Lindsey's braces

Lindsey has had her braces for a little while now.  She has done very well with them.  Her ortho (Orthoworks in American Fork) has a special program they do.  They grade their mouth when they come in depending on how clean it is.  If they floss and brush each day they can get an A.  You normally have to floss to recieve the A.  Then after you get an A your name goes into a drawing, and you get a sticker for your picture.  Once you get 3 stickers, you get a $10 gift card.

Lindsey has wanted a fish or some fish for some time.  I told them if they cleaned their room and kept it clean I would get them one.  When Lindsey got 3 A's and got a gift card for Walmart (her choice) she wanted to get fish.  We looked at Walmart for fish and didn't really see anything cool.  I told her I would trade her the gift card for a $10 bill and we could check out petco for fish.

She looked at the fish, then decided on something non-fishy.  This fire-bellied toad.

She named him blazer!  She was in love with him.

She thought it was better than a fish!

Unfortunately after about 16 days, Blazer died.  I called Petsmart and they replaced him for free (even though it was past the 14 day period).  Robert and I were going out on a date so we exchanged him for 2 new fire-bellied toads.  So far one is doing good and the second isn't eating... which is what Blazer did.

They have names but they keep chaning.  Slips and Bandit or Houdini?  They keep changing.  I hope the one makes it.  Or I guess we will be exchanging him too.

There were two sad girls who didn't go to school.

The first day of school had lots of excitement and nervousness.  The girls are always happy and excited to go but also nervous.  With all the craziness of making lunches and making sure that everyone has everything, someone was overlooked somehow.  (I think it is part of being #5 of 5 kids.)

Samantha found a backpack, found some boots, grabbed a baby doll, she told me she was going to school.

I felt so bad for her when I told her she wasn't going to be able to go to school this year.  She is only 2 so she has several years of "first day of school" days to see before she gets to participate in it.  Poor thing!

We spent the day playing school... we played with some little scrabble like tiles and matched like letters, then we played a memory game with them.  We had a snack time and a story time too.  Then it was time to go pick up some kids from school.  The girls fell fast asleep in the car.  I guess all that school wore them out. 

When we played school, Amber who is still obsessed with a neighbor friend from our old neighborhood, she wanted to be Jacob.  It was pretty funny, then Samantha decided she didn't want to be Samantha, she wanted to be Carebear.  I guess because of her carebear backpack. 

I would say, "it's Samantha's turn, " she would look at me and shake her head NO and say, "I not Mantha, I bear-bear."  I would then so, "Sorry Carebear, it's your turn."  Samantha would pick her same two tiles and no match still, then she would say, "Jacob's turn." 

I see many more days of school in our home with this little guys before they really do go to school.  That's okay.  I guess that is why I never do preschool outside the home.  I figure we do enough of it anyway.

Don't you love her boots on the wrong feet.  I tried to change them, but should would have nothing to do with it.  She carried this backpack around all day, then the next 2 days.  She will still carry it around if she finds it again, but I have put it up for awhile.

Amber was a little bummed that she didn't get to go to school but I told her she could go when she was 5 (in two years because of her fall birthday).  She liked doing school and she even got her own backpack too. 

Never a dull moment!

Back to School again

School started about today for my girls.  They were super excited (and nervous) to get back to school.  On Monday we had back to school night were they were able to go meet their teacher and see where their classroom was.  It was all good except the part with Samantha and Amber fighting and crying in the middle of me trying to talk to the teachers.  Emily even lost her tooth during it, when she ate a salt water taffy piece.

Here is Lindsey and Lauren and one of the neighbor girls they are good friends with.  It was so cute, we heard this little knock on the door and there was Taylor asking to see if the girls wanted to walk to the bus stop with her.  I was just getting pictures, so we added her into them too.

Lindsey fell in love with this shirt.  I warned that it was going to be warm today but it didn't matter to her.  And she loved the jeans too, looks like something kids wore back when I was in school.  Nice acid washed jeans.  I remember making a pair of jeans that looked like this in my bathtub with a bottle of bleach.

Lauren was so wanting "skinny jeans" and I wasn't really interested in them.  We got them a size bigger, she was happy that she had skinny jeans, and I was happy that they were sooo skinny.  She kept telling her friends, "I got 2 pair of skinny jeans!"  Too funny!

Emily had a fun time shopping for clothes.  She is doing alot of layered stuff.  She got a few tank tops or shirts like that and then got some t-shirts to go under them.  Although this morning when we were leaving she said, "I am too short and too skinny for the jeans... I think we should fix them."  That is a nice switch... normally it is a total melt down with crying and screaming, stomping off to her room, pouting and sometimes kicking of objects in her way.  I was pleasantly surprised it went the way it did.

