Daddy Day

We had a nice Father's Day yesterday. Allen got to sleep in and then got breakfast in bed:

He received a big pile of homemade cards and gifts from the kids. I got him a reversible basketball jersey for when he plays ball at the church. Sounds random but he has been looking for one for the longest time. He also got 2 new pair of shoes for an upcoming backpacking trip he is taking and other misc. camping/backpacking gear.

He took the big kids to Stake Conference and I took a few pictures when he got home.

For dinner we made Chicken cordon bleu (of course) and I made this delicious and amazing peanut butter cup cake:

(cake recipe: here - this cake has been on my "to try" list for almost a year and it is a DEFINITE make again)

I am so grateful that the wonderful man I married turned out to be an amazing father as well! We are so lucky to have him as the head of our family. He is an upstanding holder of the priesthood, a hard worker, an amazing provider and SO MUCH fun to be with. It makes me so happy that when the front door opens every evening the kids still scream in excitement that their dad is home.

Of course I am also so grateful for my own dad. I watched how my dad treated my mom and was by her side supporting her with everything my entire life. My mom told me to find a man to marry like my dad and in the most important ways, I did. My dad is patient, optimistic, hard working, faithful, supportive and the general go-to guy in our family. You'll never find a man willing to do and give so much to those he loves.

Happy Father's Day!

Featured!

Today Makenna's Pinkalicious party is being featured as part of Tip Junkie's birthday party idea round up! She has gathered tons of birthday party ideas and is featuring them this week on her blog! Check it out!

Master Bedroom Wall Decor, Part 1

We're finally completely unpacked and are now to the hanging-things-on-walls phase of moving in. It is by far Allen's least favorite part of moving but he tries to be a good sport about it. I've been working this week on the master bedroom. The layout of this room is VERY different than our last room so I'm only about half way done. We have a nice fireplace in our bedroom that I'm trying to figure out how to decorate around.

I don't think there are very many rules in decorating any more (yay!) but I do think one of the most important aspects of a well decorated space is to have wall decor scaled to the space you are decorating. Big walls need BIG pieces or a variety of small pieces clustered together to give the effect of a larger piece. It gets tricky because bigger pieces tend to be more expensive and most of us decorate on a budget! But you can decorate to scale inexpensively.

I hung these plates over the bed and paid a$3-4 per plate, except for the rectangular plate which was about $10. Big space but grouping a bunch of things together to fill up the space.

Wider view of the space:Up close:This is the HUGE, vaulted wall by the dresser. I left the surrounding space to give you an idea of how massive this space is. Close up:For this wall I gathered up some antique windows and painted them the same color. I got the scrolly F vinyl off of etsy and applied it straight to the window glass. These windows were quite cheap. My mom gave me the windows on either side but she said she paid $18 each for them. The scrolly F window was $20 and the 6 paned window was snagged from our house in CT. The vinyl was $30 so all total I paid $50 for this grouping. Definitely a cheap, fun way to fill up a gigantic space. I even had a couple of extra windows that I did not include in the grouping. The frames on my dresser are my kids' newborn pictures that I've had up since Carter was born. I plan to always have them somewhere in my bedroom.

Of course, if we owned this house this room would have a totally different look. The walls would be painted (an awesome color from Martha Stewart's delicious new line of paint at Home Depot) and all the frames would be painted black or white. When trying to decide what to do for this wall I tried to do something that I could repaint or repurpose in the future in a different home.

So there's the first peek of our MBR. I have a couple more projects in the works (including my first reupholstering attempt) but I am loving how it is coming together!

(Here's the first post I did about the bedroom redo and the before look of our newly painted furniture: From Drab to Fab(ish)

Summer Break, Week 1

Last Tuesday was our first official day of summer break. And let me tell you, after Tuesday I feared for my summer sanity. Luckily, we have gotten into a great routine since then and so far things are pretty smooth sailing.

Tuesday the kids got up and completed their daily checklist. I've found that my kids do REALLY well with structure and clear expectations. I decided to keep things very simple and created summer clipboards for them. The expectations for the day are laid out for them and there has been minimal whining and complaining about chores and school work. I am being really flexible with things so we honestly don't get to everything on the list every day and I'm totally fine with that.

