Whose 4?!

Domonique celebrated her golden birthday today!
We started the day off with pancakes and chocolate ice cream! She helped with the pancakes, as much as I could let her. She is so excited to be a big girl.

Amazingly enough, we didn't gather wood as we normally have in the past. Kevin had the day off but needed to pack for Scout camp. We did keep the tradition of going to our friend's pool, but this time some friends joined us. We had a picnic/bar-b-que and enjoyed playing with our friends at the pool. My kids really enjoyed swimming and Camdilyn and I hung out in the shade, most of the time.

We borrowed this floaty for Harmonie and she loved it!

Marissa wanted to show me her trick...

Emily has gotten more confident and is enjoying the water more each time.

Kemiah has also gained confidence and really enjoyed doing canon balls into the water!

Marissa is working on shallow diving.

And then swimming to the bottom of the deep end.

Kemiah the swimmer!

Domonique loves the steps and is now 4!

Camdilyn got in for a little bit of a swim and really enjoyed the water!

Caught ya', Ben!

Trying to get away from me!

Xiomara is getting better and enjoyed swimming at the bottom of the shallow end.

Domonique went in for a little while with Emily, but quickly wanted back to the steps.

We stayed for a rather long time, and then headed home for dinner. We had popcorn chicken with sweet and sour sauce and rice. It's one of Domonique's favorite! We cleaned up and watched for Grandma and Grandpa Nichols. They brought a round cake with a butterfly drawn on top. Everyone was excited to watch the birthday girl open her presents.

Xiomara's homemade gift - yarn corking

Her very own Friends Lego sets!

Little People music CD of popular kid's songs...

and movie, How to Train Your Dragon.

A Big Pen... this is the only thing she asked for!

and a green light up ball.

Emily's homemade gift - red, white and blue paper bracelet.

New LeapPad books and machine (which someone gave to us a while back).

Grandma and Grandpa Nichols gave her a butterfly net...

$4 in her birthday card...

a game, Jumping Monkeys...

sandals...

a shirt and shorts (both have butterflies on them).

We left our house around 9:30 to go watch the fireworks. We went to the same spot as last year, but this time no one else was on the hill. We had a perfect spot and no one else was there. It was such a neat show and the kids all enjoyed it, even Camdilyn (who wasn't scared at all). It was a wonderful night and we were all very impressed with the display and grand finale!



I would say she made out pretty well on the loot and we had a great day celebrating her! I kept asking her, "Hey, Domonique, you know what?" She'd respond with "what?" and I'd say, "It's your birthday!" She would then either say, "I know," or "oh Mom!" or something else. I just wanted to remind her that it was her special day. (I think I do that with everyone so they are getting tired of it, I guess.) She is a special, sweet, very smart girl and we are so happy that she is in our family! We love Domonique!

Snow in JUNE?

The cottonwood trees are letting their seeds fly where they may... a lot of them got caught in our grass. It was fun to watch them fly through the air because it really looked like it was snowing. You don't really want to catch these on your tongue, though. It is really amazing to see these trees (first the maple trees and now the cottonwoods) send their seeds off in hope that they will grow. I also noticed our pine trees have a ton of cotton stuck on the needles, and it sort of looks like cob webs - yuck.

I looked back to see if I posted the maple seeds and found that I didn't, so here they are. Back on May 29, I took these pictures to show how many maple seeds were in my yard. They fell from my neighbors tree, so its not like they floated from far away. It still amazes me to see how many seeds covered the ground. I am excited to see all the new maple trees growing in the garden and in the old chicken yard behind the garage. I don't know how many will survive or how many we will allow to grow up but the idea of a forest of maples is really appealing.

We love to gather a handful and toss them up into the air to watch them twist and fall back down to the earth. I did that with Harmonie one day and she kept gathering them back up, and bringing them to me so I could do it again. What a fun memory!

Kids and cake!

My sweet little Camdilyn!

Happy Harmonie making a face!

Her bangs are crazy!

Loving the snuggles!

 

Emily and I made a cake for Family Home Evening.

Everyone was pretty excited to get a piece.

Chocolate cake made from scratch, with white chocolate frosting.

It looks better than it than it tasted.

It was a little dry but the kids loved it.

2nd time this summer but no proof

Summer has officially begun for our family! The weather is finally nice and we are trying to enjoy it. A couple weeks ago the kids worked hard and everyone got their school work done before lunch. As a treat, I took the kids to our friend's pool. Unfortunately, they live on the north side of town and it was cloudy when we got there. In fact, before we could get to cover it started to rain on us. Bummer. Fortunately, our friend was home and let us wait it out in her house, and even put a movie on for the kids and gave us cookies to munch on. Once the rain stopped, they were ready to jump in so they enjoyed 45 minutes of swim time!
Today, they finished their school work and weeded in the garden before lunch so we went to the pool again - this time it was sunny! It was a perfectly wonderful day to go to the pool and they really enjoyed themselves.
Emily is gaining confidence and pushing herself a little farther each time we go. She was so excited when she swam across the middle of the deep end of the pool without any floaties!
Ben and Marissa are starting to get the idea of swimming - using arms and legs together.
Xiomara is trying to stay right up with the older guys - I'm not sure she remembers how well she swam on the island.
Kemiah is ready for the next step - swimming without floaties.
Domonique is terrified of the water and likes to stay on the top step. I was able to get her to hold my hand as I "pulled" her from the edge to the steps more than once. (I was not in the water so I was doing it from the edge.)
Harmonie is fearless and would jump in the minute we got there if we didn't tell her to wait for her floaties. Fortunately, she does have some feelings of self-preservation when she starts to swallow water.
Camdilyn enjoyed nursing and hanging out with me in the shade. One of these days I'll get in the water with these kids and give them some real swim lessons, but for now, they are really enjoying all that they can do!
Unfortunately, both times I forgot to take the camera so I don't have any pictures to share with this post. I wanted to write it down though, so that I would remember these moments with my children. They truly are a fun bunch to hang out with!

On their own.



Someone came to me and asked me to come take a picture of the girls. They had "dressed up" as Mary and Joseph and had a baby and manger. I must admit it was really cute. And they sat there, posed and quiet so I could take the pictures. I guess that means they think about Jesus.



Here's a little color for you!

Most projects like this use celery.

We decided to see if it would work with a white flower.

You can definitely see the blue at the end of the petals.

It was neat to watch it move.

I thought it would color more of the petals.

It got too wilty so I tossed it out.

Pretty cool.

Perspective

We were weeding in the garden today, and we noticed a sea gull flying above us. Marissa said it was in the wrong place because it should be by water. Domonique shouted out to the sea gull, "Sea gull, you're in the wrong place. Go back to Kroger!" I laughed right out loud! That's where she sees them and so I guess that's where they belong.