Emily woke up this morning, came in my room in a rage saying, "Why didn't you wake me up?"  She was all mad.  When I questioned her about it, she sheepishly smiled and said, "oh it is only 6:50, I had a dream I missed school."  Apparently she had a dream she missed school, and then when she woke up she thought she was still late and noticed her alarm hadn't gone off yet (because it wasn't time yet) and then thought it was all real.  It was pretty funny.  She was in a good mood ever since then.

My complaint with back to school, is that they couldn't get Emily on the same schedule as Lindsey and Lauren.  The family I was going to carpool are on the 8am track and we are still on the 9:15am track for Emily.  Lindsey and Lauren take the bus and they are on the early schedule.  I now have another year of having kids go to school at different times and get out of school at different times.  UGH!  The good thing is... there is a girl that needed a ride to Emily's school (she is in the 6th grade A.L.L. program) and wasn't able to find a ride or carpool.  We are now taking her to school and it is on our way to school too.  I was happy that at least with this problem of mine, it helps out someone else and feels better I guess you could say.  

Now what to do with my older kids in school? 

River Floating, Part 3

I promise this is the last about floating the river!  I just had so many fun pictures I couldn't leave any of them out.  I really did leave lots of them out but I couldn't slim it down any more.  If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 click on the links or look at my older posts to find them.

All these pictures are from my phone so some of them didn't turn out the greatest, but I am sure you will get the idea.

The river floating was always so relaxing and gorgeous!  The way the trees grow on the banks, the banks of the river and the rock walls...  the pictures really don't do justice for what we saw!  The scenery was breath taking!  I wish my mom would go floating just to see how beautiful it is.  She doesn't really care for splashing water in her face, and you definetly get that when you float the river.  We should get her a underwater mask for her to wear, then that way she wouldn't get water in her face...  she would LOVE that!  lol

In several places there are rocky edges to the river with lots of bushes and trees hanging over.

This is a further away picture.  There were little waterfalls down some of the rocks too.

Washington is pretty wet so of course there was lots of moss everywhere.

One area of the river goes under some really tall trees that are on top of a rock wall, this is going under them and looking up at the trees.  This picture shows very little of how amazing it really is.

The sun was peaking through some of the trees.

Someone has put up a rope swing.  I am not brave enough to try it out.  I'm sure it would be fun, but I don't trust the rope!  When Lauren went with me we saw 2 river otters here at this spot.  They were making this weird clicking or chirping sound.  This was the first time I have ever seen them in the wild.  Pretty neat.

Look at the mossy branch.  Isn't that pretty cool!

I had some pictures of some of the little flowers growing on the rock walls or down the rock walls too but they were so fuzzy or bright.  They weren't very good pictures.  This concludes our river float.  Until next year...  I hope to float down the Toutle River again next year. 

A tidbit of information, the Toutle River comes from Mount. St. Helens or next to it.  There is tons of ash next to the river in areas still from the eruption of the mountain back in the 80's.  Many of the river banks are just ash.  I still have ash in my shoes from floating the river.  Kind of cool! 

River Floating, Part 2

Before we even got to Washington I was looking forward to floating down the river.  I did it last year when I was there and would have gone again but I was STUPID and didn't wear sunscreen and blistered the tops of my legs.  I was wearing a loose skirt for several days so I didn't have to put on anything close to my legs. 

Of course since I had been talking aboat floating my girls were asking if they could do it too.  I told them I would have to go down first to check it out and then  we would see.  After I went down the first time Emily was non-stop asking when we were going to go. 

Thomas and Emily and Kaitlyn are waiting for all the tubes and boats to be aired up.

All the kids had life jackets on and were ready to go.  Summer and Kaitlyn pose for a cute picture before they get in the water.

Emily patiently waits in my car until it is time to go to the water.

Here is the line of us heading down to the water to get in, minus Emily and me of course.

This is one of my favorite pictures!  I love how Sarah is just floating, smiling in the back.

Kelly has launched Emily in the water.  Only people left to get in are him and me.

There goes Kelly!  Emily about now is freaking out, "C'mon Mom, hurry up!"  Like I am going to let her go down by herself.  She must not have known I was such a good paddler!  One of my hidded talents I think.

Emily is liking it so far, but we haven't hit any ripples or rapids at all.

This was to re-adjust people.  We got out for a few minutes. By this time we hit some good rapids but are getting ready to hit another one and then the BIG ones from part one.

Kelly is waiting to get back in...  he's stretching out his arms.  He's got alot of rowing ahead of him.

Here's Kelly with Kaitlyn and Thomas.

