Meredith's Field Trip

This year Meredith got to go to the botanical garden. This was so much better than the 2nd grade field trip that Anna got to go on. We went a little early in the season though, so not too much was flowering, but at least it wasn’t hot!

Her teacher let the kids pick their own buddy for the field trip, and I joke that Meredith chose her soul sister. These two were hard to keep up with! They literally ran everywhere, screamed when they saw anyone they knew (which was often) before running up to hug them, and didn’t take much time to look at anything or learn much, but boy did they have fun!

Maybe we’ll go back when there are some flowers. lol

FFA Chicks

Our new baby chicks for FFA have arrived!!

Oh my gosh! They are so cute for about 7 days!

Our main goal, in addition to growing big balanced chicks that win, is to just not stress out. Well…at least that’s my main goal. lol. So far, the kids are having fun and still enjoying it.

Halloween 2021

For Halloween this year Meredith asked to be She-Ra, and I made a rookie mistake and didn’t buy the costume early… Then when I went to go get it, they were all sold out!!!! So, I found some ideas on Pinterest, and decided I could probably make it.

Well, with some help, I did!!!

Honestly, this headpiece made the costume, and I can’t thank Jen enough for not only 3D printing it for me, but also driving it all the way here and painting it!

I forgot to put her bracers on her for this photo shoot… ugh. There were so many pieces to this costume!

Meredith wasn’t having any of the old-fashioned She-Ra from my childhood, she was all about the newly released Netflix She-Ra.

We spent a good hour in the fabric store picking out just the right stretchy gold fabric and just the right cape material. And even though it isn’t perfect, I was really pretty happy it wasn’t a complete torn to shreds mess once I got it sewn together. I honestly sat and procrastinated/fretted for a few weeks just not sure if I should glue it or sew it…really unsure of how best to get the gold fabric to adhere to the leotard. A straight stitch worked just fine!

And for Halloween, Wallace was the Grim Reaper, and Anna made a couple of costumes. Here she was a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, but on Halloween night she actually was a musician, and carried around her ukulele playing for extra candy, and made out with TONS of candy!!!

I fell a little behind...

A bit behind might be an understatement. lol. This is me making a sheepish face. Oh well. I haven’t even been taking that many pictures with the fancy camera. I’ve just been super lazy. At one point I went to take pictures with it, and I swear I’d almost forgotten how to work the functions on it. All of my photos were coming out dark and fuzzy, and I couldn’t figure out why. It was super frustrating. I was basically just out of practice.

So, life has been busy and the kids have been growing!

Not too long after the 4th of July, Wallace and I were at home one Saturday, and he started telling me his stomach hurt. His symptoms sounded oddly familiar to mine when I had appendicitis, but I didn’t want to project that onto him, so I suggested we both just take a shower and get cleaned up just in case, and I’d check his temperature and symptoms again in an hour. His temp rose a little and the pain on that side was still there… I called his pediatrician to talk it over with her, and we decided together that it would probably be best to get him checked out at the hospital. Turns out it was appendicitis!

It took several hours to get diagnosed because they tend to put kids through a battery of other tests before radiating them… But, they finally did, and we actually went into surgery late that night. He was so annoyed that the IV was right in his elbow and it just made everything difficult.

But he got TONS of iPad time. And we both just slept on and off the whole next day until they finally released him to go home.

And just a couple of weeks later, we were at the beach!!

And then…it was the first day of school. I actually have a middle schooler now!!!

It looks like I have some more photos sitting in my camera needing to be processed… (sheepish face)… So…maybe a Halloween update will be coming shortly. lol.

4th of July

It was so exciting to get to celebrate another 4th with so many close friends here at the house! The kids have been looking forward to this weekend for a long time now, and the countdown this week was pretty much excruciating for them. Knowing they were going to get to have friends sleeping over and fireworks! It was almost too much! I’m so glad the rain pretty much held off and didn’t ruin everything. And, it wasn’t painfully hot either. It was just all around a great weekend with family and friends.

The whole weekend appears to revolve around food!!!! So much food. lol.

And pool time, of course!

An epic water balloon fight.

Rachael had a great idea for us all to get together for a picture this time!

Everyone chipped in on fireworks for the kids (and some big ones for the adults), which, I’m pretty sure they were all pretty darned stoked about!

The surprisingly awesome tank!

And from here on down I just have a lot of pictures of kids with sparklers! :) I honestly love kids with sparkler photos! Even when they appear to be a little afraid of them.

Lol. The guys started setting off a large battery behind her.