Mr. and Mrs. Smith

A few weeks ago, Brayden had a smart idea on how to earn a little extra cash -one that did not include doing extra chores for his mother.  Lemonade. Luckily for him, the neighbor kids all pitched in and all the parents kindly bought some lemonade.  They had a lot of fun flagging down cars, riding scooters around, and of course drinking most of the lemonade.  Of course, when you have to split your earnings a few ways, it might just be easier to do chores for your mom!

 Brooklyn has started dancing classes.  She is so cute in her little leotard and I made her a ballet skirt out of leftover fabric from her Aunt Lexie's dance costume.   She loves to come home and show me all the new tricks that she has learned.  I hope she takes after her Aunt Lexie and not me when it comes to dancing skills! Can't wait to attend her little recital in a few months.  And yeah, I'm maybe a little more excited about it than she is. 

 Our $1 Floating Shelves!  Billy found a plan online on building floating shelves so Brayden would have a place to display all his Lego creations and his Star Wars ships.  We started by going to the ReStore (a place that sells donated building supplies -new and used- and picked up a set of folding closet doors for $1.  Painted them black with paint we already had.   Billy made some braces and drilled them into the wall.  His were even better than the plan's.  We cut the doors down and they slid right onto the brackets- well almost, we may have had to do a little sanding on the brace.... It would just be wrong if our projects worked out perfectly the first time ha ha!   Now we just need to fill them with all those cool "boy" things Brayden has waiting to show off!

We can't have a dog- she's allergic. We can't have a cat- she's allergic. But, by golly, we can have a bug in a jar. And baby brother might just be giving the bug kisses through the glass. Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

Say What??  Can't believe we are back into the school year...yes, one of the joys of year-round school is a nice early August start.  I have mixed feelings about this as I had a long bucket list of things I wanted to do this summer (or should I call it a lunch box list- things I want to do before I "kick the lunch box") either way, we did a few of them- mainly camping more this summer.  But, we missed the zoo, the museum, pirate park, etc...  And I love having my kids around me, not having a schedule, and being able to do what we want, when we want.  However, listening to the kids argue this morning helped ease the transition of sending Brayden off to school- ha!  So, without further ado. Introducing my 2nd grader! Stats: Likes- math, soccer, basketball, legos and tv Dislikes- homework, chores, "wierdo kids" -yes, I think I need to work with him on that last one Personal Record- staying happy while his mom made him smile for 29 photos

Billy was home sick from work for a few days last week.  Landon didn't mind the germs and turned Daddy into a jungle gym.... Climb on Daddy's back Give him a hug Start the ascent.. higher and higher and land...

We went with some friends up to Pine Flats campground.  (It’s a great place if you are looking for a campground near Boise.  It even had a hot springs that you could hike to.)  We had taken the kids previously on a one night camping trip with just our little family, but going with friends made it even more fun.  As an added bonus, I only had to cook ONCE!  The kids had a blast running around, throwing and losing Frisbees.  Brayden especially loved catching itty-bitty frogs in a water bottle.  Unfortunately for me, 5 survived the ride home, so I had to create a makeshift frog aquarium.  And I hate to admit how many bugs I've tried catching just to feed the stinky things.  Billy was disappointed that he didn't catch any fish in a stocked lake, but he continued trying even on our latest campout with my parents.  Brooklyn loved running around with the kids.  They all played together so nicely, it was "almost" like having a babysitter....