The Week In Review

Veronica turned sixteen years old this week. She was given birthday money to go to a nice restaurant, so she took the family and her best friend to Cheesecake Factory. Everyone enjoyed a delicious meal and then we shared a few desserts. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday evening we had a birthday party. I made six dozen cupcakes, we had all the fixings for s'mores and roasted starbursts, Travis built a big fire, the kids hit golf balls into the lake, sang songs (a couple of them played guitar), visited, watched part of the Jazz game, played games and had a great time. There were about twenty kids that came.

During the middle of the party, Travis held down the fort while I took Joe to Urgent Care. A reckless dunk on the neighbor's basketball hoop, off a trailer, resulted in a broken wrist for Joe. It was very painful. (This picture was taken the next day)
We enjoyed visiting Grandma Higginson and Grandma Rindlisbacher on Mother's Day. We love them both! I had a wonderful day with cards and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Bruce's friend (and future college roommate) Skyler came to visit over the weekend. We loved having him come and look forward to seeing more of him this fall.

Our Young Women had a fund-raiser for girls camp. For a $40.00 donation, we'd get a ten-minute family photo session and a disk with the two prints of our choice. These are the two we chose.

Cowboy Stuff and Silly Kids

We made a birthday cake for Jordan Rogers and her sisters came over and decorated it. (Jordan is the youngest daughter of my friend Lori, who died at the beginning of the summer.) Jordan takes after her Mom and loves all things cowboy. Her Mom was a championship roper and grew up on a ranch in Nevada. Jordan is turning 9 on Sunday.
For her birthday present from our family, we made this charm bracelet. The picture in the charm is of her Mom.
Savannah and Joe being silly. It's hard to imagine a time when a jacket was required. Hopefully this heat wave will end soon. Savannah looking cute. I think she took this of herself.
I think Savannah also took this cute shot of Joe. I love the toothless smile. That one lone tooth on top is very loose. Soon he'll have nothing right there.

Saturday is a Special Day...

Since it's the last day of the month, we baked cookies and chocolate/banana cakes for the lady I haven't been able to reach for visiting teaching and for Travis and Bruce's two hometeaching families. Yummy!

All of our Saturdays have been busy so far this summer, so this was the first Saturday that we've been able to get to some of these jobs. Everyone pitched in and worked so hard. It was a pretty productive day--even though it didn't lend itself to the most flattering photos.

Savannah and Joe cleaned off the back patio and deck, sweeping, spraying and generally cleaning up. It looks much better now.

Veronica, Savannah and Joseph cleaned out the fridge, tossing and scrubbing until now it shines. They did a great job.

Joseph was in charge of the entryway. Believe it or not, when he started the shoe box was overflowing with shoes, a couple of gloves, a toy or two and even a box of flashcards. He put everything away and swept around it. Now we have a nice, clean entryway.

Travis and Bruce hit the back yard, cleaning out under the 25 tall bushes that separate our yard from our backyard neighbors. They cleaned, pruned, trimmed and mowed and now the backyard looks beautiful. Of course, it had to be about 90+ degrees during all of this, so that made it fun. It's sure nice to be married to someone who takes good care of our yard. It always looks so nice.