July Scrap Exchange

Every three months I do a scrap exchange...one idea+my page+5 kits=6 new pages ready for photos. Here's the one I did for tonight. And I'm super excited about the ones I got in return.

I have been doing something besides Math with my girls :)

South Dakota

If you haven't been to Rapid City, SD, you should go. It's a pretty cool place, tourism galore! I could not believe how much there was to see and do there!

Mount Rushmore was our drawing attraction. It's only about 6 hours from here, so we thought we would take a weekend trip.

We went a few days after David's birthday and listened to Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt on the way up and back. I highly recommend the book. I very much recommend books on tape while traveling too.

Mount Rushmore was very fun. From the first peek at the mountain, you knew it was a neat place.


I must admit, it was a little different than I thought. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe it being bigger? The more we were there though, the more awe-inspiring it really was.


We took a rager-led tour around the President's trail. After the first couple, the ranger stopped letting me answer the questions. I guess I knew too much. Maybe it was those library books we read the week before we left.

The trail gave us different angles of the mountain and views of the beautiful Black Hills.



I really liked Mount Rushmore.

We stayed that first night in a Rapid City hotel and woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to go.

Although there is A TON of stuff to see, we decided on some nice free sightseeing spots to spend our second day. And we were not disapointed.

Our first stop was the Museum at the SD School of Mines. They had dino bones, rocks, fossils, and much more. Samuel was excited to see a Triceratops head (among other things).


David was a pretty good sport hangin' in the stroller.


After the museum we went to downtown Rapid City. It's pretty small, maybe the size of Idaho Falls. They have a fun attraction there, well I guess 39 of them. Presidents on street corners.

We took pictures of almost all of them, but I'll spare you all the pictures. Here's a few highlights:

George Washington (of course!)


Ronald Reagan


Richard Nixon (I love this photo because of the kids' expressions!)

And Thomas Jefferson.

After the "City of Presdients" we headed up to Dinosaur Park. Here they have life-size dinos made out of concrete. All ready for climbing fun.


Bet you can't guess who loved it the most...


Next stop was Storybook Island. I loved this place. How could you not love it when Humpty Dumpty greets you as he is falling off the wall.


It is a park full of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and just plain FUN!! I'll let the photos tell the rest.



Our last stop was at the fish hatchery. They were just about to close up for the day, but gave us a big bucket of fish food. The kids loved throwing in the food and watching the fish jump all over. I have to admit, I enjoyed watching them too!



After all that sightseeng, we got shakes at Sonic and wound our way down the Iron Mountain Road. It was tiwsty, but beautiful!

We also drove through Custer State Park and saw a 400-head heard of buffalo!

We found a campground, set up our tent and cooked dinner (and smores!)



The nighttime was, well...eventful. So that we could all fit in our little tent, Jeff spread out the sleeping bags on the bottom of the tent and we had blankets on top of us. It was a little colder than we anticipated, and super hard to get comfortable. Jeff and I were both a bit worried about David, so we didn't sleep very well.

At about midnight, Samuel started coughing, then I heard the horrible sound of him throwing up. Light showed that he had done it in Eliza's hair, then turned and wiped everything on Sarah. My first thought was, "That's it! Let's just go home!" then I remembered that "home" was 6 hours away. I was so grateful that our campground had showers. Eliza and I tromped up to get her all cleaned up and Sarah changed into her clothes for the next day. We lost about 3 blankets but somehow we managed to sleep a little. Oh, the adventures!

We woke up the next morning and had a little breakfast. We were too tired to do anything big, so we went and saw Mount Rushmore one more time, then drove home. It was definitely a trip to remember!

ONE!

One is so fun. There's just something about that very first birthday that is so magical. Maybe it's because life is still so new and there is so much to explore.

On June 14, Baby "D" turned one.

We dressed him in his flag shirt (June 14 is flag day...I love that it's his birthday too!),


And went out and got him a birthday balloon.


He wasn't sure what to think of the balloon at first. He was very afraid of it in the car, but he warmed up to it. We tied it to his high chair so he could grab it and "bang" it often!

He got a few presents. A new umbrella stroller was at the top of the list! (who made this birthday list anyway?)


But I think he likes it.


He also got some other stuff: A new hat (that he refuses to keep on) and a boat from his sisters.


My favorite part was the cake. I made him a flag cake (hmm...wonder howmany of these he will get in his lifetime!)


I love the look of pure excitement in his eyes, you can just see him asking, "Wow, what is this!"


Only to be superseded by the joy of eating!



Yea for one! It's going to be a great year!

Creating

I have to create. It makes me so happy to make something out of a flat piece of fabric or to bring photos to life on a scrap page.

One of the happy things in June is that I got to create a little...not as much as I would have liked, but even something is better than nothing.

Jessica and I got together for a sewing afternoon, and this is what I made:


It's called the Diana Hobo Bag and I love it!! I found this fabulously free pattern from one of the gals who had made a Sweetpod (you'll have to check it out, it's one of the cutest ones I've seen!).

Of course, if I were to do it over I wouldn't have skipped that pocket for the inside and done the handles a little differently...but overall, it's great! It's big enough for one of those "throw-together" outings where you want the essentials (wallet, planner, diapers), or a trip without kids when you want to throw a book in.

