states

create your own visited states map

This is kind of a cool tool. It tracks the states you've visited. Dad, I'd love to see your map! I'd bet it is almost all filled up!

Patti

Easter Break

No beating around the bush here, this was definitely Easter Break. We don't have any other Spring Break, just the Thursday, Friday and Monday around Easter. So--Thursday there was no school. Alisha had track practice in the Morning, but in the afternoon, we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The older kids have outgrown our old favorite of the Childrens' Museum, so this worked well for all of them. We even got a membership so we can go back several times during the next year-especially in the summer. They have an OmniTheater -Imax-style movies that totally surround you on a round screen. The movie we saw was about Jane Goodall and her work with chimps. It felt like we were IN the jungle. Emily, who has always been a little prone to motion sickness anyway, got a bit dizzy, but she survived.

Friday I had a dentist appointment in the morning, but I forgot about it until my Dentist office called and said that I was supposed to have been there 20 minutes previously! Yikes! At least I was already dressed, so I just jumped in the car and got there and I didn't have to reschedule. No cavities.
The way everyone is scheduled, I am in the Dentist office every month. John and Alisha are scheduled together, Emily and Michael are together, and Sarah and Daniel are together, and Richard and I are separate. With appointments every 6 months for everyone, we are there always. LOL.Its a good thing the dentist is close to home. On the dental front: John is getting his wisdom teeth in-straight. The dentist says he will probably be able to keep them. Richard's came in compacted, and I never got them at all, so we don't know where John's teeth came from, but fewer dental bills in the future are a good thing.

Alisha and Michael both went to the eye Dr. and got stronger prescriptions, so therefore, new glasses on both of them.

That day I made a quick, one day quilt/table topper.

Spring is coming-slowly- The snow melts, and then it comes back. This picture was from the first time the ice came off the ponds back in March. It came back last week, and today there is snow, but they are forecasting 60s for next week. Yay!

I now have a button for readers to subscribe to my blog so you can be notified when I update. Feel free to sign up! Its not hard at all!

On Saturday (4-7), we were going to have the Easter bunny come first thing in the morning, but, honestly, the house was such a mess that we just couldn't have that, so the Easter Bunny left a note for the kids saying that he had been by, saw the mess and left. We spent the morning cleaning house. It worked well. In the afternoon, we went to go do our paper route, and the Easter Bunny came while we were gone. The kids all got new books in their baskets along with all the candy.
Then, doing things backwards--we colored eggs. The Easter Bunny doesn't hide eggs at our house--we just color them and stick them back in the fridge. Besides the fact, it was 17 degrees outside, and the Easter Bunny didn't WANT to hide them outside!

On Sunday morning, we went to church. I was supposed to sing a solo, but my pianist went to go visit her mother. I was going to just record the accompaniment, (I'd have to do it at the church, because my piano is badly flat), but we had a young couple back at home visiting their parents, and she plays the piano and she graciously took the music, practiced it, and was able to accompany me. So, it all worked out. I sang a song called 'This is the Christ.' The words are by James E. Faust. It was really quite lovely. We are very grateful for this Easter season to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

On Monday, I had Emily's Girl Scout troop (7th grade) over. We earned the Pets Interest Project badge. The girls brought their dogs- we learned about dogs, we designed lost pet finder products, made Scooby Doo cookies, and took old towels to the Animal Shelter.
Then Alisha had track practice.
That night we celebrated her birthday. She won't be here on her actual birthday because she is going to the state FCCLA convention to compete with her Interpersonal Communication project. We played a rousing game of duck duck goose (Daniel's idea), opened presents, and had cake --I haven't uploaded those pictures yet.
I had play practice afterwards. Opening night is next week.

Guess that's all for today. Don't forget to sign up for updates!

Patti

Happy Birthday, Michael

Michael turned 11 yesterday. He is so ready to start Boy Scouts!
Despite having to go to school yesterday, he had a pretty good day. We had record setting warm temperatures. We got up to 78* yesterday, so a lot of time was spent outside playing. We had a giant hamburger for dinner, and a hamburger cake for the cake. We had the party for Family Home Evening where we played some traditional party games. He had a friend stay over over the weekend because there was no school on Friday for the end of the quarter.

I finished one of my quilts last weekend. These are paper pieced stars and they were done for a class. As soon as I laid it out on the ground to take the pictures, the cats decided I had set it out for them. Trying to take a cat free picture was not an easy task.
Well, that's about it for now.
Patti

Alisha

I forgot to mention: Back in February, Alisha received her Young Womenhood Recognition Award. She worked very hard to try to get that accomplished before she turned 15.
Patti

busy week!

