A Birthday Celebration

The girls were so excited for their birthday celebration! We were prepared for what was planned ... 24 kids and lots of fun!

Not complete without a special cake made by me just for them!

"Franken Woman"

Our outfits for the party

What a glorious thing to celebrate! My 2 daughters birthdays ..... We celebrated a few weeks early as they wanted a Halloween party.

So, why not!

After all they are worth every minute of celebration.

Happy Birthday Kayla! You are just about 8 and what a joy to be such a big girl. I love you very much! You are a great big sissy and daughter for me! You are blossoming into a beautiful young lady.

Happy Birthday Shae! Wow! You are just about 6 and how fun you are! You live each day for the day and explore your world as if it is your last time with it. You are amazing! I love you very much!

The "party gang"

Creating a pumpkin face was a fun challenge! Here is the end result.

Both girls loved all their gifts! The received gift cards, HSM apparel, LPS, hand made necklaces, crafts, drawing paper, a baby carrier, money, games, books, and more. Thank you to everyone as all the gifts were so kind!

Happy Birthday Kayla and Shae!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this birthday special.

You know who you are and thanks to the moms who graciously helped me with the festivities! And most of all ..... Thanks to the kiddos who came and made my girls birthday WONDERFUL!

P.S. Papa Dude ... the girls are great and no need for anything else. Thanks for thinking of them. :)

Fall is here!

Fall brings cooler weather to our area with lots of visitors and beautiful fall leaves changing in every color. The sight we have around town is amazing at this time of year. It makes you love where you live! With fall also brings prescribed burns. Below is a picture of the BIG fire in 2002 just south of down town Prescott. Luckily it was contained before it hit any subdivisions.


The burns are now called "prescribed burns" due to the "control burns" getting out of control.


Yesterday Prescott had a fire 8 miles south of downtown. It is unknown of how it started and under investigation. This is our view of it from the north side of Prescott and our backyard. It is breath taking to see such smoke! It eases the concern while knowing we have excellent forest fire and hot shot crews as well as the fire tanker ariplane right here in Prescott

Fire Air Tanker flying right by our house to put out fire.

Neat things to do and I found some saving ideas

For some reason this month is a super busy one! Among all the October festivities we managed to make it to the "Junga" show at the college with the homeschool group. That was pretty cool!

Junga ~ Chinese Acrobats

SAVINGS!!!

Okay, on another note. I was at the store "JcPenny" and like all other stores they have practically everything on sale. Especially the summer stuff. I picked up a few cute t-shirts for only $3 ... yes you heard it right $3. But the only problem was ............. I don't need any short sleeves right now. So, I wanted to do the layer effect and wear a t-shirt under them but the necks were scoop necks and it looked very strange. So, I went to JoAnns and bought knit fabric for $2 a yard (which was enough for 2 shirts) and I made a pattern from another long sleeve and made my own long sleeves and attached them. They came out so cute! Here are the before and after pictures.

Have you ever thought of the expense of laundry detergent? If you have ever watched the TV show "the duggar family" it is a family with 18 children and are amazing with their saving ways. This week they showed them making homemade laundry detergent and I looked it up and found out that the "Queen of Clean" has a similar recipe and that it's a "green" product (so safe and good for the earth and cheap). Anyway, I am going to try to make it myself in the next couple of weeks and it will last me over 1 year and save me over $100 per year. YIPPEE! I'll keep you posted on that.

Another saving tip............... we have a gas water heater in the garage. And I noticed that the flame is on a lot to heat all that water. So, we now have the flame turned way down to "warm" always. If we need hot water we go out and turn it on "high" and in 10 minutes there is enough hot water to run the dishwasher or take a shower. Then of course we turn it off again. That has saved a lot on our gas bill. We have been doing this for almost a year now and have seen the savings. Love it! Why have a flame burning for no reason?

So the fun has started with Girl Scouts too! The girls got thier GS uniforms. They love them! Shae's picture didn't come out to well.


AWANA's had crazy hair day and we all went out for that one. Lots of silly pony tails and bows.

And we finally completed our "People of the Past" lap book. This is way more fun than reading a paragraph in out of a book. We studied Betsy Ross, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington and Ben Franklin and learned about the Liberty Bell, and the Declaration of Independence. I am learning all over again! It is amazing to see the girls like to hear about these people when put in a interesting format. They truely love to learn. And just about anything. I have learned about the importance of teaching and the children learning during our homeschooling experience. They are so smart, so fun, and make my teaching enjoyable. Most importantly I have learned what is important to stress at certain ages. And what can be stressed more at a later age. Kayla is learning cursive and loves it and has memorized half of the multiplication table and of course reads at a fourth grade level. Shae is continuing to read well and loves math. She is very interested in Science and bugs too.

Today we had a field trip to the downtown Prescott Police Station. It was long and the Police car was neat but worth the picture with Sgt Scott.:)

A Frightfull night at the Miller's!!!

Our friends the Miller's had a wonderful "Fall Party" the other night. They had a great turn out with lots of children and adults dressed in costume. It was a chili cookoff and we had the chance to try lots of different chili recipes. And by the way Jennifer ..... Tom liked yours the best and wants you to send me the recipe. Please and thanks! And for those wondering why we aren't smiling in most of the pics ............. it is because we were trying to play our part and be dead. ha,ha,ha!

