I took the picture. She did not like them and pulled them out. We will have to try again another day.

GT Show

This past week Caitlin and Courtney's projects were selected to go to the district GT show. They were enigma projects. Caitlin's was her theory on the Bermuda Triangle and Courtney's was on the Nazca Lines. Each made a PowerPoint presentation and a model of the project. Parents came to the Intermediate school to walk through the projects. Each student stood by their project and explained it to teachers and parents.

Look Mom! Curlers!

The girls thought it would be fun to put curlers in Tiffany's hair. What do you think? Do you think she liked it? I still don't know how they got her to hold still long enough to get them in. :O)

The Texas Project

Caitlin and Courtney have been working with their GT class on the Texas project. This is something the 4th graders do each year at our school. All 4th graders are assigned a city in Texas. They must do a diagram box with ten 3D objects in it that relate to the city. They also are required to write to the Chamber of Commerce in each city to glean more information and get pamphlets to add to the box.

On top of this Caitlin and Courtney were assigned the task to create Big Ben National Park in 3D. As a parent I was feeling pretty overwhelmed for the girls. Then to top it off they were then told by the GT teacher that the GT students would be mapping out the state of Texas and they needed to plot each city on the playground. So, for a few hours in the heat this past Monday, the twins were outside mapping out the state of Texas with stakes and twine. If you had a birds eye view, it actually looked like the shape of the state. Way to go girls! You did great!

Grandpa Carpenter's Birthday Party

On Tuesday we celebrated Grandpa Carpenter's birthday. We went over to their home for a pasta dinner and banana splits. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!

Cholsterial Kingdom?

So, last night during Family Home Evening we talked about the Plan of Salvation. Since our friend and home teacher, Kyle had just passed away we wanted to help the girls better understand where he had gone. We discussed the following:



We then asked the girls to name the 3 kingdoms after Judgement. Courtney says,"I think the highest Kingdom is called the Cholestrial or cholesterol?" It made me laugh! It was perfect timing as we dicussed our friend's death. I was sad and it just made me laugh.

Mother's Day

The girls made me breakfast for Mother's day. It was very sweet. After church they each gave me their special presents that they made at school, church and secretly in their rooms. Thank you Ron and girls for a fun day. I enjoyed going out to dinner on Saturday and getting the pedicure and manicure by Victoria and Brianne Sunday after church. I love the planter box, shovel and flowers too! Thank you for making me feel so special. Love, Mom

Hanging out with Dad

Tiffany and Ron having some cuddle time.

Bye Bye Truck

It was an emotional day. The girls cried. I still am not sure why. Ron looked like he was going to cry. I guess to him, it was like giving away son.

The man who purchased the truck was gifting it to his 18 year old son. The father said to us,"I probably shouldn't tell you this but my son wrecked his last truck. He likes to party too much. But, he needs a truck for work." I asked the son,"how did you wreck your truck?" He said, (Please use Bill & Ted's voice here) "Oh man, I slammed into a tree. My friends were distracting me." I looked at Ron and he looked at me. We were both thinking the same thing...do we really want to sell our "son" to this kid? What if he wrecks it?

The day after we sold it to them, we both felt uneasy. I told Ron, this must be what it's like to give away a child in marriage. You raise up a child, take such good care of them, and then when you give them away, all you can do is hope for the best their spouse will take care of them. Powerful lesson learned, just by selling the truck.

Kyle

A salute to our friend and Home Teacher, Kyle Cuthbertson.

It's interesting how life keeps going on around you, even when someone lays in a hospital bed dying. People have places to go and things to do. Babies are born, a new life beginning and people die. Sometimes too early, as Kyle was at age 30. The eternal door of life just keeps revolving.

As I stood near his wife, I watched her as she watched him preparing to pass into the next life, she had such a sweet peace to her countenance. Truly the Holy Spirit was with her being the Comforter. Having the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation at a sorrowful time brings such peace. I admired her strength.

Thanks Kyle for touching our family's life through humor and kindness. You will be missed.

