Annual Family Yard Sale

Every summer, our family gets together for a yard sale. We sell a lot of stuff, and do a little junk-swapping among ourselves as well. Tim and Karen were are lovely yard sale hosts this year.
(This is the first year I've remembered to take pictures. I usually get too busy and forget.) I didn't have anything in the actual yard sale this year. I had given too much away to the ARC. So our contribution was the Bake Sale. As you can see, we are our own best customers. Treyson had earned a dollar and had to spend it right away.

Rylee liked to be at the money collection table. Taylee wanted to be in charge of the Bake Sale money. Treyson wanted to eat the Bake Sale items and drink the lemonade. Abree played with cousins and tattle on Treyson for eating the Bake Sale items.

The kids earned enough to go see the movie, "Up!" in 3-D.

(It's expensive to see current movies now days...especially in 3-D!)

Sneak Peek

It all began 6 years ago...

We were living in Twin Falls at the time. Jeff (Jason's brother) was dwelling in our basement. Jeff's girls were coming to visit him for Father's Day. (They live with their mom and we don't get to see them very often.) Jeff was worried that his family in Utah, wouldn't come visit, while his girls were there. I said, "Hey, if we have a party they'll come!" We DID have a party and they DID come! Little did I know at the time, that I had created an annual tradition..."The Cousin Party".

We play games, make crafts, sleep in tents, eat lots of food, take lots of pictures and have lots of fun.

This year, Cathy (Jason's sister) is in charge of the cousin party. The theme is "Smullin Grand Prix 2009". We've each chosen a team color and name. We've been asked to design and create a team flag with our color and name. We are the, "Orange Crush"!

Here's the creation process of our team flag:

We had a little family meeting and talked about what we wanted on the flag. Jason started sketching.












Jason came up with a design concept.













Then sketched our logo.













He then enlarged the design on a copy machine and pieced it together.












Then he traced the design onto the flag material.




Then it was my turn. I painted the design and had the kids hand print the corners of the flag. Jason then outlined the design and wrote the kid's names and race numbers on the flag.

What do you think?

Hanging Out With Daisylyn

When Amber had to go back to work, to finish off the school year, Abree and I got to hang out with Daisylyn. We had so much fun feeding, playing with, and dressing her up.

She did a lot of growing and changing in those 2 weeks. She went from eating 1-2 oz. to about 4 oz. She also started smiling and making cute noises.

We love you Daisylyn!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

So far, so good.

Our garden plants are getting BIG. We've even harvested a few things; spinach, lettuce, a few strawberries and a few pea pods. Two of our 3 tomato plants, got a little frost a few weeks back and are struggling. We think one may pull out, but the other one looks quite haggard. After we harvest all of the lettuce, we will have more room for more tomato plants and more strawberries. Our kids have loved having our little garden and fight over the ripe produce. Hopefully we will have enough to go around once everything reaches harvest season.

Red Riding Hood

The Missoula Children's Theatre company was here!

If you haven't heard of these guys, let me tell you a little about them. They are a non-profit play tour company, based out of Missoula, MT. They have 36 teams of two, touring and directing plays, all over the United States, Canada and 14 other countries. They meet the kids on Monday for auditions, intensely practice all week (like 4 1/2 hours every day!) and by Saturday the kids put on a full-blown play; costumes, sets, memorized lines, etc. It's actually quite amazing!

Taylee had the opportunity of being in "Red Riding Hood", loosely based on "Little Red Riding Hood", but much more humorous. She played a "Forest Shadow -Thistle". She had 2 speaking parts and was a part of 3 songs, with dance moves. I was glad she was picked to be in the play (a few did not make the cut) and that she had a small part to begin with. (A bigger, more lines to memorize part, may have turned her off and made her frustrated.) She says next time she'll be ready for more lines and a bigger part.

It was so interesting to me, (I absolutely LOVE behind-the-scenes stuff) that I hung out the WHOLE week at practice. I was a "stage mom". It was so cool the way the directors taught the kids, learned each one of their names (60+ kids!) and put the whole thing together. Even by the night before the performance, a few kids with big speaking parts didn't know their lines, didn't know their blocking and many kids weren't speaking loud enough to be heard. One of the directors turned to me and another mom and said, "Will you think it's a miracle if this all goes as planned?" We had to admit, yes. Then she said, "Me too."

The performance DID go well and the kids did great! I plan on letting any of my kids that want to, participate in the future. It's free, it's intense for ONLY a week and it's a really neat opportunity. I'm so glad that we took part. I would highly recommend it to anyone. Check to see if they are coming to your area www.mctinc.org.

The whole cast; Forest Shadows(Taylee far left, in front, with purple/green hat and gloves) Ranger Rooney, Raccoons, The 3 Little Pigs, Mama Hood, Sister Hood, Brother Hood, Baby Hood and their cousin Robin Hood, Locksmith, Woodsman, The Wolf Gang, Little Lovable Wolf, The Big Bad Wolf, Granny, Red Riding Hood and her Girlfriends.

The Forest Shadows- Fire and Poisonous Plants (Taylee is on the bottom row, 5th over, with purple and green hat.)

Behind the scenes, turning in costumes and saying good-bye.

Director Jen with her Big Bad Wolf make-up still on.

Congratulations Thistle Taylee!