A closeup (the extra chores change every day and I write them in each morning - this week they cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, dusted, washed windows in the car, pulled weeds, etc.)

The play list is what they can expect when we don't have other plans for the day. Tuesday is the reading program at the library so we factored that in and Wednesday's are free movie day at the local theater. I don't expect we'll do them every week but they're on the schedule if we have nothing else going on.

After their checklists were done, we went to the store to restock our craft supplies, made a craft, had a picnic at the park, rode bikes/scooters, made cookies, watched a movie and had Popsicles. Even with all that the kids still said they were bored which made me really nervous for the rest of the summer.

Wednesday was the first day of swim team for Carter and Makenna. They both really enjoyed it and it will be my sanity saver this summer. Swim team is every weekday morning from 9-10 a.m., with meets on Saturdays. It is a time commitment but I love having somewhere to be every morning and love that the kids are getting exercise and having fun at the same time.

After swim team we met up with some friends to spend some time at the local children's museum. I love having passes to the museum and the zoo because I can go for a couple of hours and not feel like I have to stay forever to get my money's worth.

After swim team on Thursday, I took the kids to see

it's a weird story made even weirder in the Tim Burton adaptation but my kids liked it a lot and thought having a lunch of popcorn, soda and candy was the best. They rounded out the day with a couple hours playing in the sprinklers.

Friday afternoon we checked into a local Radisson hotel that just opened a big indoor water park. The kids were SO excited and it definitely didn't disappoint. We were able to check in and start playing at 2 p.m. and Allen joined us around 4:00. The park includes two big water slides, a lazy river, a huge kids play area, a water basketball court, a water obstacle course, a huge indoor/outdoor hot tub and an indoor Flowrider ride (a wakeboarding/surfing practice course). It was awesome and we had so much fun.

Allen & Carter on the Flowrider:

Carter was actually pretty good by the time we left and he loved it. Al was a total daredevil doing flips and tricks on his board.

Obstacle Course:

Hot tub (where Addie would have stayed the entire time if we had let her):

We randomly ended up running into some friends in our ward who were there the same night so our girls got to play together. (And seriously, 1 week into summer would you look at that tan line on her shoulder?! She's well on her way to being my little indian girl already!)

After for playing for several hours we went out to dinner and then came back to the hotel for a quick dip in the hot tub before hitting the sack.

The next morning we went out to breakfast and then were back at the waterpark by 9:00 a.m. We played all morning until the park closed at 1:00 p.m. I tried to get a picture of all three kids right as we were leaving and this is what I ended up with. We were clearly ready to head home and get everyone down for naps!

We had a great time and can't wait to go back sometime this year.

It was a GREAT first week of summer and I'm really looking forward to the rest of summer. My kids are at such fun ages right now and are pretty self sufficient and fun to be with!

End of year madness!

We're a week into summer and settling in nicely. Before any more time gets away I thought I'd document those last couple of crazy weeks before school gets out. A few highlights:

Field Day

Carter had a fun time on field day. It was REALLY windy but they still had a ton of fun playing games at different stations. His favorite was drip-drip-drop which is similar to duck-duck-goose except they drip water on the heads of the players and dump (drop) the water bucket on the "goose" person. In true Carter fashion, he was extremely competitive and I had to remind him a few times to chill out.

End of Year Report


The last project of the year required Carter to research and report on the animal of his choice. He chose the very creepy, but very interesting vampire bat. Carter's teacher was HUGE on making sure the students completed their own work and actually subtracted points if she felt the parents helped too much. Carter did all of the typing, painting, cutting and gluing of his poster. I helped him spray paint the background and what to say on the poster and in his oral report. I was able to watch him give his report and he did a great job. The poster is now residing in his room until further notice.

Village Pizza Field Trip





Makenna's class had a fun field trip to a local pizza joint. They each made a personal pizza and got to load them up with yummy toppings. After making pizza they were given a little tour of the restaurant while their pizza's cooked and they we got to eat the delish pizza. It was a great end of year activity because the parents got to visit while the kids ate and played!


