June 2017

Schools out--hooray hooray!

Last day of school shenanigans means neighborhood shaving cream fight in the park. Ha!

Kids enjoyed their Spring Piano Recital under instructor Cera Keeler.  We've LOVED having her as a teacher, sadly her family is moving out of state for her husband's schooling.  Fingers crossed she comes back to Dallas and we can continue with her someday.

Matthew felt big and helpful when Dad asked him to help back out the car, apparently he felt he needed to be safe so a helmet was required.  LOL

Big Boys head to Scout camp

Sam and Stephen went to scout camp.

Camp Trevor Reese Jones near Athens Texas, the week of June 19th.  Sam had a wonderful and productive week!

He earned 5 merit badges and 2 partials:

Swimming, mammal studies, First aid, finger printing and Environmental Science and Nature and Crime Prevention are partials.  This helped him "clean up" at a later court of honor.  He's now he's a Tenderfoot Rank!

Here are some of the highlights....

Time spent in classes completing his assignments for the merit badges....

Sleeping in a tent with dad (theirs was always neat and tidy)

Participating in relay races

Swimming tests with his friend Tyree White

June 2017--week 2

Lake day!  Kaitlyn was a super trooper being so tired from Girls Camp, we would have stayed home but our next few weekends are busy and lake time wont be possible.  It was a gorgeous day!

"THE WASP NINJA"--When Kaitlyn got home from girls camp, she was a little bummed that she hadn't been able use a tent, so she asked permission to set up a tent in the backyard to sleep in.  A few hours after setting it up, she went out there and discovered a wasp in her tent!  Kaitlyn has been stung a few times by wasps (a bunch of them actually swarmed her once and she got stung a few times) so needless to say she's CRAZY scared of them.  Enter her hero little brother, "THE WASP NINJA" who crazy fast came in and grabbed the perfect tool--SALAD TONGS and went out to avenge his sister and banish the wasp.  I was cracking up. 

Needless to say, the wasp left and the three of these guys enjoyed a night sleeping in the tent.

Other fun happenings this week included going to the Ft. Worth Zoo with friends...

 Lindsey enjoyed her first meeting of her summer book club (Mr. Popper's Penguins).

And we enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa McKneely and they took a couple kids home with them for a week (Sam is taking Dad to scout camp, Kaitlyn is taking mom to Salt Lake City on tour with MCO) 

Kaitlyn goes to girls camp

Our sweet Kaitlyn enjoyed a week at Girls Camp.  This year they went to Collin County Adventure Camp.  We are grateful for a good group of girls that she spent a few days with.  She enjoyed canoeing, climbing the rock wall and repelling, and strengthening her relationships with the YW in our ward.

Memorial Day weekend 2017

We were so eager to get out onto the lake.  Our friend Britt Berrett (Uncle Britt) let us use his lake house and we were going to make a long weekend of our FIRST boating weekend of the season.  But then our boat had a minor mechanical problem, but we thankfully were able to work it out and still got out on the lake!  Whew!

Kids eager to head to the lake!  All crammed into the backseat of the truck.  Not sure how much longer they're going to last being packed in like Sardines (We're sardines, woot woot), but one trick that we've found keeps the fighting down to a minimum is that I read to them outloud for an hour while we drive.  It keeps things very peaceful and I LOVE it! We started reading "Wonder" and really enjoy it so far.

At the lake house we don't have internet access, so we're able to disconnect and reconnect with each other.

S'mores were a MUST over the fire pit....

And lots of time playing games as a family--here's a couple favorites of ours: 

Cover your Assets, Tenzi, and monopoly

And on Sunday after just attending Sacrament meeting we came home and went on a hike as a family.  Britt has this funny legend of the "Togo-pogo" that he set up.

May 2017--part 4

End of the school year activites have begun.  This week K had a flute concert, and the 3 younger ones had their End of Year parties....

Matthew with Mrs. Paige Bratton

 (side note--due to a change in principal and a new elementary school opening in our district, many of our beloved teachers from Marion are leaving to follow our principal to Preston Elementary School--this wonderful AIM teacher Karen Abney is one of them--how we love her and will miss her!)

Lindsey with Mrs. Julia Asif

Sam with Mrs. Samantha Fields

And just for fun, here is what kids will remember from the 2016-17 school year:

Dabbing, bottle flipping, making homemade slime and fidget spinners.

May 2017--part 3

What a FULL week!  

Kaitlyn was inducted into National Junior Honors Society.  Starting next school year, in addition to her academic, musical and church responsibilities, she's committed to give 10 hours of community service each 9 weeks.  She has such a giving heart, this shouldn't be hard for her.  Grateful for the opportunity to develop her "service" muscle.

I was fortunate enough to volunteer at the kids FAVORITE DAY of the school year--FIELD DAY!  A day where they can literally play outside all day going from station to station to play games (some of them involving water).  They look forward to this so much and as a mom, I do too.  Kids need to be kids.

And speaking of service, we were blessed to participate with our church in the community wide day of service called "Change the World".  This year we helped Davis Blacker complete a home improvement project for an elderly woman where we cleaned gutters, trimmed back bushes, planted sod, and built a retaining wall.  It was wonderful to serve as a family.