Where did summer go?

My kids started school today! This summer has flown by! It's been a crazy summer and we kept ourselves busy.
Here is a quick rundown of some of the fun we had!

In July Jake went to scout camp with the young men so I took the girls to Idaho for a week with my parents. This year while we were there we took a trip to Craters of the Moon. If you don't know what that is, it is a place in Idaho where there used to be volcanoes, many, many, many years ago. Now you can go and see inside the volcano cone and see the lava tubes and go inside some caves. It's kinda interesting and I hadn't been for a lot of years so we thought it might be fun.

Here's a picture of the girls down in one of the caves- This one, I think, was the Beauty Cave. We also went in the Boy Scout Cave, but we didn't make it very far. It was really wet inside. After I stepped in water over my shoe we decided not to go any farther.


This is the girls sitting on some of the Lava rocks outside of the visitors center.
Next we had a couple of birthdays! Juliana turned 5 and...


got to have a birthday party. She has wanted to have a water party since a neighbor had one a year ago, so we bought a little pool and played with wet sponges and water balloons. One of the things we love the most about where we live is all the kids in the neighborhood. It was fun having all the kids there.


Juliana's party was the same day as Christena's 11th birthday. She wasn't happy about it but I think she had fun too.
Jake had to work on Christena's birthday so a couple days later, she finally got to have her cake.

This year she wanted to have a Twilight cake. She's read the first 3 books but her mean mom and dad won't let her read the 4th book yet and she can't watch the movies until she is 13. She decided to buy the first 3 books with her birthday money and is now on her second time through them.
One of the biggest things that has kept us busy is finishing our basement! We finally have everything framed and we are getting ready to get the electrical done. Once that is finished we can get our first of the 3 inspections done.

Thanks to everyone who has helped! We couldn't have done it without you!
And now the first day of school. I can't believe how fast my kids have grown up. Christena is now in 6th grade, her last year of elementary school. Savannah is starting 4th grade, Olyvia 2nd and Juliana will start kindergarten in 1 week. It has gone so fast. Today it was so quiet with only Juliana at home. I can only imagine how quiet it will be next week with all my kids gone.
I don't know if I will like the uninterrupted time to work, or if I will have to watch disney channel all day so I don't miss my kids. I guess I'll know in a week!

The Road to ...

You know how they say that the road to h*%$ is paved with good intentions? That's the way I have felt lately about this blog. I have been meaning to update for the past 6 or 7 months but its kind of like writing in my journal. The longer I go without updating the more I have to write and I just don't know where to start.

First of all the most major thing that has happened in the last year is...

We built a house!


Here's the hole for when they first started on the house.
Next- getting closer to being done.

Last- finally finished. We moved in on January 23. We are so glad to be in our new home. We are still getting settled and everything is still kind of a work in progress. I'd say I'll put pictures of the inside up on the blog- but based on my record, no promises.

Our basement isn't finished so Jake and his Dad have been working hard for the last 3 Thursdays and they are quickly getting the framing done. They have 4 walls up so far and hopefully now that they have most of the planning done it should go pretty quickly. We are keeping our fingers crossed and the girls are really hoping because as soon as the basement is done they will all have their own rooms. I'm looking forward to it being finished, hoping the girls won't fight as much if they have their own space and I get a sewing room, so I no longer have to sew on my kitchen table.

And now some random pictures of the last 6 months or so : (sorry for the sideways pictures, I thought I had them turned before I uploaded them.)

Juliana on Halloween isn't she such a cute clown. It was the perfect costume for her because she always makes a laugh. She is such a goof!

Christena, Savannah and Olyvia all got guitars from Santa . They were very surprised and excited. Savannah had been asking for a guitar for the past year. Her new teacher gives guitar lessons to her and Christena- for free. It is part of the after school program at the school.
Just after Christmas Christena and Olyvia were in a play put on by the Missoula Children's Theater. It was a week long production. They auditioned on Monday, practiced all week and did two performances on Saturday. The play was The Princess and the Pea. Christena was a "Big Blizzard Bringer" and Olyvia was a "dust bunny." she is in the middle of the picture below. They are doing the "Dust Bunny Hop."
Another great thing we have found since we moved is a great ballet class for Olyvia. I think she is learning a lot, but the thing I like best is the price. Her teacher is the daughter of our Bishop and she only charges $5 a month! There are only 3 girls in the class and she has class for an hour once a week. She is always very excited to come home and show us all the new things she has learned.

