Flights Of Fancy

Cooper and I went on the 5th grade Flight Simulator field trip this year. This was my first time going......thanks Rob for volunteering me and telling me 2 days before hand!! They had been working for about a month on a unit in flight so the reward at the end is the field trip to the simulators. Here is Cooper on the bus on our way......Here are the "practice" simulators for the airplanes so that you can practice all the stuff in the books that you have been learning before you get in the real simulators.Here is Cooper and his partner quizzing each other and practicing....
Time for the rotations.....There are five rotations: The Flight Experiments, The Airplane Simulator, The Computer Simulator, The Helicopter Simulator and Lunch. We started out at Wrights Runway AKA the experiments where you try out experiments of different types of flight with making different kinds of paper airplanes & hovering crafts and you fill out your notebook with your hypothesis and conclusions of each experiment. The kids really did enjoy this.The computer simulators. Each student was given their flight plan they had to follow and fly the plane and land where the flight plan told them to by the coordinates without crashing.All the kids liked this but it was hard!! Then it was off to the playground for lunch
Our fourth rotation was the Airplane Simulator! Everyone had a turn on this and some found it easier than others but all enjoyed it.
Cooper's favorite was the Helicopter rotation.They have a Boeing volunteer who was very patient with the children in his explaining and teaching.....thank goodness cuz the lady that runs the rest of it was a bit snippy...
Cooper found this to be fun and interesting.
I was glad I could go with Cooper on this field trip it was a nice time with Coop and the other children who were well behaved and fun to be with.

It was a "BERRY" special day..........

For Kennedy's 4th birthday she chose a Strawberry Shortcake theme party. She loves strawberries and loves playing with dolls so of course strawberry shortcake was a no brainer to her. We went and dropped off the invitations by hand which she found to be so fun. Going to the doors and talking to her lil girlfriends, she loved it!Well the day finally came for Kenna's birthday party and she was sooo excited for her friends to come over! We started out with a craft which was painting those lil plastic window clings. The girls had fun doing that. Then we put them up to dry and went to do our relay race.We divided up into a girl team and boy team.....the boy team was just Walker, Carter and Ryan E. The girl team was Kenna, Addy, Shayli, Mercy, Zariah & Issabella. They had to put a lil pom pom on the spoon and run and drop it in their bucket. The boys were outnumbered 2 to 1 and they let us know it! They all had fun running back and forth to the buckets with the pom poms. In the end the boys won even tho the girls cheated.....alot.....not that they did it on purpose it was just cuz they are only 3 and 4 years old.Then we had a story time to wind down while the pizza and drinks were being set up at the table for lunch. We read a story called "Apple Trouble" about a lil hedgehog and the troubles he runs into all day long getting stuff stuck on the quills on his back. They were all listening so intently to the story it was quite cute.After we ate we did present time. She was so excited to see what each of her friends had gotten her. It was fun because everyone got her a Barbie or a polly pockets kind of dolly. She even said "I am soo excited!".Then it was cake time. I didn't get a picture somehow. I had made chocolate cupcakes with a strawberry cream filling topped with chocolate buttercream frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling topped off with chocolate buttercream frosting. They liked the chocolate with out the strawberries in it which meant more for the adults...sweet!! I also had made chocolate covered strawberries one of Kenna's faves.Then it was time to run off the sugar so we played....Strawberry Strawberry Shortcake AKA Duck Duck Goose. It was fun...but our first girls party so I hadn't been prepared for all the hurt feelings and tears even of NOT getting chosen every time.....hmmmmm........we will have to keep that in mind at future parties.So once 1/2 the girls had each taken a turn of hurt feelings & tears we moved outside for the last 15 minutes to play bubbles and wait for the parents to arrive. They of course loved the bubble time.All in all it was a fun party and Kenna was happy that so many of her lil girlfriends came.

Pampering the Birthday Girl..........

Well my sweet lil baby girl turned 4 today.....waaaa...yes I am crying and sad!! She is growing up sooo fast.
So I was talking to Rob and wondering what to do that morning cuz her party wasn't until the weekend and he said why don't you two go get pedicures and lunch and have some fun.....aah such a great idea sweetheart!!! So we did just that! She was so pleased with all the polishes to choose from that it kind of overwhelmed her a bit. She decided on blue her favorite color but had to still decide on which shade of blue was "perfect"....her own words were "oh this one is perfect it matches my earrings"!!
She loved sitting in my lap and having the lady oooo and ahhh over her. I took our picture but with my super short arms its not that good but whatever!

She was sooo good that I decided to let her get her fingers polished to matched.....she was just so excited about this. The lady asked if she wanted polka dots and we said sure. After she was done Kenna was just admiring them and couldn't wait till they were dry so she could touch them. After mine were done we went to Panda Express for Orange Chicken her favorite and then it was time to pick up the teenagers from school.I had been waiting to take her for sooooooo long and we had a nice time. Thanks birthday girl!!

