Long time no read...

I feel so out of the loop. I get busy for a week, can't get onto the blog and miss tons of postings. Sorry about my absence. I've been busy planning for Makayla's baptism and birthday party. They both went very well. The party went better than I expected and a lot of it had to do with all the help I recieved from my loving parents and Kurt and Heather. Thanks, again, you guys, for all the help you gave us yesterday. Things went so much more smoothly because of you!

Now since I haven't been on the blog for a while I thought I'd post some pictures of some things that have been going on.

This is Lexi's science fair project. Her hypothesis was that the longer the barrel of a marshmallow gun, the farther the marshmallow would fly. She actually found that her second longest barrel, not her longest, shot the marshmallow farthest.

This is Merrit at Ecology camp trying to start a fire using flint stones and natural fiber. It took a long time, but, with persistance, he finally got it. He was so excited! He had such a great time at ecology camp. This is one aspect of the kids' school I will miss when they start going to Flushing schools. This camp is just awesome!

These are some of the kids at the annual school fundraiser their school does. This year they put on a school carnival. They had parents or other relatives sponsor different games or booths. One family brought in the horses from their family farm for the pony rides and one sponsored the moon walks (these were Jaxson's favorite). It turned out to be a really fun night and the school raised about $2500 profit. That was pretty good for them and next year they will have all the games made up so they will make even more money without that upfront expense. I'll miss this part of their school too.

We put in a garden this year (even though we don't actually have anything in it yet) and we had to cut out the sod in order to do it. We rented a sod cutter from Home Depot (our home away from home) and Charlie cut up the sod. Then he rolled it up into these rolls. I thought they looked like giant snow balls and so challenged the kids to make a "sod" man. They took me up on it and this is what he looked like. I hope you can see the details in his face. It was hard work to make him. Those rolls are soooo heavy!

This is Makayla just before she was baptized. She actually invited several kids from her class at school and four of them came, although only two made it to her actual baptism. She was so excited to share it with them though. She is such a sweet spirit and good example of a missionary for me.

Makayla is really into Pokemon right now (go figure) and so she wanted to have a Pokemon themed party. This was the first activity we did. All the kids made Pikachu hats to disguise themselves as Pokemon so they could go and find Pokemon (cards) that were scattered throughout the room to capture. They seemed to enjoy it.

And now I'll toot my own horn and show you the blanket I made for Makayla for her baptism. I made one for Lexi and partially made one for Merrit too. It's become kind of a tradition for us that I hope I can continue better from now on. I still have a couple more squares to iron on to Merrits and then tie it to the back and then bind it and Makayla's and I'll be caught up (probably just in time for Chelsea's).

Sorry for the length of this post but I'm glad that I'm pretty much caught up now.