Libby's Birthday

Libby is even more firmly ensconced in the teen years with the arrival of her 14th birthday. She no longer requests toys. She wants jewelry, face masks,

and room decor.

That's a rug in the bag. It's a fuzzy gray and white pattern to complement the girls' room. Matching accessories are very important to her.

She stills loves turtles.

She is the master of the eye roll. Her eyes are going to get stuck in her cranium from all the gymnastics they are asked to perform.

Her Aunt Kristal had to buy this shirt for Libby. It reads "I'm just a big freakin' ray of sunshine." I couldn't think of a more apropos shirt.

She got a lot of cash! Her aunts and uncles have decided it's easier to let her buy her own presents. She's been nagging me to take her to the store so she can buy *more* shoes and a comforter that better matches her room scheme.

In keeping with her sibling's cake requests this year, Libby found a complicated creation and asked me to recreate it. I think it looks pretty good. But even though I love me some baked goods and chocolate, this cake was a little much to eat. Libby didn't complain though. Thankfully we had a lot of family to share it with.

She had a great birthday and we are thankful to call her ours.

Fair Time

Ethan only entered two photos in the fair this year. One is of a plant cell and the other is downtown Boise. I thought they were both pretty great pictures. The fair judge didn't seem to agree. Ethan didn't place with the plant cell and received fourth for the cityscape. Although he didn't get very good placement, he is still happy with his photos and has spent a lot of time with photography lately.

Libby entered a few more than the two Ethan submitted. She placed 2nd with her tree watercolor painting, and first with her ladybug sculpture. For her baking she earned 1st for gluten free cookies, 2nd for brownies, and 3rd for a cake made with Amalgmated sugar. They even gave her a prize basket! A prize basket of different types of sugar. Even though it is straight sugar, she has hidden it away in her room and is threatening to eat it by the spoonful. Amalgamated sugar is secretly plotting to give all the fair participants diabetes.

Grace entered roughly a billion things in the fair this year.  Three photos, two pieces of art, a Sculpey figure, brownies, cookies, and 

decorated cookies. As you can see from the pictures, she got more than a handful of ribbons. This does not include her baking ribbons.  She was especially proud of these cookies she decorated using fondant. She tried them a few years back, and they were a disaster. She made her art pallet cookies again, and was pleased with the result. The judge seemed to agree. The cookies still look pretty good, even though I took this picture after they had been sitting out at the fair for the last ten days.

Sam only entered a few things this year. He was very distraught he didn't get nearly as much cash prizes as his sisters, but that's what happens when you only enter a few things. He did get a third place ribbon for his tiny turtle Sculpey figure.

He also got a couple prizes for his picture of Harley and his pattern picture. The kids might owe Harley some dog treats for being such a patient model.

It was hectic getting fair entries ready this year. I missed the early entry deadline by a few hours, we forgot to print the pictures until the last minute (again), and school was starting the next week. It all created a lot of chaos, but I think everyone is glad that we persisted.

All of Them!

This year all of my children are attending public school. One morning, way too early in the morning, and way too early in August, all of my kids prepared to step out the door for a whole new school year, leaving me all alone.

Ethan started his adventure of attending Borah High, where uniforms are no longer required!! It took him only three times as long to get dressed, because choosing clothes is hard.

Libby in still at the Junior High, but as this is her 9th grade year, she is technically in high school.  Boise school districts are a little wonky that way. She is still stuck with a uniform.

Both the big kids have to leave the house by 6:10 to get to early morning seminary and a zero hour class. Right now they are biking. I'm not looking forward to driving them this winter when it gets cold. I'm still trying to convince Michael we need an el cheapo car for them to drive to school. At some point they will realize that I'm only one cat away from a crazy cat lady, if as last year, I keep driving them to school while wearing flip flops and Michael's bathrobe. If Ethan can drive them, then we can side step the entire issue of my sanity.

Grace was able to get up at a more reasonable time, and I had time to take the rags out of her hair she asked me to put in the evening before. The curls were flattened by the end of the day but she sure started out adorable.

I offered to take Grace and Sam to their first day of elementary school, as there was a teacher meet and greet before the bell rang. They both flatly refused and insisted on riding the bus. Sam did ask me to meet him at the school to meet his teacher. Grace threatened to ignore me if I even said hi to her.

None of my kids were happy to take pictures first thing. I wanted to commemorate this excellent event. They made strange faces. It's about what I expected.

I thought I would have loads of free time once we reached this milestone, but I've got this monkey to keep me busy three days a week. 

I'm still debating what I will do with my wonderful two child free days a week. Probably conquer the world.

Vacation Photos That Didn't Make the Initial Cut

 Wildflowers,

everywhere.

Loving the beach.

 After being buried.

 Found a banana slug.

 Wrong side of the bridge.

 Bridge of fear.

All the way around.

 Playing in the river.

And a 2" frog.

Crater Lake

On our way home, and after driving through endless sagebrush, we decided to make a short detour and visit Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. We only planned on staying for a few minutes, long enough to stretch our legs and view the lake. As we pulled into the park we realized our little break was going to cost $25. We hadn't stopped to think it would cost to enter the national park. Thankfully we happened to have Grace's national parks pass with us, one that all 4th graders in the nation are eligible for. I suspect we would have not seen the lake otherwise.

This picture looks like I over-saturated the color, but I have no such skills. This is the actual colors of Crater Lake. It was amazing. We spent a few minutes enjoying the lake view and hiking around a few paths. We then went in search of bathrooms and water refills. 

As the girls bought their key chains in a small souvenir shop, I asked where we could refill our water (thus ensuring more bathroom breaks; it's a vicious cycle). The ranger pointed to another souvenir shop about 200 yards away. The older kids and I grabbed the water bottles, headed out for water, and found insanity. The large souvenir shop resembled Wal-Mart on Black Friday. Walls and walls of merchandise, a corner deli, and an unreasonable amount of people. We eventually realized the only place to fill our bottles was at the soda fountain. We wound our way through the mass of people, and eventually got our H2O. Ethan and Libby also managed a quick photo in all the madness. 

We loaded up in the car, fought the parking lot, and escaped unscathed. It wasn't quite the calm refreshing experience I was hoping for, but we went, we saw, we survived. 

We even managed to get one picture of all of us together. It's a poor picture, but it is proof. We started out with four kids and we left with four kids. We are amazing like that.