Just after we moved and the kids started at their new school Christena's class did a wax museum. She had about a week to read a biography and get her presentation ready. She was Eleanor Roosevelt. She learned some really cool facts and found some great quotes that she wants to put up in her room once it is finished. She hated the costume I made her wear- but I thought it looked good, and hey what are mom's for!
Anyway that' s been our lives for the last year. I really will try to do better about keeping everyone updated on our lives. It has been a crazy year with no signs of all the chaos ending, but it has been a fun one!

April

I haven't done as good of a job as I wanted to in keeping up with my blog so here is a quick over- view of our April.



We started April with a quick trip to Idaho and Spring break. We had hoped to do something fun with the kids over spring break but it was raining and snowing the whole week. Their spring break was a week or so before most of the other districts spring break so it was just a cold week.



Next we had Easter. Here are some pictures of the kids dying eggs.



Here is the finished product- This year we made glitter eggs. They were really pretty but they were a big mess. I don't think we will do this kind again!



I realized after the easter egg hunt that I hadn't taken any pictures. I also remembered Sunday night that I didn't take any pictures of my kids in their Easter dresses. They had matching dresses this year. I thought they looked really cute but Savannah wasn't happy. Maybe it is the age. When Christena was 8 she didn't want to match her sisters either, this year Savannah was the only one who didn't want to match, so she got stuck in a matching dress so she wouldn't be the only one not the same.



Next in our month we had Olyvia's 6th birthday. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said she wanted a MP3 player, her training wheels off her bike or roller skates.

She got the MP3 player. We also got her the Hannah Montana movie Soundtrack. The Saturday after her birthday Olyvia and I went to the Hannah Montana movie and out to dinner. We had planned on going before her birthday but the whole week before our house was filled with sick kids. We finally have all gotten well!

Olyvia wanted a flower birthday cake this year so we borrowed her Aunt Tonja's flower pan. It was one of the easiest cakes I have decorated for a while.On the 24th my niece Kirsten got married so we had fun getting together with all of my family and getting to see them. My kids always love getting together with their cousins. Again I didn't remember to take my camera, so I have no pictures of the cousins all dancing together.

On April 22, my grandpa Byington passed away. He was almost 88 years old and had Parkinson's disease, so our month ended with another trip to Idaho for the viewing and funeral.

Funerals are never fun but it was nice to see my cousins that I haven't seen for a while and my sister Doreen was able to come from South Carolina with her 18 month old daughter. It was nice to have all the family there.

Jake also finished his first semester back at school. He has a break now until the last week of May when he has to go to Logan for the week and then his Summer class starts in June. School was an adjustment but hopefully Jake is now back in the swing of things. He is still waiting for one of his grades, but overall it was a good semester!

Our Actress

Christena had her school play a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to post some pictures of her play. They put on "The Big, Bad Musical". It was trial of the big bad wolf and she played the part of the Fairy Godmother who was the attorney for the "good side" as she puts it. She did fantastic! She was the first one to start the play and she had several solo's she had to sing in the first song as well as a whole song that was her singing. She also had over 70 lines to memorize. It was alot of work but she did fantastic. Jake recorded the play with our ancient (7yr old) video camera, but because it isn't digital we can't hook it up to the computer or I would post a video from her play. Anyway when we watched the video the sound was awful but you could hear almost all of Christena's lines, which wasn't true for everyone in the play.

Here is Christena before the play started.


