day one hundred fifty nine

Guess what today is? It is (according to the kids) the dreaded jam making day. I for one, have no problem with this day but apparently the kids think they have better things to do. But because the future of their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are at stake they pitched in and helped.

It is a yearly tradition to make a strawberry person and this year was no exception. They never get tired of making these creepy strawberry people and I never get tired of taking their pictures.

Pace appears to be pretty excited to hull the berries! He is actually crying.

Taylor demonstrating her true feelings about jam day...

Bailey loves this day too!!

Heaven forbid he set the phone down to stir!!!

After we were all done the kids had the audacity to want something to eat. Ain't nobody got time for that. Because I am mother of the year, I handed them some matches and a package of hot dogs and told them to go outside and build a fire. They managed to roast up some lovely hotdogs for dinner.

Good times warming up by the fire in 110 degree heat!

And just like that Dreaded Jam Day is over. See you next year creepy strawberry people!

one hundred forty two

Time for Saturday chores! Johnny's family is gone to a softball tournament so we have custody of him for the weekend. I made Pace, Johnny and Bailey go out and pull weeds. Unfortunately these are things we must do now that we have a real backyard.

Time for Kevin's birthday party (that he's been reminding us about for the last 6 months)!! The girls found some random cute little girl to play with all night. How cute is this pic of her and Jack... and of Kevin and Vanden too.

day one hundred eighteen

It seems like everytime I tell Pace to mow the lawn I look out the window and see this. Is that Pace? Nope. I'm guessing he's in the hammock.

day ninety five

ACM's!!! Karrie and Cyle are here for the country music awards. It sure is nice to have such great hook ups! They scored us tickets to go with them and they were fabulous seats!

Here's how close we were to Blake Shelton. I could see his nose hairs. Just sayin.

Carrie Underwear rocking the stage.

On the way home we dropped off Karrie and Cyle, picked up Bailey who was babysitting Karrie's dogs, and we got this on the way home...

Jade got right out and changed it like a pro (with me assisting of course).

I'm just so thankful we had Bailey there with us in our time of need.

day ninety three

Soccer bright and early at Anthem this morning. Check out this awesome action shot of Jacki! Oh and she scored another goal today. This of course means we go to Great Harvest after the game and get her a grilled cheese sandwich.

We went to Home Tampon right after the game and acquired all the supplies to make Jessi a gated community. Jacki calls it a cage. It is simply the means by which I will be keeping the newly planted grass intact with Jessi in the picture.

day eighty four

Well, spring break just keeps getting better and better Today I made my way over to Pace's room. I have no words to describe this. Here is how he keeps his nice clothes "folded" in his dresser. It was all I could do to maintain my sanity as I looked at his "folded clothes".

Here is Pace "helping" me clean his room...

More "folded" clothes.

More pictures of Pace "helping" me.

Here is a small fraction of the clothes I hauled down from Pace and Jacki's room. Loni is going to cry when she see's my latest contribution to the blog shop.

Here's one last memento that is important to help understand the cleaning out of Pace's room. Here is a picture of the crotch of some underwear that I discovered in Pace's room today. Enough said.

day eighty three

I decided that Spring break meant spring cleaning. I went in Jacki's room and proceeded to haul out hundreds of clothes and random junk. As it turns out she's a hoarder. My favorite thing I discovered in her room was an empty cheez-it wrapper/container with weeds in it. She has been keeping it (for 2 years now) because "it smells like rain". Yes, this is what I have been dealing with in cleaning out her room. I deserve an award. She's happy though now that it's all clean. Her and Bailey now climb out the window and hang out on the "veranda".

day sixty one

When I go to the grocery store I usually like to plan it when my helpers are home to load them into the house. Pace likes to see if he can take $300.00 worth of groceries in on one trip.

two hundred seven

Well we're home washing sleeping bags and blow up mattresses for what seems like the hundredth time this summer. Today, however, we are washing tie-downs. Who washes tie-downs? Jade, that's who.

one hundred ninety three

Tis the weekend for missionaries! Ridge reported his mission today. It was so good to see him and he gave such a good talk. It's amazing how much they grow up in two years. 

Since we missed the customary 4th of July photo of these two I decided to do it today. 

 Kylie and Taylor looking ever so darling!

After Ridge's mission report we finally made our way back to Vegas. Here is the sad sad situation after unloading the excursion. We haven't been home since July 3rd! It looks like we've been to Reno for the summer! Notice there is no one anywhere to be found in the picture?? That is because they are all upstairs hiding so they don't have to unpack it. That's ok. I'm tired. We'll unpack tomorrow. 

one hundred eighty three

Today we worked in the LHS cheer firework booth.... for 8 hours! Here are the best and cutest customers we had all day. Toni and Taylor stopped on by our booth to pick up their fireworks. So fun to see familiar faces!

After our shift was over we walked to Dairy Queen for refreshments. Here was my view from across the table. They were slightly exhausted... I mean it was only like one million degrees today.

one hundred seventy one

Today I begged Jade to throw away some of his magazines that reside on the back of our toilet. He had to hurry and read them again... just in case he missed something the first  five hundred times he read them!

 And in the trash can they went!!!! Happy days for me!

Here is the finished product! If you know Jade you know this is a big deal! 

Time to make Jake's mile high coconut cream pie... I mean how could I not?
Especially after his magazine cleaning debut. 

Awwww.... Pace came home from youth conference today... plum tuckered out! Socializing all weekend is hard work. 

one hundred sixty three

I found Jacki doing Bailey's chore. She was worried that Bailey wouldn't be able to go to Sam's Club with us so she hurried and washed her window for her. 

Sisterly loooooove.....

one hundred sixty one

Guess what today is?? It's strawberry jam making day!  

They needed a little warm up prior to making jam so they did an exercise video. Well, Bailey and Jacki did the video. We're not sure what Pace was doing. Taylor got to opt out of jam making due to her strep throat. This is definitely the silver lining to being sick. She's currently upstairs lying on my bed watching T.V. 

Some people enjoy making jam. My kids... not so much.

Every year we make the customary strawberry people. It never gets old. This creepy looking strawberry alien is in one of our jam bottles even as we speak!

one hundred fifty three

Jade told Pace that he had to mow the lawn or he couldn't ride his motorcycle. I went outside only to find Pace instructing Denzyl in the art of lawn mowing. The funny thing is, Denzyl was actually excited to do Pace's chore for him! Perhaps I could have Denzyl help me with my dishes...

one hundred two

Spraying down the bikes after riding yesterday. I like the set up Pace and I have... I have declared his bike "ours" but I make him clean it and do all the work on it. I just ride it. #momperks