Yep... that's me.

You can't really see in the picture, but there is some sort of big nest on those poles behind Emily... we see several Eagles through here.  Not sure that they would have a nest that close to the water.

There was a mishap.  Apparently everyone was talking and not paying attention.  Then Kelly yells, "TREE" and then it was pretty much too late for some.  Kelly hits the tree pops his boat, Summer goes under the tree and then hangs onto the back side of it for dear life.  I hope I get this right, if not it went something like this...

Summer: (hanging onto the tree) Hello, is anybody there?  (or maybe she said Help, is anyone there?)

Kelly: (on the other side of the tree)Yeah Summer I am here.

Summer:Kelly don't let me die, just don't let me die!

Kelly: You're not going to die. 

A couple of the kids fell out of their tubes on that one too.  Sarah caught them or told them to just go with the flow until she could get them.  We were all hoping Summer's husband wouldn't be too mad.  Emily and I went a different way so we weren't there when it happend.  The river had split and everyone one else went a different way.  The river was just coming back together when I saw an empty tube and then a swimmer too. 

This is where we were waiting for them to re-arrange again now that we were out of a boat.  Thomas and Kelly went together in the boat and Kaitlyn ended up in Thomas' tube.  It seemed okay, we were almost to the end of our float.

Then on another day, Lauren went floating down the river with us.  She and Destiny went in the boat and Kelly patched the popped boat and it held air just fine. 

I didn't take my camera this time but I got a few pictures before we headed to the water.

Kelly is getting Destiny and Lauren's boat all ready for them. 

But wait, what was that?  There is more?  Why yes there is, there is more.

To be continued.... again.....

River Floating, Part 1

While is Washington I was able to take a few river floats.  We go down the Toutle River.  It is pretty calm and easy.  There are a few fun rapids that splash you and even get your heart racing a bit.  Some in our company that goes has flipped one way or another on some of these rapids.  Although sometimes people in our company just flip out of their tubes when it is calm... normally there is someone else assisting in that too. 

I braved it this time and not only took Emily down but also took my cell phone to take pictures.  I wanted to get a water proof camera, but never did.  I double bagged my phone and then blew air into the second bag in hopes to keep it afloat if it did fall out of my swim suit.  I must admit it looked pretty funny with this inflated bag in my swimsuit.  It worked good.  For the whole time we were floating I had Emily tied to my tube so we would stay together. 

My sister in law took these pictures, while we went down. 

The picture above and below are the same, one is just zoomed in.  This was our second time going down this rapid.  We all did it once and then Kelly went alone without the kids and then we all decided to do it again too.  I was pretty nervous with Emily to go again, but she was all in favor of it.  I warned her that I might not be able to keep her out of the rapids as well as I did the first time.  She was okay with it and the second time she got into it much more than the first but she thought it was really fun!

This is our first time.  Again the pictures are the same just one is zoomed in more.  I was trying to keep her out of the rapids, and she did mostly miss them.  She just slid right to the side of them.

This is my brother Kelly and his son Thomas.  Also with them is Kaitlyn, Summer's daughter.  Kelly manuvered pretty good through the river in his little boat.  He had Thomas and Kaitlyn tied to him most of the time.  (But you will find out later what happened to his boat.)

Kelly took a tube once he got to the bottom of the rapids and went for it.  Too bad he missed most of the rapids.  Then we all decided to do it again.  We walked along the bank back up to the top before the rapids start again.  You can kind of see how the rapids are in size compared to Kelly as he is approaching them.

This is Natalie's second run.  She is a friend of the family, and I don't think anyone goes floating without her.  Emily said she is like the River Guide... she knows everything! 

This is Summer and Natalie going their first time.  They were hanging on to each other's ropes to stay together.  You can only see Summer's feet in the air.  Hilliarious!!

This is all of us back in the water for the second time... all of us except Sarah who had my phone taking pictures of us all.  Kelly and the kids are coming down first, then Emily and me, last is Summer and Natalie.

This is Summer in her second attempt, but by herself this time.  The tube coming next is Natalie.  Again Summer was engulfed by the rapids and there isn't much to see of her.  Summer is a long family friend also.  This was her first time floating the river.

And then this is the rapids alone, with no one on them.  The very first time I came down the river last year, (yeah when I didn't wear sunscreen and got really burned) we were approaching this and I thought we were going to sink or go under!  Natalie, Sarah, and I were coming from the far side down on it and it felt like a HUGE drop off.  Now we take it on the closer side.  You can't really tell from this picture but the river splits just a bit before this and then comes back together at this rapid.

That was the end of part one of our river float. 

To be continued......