Zoey's First Swim

As soon as it was warm enough this Spring we took the family to the lake. While we were there we thought we should see if our pampered little Zoey could swim.

She hated the water. Oh, she swam back each time we took her out into the water. But she hated every second of it. The kids, however, had a blast.

Cami Rehearsing

Cami has been singing this song around the house all week in preparation for the Elementary School Concert. A clip of her at the concert is posted below.

Cami Singing Taylor Swift

Cami performed this last night at the Butte Elementary Choir and Band Concert. Her friend Kaylee was planning on singing it by herself. Last week she got a little nervous about remembering the words and asked Cami to sing it with her. Cami certainly stepped up to the plate. They did a good job. That is a very brave thing to do as 4th Graders. I was very proud.

French Class Semester Project

These are the kind of school projects I love. Tyler and his friend chose to cook a French meal for their families. They also had to make a 5 minute cooking show. I ahven't seen the final product for that yet. I am sure it is very entertaining. They made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Cheese Puffs, Loaded Mashed Potatoes with Feta Cheese, and crepes for dessert. It all tasted great. It was also lots of fun having Shane's parents over for dinner.

Tyler's New Job

This spring Tyler has taken on a job doing farm chores on Gardner's Farm for a few hours a day 3 days a week. I am very proud of him. He has been able to work, play Basball, and keep his grades up. He enjoys the farm animals. He sweeps the barn, feeds and waters the horses, sheep and a Llama and clans up after them. That is the nice way to say, he scoops poop. He also does random yard chores like shoveling snow, pruning bushes and when summer comes he will being doing some lawn mowing. The animals know who he is now and have learned his routine. It is fun to watch them follow him around. Tyler likes to show Conner and Aubrey the animals every once in a while. These pics were Aubrey's first time feeding the horse. Her name is Tosh. Tyler likes to brush her when she starts getting shaggy looking. This has been a good experience for him to learn to work hard and save money. Next Spring he and Braden are going on a trip with the high School band to Orlando and have to come up with $1800 to get there. Tyler has a pretty good start.

Trash to Treasure?

Last month we made some major rearranging with bedrooms. Braden moved to Tyler's room on the 3rd floor. Shaelyn and Cami took over Braden's old room and Conner and Aubrey moved in to Shaelyn and Cami's old room. Tyler and Braden were not happy about the move. They did not want to share a room again. All the other kids were excited. The girls got a bigger room and don't have to share with Aubrey anymore so obviously there is a huge reduction of messes in thier room and Conner and Aubrey now have a place to keep thier toys and can play without getting in the way of the older kids. Even though Tyler and Braden were not happy I think things are beginning to work out. They are becoming friends again. I am glad we made the change. In the process of moving rooms around we were able to get rid of lots of old toys and cloths. Conner and Aubrey got into one of the bags and found Bradens old Pokemon books, the Gameboys and a few Gameboy games. I found them sitting on the rug in the Livning Room flipping through pages and playing Gameboy. They were having so much fun and getting along so well. Needless to say, we kept the Pokemon books and Gameboys.

Silly Aubrey

Lttle Aubrey just cracks me up. Aubrey and I were downstairs doing laundry. I gave Aurey and laundry hamper and told her to go upstairs and get the laundry out of the bathroom and bring it down to me. When she didn't show back up I went looking for her. This is where I found her. In front of the TV with Conner's undees on her head watching cartoons. What was she thinking? We may never know.