And interviewing the 3 little pigs-we couldn't get a very good picture because we were too far back and everytime Savannah tried to snap the picture Christena turned her head.
We are so proud of Christena and I think she has definatly gotten the acting bug- she had so much fun and was such a natural- (We always knew she was a drama queen). I'm sure this is just going to be the first of many plays for her. Thanks for everyone who could come and support her in the play!

On another note last week we went to Idaho to visit my family while the girls were on Spring Break. One of the days we were up there Savannah was playing with her 4 year old cousin and this is what she put together with the domino's. She has such patience and is so precise.

These are my brother's twin's names. I didn't get a picture of the tower that she built out of the dominos.

Anyway we have had a fun and busy last couple of weeks, the kids are back to school tomorrow-Thank Goodness- and hopefully everything back to normal. Jake has 3 weeks left of this semester and is ready for it to be done. It has been a big adjustment for him going back to school and all the work involved but he really has been enjoying it and all the new things he has been learning. He figured out the other night that he should be able to finish his program in about another year and a half so we aren't as far off as the 3 years I thought it was going to take. It's nice to see the end not to far off.

Savannah's Baptism

Last Saturday was Savannah's baptism. It was really nice and I want to say a big Thank You for everyone who came, brought food and helped out! It would not have been the same without everyone.
Here are some pictures from Savannah's big day.

Her and Jake before the baptism

The baptism girl!

It's always nice to get together, but I'm glad its over, and luckily I have 2 more years until we get to do it again!

Savannah's Birthday

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Savannah's 8th birthday (which is today). We had an Around the World birthday party and went to 5 different countries. First we went to Paris France and the girls got manicures, next we went to Beijing China and the girls had to pick up swedish fish out of a bowl of rice with chopsticks. After that we went to Australia and decorated boomerangs then to Hawaii and made Leis then finally to Mexico where they got to break open a pinata. It was a lot of fun but I'm glad it is over. 10 little girls can quickly wear you out, although my downstairs neighbor said we weren't as loud as she expected us to be. Anyway here are a few pictures of our birthday party fun!
I don't know why blogger isn't pulling my pictures up the way I put them in, and since I am almost computer illiterate and can't figure out how to move them I'll explain them for you.

The first one is Savannah opening one of her presents. She got this really cool bag that was emboidered in China.
these are the presents she got from Christena and Juliana.

The girls getting their manicures.

Savannah's birthday cake- funny story about the cake-well it's funny now, not so much at the time- I usually make my kids birthday cakes, so this year Savannah wanted an ice cream cake. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal because I made one for Christena a few years ago. So Friday I put ice cream in a cake pan and stuck it in the freezer so it would be nice and hard and I baked the cake and put it in to the freezer. Saturday I got ready to frost the cake, got all of the frosting made and in the decorating bags and pulled the cake and icecream out of the freezer, got them all situated on the platter and started frosting. The frosting would not stick to the ice cream. We were trying to make her cake look like a world and it looked pretty good until I turned around to grab something and by the time I turned back around the continents had shifted and were sliding off the sides of the cake. So one hour before the party Savannah and I quickly went to Wal Mart in search of a new cake and some ice cream for the party. Here's what we found-

It does look beautiful.

So Savannah is now 8 and getting ready to be baptized next week. Time has sure flown by and she is quickly growing up and becoming more beautiful everyday. These are a few of the pictures we had taken of her in her baptism dress. Isn't she so grown up!

kids!

kids say the funniest things- and mine have been hilarious!

Christena has been into cooking lately and yesterday she was asking for a cookbook. Jake innocently asked her if she wanted to go to culinary school when she is older. Christena's reply- "No! I don't want to look at colons all day!"
Jake and I almost died laughing.

Then, since we were talking about school and where the kids wanted to go to college, Jake told Christena and Savannah that if they wanted to go to BYU they had to do good in school and get good grades. Savannah said she wanted to go to BYU- Idaho. Jake said why do you want to go there, the football team and basketball team are both at BYU Provo and that's where all the cute boys are- she quickly and emphatically answered, "Then I want to go to Provo!" I have to admit that left me a little worried, she is only almost 8!

My kids always amaze me and make me laugh everyday- They are great!