Childhood memories

I have recently been reading my girls stories about my Grandma and Grandpa Thornton, (that would be their great grandparents). My dad put a lot of work into compiling histories about as many as my ancestors as he could find. I have read most of these histories, and some of the more interesting parts to my girls. They really love the stories, and it makes them feel more connected to their ancestors. It made me realize, I really need to start writing down a few of my own memories. I also had an activity for my Y.W. about blogs, and how they can be a great way to share family memories. So I am taking my own advice, and for the next few months, I have a goal of writing down one childhood memory a week until I can't think of anymore. Then when I get done, I will print them in hardbound form for my children to have. I have recently found some great sites for doing this. P.S. mom and dad I am waiting to get your histories to add to our books. I know the girls would love to hear stories about their own grandparents.

Our Swimming Pool

I think we were the luckiest kids in our neighborhood, because not only were we one of the first kids in the neighborhood to get a trampoline, I also had a dad who liked to invent things. I just started to list some of the things he invented, and decided that better be a whole other entry, to do it justice. Needless to say, my favorite invention was our swimming pool. We had hours of fun in this homemade contraption. It was six sided, made out of 2x4's, and in the early years we used black plastic for the lining. It was great because it was so slippery, but it got holes in it pretty easily, so later on we started using a big blue tarp. Every summer when the weather got warm enough, we would haul out the tarp and smooth out the sand underneath (by the way, in the spring and fall we had an awesome sand box) then we would staple the tarp to the edges, leaving one side unstapled, so that we could let the water out and clean it every so often. My dad also made a slide out of 2x4's, and covered it with Aluminum sheeting. The slide was burning hot in the summer but we quickly discovered a hose at the top solved that problem, and also made a great water slide! We would zip down the slide and try ski across the slippery plastic, the person who made it the farthest without falling was the winner. A lot of our make believe play was centered around that pool, we often would pretend we were mermaids or wild horses that loved the water. Often, we would have the whole neighborhood at once, and there would be a line to go down the slide. It might not have been the most glamorous looking pool but to us it was the best pool in the whole world.

Our pool in the early years. I'm too sexy poses from left to right: me, one of my best friends DeNiece, our pesky neighbor Ethan, my sister Nancy, and my other pesky neighbor and brother to the first one Austin. You can see part of our awesome slide in the background.

Here we are a little older, having fun with some of my nieces and nephews. From left to right, Joy, I think the next one is April but I am not sure, my nephew nick, then Amber a neighbor and little sister to the boys in the picture above, Nancy, my best friend Krista, and me.

15 years of Marriage and somebody stole my date!

Today is Shaun and mine anniversary. And I took second place to this cute girl.....

It was a western themed stake daddy daughter BBQ tonight, and Kaylee got to go out with Shaun instead of me. Now before you feel too sorry for me, we actually celebrated our anniversary a couple months ago in Mexico. And earlier this week, to celebrate, we rented out a roller skating rink and played a couple hours of roller hockey, with 10 other couples from our neighborhood. I don't mean to brag, but I was on the winning team all night, and scored 2 goals. Okay, I am bragging, but I'm not very good at sports, so it feels good to win, even though I was playing with a lot of people who had never even roller bladed before.

Sydnie put on some boots, grabbed a red sequin hat, and was all ready to go with daddy and her older sister. This is how she looked after Kaylee and daddy pulled out of the driveway without her....

Poor girl all dressed up for nothing. Mom made it up to her by reading her about 20 books. By the way don't you love how her nose practically disappears when she cries. She has about the littlest nose I have ever seen.

In other news...

Brianne lost another tooth. She bit into an apple and it started to bleed, I think this time she really wanted to have her daddy pull it out. So she tried to leave it alone, but even though Shaun was due to come home in just a couple hours, it just fell out without her even wiggling it. Oh well, maybe the next one.

Brianne with tooth number two. The girls are saving money this summer to go to Lagoon and Kaylee is very jealous of the money Brianne has been making from the tooth fairy. Cute Brianne even gave her half of the money to help her feel better, but much to Kaylee's dismay, I made her give it back. All I can say is Kaylee better be prepared to be a good example to her little sister, because Brianne thinks she walks on water.

Memorial Weekend

We had a fun yet quiet memorial weekend. Shaun actually had to work a little bit on Saturday, so that kind of cancelled out a lot of more exciting plans we could have made. Instead we stayed home and just did a few fun things around our neighborhood.

You should have seen and heard the commotion the girls had to make to get the ice cream truck to come to our house. It was circling the neighborhood looking for kids. It had made it to about every street but ours. All the neighborhood kids were just about going crazy waiting for it to get to our street. But for some reason it gave up before coming to our street. It was on its way out and you should have heard the commotion all the kids made trying to get its attention to come back. They were yelling and jumping and screaming as loud as they could. It worked! He turned around made about $40 in the process. Needless to say he was back again this week.

Monday night we held the annual neighborhood BBQ/marshmallow roast at our house. We do this every year it is a lot of fun the adults talk and the kids play games, and everyone had fun roasting marshmallows and making smores once the sun goes down. I forgot to get my camera out till the end but there was around 40 kids playing out in our yard at one point.

Even at the end of the party there were still a few people roasting marshmallows. Our neighbors the Shoemakers also loan their yard for the party too, they have all the fun toys for the kids to play on like a trampoline and swing set.

