Memorial Day Weekend Recap

Sorry my Memorial Day recap is so late. I've been having to work at night and haven't had much time for blogging.

I thought I'd do a picture overload post for you to show you some of the fun things we did on our Memorial Day weekend.

Perhaps the #1 thing was a whole lot of fishing. Everybody got in on the fun.

This one is Heather's catfish.  We didn't want to touch it.

Emily got several fish. This was one of them. You can tell that she was very proud.

Noah did do some fishing, mostly with his Rocket Fishing Rod. #asseenontv (It works, by the way!) But he was also a big fan of the popsicles that Grandmother keeps in her freezer in the shop. I'm not sure how many popsicles he ate while we were down there, and I don't really care. 

Tyler caught several fish although I did not manage to get a picture of any of them. 

The picnic table ended up being a great spot for Carter to rest in between fishing derbies. Carter did a lot of fishing -- and catching!

Heather took some pictures of all the fishermen. She also caught several fish. Stephen and Daniel both got out into the kayak to fish. One afternoon, Stephen spent several hours in the kayak and caught a lot of fish.

Oh, I caught a few fish too, including this nice catfish. I only go fishing for catfish when someone is out there to take it off the hook for me.  

 Sometimes there were a lot of people out by the pond fishing. That was a lot of fun.

Emily caught this bream on a cricket. She has actually gotten a lot better at fishing and not getting her line all tangled up. It's becoming fun to fish with her.

Grandmother and Granddaddy also have a turtle pen behind their house. If they see a turtle when they're driving down the road, sometimes they'll stop and pick it up and add it to the turtle pen.  Emily was playing with the turtles and she found a baby turtle!  Awww!

There was also another baby that was a little bigger. I didn't end up with a picture of the big turtles, but they are significantly bigger than these little babies. 

We also rode on the Ranger, the Mule, and the 4-wheelers a lot. The kids are getting big enough to ride the kids 4-wheeler by themselves now. 

Emily and Tyler also enjoy having "driving lessons" on the Mule with Grandmother. And I'm talking about a 4-wheeled Mule and not an animal, by the way.

This is a "Mule".

It's not unusual for us to have all the ATV's out at once. Sometimes we look for each other and sometimes we

We all had a really good time and it was really nice to get to spend some time with our family. I love watching the cousins play together. They are all different, but they all get along well. I know they will all have fond memories of these times when they grow up.

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Birthday Celebrations

On Friday, the kids and I went down to Arkansas for the Memorial Day weekend. First things first, though, we had to celebrate Emily and Tyler's 12th birthdays. How is it possible that we already have two twelve year olds in the family? Time is just flying by.

Tyler's birthday was on Thursday. Grandmother and Granddaddy got him a Texas Rangers cake. 

And also some Texas Ranger jersey cookies. 

Emily's birthday is exactly 10 days after Tyler's so we went ahead and celebrated her birthday, too. Grandmother and Granddaddy got her a butterfly cupcake cake. Is that what you call it? A cupcake cake?

She also had some flower cookies. 

The cakes and cookies were SO good. I told myself that I was only going to eat one piece of cake the first day, but I lied. I ate at least one piece of cake at every meal all weekend! That. Is. Terrible. I have a lot of making up to do this week.

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Tip! How to Save Leftover Candy Coating

How many times have you melted chocolate or almond bark or candy coating only to have a bunch leftover and you end up just sticking it in the refrigerator in a plastic container until it becomes a brick? 

I have done this so many times in the past, but not any more! 

Now, I just pour the extra out in a thin layer onto a piece of parchment paper and let it dry.

Then I just break it into smaller pieces and store in a plastic zip top storage baggie until I need it again. It's so much easier. 

I don't remember where I learned this handy tip, but it has been very helpful in my baking lately. 

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Red Apple Cake Pops

I know that school is out for the summer, but I wanted to share another thing that Emily and I made for Teacher Appreciation week.

One of the PTA special activities as a treat day for the teachers where people could bring sweet treats and baked goods. Emily and I searched the internet for some teacher-related goodies and we ended up finding these red apple cake pops. They are so cute! I know I say that all the time about the stuff I make, but look at these! They are sooooo cute!

The stems are broken pretzel rods. My tip is to break the pretzel rods pretty small and just lightly place them into the red candy coating, don't try to jam them down into the actual cake ball. If you press the pretzel rod pieces into the actual cake ball, you'll likely get some of the cake ball showing through around the "stem". My cake was a nice dark chocolate so it looked like I had some bad apples.

The green "leaves" are green Tic Tacs. I used wintergreen Tic Tacs. They looked cute, but they were not great to bite into when you're eating a cake pop. If I make these again, I will probably find something different to use for the leaves, maybe some large leaf sprinkles. 

A lot of my apple cake pops cracked. I think it's because I inserted the sticks then put the tray of cake pops into the refrigerator for about a half hour. I think cold cake pops are a problem and they should be dipped at room temperature. 

I individually wrapped the cake pops and then put them into a little cardboard tray that I found at Hobby Lobby.

Then I wrapped the whole tray of apple cake pops in cellophane and tied a nice red shiny bow on it. Ya'll, I need serious help with my bow tying. They never end up straight or pretty. 

I've appreciated Emily and Noah's teachers so much this year. They have done a lot of the kids and I hope they have a great summer. It will probably take them that long to recover. Ha ha.

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Last Day of School

You guys, I can't believe we're already at the last day of school! The time is just going by so fast right now. Before you know it, the summer will be gone and we'll be back to the school routine. But for now, I'm going to enjoy this transition to summer and the slower pace of life.

"Last Day of School!!!!!!!!!"

