Girls Night Out!

Tiffany, Brandy Meyers, and I got to get out and have fun together.  Brandy mentioned we really needed to get out together so we made it happen!  We went to dinner first and then walked a local shopping plaza.  We had a lot of fun in Half Price Books, until they closed :).  After that we enjoyed hanging out by the water fountain until it was turned off too.  Sometimes it's hard to go home when you are having so much fun! 

We love Brandy and are so glad she is part of our friend group!  She makes our homeschool co-op group so much better!  She has a great sense of humor and her girls are awesome!  Here is just some of the fun we had!  Looking forward to more fun nights together!

Brandy finding some good reading!

A little religion sharing ;)

Hard at working reading

Selfie by the fountain!

Our view for the evening!

Happy Girls Night Out!

Keeping up with the boys!

Sandra loves her older brothers and often would rather be a boy than a girl.  It is funny to see how easily she fits in with them.  Jeff and I often forget how young she is because she blends right in.  Well, first thing she ended up following the boys... or boy, was getting an expander, like Talmage had to do, on her upper teeth.  She has had a cross bite, since forever, so it was time to get that sorted out.  The tooth actually bumped out within the first month or two.  Her mouth is looking amazing!  You can see that all of the top teeth in the photo are on the outside where they belong!  She got her expander in August! 

The other thing that Sandra has been trying to follow the boys with is having glasses.  She has been getting her eyes checked over the last few years, and really has been bothering me about how much she can't see.  Last year her eyes weren't perfect and the optometrist said she would need glasses in the future, but she was fine for now.  Well, it was time for her to join the older brothers in the glasses club!  She had fun picking out her first glasses and has really enjoyed seeing things that are far away.  Her eyes really aren't bad, and she still could get away without them, but if she complains that much, then she can have glasses. 

I think it only took her a few days before she decided she didn't love glasses as much as she thought she did.  Well, isn't that the way life goes ;)

She looks so grown up now!!

Homeschool Zoo Day!

As homeschoolers it is always great when museums, zoos, or other places do a "homeschool day"!  Then we get to go out on a field trip and join hundreds of other homeschoolers!  We saw several families that we knew at the zoo and had a great time.  One of the fun parts is that they do special education things when it's homeschool day! 

Here are some of the highlights of the day:

The cheetah!

The kids watching the meerkats :)

 Clark watching the giraffes

Talmage and Ella looking through the photos on the "kid" camera.

The hippos were out of the water!  This is the first time I have ever seen that!  They were eating.  It was so cool!  

Then one started to get into the water!  I was so excited to get the big splash on camera!

Man, for such a large creature she sure is graceful...

She just slipped right in... no splash or anything!

One of the education presentations.  Our group had lots of questions about animals and zoo degrees etc!

Check out that turtle!

Snake petting time!  Grant

Lorna wasn't sure at first, but she did it!

Our beautiful Williams kids!  We counted to 9 a lot!

Jump!

The baby elephants taking a dust bath!

White tiger!

Baby Lion cub... getting bigger!

Clark and Sandra trying to feed the birds

Talmage taking photos :)

One of the baby jaguars.  She was so pretty!

We had a great day at the zoo!  It was a nice break after so many weeks at school!  We love field trips, but homeschool days are awesome!

6 Flags Fright Night!

A girl in Ella's ward invites her to 6 Flags for the Frito Lay company party.  Last year Tiffany went with her and got to enjoy 6 Flags, Fright Night style!  This year Tiffany couldn't go because she had to work.  She offered my services to take Ella and her friend.  I also got to bring Sandra along too.  It was a fun night, even if we didn't spend a lot of time on the big crazy rides ;).

Sandra with me, and Ella with Emily, on the run away train ride!

I chose not to go on the Aquaman ride.  I really didn't want to be soaked all evening long.  The girls were sure wet tho!

Ella, Sandra, and Emily

Having fun with some of the scary decorations!

So, we decided to try the Roaring Rapids ride.  Well, actually we decided to just stay on it .... 4 times in a row (since no one else was in line they just let us ride until we wanted off). 
Let's just say we were all soaked... I was especially soaked!  So much for not wanting to be wet.  Oh, and since it was late we all started getting cold too.  Fun times!

Overall it was  a great night!  It was fun to take the girls out.  Hopefully I will get to go play again :).  Yay for 6 Flags!

Arrgg Mateys!

While Tiffany and I were gone to Time Out for Women it happened to be Krispy Kreme's dress like a pirate day!  Jeff was such a good Daddy and took the kids to get their free donuts!  Lorna didn't want to dress up so she missed out on her free dozen.  It was fun to have yummy donuts in the house for a while.  Let's just say that 5 dozen donuts doesn't last too long when you have 6 kids :).  

Happy Pirate Day!

TOFW 2015

Tiffany and I got to go to Time Out for Women together this year!  Well, sort of.  Tiffany is working so she couldn't go for the Friday night part.  Ella had a ticket but couldn't go on Saturday due to a church commitment.  Well, I really wanted to go Friday night and that meant that maybe I could help out and get Ella out to the even too!  So Ella was my date on Friday night and Tiffany on Saturday.  It was a fun weekend and really nice to hear uplifting messages and music.  I think some of the others in the past have been better, but it really depends on who is booked and if that message is what I need.  Ella had a fun time and even ran into a girl from her stake :).

Tiffany and I always have fun :).  Kind of hard to be together and not enjoy what we are doing.  We heard really good messages and ended on a talk about being positive.  Life can be a struggle, but we can endure and even endure well.  Yay for a fun girls weekend!

Me and Ella

Me and Tiffany! 

BFFS! 

Here's to many more fun girls nights and spending time together!

Clothing the naked

Sandra has lots of cute little animals.  She loves them :).  She found some scraps of material and asked me to make her animals little robes.  I wasn't ready to tackle that project, and the material was so small!  I ended up saying no.  Well, Sandra is one lucky girl because her big brother was willing to help out! Talmage decided to help and got out his Boy Scout sewing kit to make it all happen!  What a good big brother!

The cloaks turned out so cute too!  Teach us to love Lord of the Rings so much :)

What a happy Sandra!

Sandra and Talmage playing with the animals in their home Sandra made for them. 

A week later I was looking for Clark... I actually figured he had fallen asleep.  When I found him he was curled up reading a library book!  He may not be able to read quite yet, but that doesn't stop him from loving books just the same!

We have some awesome kids :)