Camera whoas

We went to the Primary talent show. Of course my video camera batteries were dead, so I used my little camera, which has video. Max kicked a ball across stage, so I won't put that up for you to preview. It was cute only for a mom. Sam did his football touchdown celebration. This consisted of catching a ball Dad threw to him, spinning it on the ground then doing a back flip. This impressed everyone, unfortunately, that video was so blurry you can't see a thing! Joseph made his famous soup. Everyone loved it and ate it all up. Which was bad for us, since we were so rushed we didn't have dinner. If I could just get my camera equipment figured out, I might have some pictures next time!

Get a real Camera, Mom!

This is the only picture I have (that turned out at all) of Emma playing volleyball. I brought my nice camera to the first game, but it wouldn't work- I had left it on and the battery was drained. So the next time I brought my little camera. I'm not sure why, since I had charged the battery on the big camera. I guess I didn't want to look dumb if it didn't work, again! My little camera is not so good at taking action shots, obviously. I have forgotten a camera ever since then. Yes, Emma is on her Middle school Volleyball team. Yes, she plays, except when her Dad takes his turns to go watch her. For some reason he is bad luck. Every time he shows up, she doesn't play the whole game until the last couple minutes! The poor coach does have 5 players vying for 2 positions, so Emma has to sit out a game every other game or so. Today, however; she might actually get to serve. Her serve is finally getting more consistent and so he told her that he just might put her in today to serve! Good luck Emma!

To the Max

Max started soccer. All my other kids started at 6 because the 5 year olds played on Sundays, but here they don't! Yahoo for Ohio! They play squares here for Kindergarten league. The field which is very short with small goals is split up into 6 boxes. There is a kid from each team in each one of the squares plus one in goal. That way it is always just one on one. They are not allowed to pass their line. The coaches rotate them around so they get to play each position at one point in the game. It is funny to watch them going, going and then just stop dead when they reach their line. At first I didn't like it, but now I think I do, because they all get a chance to get the ball at some point in the game. Max scored in his first game. He is really loving it!
Max was teaching himself to be Indiana Jones and catch things with his whip. He caught a tree and a bed post.
We got Joseph a new bike and put training wheels on his old one. Max is now learning to ride that one. He doesn't like it, but prefers to ride his scooter. He is getting so fast on that scooter!
The other day we went to the Beavercreek Popcorn festival. Basically it was a bunch of booths where people were trying to sell junk to you. The boys used there own money and bought 2 wooden guns that shoot rubber bands and one wooden cross bow that shoots plunger arrows. Max is the only one that would get dressed up like a firefighter. Isn't he a cutie pie! Sam is getting saved from the burning building.
Max's favorite saying right now- Barnacles!

Beautification

The beautification process has begun.
Rob took on the project of refinishing our 18 year old table. It really needed it. I think he did an awesome job.
For my part, I have been looking at blogs and stealing ideas. From Becky Higgins I got the idea of spray painting everything in sight and then using candlestick holders as elevators and putting out baby pictures of yourself so that it reminds the kids that you were young once too. Rob wanted to know if I thought that cute boy would ever hook up with that cute girl. I told him it would be good if they did, because they would make cute babies!
I stole the idea for the cutie batuti pumpkins
from the world wide blogosphere while blog hopping and now I can't find her. Sorry! They are way easy and hers are even more fabulous! If you want a copy of the tutorial, let me know.
I copied this off a friends- Thanks Anna! Your the woman! It doesn't look quite straight and the colors are all washed out in this photo, so it doesn't do it justice.
I have now started to make a quilt for Sam's bed with the help of a lady in our ward that I found lives like 30 steps from my house and who knows how to quilt from scratch and does it all the time! I know. I will try to suffer in silence as I walk those 30 steps to her house for her help!
I took this picture that was taken by a lady trying to start her own photography business and sized it a couple times until I got it just right to print out as a poster. Then I took a frame and some vinyl I had bought for another purpose and put them together. I put them in upside down unfortunately. There had been holes drilled to put a ribbon in at the top and hang the saying from. I just decided to go with it and just make a bow at the bottom. I think it turned out pretty awesome! It says, "the Joy in the Journey" across our legs.Isn't my house going to look lovely! I love blog idea stealing!!