The fabric is from Amy Butler's Belle line. I got it at my new favorite fabric store, and it was even on sale (woo hoo!).

It felt so good to make something!

June and July

June was a hard month. Hard physically at times, emotionally at other times. But looking back on it, June wasn't all hard. Some good things happened too.

So now it's July, and time for a "new start." A new start for counting blessings and remembering happy days. Like today! 11 years ago today I married my best friend. It is neat to see how that friendship has only grown stronger. We've been through a bit, but we're not done yet!

Piano

I have now played the piano for over 23 years. That really seems like a long time! I should be better than I am, but that's a different story.

It wasn't an option at our house of weather or not to play the piano. My mother's motto was "you can quit playing the piano when you are in college, or when I die." I guess that's a bit better than what my grandma told her kids: "You can quit playing the piano when you decide you don't want to eat anymore." So, just like my dad and his five siblings (one which makes his living by playing the piano!), I played the piano. My parents told me that someday I would be grateful for it. I never believed them, but (like most things) they were right.

Since then I've not only played (for myself, for church, for school, for all kinds of things), I have also taught. I should have kept track of how many students I have taught. I think it's about 100. At one point I taught a lot--23 students. I taught every day after school and twice a week before school. It was kind of crazy. When we moved to Colorado, I said I would limit it...now I have 9, including my two girls, and I am very full. So, twice a week. It's do-able.

Last weekend was our recital. I was so nervous! I'm not sure why. Maybe because I felt like I hadn't given my kids as much time as I should have (May totally snuck up on me this year! Maybe it was the snow every other day!). They were awesome though. Every one of them did so well and I even managed to pull off my song without too many mistakes.

I also performed a duet with my oldest student today in Sacrament Meeting. My prayer all day was, "help those who hear it feel the spirit." Technically, it went really well (other than the fact that my foot was on the wrong pedal for the first half of the song, I hate it when I do that!). I just hope my prayer was answered.

So, teaching piano with 4 kids, and homeschooling seems really crazy sometimes. I often wonder why I teach at all with so many other things to do. The answer keeps coming back to me over and over that I need to teach kids to play the piano so that they can play for church. It is sad to me that pianists are getting more and more rare. It used to be that every good LDS kid played the piano, but it doesn't seem that way anymore. My heart sank when I found out that new LDS chapels were getting digital pianos so that they didn't have to have anyone play, they could just start the recording. I think it is sad.

Every time I think of quitting teaching, I just get the feeling that teaching these kids to play in church is so important! So I will keep teaching until I receive the revelation otherwise. Maybe I can stop buying fabric and save enough for the serger I've been wanting :)

Family of Twelve

Almost as long as I can remember, I've wanted 10 kids. My mom used to just smile when I told her that. Now I'm starting to feel my biological clock timing out. At this point I will fill absolutely blessed to have just as many as we can.

This last week I got my wish...for 5 days! We watched Jeff's brother's kids while he and his wife went to DC for an "outing." They have 7 kiddos, but took the baby with them. So with our four and their six, we had 10 kids! It was life like it would be if we would have had 3 sets of twins and my youngest two 11 months apart.

The best part of it was...I enjoyed every minute! I know, some of you may question this. I was at the grocery store one night and ran into a gal in my ward, we were talking at the checkout and when I mentioned we had 10 kids under the age of 10 at home, I think the checker just about passed out. But really, I never once counted the days left or the hours until bedtime. It was great! The only issues I had were (of course) with my own children.

We did a lot of fun things. The best part was (and this is the teacher in me) NO SCHOOL! Hooray! We did crafts in the morning and went to the park a couple of times (when it wasn't snowing), and even braved the crowded streets of Denver to go on our Homeschool group field trip to the Molly Brown House. (Jeff helped me with that one, there just weren't enough seat belts). We also watched a movie every day, since movies are rare at both our houses, the kids thought it was a treat. The rest of the time the kids just played and enjoyed each other.

My favorite part of each day was the 30 minutes of personal reading. The first day, I walked into the family room to see this:


Noah read to Samuel every day. I loved it.

Mealtimes were a little crazy,


But with help like this, prep and cleanup were a snap!


I do have to say though, that the fabulous experience was made possible by my amazing sister-in-law. Her kids were so helpful, obedient, happy, never fought (seriously!), ate all their food, went to bed on time, and even the not-quite-two-year-old was as patient as could be. She is doing an amazing job raising her kids. I've said for several years now that I want to be like her when I grow up. Now I want to even more :)

I think through the week, I learned to be a better mom. I learned to be more slow to anger (you think twice about blowing up when other kids are around!), how to delegate, and how to focus more on my prayers (I knew I needed extra help!). I hope I can remember all these things and try to be more organized in every area of life!

On a crafty note...I even got a few scrap pages done, a skirt finished, and a baby quilt started. Woo Hoo!

By midnight Saturday when the extra kids were reclaimed, I felt like I had accomplished a lot and had a wonderful week!

The hardest part? Setting the table for lunch on Sunday with only 5 spots...it seemed a little empty.