Someone Thinks Lizzy is 6-years-old?!

So, somehow, my baby girl was able to start first grade last week. 

She looks like a 6-year-old but I swear she is still my sweet baby!

She was overjoyed to start school again. I was able to quickly snap this picture before she ran into the school. Ben, Daddy and I followed. She ran to her teacher Mrs. Gordon and gave her a big hug.

Lizzy quickly found her desk and was excited to see some friends from her kindergarten class sitting close by.

Each day she had some new story to share about how fun her teacher is and her teacher's fun rules. Lizzy worked hard on her homework and did her very best in class each day. Her hard work paid off...

she was awarded the first "Student of the Week" on Friday of the first week. Her principal, Mr. Fletcher, had gathered the whole school outside for a special flag raising ceremony. He announced the Student of the Week for each class. Lizzy was so surprised to hear her name. Troy had dropped her off and had stuck around to see what was going on so he was able to hear the announcement too.

Lizzy was super happy!! A great ending to a great week!

We love you Lizzy Lou Who!!

Our Unexpected Visitor

Lizzy lost her first tooth so long ago that the adult tooth has already grown in. She has been checking her teeth every day for quite a while hoping to discover some new wiggling.

One day in the end of June, she found a wiggler and by the second week of July that baby tooth was 99.9% ready to come out. So Daddy got out his pliers and well, you can guess the rest...

Lizzy with all of her teeth.

She sees Daddy coming with the pliers.

She laughs hysterically while screaming all at the same time.

Daddy preforms the operation

After a little bit of screaming and a little bit of blood but no tears - Lizzy's tooth is out and ready to be placed under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy - our unexpected visitor.

Wowsers! A whole dollar for a little teeny tooth. She is one lucky girl!

Our Summer of Love (I just have fun playing with my last name!)

This was our first official "Summer Vacation". It was really only 6 weeks but it has been nice and now school is starting again on Monday, Aug. 8th. I have loved having my two kiddos together all summer. Both Ben and I will be sad to see Lizzy leave us on Monday morning for a whole day. Somehow we'll survive.

We packed our 6 weeks full of fun stuff. It is kind of my blistering-summer-heat -survival-technique - be way too busy to notice how hot it is. 

Here are a few pics from our adventures... 

Swimming lessons with Mary. Ben (who swims every day!) was reluctant to get in the pool and do what Mary asked. By the end, though, he was having fun. Lizzy learned some strokes and Mary worked on diving with her. Lizzy is a great swimmer and she picked up on the strokes very quickly. Thanks Mary!!

Lizzy had a couple of summer goals. One goal was to stay up all night long one night. Here she is at 7:30 pm in her jammies and ready to watch a movie. She was determined that she would not fall asleep.

Here she is about an hour and a half later...asleep. She never attempted to accomplish this goal again.

I am a schedule girl - kinda. I like to know what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. I like to prioritize my day. I like to make sure we get where we need to go when we need to go with time to spare. But sometimes I just go a little crazy. Like this day...

We were driving past one of the water parks on a very hot afternoon on our way home from something, I forget. I suddenly turned into the parking lot and told the kids to jump out. They didn't know what was going on but they obeyed without complaining. The next thing they knew, we were all (me included) running through the sprinkling animals, laughing and having a great time - not to mention cooling off. Lizzy LOVES when I do crazy spontaneous things. She wants them all the time - but then they wouldn't be crazy and spontaneous would they? :)

Ben, Lizzy and I joined some of Lizzy's school friends to see "Winnie the Pooh". It is such a delightful movie! we loved it and the kids had fun catching up and having fun together. Lucky for them, there was a firetruck parked outside of the movie theater when the movie was over. That just made their time more fun.

I called Sears one day to see if I could have a refrigerator box. The kids had fun with it for a few days. Ben slept in it one night. Cardboard boxes are great (and they are free!)

 I signed Lizzy up for some fun classes through the Yuma Parks and Recreation. Each class was just two days a week for two weeks and lasted only an hour and a half but it was a great diversion for her each day. I look forward to Ben being old enough to take these fun classes.

She and her two cousins, Jacob and Porter, took an art class, a kitchen science class and a rocket building class. The above picture is of Lizzy and Porter just after they launched their little baking soda, alka-seltzer, lemon juice rockets.