The kids were finally back in school last week after a couple of snow days. They timed them just right, though, so we don't have to make any up yet, as they just happened to fall on already scheduled days off. If we miss anymore, they'll just take a day off our Easter break (we get the Thurs, Fri., and Mon. around Easter off-that's our total Spring Break). The Thursday is expendable, and they have taken that off to make up snow days before so they don't have to add any on at the end, because heaven forbid, we actually go past June 6.

Anyway, I already showed Sarah in her class play. It was very cute, and Sarah did a great job.

On Tuesday, Alisha and Emily went to Clayton for Large Group (band and choir) competitions. Then Emily and John went to FFA Regional events. John's Parlimentary Procedure team came in 2nd, and Emily's quiz bowl team came in 3rd. Bottom line, they don't go to state. Better luck next year. :-) (A couple of weeks ago, however, Alisha had FCCLA competition. She did a report on Interpersonal Communications and got a gold rating, which means she DOES get to go to the state competition in April)

Thursday was Daniel's birthday. 5 years old! He was lucky that pre-school didn't have school that day because it was Kindergarten registration day. We went to lunch with my friend and daughter before we all went to the school for registration and screening. He just missed points because he didn't put ears on his picture of a person, and had problems with his 'a' and 'e' in his name. Those will come.
After registration, school was over and it was time for Girl Scouts. We did a service project for the food shelf. We made birthday boxes. We decorated shoe boxes with tissue paper, and then in each box, we put cake mix, frosting and candles. The food shelf people were very excited about them.
That night we had Daniel's special dinner (tacos). We then cleaned up and had presents. He got a red Transformer and a red bear (his requests), and the quillow from Grandma Danielson.
We took a break because we had seminary at our house Thursday night because of some scheduling conflicts this month.
When Seminary was over, we had cake.

Friday, Daniel didn't have school again and we went to Stillwater to go shopping. He got a toy space shuttle with his money from Grandma Harvey, which is his favorite toy out of all his presents.
In the afternoon, Alisha had an ortho appt. and Sarah got a filling.

Saturday, John, Alisha and I went to Duluth for Super Saturday. Our last one of the school year. Again, we didn't win scripture chase, but the kids had a blast. I had teacher inservice. The kids then watched videos that each ward and branch made of them selves over the year.
Richard took the other kids to Hudson to get a load of pellets for the pellet stove.

Yesterday was Ward conference. I was part of musical numbers for Relief Society and Sacrament Meeting. We love having our stake leaders here, even though some of them live so far away (the furthest yesterday was about 3 1/2 hours away, but our stake goes up to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada--about 8 hours away). We also had a potluck lunch afterwards. I made mint brownies and mini rueben sandwiches.
In the afternoon we babysat a 2 yr old and a 6 month old. It gave us insight to how our life would have been like with 2 more kids. Alisha and Emily did most of the work yesterday, however.

My parents are moving away. They finally got within 5 hours of our house, and now they are going back to Memphis. I'm probably the one that's most upset about it... Jeff and Steve are thrilled, I'm sure, since they already live there. Maybe they will visit more often once they live further away...:-)

Guess that's all for this week.
Patti

Middle goat gruff

Sarah had her class play this week.
Just thought I'd share this
Patti

Here for a moment

Well, I got logged in by changing my password, so we'll see if this is more than a one time occurrence, but I'll post while I'm here.

During the wild weather this week we got snow, and lots of it. Last weekend, we got about 8 inches. Church was even canceled on Sunday. Then on Thursday/Friday of this week, we got another foot or so. The kids have been having a ball. They've constructed a sliding hill out in the woods (it goes down towards the frozen swamp).
The kids were released early from school on Thursday when the storm was coming, Parent/Teacher conferences were canceled that night as well. Friday they had off anyway, which was a good thing, because traveling was not a good thing.

Sarah and Daniel have taken turns passing a cough back and forth between them. I think Sarah is finally over the worst of her last bout with it.

It is Girl Scout cookie delivery time. The girls (and I) have finally gotten all of the cookies delivered--except for the order for Lance that gets sent out on Monday.

I've been taking some classes online to help me learn Photoshop better. I've learned various cropping and blending techniques which we then use to make ATCs or Artist Trading Cards, because the finished product is only 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, or about the size of a Trading card. These are some of the things I've done.





As far as other classes go, I've finished my Doctrine & Covenants class, I'm just waiting for the final to arrive. I've now signed up for Humanities 201.

California here we come! I purchased the tickets tonight. We are coming Aug 2! Very exciting! We haven't been to California since 1998.

I intend to spend the next few weeks quilting like mad. I have 4 quilts to finish quilting by April 17th. One of them, I am thinking of using as the back for another one, so there may only be 3 to do. We'll see how my time goes.

Guess that's all for this time.
Patti