"Christ the Lord is risen today"

So we had a nice Easter this year. The kids didn't get up crazy early...yea!! They enjoyed their baskets...yea!!! I asked Rob to take pictures while I was working on the meal since everyone was headed to our house for dinner that evening. The kids didn't enjoy this...boo!! So the pictures were a pain and took awhile. Tanner heading to the tot-lot where they had an egg hunt after they were done hunting in the backyard. Cooper had the camera and caught this photo.
Here is Cooper's self portrait he took while he was suppose to have been snapping pictures of the egg hunt since I was cleaning the kitchen mess up. Ummmm.....not a lot of the egg hunt just of Cooper, his bike, a lizard, the ground, blurry objects......you get the idea.Walker and Carter were happy to pose for me.Kennedy always has a pose ready for the camera!!We had a wonderful Ham dinner with ALL the trimmings. Lots of desserts too. One of the desserts my Mom had brought sugar cookies, sprinkles and frosting from the bakery at Walmart so the kids could decorate cookies. Sadly we forgot to pull these out until after Amy and her family had left so not all of the kids got to enjoy it. I love this picture cuz if you look carefully you can see that while both 16 year olds were participating in cookie decorating they were also texting on their phones....talented I tell ya!!!I had wanted to get a picture of Tanner and Haylee but Miss Lynzee was being ornery and kept putting her hand in the way so this is the best one. Well Lynzee also got frosting on her Aunt Jessie......yes on purpose..... and when she wasn't paying attention Jessie got her back and a frosting war ensued!!! Silly girls!!It was nice to have family around to celebrate our Savior.

Have You Ever????

So one afternoon I was in the office downstairs and I heard some children talking. As I listened I realized Kennedy was having a one way conversation.....then I realized no wait someone is talking back to her and it wasn't Walker....
So I go upstairs quietly with my camera cause I thought she was playing lil ponies and maybe had mastered some really great fake voice for them......but I found she had opened her window and was talking to the two little girls next door!! While it was a cute conversation on playing in backyards and what are you eating for lunch and my sister can't talk anymore she has to get in the shower, Rob drilled a screw in the windowsill when he got home for fear of her falling out the window. Kennedy cried. Oh well it was fun while it lasted. If you look carefully you can see the neighbor girl pressed in her screen. hahahahahaha What is funnier/kinda sad a few days later I was in the office and my window was open and I heard the little girl calling "Hey lil girl are you there lil girl,lil girl". So she enjoyed it as much as Kenna did.

Honor Roll Awards and The Music Man....

So as usual Cooper received Honor Roll again. Here he is sitting with his classmates waiting to be called up to the front to receive his award.Here he is shaking hands with the Principal Mr. Heath and you can kinda see his fabulous teacher Mrs. Knight at the podium.
Here is everyone in the class that received awards that day. He also had his first orchestra recital. The participation in it was voluntary as they had done their concert the week before.My camera was acting up so I didn't get great pictures at all. Him and his friend choose to do a duet with their trumpets. Here he is sitting waiting his turn.Here he is waiting for his friend to get up and to start. Then my camera didn't flash quick enough and the song was over and he was sitting down. He did a great job. The teacher said she is pleased with his trumpet skills and if he practiced more often he would be a great trumpet player. We are so proud of him for doing this duet it is completely out of his normal comfort zone! Way to go Cooper!!!

1000 years of Scouting.....Blue and Gold Banquet

So every February Cub Scouts hold their annual Blue and Gold Banquet to celebrate the Scouting program and honor the boys and their leaders.
This year the Boy Scouts of America celebrated it's 100th birthday while the Cub Scout program celebrates it's 80th birthday. Here are Carters very dedicated leaders: Brother Marken and Brother Evangelesta. They are always dependable on having a fun activity and also teaching the boys a thing or two. They are displaying the posters from when they taught the boys about astronomy. Rob and I appreciate all the patience they have for Carter.Time to eat! The thought behind the food this year was "Food Boys Like". So they had hot dogs & Nachos. It was great. A lot of Cub Packs do an annual Father and Son cake contest and then the cakes are the dessert. So Carter picked out the cake flavor he wanted which was white and then they swirled in blue and yellow into the batter to make it a marble cake with the Cub Scout colors..Blue and Gold. Then I made them some frosting and colored it for them and they frosted it.
Carter decided on what he wanted it to look like which was simply Happy Birthday with polka dots.
These are a few of the other cakes.
Then Carters Den did a skit...didn't quite hear and understand it but they had fun. Then it was award time!! YEA!! Go Carter!!
The O.A.(Order of the Arrow) came out and did a super job of awarding one boy his Arrow of Light award.
Here is how Tanner enjoyed most of the night....ummmmmm....ya still not really enthusiastic about scouting!