The kids have had a lot of fun activities at school this week. Tuesday was yearbook signing day. I didn't get a yearbook until I was in junior high. But in 2017, kids get to buy yearbooks for every year of their life.

Wednesday was Emily's park day/cookout field trip. Her class also had a visit with some Extreme Animals. Emily said she got to pet an alligator. Noah had his awards assembly in the afternoon.

Today was the official last day of school as well as the annual talent show.

Noah danced to the Chicken Dance song with part of his class, but I can't show the video because of all the other kids in it. I couldn't even see Noah up on the stage. He said he was hiding in the back. The other part of his class danced to the Macarena and he said he really wanted to dance to that one.

Emily played the same song she played at her piano recital, "Silver Moon Boat," and I thought she did really well.  The Youtube video is below.

There were really a lot of talents showcased at their school today - lots of singing and dancing, several piano players, a violinist, a traditional Native American dance, and a girl who danced in a pillowcase. Yeah, I don't know either, but that one was pretty funny. I'm sure she didn't just come up with that whole gig just for this talent show, but I can't think of any other time or place you'd do something like that.

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Noah's First Grade Awards Ceremony

Noah's first grade awards ceremony was this afternoon at the school. They did things a little bit differently. Each child decorated an envelope and the teachers put all their certificates and awards inside of it. At the awards ceremony, each child was called up on stage one at a time and were presented with their awards envelope. A few kids got medals or trophies for certain awards as well.

Noah got his awards envelope as well as a trophy for perfect attendance!  Only two or three other kids got this award and Noah was so proud of his trophy!

At the beginning of the program, all the kids recited a poem. I wish I'd made a video of it because it was very cute and choreographed, but I only snapped a few pics. It's a hard decision whether to video something or take a picture. Am I right?!

Noah got a lot of great awards, including the Superintendent's Award for reading over 100 books this year. Wow, that is really impressive!

And of course the perfect attendance award is totally awesome. When Noah got off the bus this afternoon, he was carrying it and he said, "This is my first trophy!" He has already put his trophy on the bookshelf in his room.

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Wordless Wednesday - Watching the Hummingbird Feeder

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Promotion Sunday and Yard Yahtzee

This year is just a big transitional year for Emily because she'll be going to junior high school next year. She also promoted to the youth group at church on Sunday morning. The children's area had a big send off for the 6th graders and parents were invited for the festivities. 

The children's ministry had a prayer time and gave each 6th grader a journal so that they could "write their own story" as they grow and move on into junior high and then high school.

Then all the students lined the hallway and blew bubbles and cheered as the 6th graders walked through. 

Here's a short video of Emily going through the bubbles.

Once the kids got to the end of the hallway, they went through a set of security doors and some of the youth kids were waiting to shoot them with silly string.  They made a huge mess!

Then we all went to the youth area where we had a breakfast and a little orientation time.

Wasn't the weather beautiful today?

After supper tonight, we went outside to play Yard Yahtzee. 

I got these big wooden dice to play with outside this summer, but this was the first time we'd actually played a game with them. Apparently, Emily and Noah have never played Yahtzee before so we had to have a lesson as we played.

We had a lot of fun though. Noah was hilarious. I'd bought this little basket at the dollar store to use as our "dice shaker" and Noah had a hard time pouring the dice out of the basket. 

What other dice games can we play outside? I know that Farkle is a dice game, but I haven't figured out exactly how to play it yet. We googled it, but didn't have time to really sit and figure it out.

I bought some extra Yahtzee score sheets and Farkle score sheets to use with our games. I think that's going to make things easier, especially with kids.

What are some other summer fun games that your family enjoys?

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Emily's Piano Recital

Emily's piano recital was on Saturday afternoon. She played "Silver Moon Boat," a Chinese folk melody, and she did really well. She really enjoys playing the piano and it's easy to tell that she's improving every year.

You can watch her performance in this YouTube video.

After the recital, everyone brings goodies to share. Emily and I made some cake pops to take to the recital.

This time, we made chocolate cake pops. I just used some leftover candy coating that I had and decorated them with sprinkles. Last time I made cake pops, a lot of them cracked. But this time, I did not refrigerate the cake pops and none of them cracked. Perhaps that's the trick?

This was the first time I got to use my cupcake/cake pop carrier for cake pops and it worked out perfectly. I just put the lid on to transport them, then took off the lid for serving.

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Noah's Life, as told by Noah

Hi. I'm Noah. Do you want to learn about my life? Well, here's one now.

I was born August 6th, 2010 in the old house, so old. My room was Noah's Ark and it was good. I liked that it was perfect. And so I kept growing and then I'm here.

We moved to a new house when I was three years old. My new room is decorated with soccer balls and stuff. My bedspread has soccer stuff on it and I have two pillows that look like soccer balls. Even my sheets have soccer balls on them!

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Emily's 6th Grade Graduation

Emily's 6th grade graduation ceremony was Friday morning. 

It was rescheduled from Thursday night due to weather. The school had booked a different venue for Thursday night, but since it was on Friday morning it had to be in the school cafeteria. And it was a standing room only crowd full of friends and family.

Emily received several award.

• Perfect attendance
• Honor Choir
• CubCo (Student Council, 1st grade rep)
• Silver award for all A's & B's

Her teacher had put together a slideshow of pictures from their 6th grade year. At the end, she showed each student's baby picture then their 6th grade yearbook picture. It was a really cute video.

I got Noah out of class so that he could attend the graduation ceremony with me. We were sitting way in the back and he had a hard time seeing the kids on the stage and the video. He did see the picture of Emily on the screen though. He said that her baby picture was SO CUTE. Yes, it was. 

After the ceremony, they had cake and punch for everyone. It was a really fun time at the school. Next year, Emily will be going to Jr. High!

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