A Whole Lot of Holeyness Going On

I don't know what got into us. Maybe it was the idea of doing something girly together while Christian was at Boys Camp.

Maybe it was because Madison turned twelve.

Maybe because it's summer.

Maybe because Ashlyn was begging.

Maybe because it would be a bonding experience for sisters.

Maybe it was all of the above.

Whatever it was, we decided to get Madison and Ashlyn's ears pierced. Brooke was still on the fence and I certainly wasn't about to push her over it. The only caveat was that Ashlyn couldn't do it by herself. If Madison decided to wait, then Ashlyn would wait too. Ashlyn, being her brave, determined, mind-set-on-it self wasn't about to be deterred and that confidence bled over to Madison.

She was even determined to go first.

As excited and willing as she was to go first, once she was in the chair, she was all serious.

But she did it with no more than a blink! My brave girl!!

Marking Maddy's ear . . . she's a bit nervous.

Look! It's done: quick and painless.

Matchy Matchy Sisters. Aquamarine earrings for March birthdays.

Now they clean their earlobes together and Ashlyn will ask if it's time to "twist" yet. They're very excited.

I tried to upload the short video, but blogger isn't allowing it. Anyone else having this problem?

Ride, Sally, Ride

On Saturday the kids were out riding bikes and I wanted Ashlyn to try a 2-wheeler. She's super good on her bike with training wheels and even rode three miles last week, including hills.

I didn't want to take her training wheels off in case so just used Christian's bike as he just outgrew it.

On attempting to help her ride a bike on our cul-de-sac, in small circles, it just wasn't working. She needed a straightaway where she could gain speed. John has this nifty trick of using a rope to balance the bike so you don't have to be so bent over the whole time, but those small circles weren't cutting it. I suggested we go down to the church to use the large wide-open parking lot.

He set off with the rope and within about 3 seconds she was going on her own.

Then she proceeded to go around the entire parking lot and through all the lanes over and over again. She was amazing!!!!

We were all in shock and weren't prepared for that at all! We didn't have a video or a good camera - just my phone, for which I'm so thankful.

She was by far the easiest child to teach how to ride a bike, then John got a bit melancholy at the thought of her being the last child to teach!

Back at home on her own pink bike. The rain boots are awesome.

Our First Week of Summer

So far, so good. The first week of summer has turned out to be so fun, even if they sun hasn't shone consistently. We started out the week first thing Monday morning with chores, homework and this . . .

It's done! It's finally all done! The glass guy came and installed a massive shower enclosure that's super heavy with 1/2"thick glass almost all the way to the ceiling. The best part is that we now get to use it! I don't think my children have showered so much in any given week (especially summer with all the swimming) in their lives. It's beautiful, functional, and totally works! It only took 2 months, which is a record here. After a few more smaller-scale items, the bathroom can officially be called remodeled. Hopefully that will be within the 2 1/2 year mark.

On Monday we went swimming with the Johnsons

On Tuesday we went to the Free Movie with the Johnsons, then here to play and have In-n-Out for lunch, then swimming

On Wednesday we went to Malibu ...

It was a nice day, even if it was cloudy and the kids made good use of this little sand dune.

Then I signed Christian up for TKD which at which he was totally awesome and surprised us all. I hope he can commit to it.

I had a difficult time understanding the Grand Master, but everyone tells me you get used to it and eventually start to comprehend his Korean/English.

Thursday is beach day at Silverstrand! Yeah! The tradition continues. There were several families from a different ward, and our cousins, which Ashlyn was so excited about- she loves her Chelsea.
Christian and I had fun playing badminton, velcro-ball (?) and he loved climbing on the rocks.

The shore was lined with millions of sand crab skeletons. Weird! I don't think I've ever seen that before.

The older girls wanted to go down the beach a bit to find a better boarding spot. They just looked too cool walking back. They also wanted to go for a walk down the beach a ways on their own ... they are growing up! Pretty soon they're going to want to plop their towels down yards away from us, if I let them. Which I won't.

Brooke wanted to get her own surfboard so bad! She emptied out her piggy bank and was all set to go get one. She begged and begged John to take her to the store every day. She certainly did not want to wait until her birthday (late Sept) so with her determination, we took her to the store and she picked out her very own surfboard and she paid half for it. The other half she's paying us back by tutoring Ashlyn, teaching her piano, doing extra chores and developing her own talents. Here in this picture is giving her surfboard her very own signature. She's so pro.