Cookie Day

This is my children's third week in school, so I guess it's time to write about their first day! Here are all their smiling faces.
Emma has to retake Spanish 1 here, but I told her that she would really know it when she came out of the class and since it is the basis of knowing the language I think it's worth another pass at it. They did say she could walk over to the high school and take Spanish duos over there, but I wasn't so keen on that idea. She also wasn't signed up for Algebra like she was suppose to, but she has decided that if she wants she will take two math classes in High school one year to get her to that goal in the sky of Calculus- (like she cares!- I don't think Math is her love!) Overall, I think she is enjoying her classes and teachers however!
Samuel got a male teacher this year who loves science. The first day he came home telling me about all these physic assignments they were doing. His first assigned homework, in fact, was to figure out how to put 10 small nails on the top of one large nail.
Joseph was given a teacher that I hadn't heard from other people about. Several people had told me that there were some yellers in 2nd grade and had told me several of the non-yelling teachers names. Since I didn't recognize her name, I thought she might be one of the yeller. I called up and asked to have him moved and they didn't deny a thing when I said why. The lady on the other side of the phone referred me to the person that could possibly move him. I told the new lady that Joseph couldn't handle a yeller and it was best to move him now then have me come in a week and have me insist that he be moved. She again didn't deny that this teacher wasn't like that and proceeded to give him another teacher. I would have never done that in my younger years- I am usually not a complainer or a send food back kind of girl, but I have learned to stand up for myself and my family a little bit more, lately. Joseph really likes his teacher and seems to be getting on pretty well. The spelling lists they sent home for the year, though was a joke. I am afraid he will be doing a lot of the same things he did last year.

I saw someone in the blogosphere say that when they moved, they instituted Cookie Day, so they could meet the kids in the neighborhood. I thought this was a great idea, so we decided to do Cookie Day on the first day of school each month.We have done it twice now. The first time we had Peanut Butter chip/Chocolate chip cookies and the second time we did $250 Cookies. The kids love it. They yell and wave and scream, "it's cookie day!" Today they got so excited the bus driver had to stop the bus to make them all sit down before he would open the doors. I think Max enjoys it as much as everyone else! The post office lady even gave him a dollar for being a big helper the first week we did it!
Have any good Autumn cookie recipes for October?

Joseph got Baptized!

Three down!With each one, we let them choose the program they want. We only got to choose half this time, because another little girl was getting baptized too, so she got to choose the other half. Joseph chose to have all his brothers participate in his baptism with him, which was really special. It made me realize what close friends they have become. Maxwell gave the prayer (He was really scared and had to be dragged up there and he mumbled the whole thing, but he did it) and Samuel gave the talk on Baptism. He did a great job. I had him research it and write it down, then I reviewed it with him (uh, that's mother's speak for made it sound lots better by rewriting parts), then I told him he couldn't read the whole thing. He memorized most of it and only had to look down a couple times. You could see his little perfectionism coming out of him as he struggled so hard not to have to look down at the paper!Tons of people came, just because they were in the same class or in the primary with Joseph and Harley. What a different ward we have moved into! It was a great day. We did miss our family, though!

The exciting life and times of Emma

Emma has wanted to play volleyball for a couple of years now, so I told her when we moved here she could try out for the Middle school team. We didn't have sports in our traditional school back in the DC area, but they did do intramural when a parent volunteered. I volunteered for Volleyball in 6th grade, so she could play. In 7th grade I didn't volunteer soon enough- another mother was already doing it and Emma didn't want to play for her. So she did no volleyball in 7th grade. I talked to her about how much better these girls would be considering that most of the girls who would be trying out would have played on the 7th grade team. I tried to prepare her as much as possible, but also tried to give encouragement. She did a camp in the summer and another one 3 days before tryouts. I was extremely nervous for her! The day of tryouts, they had them tryout and then go away. They said no one was to come back until 9 pm when they would have the list posted on the window. We took Emma out to Wendy's. At 8:45pm we finally decided to make our way back. Emma was at first freaked out, because he had told them if he saw any of them, he wouldn't put the list up, but we assured her that he was most likely long gone! When we got to the school, she said she wanted to go see the list alone. I sat in the car chewing my fingers off. She turned around almost immediately and then went back. I thought- oh that's a bad sign. It was like she hadn't seen her name with a quick glance, but then decided to stop and go back to make sure she hadn't missed it in her quick glance. Then she did a little hop thing and turned around. "oh my goodness was that a hop?" Yes, I was freaking out! Anyway- She did make it! The reason she had turned around immediately was that her name was the first one on the list, so it didn't take long to find. She turned back around, because she wanted to make sure some of the other girls she had made friends with had made it as well!
Yesterday was her first game. Despite our fears that she would be on the bench a good share of the time, she played over half the game each time. They have decided that she is a back row girl. So she plays only on the back row and is switched out every time she has to rotate to the front. He sees real potential in her for the digging, passing to the right person kind of job. And I must say, I thought she did pretty well. The whole team isn't the best, though. The match was over in about 20 minutes! That was an expensive 20 minutes. I think I won't be going to that many more away games! I did; however, find the perfect chair to take to all my children's games! Whose in the front row now, baby?!