Now that school is out, potty training has officially begun. This is about how good it is going. Wish me luck!

Brianne lost her first tooth.

This has been a very eventful week for Brianne, and I have been horrible about taking pictures to document it. The first big news was that Brianne lost her first tooth. It looked like it was ready in the morning but I was to nervous to pull it out. I was afraid I would do something wrong and make it hurt, I didn't want to traumatize her, and make the rest of her teeth an ordeal to get out. So I told her to wait for daddy to pull it out when he got home from work. Well it didn't last that long. She wiggled it all the way through kindergarten and came home with it in a bag. There is nothing like loosing a tooth at school to make you famous for a few minutes.

Here she is showing off her lost tooth, she is also posing with her soccer metal. It was her last soccer game that night and of course I forgot my camera, and for every other soccer game this season. So I just snapped this shot when we got home. Other events I missed on camera was her kindergarten graduation. I actually got a few shots with my phone, but it is such a pain to get them off that I don't know if I will ever actually do it. If it is any concelation to her, I also forgot to bring my camera to Kaylee's 3rd grade program this week. It was cute they did a wax museum (they were the wax models) of the Aztec empire. Kaylee was a Aztec woman cooking dinner. Luckily my neighbor was thoughful enough to get a picture of her, so hopefully I will remember to get her to e-mail it to me.

Create Your own Blogger Backgrounds

So, if any of you have been looking at my blog in the last couple hours you probably noticed, I have been messing around with my background. Well, it took more than a few tries but I finally managed to create my own background!!!! It wasn't quite as simple as I thought, but if you are not afraid to mess around a little bit, it definitely is do able. The best help I found was on http://thecutestblogontheblock.com/ look under blogging secrets, p.s. I also figured out how to change my font there too. However, the dimensions they give for Photoshop were a bit off, so you might have to mess around with that. I found better dimensions on a you tube video, but still had to play around a bit. So if you are ready to try, two things you absolutely need are: Photoshop Elements, and a free account on Photobucket. It is also helpful if you already have some free digital scrapbooking backgrounds and embellishments. I have given the link to the ones I like the best in the past, but I will give it again in case you are interested http://shabbyprincess.com/, and here are two new ones I found: I am super excited about this one http://summertimedesigns.blogspot.com/ and here is another that looks like you could find some good stuff, but it would take a little more searching http://digiscrapdepot.com/ . Anyway good luck and let me know if you need anymore info, I am always looking for people who are willing to listen to me talk about digital scrapbooking without getting that glazed over look in their eyes.

Recital 2010

Last week we held our little recital in the church. The girls all did really well, I was really proud of them. It is good to have this recital out of the way, they are fun but a lot of work. Now I can just enjoy the rest of the summer. It was a little sad because both Kaylee and Brianne have decided to not take dance anymore, so this was my last year teaching them. On the bright side Sydnie will be old enough to take dance this fall and I have already put together a little class for her. It should be interesting teaching this class, they are all either just turning 3 or not quite 3 when class starts. This is the youngest class I have ever taught so wish me luck!

Kaylee and Brianne before the recital started. They look so cute in their costumes and make-up. I think they like they recital mostly because they get to put on make-up and sparkles.

Brianne ready to tap. She did a tap number to "Putting on the Ritz", and a jazz number to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."

Kaylee ready to tap. She did a tap number to "Hoedown Throwdown" and a mixed dance routine to a mix of five different songs. The first dance in this mix was to "Fireflies", the lights were off and they had glow sticks on their arms. I think everyone really liked that part, although my favorite was the tap number they did to "Hoedown Throwdown."

Kaylee's class.

Brianne's class minus one, (one of the girls didn't make it in time for group pictures).

My 3-4 year old class. They were so cute. Although I was last in line to take pictures and I think they were done posing, except for Summer the blond in the front she could have posed all day.

Colorful Weekend

We were on our way to Kaylee's Soccer game at 7:00 in the morning, when we saw one of the coolest rainbow's I have ever seen. It was a full rainbow (I could only fit half of it in my camera lens) and you could see both ends touching the ground. Kaylee was so excited, the end only seemed to be about 20 yards away, and she was sure she could run over to the end of it. Even though we were a little late to the game, I happened to have my camera with me, so I just had to stop and take a picture.

Later that night I went to the Miss Saratoga Springs Pageant. Four of the seven girls in the pageant were from our Y.W. it was fun to watch. When I got home, the girls were busy at work making this colorful creation. Kaylee was sure no one had ever made a Lego tower so tall before and insisted I take a picture. When I finally got the camera out they all wanted to know if I would put this on the blog. I guess our life is now defined by blog worthy and non blog worthy events.


When we were cleaning up Sydnie made this little tower and insisted I take a picture of it too. Who could say no to this little cutie.


Today I decided our puppy had gotten fluffy enough. She was actually more fluff than puppy. So I decided to give her a trim myself. After all I am a hairdresser how different can it be? Well three hours later, it turns out a lot different! She actually was fairly patient with the whole process, I don't know if it was my clippers, or her extra fine puppy hair, but it just wouldn't cut. I finally got it to sort of work, but I had to go over every spot about five times. And cutting around her face was a nightmare, she didn't want anything to do with that. In the end I got a half decent trim done, maybe with practice I will get better. She does look pretty cute with her new cut, I can't believe how tiny she was under all that fluff.