Here are Porter and Lizzy in class working on a project and below they are gathered by their fun teachers. The cute college kid in the middle - his name is Josh and Lizzy couldn't see straight when he was around. She thought he was fun and smart and soooo cute. (I think I'm getting used to Lizzy liking boys - what's a mom to do?)

Ben assisted Troy as he fixed the air conditioner. I am so glad to have a handy guy in the house and I hope Ben learns the same handymanness from his dad. I was super happy Troy knew how to fix the air conditioner. We may be able to endure 115* during the summer but it is because we have air conditioners!

We played with lots of friends

And our SUMMER SURPRISE...Lizzy loves basketball!! At the last minute I signed Lizzy up for a two week basketball camp with her cousins. She had such a great time. In the beginning she was just shooting granny shots but the amazing thing is that she would make almost every single shot that way. Her coaches were impressed but they weren't teaching her the right way to shoot. On the third day I actually asked if they would stop encouraging her to keep up the granny shots. They just kept saying, "but she makes them!" I know, I know but she needs to learn the proper way to shoot a ball. It was hard for her to make the switch but by the end she was doing well. They kept joking that she will be in the WNBA someday with her signature granny shots! :)

 They did about 10 minutes of good stretching exercises and 10 minutes of dribbling and running relay drills across the court. That was actually Lizzy's favorite part. Maybe she'll like track when she gets older.

By the end they were playing games and having lots of fun. Way to go Lizzy!

We were pretty packed this summer. I think we'll keep it a bit more calm next summer. I didn't get to do any of the projects I had planned because our days were full of so much fun stuff. Next summer I want to leave more time for doing NOTHING!!

So Glad I Bought Those Dance Costumes

We had to buy the costumes for Lizzy's dance recital and let me just say that they were not exactly cheap. But when I watched Lizzy and her friend Jane having a great time while wearing them, I decided they were worth the price.

Go Girls!

Troy's Harry Potter Father's Day

I have a hard time buying gifts for Troy. He is probably like most men, the presents he wants are all waaaaaayyyy out of our budget. It has become easier to think of presents if I choose a theme. The kids and I sat down to figure out a theme for Father's Day. Our plans evolved from sending Troy on a treasure hunt for his gifts, to doing a Pirate theme to a full fledged Harry Potter Father's Day complete with a Maurader's Map treasure hunt, pumpkin juice, a sorting hat, Quidditch robes, butter beer and two cute house elves giggling as they went in to wake-up Troy for the festivities.

Troy searched high and low for his gifts using a Maurader's map. He found some of his presents in the Herbology classroom gardens. Yes, Troy is wearing a Quidditch robe Lizzy proudly handed to him as she woke him up that morning. (We did let him sleep in until about 9 - just so you all know)

 This is such a terrible picture but it is the only one I have. :( My friend Becky Crookston has created a "Harry Potter Party In A Box" which she willingly let me borrow. You can barely see the decorations on the table. But you can see the easy schmeasy floating candles Becky made out of paper and fishing line. (they are still,  7-18-2011,  hanging above our table.)

One of the presents the kids and I bought for Troy was this book called "Geek Dad" (How appropriate for a Harry Potter Father's Day! Hee! Hee!) It is full of fun science projects dad's can do with their kids. They have already had a lot of fun with the activities suggested in this book.

The most fun of all this day was how excited the kids were. Troy wouldn't have minded a bit if his only present was sleeping in but Ben and Lizzy had a blast. We created fun memories and the two little hosue elves showed their Harry Potter loving dad how much they love him.

Super Summer Store

This is another brilliant idea from my seester Wendy...

As a way to help the Summer not be a total brain sucking mass of tv watching or computer game playing, I opened the Love's Super Summer Store the Monday after Lizzy's last day of school. Lizzy made our sign and the Open/Close sign.

You can click on the picture to see it up close.

 I created a list of jobs or activities they can do to earn "money" (monopoly money). I chose activities that would help them learn but not necessarily jobs like cleaning. I kind of think helping to keep the house clean is just part of living in a family so I decided to not put those activities on the list. As they do each job they put their money in their "bank" - a cute box I let them decorate before we started. We went to the $1 store where I gave each of them $10 to pick out 10 different items they would want to "purchase" during the summer.