Friday was spent baking for the tri-ward picnic and running errands. Another super fun thing of the week was riding bikes and playing outside UNTIL THE STREETLIGHTS CAME ON!

I LOVE SUMMER!!!

Summer Kick-Off

The last day of school! ! !

To celebrate, we wanted to kick of the summer immediately by holding our outdoor movie theater . . .

Thirty-one children and lots and lots of snacks

Along with a fun flick make for a new tradition.

The kids had a half day for their last day of school and we went to Tutti Frutti afterwards, had friends over all day ending with the theater experience makes for a great end to an awesome school year.

Even better, all the kids did terrifically on their report cards, honor roll and all!

Big Day for Pre-K

Ashlyn was beyond excited for her graduation. She had her dress picked out and hung on display days beforehand. On the morning of, she was completely dressed with tights, shoes and even necklace by 7:30a.m. Unfortunately, she had swim lessons at 10:00 and school doesn't even start until noon. Minor glitch.

She arrived and met up with her bff Caroline who happened to be practically matching. That's what bff's end up doing.

The procession walking in . . .

The program consisted of singing all the songs they learned throughout the year. Ashlyn introduced the song "You are My Sunshine"

And led the class in the actions . . .

"Thank You!"

She also had a solo in the song "I Like Me" where she sang:

I like my heart

It's my very finest part

It's the part that shares

It's the part that cares

So I like my heart!

After hugging the teacher, the children 'cross the bridge' and say the name of the school they'll be attending. "Maple Elementary!"

First day of school

Last day of school

She loved that little had and wore it all day long. She loved her beautiful dress and wanted to be the graduation princess all day long. This picture is taken during Christian's swimming lesson late in the afternoon.

Saturday night I took Christian to his Dodger Team party where they swam, ate, and celebrated like 7/8 year old boys.

Aren't You Wondering If There's Been Any Progress?

The shower and bathroom project has been moving right along, albeit at a snail's pace.

IT WILL BE WORTH THE WAIT.

It's looking pretty fantastic, isn't it? Even with just a cement floor.

Now we're talking! It's really coming together.

Just when one part is looking good and the dust is all cleaned up, it's time to create more mess.

John installed a pocket door, so had to move the door frame over to create room for the pocket which required knocking out part of the wall and building a whole new door frame.

We wish we could keep the nice, wide opening which grants a better view to the beautiful shower.

This is standing in the shower looking out. Hello mess.

Here's my shower head. It's installed! At my perfect height! John's side is at his perfect height!

One down, three to go.

In case there is doubt, the hole in the wall where my medicine cabinet is going to go was created a year and a half ago...

Yup, there's the date in close up so there's no doubt. This next week marks the TWO year anniversary when this project started. Don't be jealous.

The kids asked why dad wrote the Dodgers logo on the wall. Little do they know yet of abbreviations for things like True Love Always. And kids these days think they own the texting language - ha! Just check out our yearbooks...they're all in code. K.I.T!

Look, the wall's back.
And there is a door! It slides. It glides! It hides in a pocket!

On another front, the school and sports year is coming to a close (yeah!!!) and with that come all the festivities. We put on a end-of-season family track club picnic for the entire club so I got to go to Costco and buy 500 of their large cookies. Oh I got some comments alright. The entire basket was completely full of boxes of cookies with Ashlyn riding in the front. The bigger surprise was having 500 cookies in the trunk of the car which took up the entire trunk of Jon's car - the kids' eyes were bulging out of their sockets when I went to pick them up from school.
We also had 100 boxes of pizza delivered for the picnic. Glad I didn't have to pick those up, too! It's hard to gage exactly how much food to buy when you don't know if there will be 325 or 499 people attending, but we did it perfectly as there was only one slice of pizza left when everyone was gone and the stadium was cleaned up, and only about a dozen or so of the oatmeal raisin cookies. Phew!

My cute niece Domonique and her friend came to town from college for a quick little summer vacation visit so we all got to go out to lunch at the Islands. It's totally awesome that Grandma Carol is in town for it, too.

Ashlyn had her last dance class

and Christian had his last baseball game. They made it to game #5 in the playoffs before they lost. One more and it would have been for the Championship game. Go Dodgers!

Look at that teeny tiny cuteness.

Next up, preschool graduation (I mean Pre-K! She always corrects me).