The Activity Day Girls

Wednesday evening we had Activity Day's at our home. This is a great program for the 8-11 year old girls in my church. I wish they had it when I was that age! Twice a month we get together and learn new skills, do a service project, learn something new, or just have fun. This week we made ice cream and played Apples to Apples. All the girls helped with the ice cream and I kicked little girl tushy on the game. :) We have some great girls in this group (including 2 of my own) and I am happy that I can get to know them through my calling as their leader.

Trampoline Time

The kids are so happy that Doug was able to resurrect our trampoline and set up Saturday evening. After the picnic the girls had a few of their friends over to play. I even got on the tramp with them for a few minutes and made a fool of myself. It was fun though!

Memorial Day Picnic

Our ward had a fun picnic at Plamann Park on Memorial Day. We enjoying getting to eat a good meal and visit with our friends from church!

Grease Monkey's

Doug, along with the help of Ariana and Dakota, changed the brakes and hubs on the Durango this weekend. The kids had fun learning how things go together. Ariana even did some organizing of dad's sockets. Its great to have a husband who can fix and make so many things.

Randomness

Here are some pictures I've taken over the last week or two.

My little shadow. She loves to help mom and dad with all the projects, just dont ask her to clean her room!

Ariana felt like taking picture of her lovely pink Croc's.

I took this picture of my lilac bush on Sunday. It is even prettier today. I cut some blossoms and brought them inside, they smell wonderful.

Another pretty blossoming bush.

Dakota's last concert of the school year, held in his school auditorium. His friend Peter sitting next to him was kind enough to look out and smile. I wish I could have gotten Dakota to do that! Oh well, it was a great concert and I especially enjoyed Dead Mans Chest.

This is the view from the front porch. Our road is almost complete. We will be so excited to get to use our driveway and garage again.

Saturday we got the floor of the deck primed and then Monday I was able to get about 2/3 of the handrail primed. It was a windy day and the primer was drying so fast I finally gave up and came inside. Hopefully I can find a day this week that isn't raining or too windy so I can finish priming.

Mother's Day

I had a nice relaxing day on Sunday. It started off by Doug making me crepes in the new crepe pan he bought me. They were filled with strawberries and whipped cream and topped with more strawberries and powdered sugar. They were delicious, and I thank him for the new crepe pan, mine was destroyed last year. After breakfast I took a nap. It felt good to be lazy!

We went to church where my son did his mom proud by giving a nice talk on mother's and how what his mom has taught him relates to scouting.

When we came home Doug fired up the grill for hamburgers and hot dogs. I was in the mood for a nice, big burger. I made some potato salad to go along with it. Alayna baked lemon bars for dessert, it was a delicious meal. Thanks to all the kids and Doug for pitching in to prepare it.

After dinner we watched "Quantum of Solace". It was a good movie, of course, like all James Bond movies.

It is wonderful to have a family that loves and appreciates me, at least some of the time. ;) I'm so thankful for my own mom and the friendship and advice that she has given me, especially in my adult years.

Cheetah Love

Ariana and her classmates did a great job performing to "cheetah love", even though they didn't get on stage until nearly 10:00PM. She has had a great time this year in Miss Sara's funky jazz class. The recital was held at Little Chute High School, we were there from 6PM until 10:40PM. It was a long night to say the least! I was very proud of Ariana and look forward to many more(hopefully shorter)dance recitals in the future.

Dancing Queen

It's picture day at Rhythm in Motion. Ariana is very excited for her performance next Friday. It was fun to get her all dolled up for the pictures, but MAN did it feel weird putting mascara on a 9 year old!

Our Boy Scout

Dakota is a Den Chief for the Cub Scouts in our ward. This week he took part in an Arrow of Light ceremony. He was just expecting to observe and be there for support. When he got to the church he was asked to speak and help with the ceremony, of course he said yes. Dakota has a good heart and is always willing to help people in need. Good job!

The Surprise

Friday night through Saturday afternoon Doug was on a camp out with the 12 and 13 year old boy scouts. Since our garage was neglected all winter and became quite the disaster, I decided the kids and I would surprise Doug and have it cleaned when he came home. It took several hours on Saturday and a van full of trash but we got it done. When he came home I had both garage doors open and he said "when I pulled up I was so happy to see the garage clean I almost cried!". I think it was even more appreciated after only 5 hours of sleep and several miles of hiking that day. One more thing to check off my to-do list.
Alayna successfully dodged all of the picture I tried to take of her, naughty girl. Ariana spent Friday night at a friends house and came home right as we were finishing up. She lucked out this time. There will be many more fun projects for her coming up!!!

Easter and Doug's Birthday

On Sunday we had a little celebration at our home. We celebrated Easter; the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are so grateful for the sacrifice he made for us and his example. He set the standard we try to reach every day.

We also celebrated Doug's 40th birthday. Dinner was delicious! Unfortunately I burned Doug's birthday cake - pineapple upside down cake. Dakota saved me by making a yellow cake and Alayna frosted it. Thanks you two! Our friends the Summers came over to celebrate with us and brought a fun game that I cant remember the name to. We are glad we had some surrogate "family" members to share the special day with.

Spring Projects

We started on our spring project this week; fixing up the deck. The boards had peeling paint so we started to sand them in the fall. Unfortunatley, we didn't get it finished. Doug had a great idea to unscrew the boards and run them through the planer then screw them back in. Sounded great to me, it is money saving and eco-friendly! We spent about 5-6 hours on it so far and have a couple more to go, then painting. Our goal is to wrap it up by the end of next week.

Other things we are working on our cleaning up our flower beds and removing the decorated rocks that migrated into our lawn over the winter. That is what I'm working on in the grass with the bucket. There are so many rocks, so far out in the yard, it makes me wonder what my children were doing...pelting each other with them? I also included a couple cute pics of our cat meowie sunbathing on a stool in Arissa's room.

High Cliff hike

It was great to get out and do some hiking today. The kids are on spring break now and Doug and I took off a couple days so we could spend some time together. We went to High Cliff State park and messed around for a couple hours.