Project Discovery

I love a good project, but I've found that the more kids I have...the less project time I have.  A couple of days ago Rachel decided she wanted a blue dress and cloak like Erica from Barbie's Princess in the Popper.  I was going to use some old material to make a dress, but then I decided that was too much work so we went and looked at Goodwill stores and found this dress.  It was a woman's size 10 but we just had to pull it up at the shoulders.  We used my old prom dress material to make the cape.

 A good seamstress might have ironed the cloak.

  I was able to get this all before noon.  My important discovery was that if I do a project for Rachel she doesn't get bored and asked me what she can do, she'll do her best at watching all of the children, and I get to do a project!

Happy Birthday to Lincoln

This is how Lincoln started his birthday. (We often find him next to our bed in the morning)

 We sang him happy birthday and gave him breakfast in bed.  He's also showing off his gifts in this picture.

 We went to the pool 2x for his birthday and had his requested dinner of spaghetti.  I love easy requests.

 On Saturday we did his birthday part with friends.  Joe did the birthday cake.  This is like the cake his mom made for him when he was little.

The kids and I with the decorations.  We have been remedying summer boredom by doing random things to get ready for the party.  That is why there's excessive detail.  We made pit passes, the Lightening McQueen pinata in the background, the party hats, and colored Disney Cars Pictures.

 Freeze Dance with tires.

 Races

 (Those are their steering wheels)

Musical Tires.

 Cars Lunch

 Time filler story time.  They chose "My Little Pony."  I'm sure there's got to be a connection to Cars there.

Happy Birthday to my sweet little boy!  Lincoln is such a joy to have around. His happiness is contagious.  He's a blessing to our family.

Sunday Fun

 We had left over pipe cleaners from the primary carnival so the kids had fun creating.

...and we just like this dress on Lily.

Primary Carnival

 Our ward was split and we were put into a new ward.  I was thinking that I was pretty lucky to be released early from being primary president, but as fate would have it, they made me the primary president in our new ward.  The previous primary presidency had scheduled a primary activity for 3 weeks after I was made president so this is what we threw together.  All the cute stuff is from my counselor.  (I have great counselors).  I was a little cranky about having to do the carnival but the kids had a lot of fun and some less active kids came that I hadn't seen in a while so I was happy we did it.

 Hannah waiting for the fishing booth. She's sporting a little cards that the kids put stickers on when they completed a booth.

 Rachel and Lincoln enjoying refreshments.

 Poor Lily taking a nap where she could get it again.  She had an ear infection and was pretty sad that day.

Rachel and Hannah made sure the cake walk was never empty.  Her best friend and her sister helped too.

That's Seth in the back manning a booth.  He didn't realize his visit would be so exciting:).  Joe was also good to man a booth.

Inventions

Lincoln is our little inventor.  He gets ideas in his head and will go off by himself for a while in silence.  We know when he does this he's going to come back with a new invention.  

I'm not sure what this gadget is but some of his inventions are: 

an artificial sun for swing set when the sun is not out, a parachute out of sheets, a zip line, a double swing(from a broken swing we couldn't fix), a jump rope step for getting on the trampoline easier, and the list goes on.

Summer Pictures

 The kids think we have to take a picture every time the complete a helping chart.  They earned a hula hoop for the last chart and wanted to show it off.

 They weather was really nice around the end of may and we enjoyed being out in the backyard a lot.  Lily doesn't get steady naps and takes them where she can get them.

Seth got to hang out with us for a week and a half while my mom and dad were out of town.  I enjoyed him and his help.  He got handed Lily a lot.  They played his ipod together.

Sharks on the Run

 In May Rachel and I did a fun run that the elementary school puts on each year.  I appreciated Batman posing in the back of the picture.

 This is us actually looking at the camera right before the run.  (Lincoln has a hard time looking at the camera in every picture.)

 Rachel and I had been training for the race at the track behind her school but she hurt her ankle so it was a little rough the day of the race.  She supported herself on the stroller, which was fun for me:)

 Finishing strong.

 Rachel loved that a lot of her friends ran too.

 Genius advertising campaign for a residential community.

Joe ran the 5K.  He had been waking up at 5:30am to train for this race but he got sick a couple days before and it affected him during the race.  He was bummed he didn't do as well as he wanted, but he still did pretty good getting 2nd in his age category.