Raiding the Refridgerator

This past week, I caught Tiffany raiding the fridge. I always wondered how she reached the items on the top shelves when I was in the shower....ah-ha! Now I know. I caught her red handed! Check out them cowgirl boots. Yeeha!

My Sweet Helper

Tiffany helped me bring in the groceries. Can you believe a two year old carried each of these bags in?! She kept saying,"I help mom!" It was so precious! However, from experience I know that in a few years this will all go away, so I will enjoy it now.

Tiffany counting

This morning Tiffany was in the kitchen counting. She had one end of a ribbon and Courtney had the other end. Tiffany was twirling it like a jump rope. She said, 1-10 (skipped seven of course because it's two syllables) and then continued counting "weven, welve, ferteen, ferteen, ferteen, ferteen, YEA!"

I made her a fishing game the other day. I just simply colored some fish, cut them out, placed a paper clip on them and lamenated them. Then I made a tiny fishing pole with a magnet on the end. Wow! Was Tiffany ever happy. She has carried these fish around for the past three days, lining them up in color patterns, and fishing. She is always asking family members in her high sweet voice and gently taking our hands, to "come sit down, come sit down, fish with me, come."

She is at such a sweet age. Her little face is beginning to fill out and she is actually as of this week, keeping a small pony tail in her hair. What a relief because for several months, she was lookin' like PWT with her bangs hanging in her face.



Here's a photo a snapped yesterday of the girls on the way to school. They all had just piled into the van. I didn't realize it until I down loaded the pics that Tiffany was pickin' a winner. How lovely. (Note: she has her fishing pole in her hand!)

Click on any picture in my blogs to view larger.

Pops-per-azi

Last night Brianne was following Courtney around the house. I could sense Courtney was becoming a weebit annoyed. All of a sudden Courtney blurts out,"Brianne would you please stop following me around like the pops-per-azi?" (I was in the background giggling)

Home

Grandma came home. Yea! Her memory has improved significantly. We are so pleased with her quick recovery this time.

Mom update

My Mom is still in the hospital. Hopefully she will be coming home today. The doctors feel that the reasons why she is having the seizures along with congestive heart failure is due to sleep apnea. She isn't getting enough oxygen to her brain while she sleeps. So, she will be going back to the sleep lab in a few days. She was there a few months ago, and her score was 44. Supposedly, if your score is higher than 30 that's not good. So, she will go back for more tests, then decide what to do for her. More later...

Hospital Again...

This weekend our Grandma Carpenter had another siezure. The ambulance came around 7 am Sunday and took her to the ER. I spent the morning with Dad. Mom seems to be doing better today, but again there was much memory loss. Hopefully, we can get her home soon and help her regain what she has lost. So, here is a message for you Mom. GET WELL SOON!

Drives like a dream

This weekend, we picked up the van. I love it! It drives so smooth and has a really fast pick up. It makes the Yukon feel like a heavy Army tank.

The kids love it too. They had fun reading the owners manual and rummaging through the van to figure out how it all worked. Then, I went to the garage and they gave me the tutorial! I love having older kids! They are so helpful!

I gave them a ride to school this morning. We were having a Texas size down pour (heavy, heavy, rain). I think the Yukon is insulated better than the van. When the rain was pouring down on the van it was very loud inside. I had to practically yell for the kids to hear me talk.

Other than that, it handled well in the rain. One cool thing I like is the side air bags. They are huge. They cover all three side windows (front seat, middle seat and back row).

The color blue is growing on me. It reminds me of a sunny blue sky.

Took the Plunge

Well, the Yukon was sucking gas so fast I couldn't keep up with it at the pump. I was getting terrible gas mileage at 12.9 mpg. At this time when gas is so expensive, I gave the Yukon to Ron. He only commutes to work each day and will hardly put any miles on it.

I'd now like to introduce our newest family member. The woman I bought it from nicknamed it "Bluebell". Being a Texas family, I think the name will have to stay with it. It is a 2006 Honda Odyssey mini van. It gets 20 mpg city and 28 mpg highway. I look forward to taking this on road trips. We will save a lot of money on gas. So what's next? We will be selling Ron's Mazda truck. Sniff. Sniff. It will be a hard day to say goodbye to the "tin can".