Preschool Graduation

With her teachers Miss Janna & Miss Donna:With her friend Sarah (who is also our neighbor in our new house!):
Kenna "graduated" from Preschool on the 26th. The school had the cutest graduation ceremony with the kids dressed in caps and gowns. Adorable! The kids performed several songs including some in Spanish and some in sign language. They sang and signed "You Raise Me Up" and I bawled the whole way through it. I can scarcely believe my little girl is going to Kindergarten next year. Sob!!! We have LOVED the preschool this year and could not have asked for a better experience. Makenna adored her teachers and her sweet little group of friends.

Last day of School

Carter's last day of school was May 28th. The 1st grate teachers threw an end-of-year party complete with a bounce house, snow cones and a tattoo station. Unfortunately no parents were invited so no pictures (boo!) but I was able to get a picture of his class and with his teacher. I cannot say enough good about his wonderful teacher this year. We became good friends through all of my volunteering and working with each other to keep Carter challenged this year.

The kids had a few other things going on including tons of playdates and activities so it has been busy but wonderful. I'm excited for the fun and relaxation of summer this year. We have NO vacations scheduled until the end of the summer so it will be good times together for the next couple months.

Carter and School

Whew! Did you guys survive that crazy last week of school? I have about a million pictures from all the activities these last couple of weeks and I'm trying to decide how (and when) to blog it all. But I really wanted to recap our educational journey with Carter and the twists and turns it has taken these last couple of weeks.

At the beginning of the school year we requested to have Carter tested for the gifted program. NM is one of the few states in the nation that offers gifted services to kids under third grade. We began the process in October and it took us months to get the school and his teacher on board with us. Imagine many phone calls, emails and conferences with the powers that be to get him tested. In the meantime we worked closely with his teacher to keep him challenged in school. At the beginning of the year Carter was tested for reading group placement and his placement came back as first semester 2nd grade. We immediately knew the testing was way off since he tested at 2nd semester 4th grade at the end of Kindergarten. I talked to his teacher and found out that she did not have the resources to test him beyond 1st semester 2nd grade. Talk about frustrating!! She had no idea how high he was even capable of reading. We went the rounds with her and in turn she went the rounds with the school to try and get the materials she needed to keep Carter challenged. The school does not allow for materials to be shared between grades so we were at a standstill until we offered to purchase all of the appropriate materials for him to use in class. Finally by November he was being challenged in reading. Math has been a whole other challenge as they would not let us advance him a grade level because they strictly follow the Everyday Math program. After going the rounds with the school (again) we decided to work with him at home and tried to keep him challenged here.

By this spring we were getting frustrated with the gifted testing process. We were required to fill out numerous questionnaires about Carter, his personality/strengths/weaknesses and our home life. Some of the random questions were things like "What are the dominant colors used in your home? How many hours of daylight do you get in your home?" It was truly bizarre. We also endured several rounds of educational meetings with his teacher and the district gifted team, etc. Seriously, it was the biggest run around I've ever been through. The bureaucracy in the process was truly astounding.

FINALLY a few weeks ago he was given all the gifted testing. The catalyst for having him tested was always his advanced reading capabilities. Imagine our HUGE surprise when the results came back that he falls in the highly gifted range for his IQ (top 1%) and that he tested off the charts in math and analytical thinking. He tested in the gifted range for reading, writing, creativity and verbal expression. After the test administrator gave me the test results she told me she was really glad that we had pushed the school to test him.

Last week we had a 2 hour IEP meeting with the district gifted team. They gave us some further results of the testing and helped us to lay out a plan for his future in the program. He qualifies for the maximum number of hours of gifted every week. Additionally, the school is going to work closely with us to have him tested out of math next year. He tested at the 5th grade level for math so he will be given the end of year tests until he can't pass the grade level tests and will go to the appropriate grade for math and reading.

It is truly such a relief to finally have some answers about his abilities and how he will be helped. When Carter was in Pre-K his teacher recognized that he was bright and told me that we would have to fight every step of the way to get him resources for his abilities. I am so grateful for that advice and grateful that we pushed and pursued enough that I'm sure the school was so tired of us! We are also well aware that gifted kids have their own set of issues and challenges so I don't think we are home free just with this testing done. But we are finally on the right track and it is a huge relief.

Another crazy development is that we have been accepted into a charter school for the fall. We still need to figure out the services available at the school but we feel really good about having our kids there as we have heard excellent things about the school.

I know this is long and boring but I wanted to keep a record of what is happening around here. I'll be back soon with lots of end of year excitement!