I wrote a price on each item - nothing was under $5, most were $10 or $15. With the money they earn, they can also purchase time watching a movie, playing a game on Nickjr.com or pbskids.com, or buying a popsicle.

Each day, before the store can be opened or before they can even earn any money, their beds have to be made, room cleaned, scripture study must to be over, teeth brushed and dressed for the day. Once those things are taken care of, the store is officially open and the earning of money, and the spending of money, begins.

Here is a picture of Ben and Lizzy putting together a puzzle. Because they did it together they split the $10 they earned from doing the puzzle.

This has been a fun summer activity. Both Ben and Lizzy are in the habit now of checking their "bank accounts" to see if they can afford a certain activity. If they can't, they choose a way to earn some money. If they do have enough, they carefully choose how they spend their money. It is amazing to me how often they are willing to do the $20 earning opportunities. It has made getting them to do brain building type of activities so much easier on me. I'm sure a much more creative mom than I would have made everything all cutsie and crafty. Oh well, I did my best. :)

Yay for the Love's Super Summer Store!

The Show Must Go On

I am going to begin this post by addressing something that I keep forgetting to write about...we are not in violin lessons any longer. I know. I know. Lizzy was doing well but I wasn't. Practices two times a week, plus needing to practice every single day with frequent performances. It was too much for me and poor Ben was being sent to so many different houses because I couldn't take him to the practices and performances. There were some other issues too but let's just say that we decided to hold off for a couple of years.

Until then...

Lizzy loves to dance and, at least at this point in her life, it is much less of a commitment than violin. Her dance recital was the Saturday after her last day of school (June 11, 2011). She had been so excited for the performance. She loved her costumes. She loved that they were going to do both a tap dance and a ballet dance. BUT....she woke up on Saturday morning with a raging fever of 103!! How could I let her preform? She didn't have to be there until 5:45 pm so I thought we would see how she felt at that time.

I gave her some Tylenol and within an hour she was bouncing around like usual and continued to feel better throughout the day. But, of course, at about 4:30 her fever came back with a vengeance and I found her sound asleep on her bed 45 minutes before we were to go.
WHAT WAS I TO DO???

I pumped her with Ibuprofen this time and probably did the the bad mommy thing - I put my sleeping, sick ballerina in the car and headed off to the performance.

Look at her poor little sick face. One of the other mothers was nice enough to do her hair as I am tight braid challenged. She just sat and didn't say a word. She felt terrible. What kind of a mom does this to her child?!!!

Oh, but wait! The medicine is kicking in! There is a smile on my ballerina!

She began to feel much better and was so glad I took her despite her sad little face.

Here the girls are waiting to go on stage. I just love this picture (wish it weren't so dark)

The ballet performance was adorable and there is my smiling girl! She came off stage and said, "I'm so glad you brought me! That was fun!" Yes!!! (The little girl in front of her was so cute, she kept saying, "My mom is so proud of me!" We were all laughing.)

Lizzy loves her dancing friends. This is her sweet friend Katherine.

Costume change and now they are ready for their tap dance.

Troy was out front with the video camera so the only still pictures I have are of behind the scenes. Here is Lizzy preforming her dance on stage.

Now everyone is lined up for final curtain call. Can you imagine the volume in this room with that many little girls all hyped up. (Lizzy showed no signs of sickness whatsoever!)

Troy surprised Lizzy by sending a rose backstage for his little dancer. She was sooo excited!! Lizzy and her friend Savannah with the roses after the performance.

My sister Wendy and her two boys Jacob and Porter were so nice to come to her performance. Lizzy was super excited to see them too. She also loved hearing them scream "We love you Lizzy!" after each of her dances.

 I guess Heavenly Father wanted to see Lizzy dance that night as well because He answered this mother's prayers. She felt fine until our ride home and then her fever returned and she was sick the whole next day. This time, I LET her be sick. :) Where is that Mother of the Year award I earned? NOT!

These group photos were taken the week before. I snuck my camera in and snapped a picture before the photographer did. Don't you just love those pink ballet costumes?!

 Look at that happy, beautiful, sweet face! I love that Lizzy Love!