Our costumes for this year. Tom and I were the corpse bride and groom couple. Kayla a striking Vampire girl and Shae a beautiful Renaissance princess.

Shae making daddy into a mummy. SMILE TOM!
Kayla and I
Josette and I

Bobbing for apples

The bride and groom ~

Lots of the kids were scared of me so I think I will go to custome "B" for the girls Halloween birthday party. (A more fun one... so stay tuned)
The kiddos waiting for the haunted house. Kayla decided not to go in after all. And Shae tell me that it is too scary but wants to still go in with me holding her. So, I held her thru the haunted house and the minute we stepped foot into it she started crying and she buried her head into my shoulders telling me how she hates this place. tee,hee,hee! But she had to go in and see for her self. I think she was testing her "fear" level. :)

Tis the season "SOCCER!"

Shae is LOVING soccer! She lives and breathes it!

Although we still have 5 games left . She already can't wait till next season. She asked if she will get a purple uniform again.

She runs hard and plays hard.

She has GREAT ball control!!!!

She is determined!

Another great game! Great job!

" Team Butterflies"

FALL BREAK

What a great break we had! We spent time with many of our friends.

Kayla, Shae and Ella made a haunted house out of bottle caps.
Oh what fun this park is in Anthem! I figure the kids will be out growing the park scene soon ......... so take them and let them be kids before they grow up too fast!
Kayla, Ryan,Darin, Shae and Gavin

Darin was such a sweet heart. He was so funny! I think he and Shae are secret sweet hearts. When they saw each other they ran up to eachother and hugged and they stuck together like glue the entire day. At the end of the day Darin went up to Shae and kept telling her "hey Shae, lets have our parents take one more picture of us together before you leave". Just so cute!

Darin and Shae

Bethany and I with our wonderful kids!

We went to "Freeman Farms" and had a great time at their pumpkin patch.

The entire "gang" at the patch

These geese were so darn cute! When they saw us coming they got out of the water and stood near by while we loaded on the hay ride. When the tractor drove away these cute darlings were following us as fast as they could. They soon gave up and turned around. :)


Pumpkin picking and corn maze
The girls LOVED the corn maze. I didn't think they would care for it but they sure did. We are taking a couple more days off then we will start back to our school work again.
I just love the flexibility of homeschooling as Shae is 1 month ahead with her virtual school so we can be pretty flexible with taking days off whenever we want to. And Kayla is a awesome student and when she wants to do something fun she doubles up with her work so she is free.

Spend a little, Save what you can and Enjoy Life!

A last minute decision to go to PV to Rock~N~Bowl with our friends and the kids turned out to be so much fun. Even though times are tough right now with the economy it is important to go and do the things that bring fun into your life. The music was playing and the lights were dim. We paired off and Tom and Keith barely beat Ash and I. Of course next time I will wear my glasses. ha,ha,ha! All in all it was a great time out and the kids did AWESOME!

"the gang"

yeah, yeah, the "boys" showing their winning match.

We still won .... with happiness and fun!

BFF

BFF or "Best Friends Forever"

Kayla met Maddee in preschool in Mesa and were friends at first sight. They developed a special bond. One that not even I had until high school. Kayla moved up north and she misses Maddee dearly. I think they both miss eachother very much. They write eachother and talk on the phone when they have the chance. Maddee's mom and I have kept in contact and we want to keep the girls in contact as well. Above is a picture from last fall when they were up here to visit. What a blast we had that day!

I won't forget when we stopped at a local Walgreens and Janda was in there forever "according to her" ... to get batteries. When she came out she had the funniest "city girl" story about how slow the guy in front of her was counting his pennies and how in the city they would have opened up another cash register. Welcome to the "slower times."

Kayla talking today on the phone with Maddee

LOVE AND MISS YOU GUYS VERY MUCH!!!

"this is a sad day today"

Shae came inside from playing outside this am with a sad look on her face.

Shae - looking at me saying ... "this is a sad day today"
mom - "why is that?"
Shae - "there is a cricket outside stuck in a spider web and he is stuck on his back in the web"
mom - "oh, that is sad"
Shae - "the spider is eating his tummy right now and I don't like that spider"
mom - " it is??? show me ...."

We go outside and on the wall there was indeed a cricket on his back and the spider was on him webbing him up. But not exactly eating him ... yet.

mom - "get a rock and lets save him"
Shae - "okay" and she hurried to get the right rock to save him and her face went from sad to on a mission

I poke the web and the spider ran off to hide and then I "saved" the cricket.

Whew!! By the nick of time. His feet were tied by the web but he was still alive. We set him free and took the web off his legs so he could go back to his family.

Shae was so happy! And what a neat moment. Although I took away the spiders food ................. at that time it was more important to Shae to save the cricket. She has a special love for insects.

A cozy night

So, a "cold front" blew in the other night. It was a nice change in weather. I took a shot of the moon.

So, we made homemade pizza and the kids got out their warm fuzzy jammies. It was a nice evening all bundled up and having a yummy dinner.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Shae sneaking some cantalope so I just had to get a picture of her the next time.

Then she wanted to take pictures with the camera so of course she got my back side taking the pizza out of the oven. Nice shot you silly goose!

What a fantastic meal it was! Those are the fresh tomatoes that we grew (yellow pear and red cherry tomatoes) ~ bon appetite!

I managed to get a pic of dad playing with the girls after we all ate.