Happy 8th Birthday Kalia!

As I Watch You Grow

Day 01

by  Kay Theese

Day 14

Do you know how much you mean to me?
As you grow into what you will be.

Year One

You came from within, from just beneath my heart.
It's there you'll always be, though your own life will now start.

Year Two

You're growing so fast it sends me awhirl, 

With misty eyes I ask, Where's my little girl?

Year Three

I know sometimes to you I seem harsh and so unfair, 
But one day you will see, I taught you well because I care.

The next few years will so quickly fly, 

Year Four

With laughter and joy, mixed with a few tears to cry.
As you begin your growth to womanhood, this fact you must know, 

Year Five

You'll always be my source of pride, no matter where you go.
You must stand up tall and proud, within you feel no fear, 

Year Six

For all you dreams and goals sit before you very near.
With God's love in your heart and the world by its tail, 
You'll always be my winner, and victory will prevail.

Year Seven

For you this poem was written, with help from above, 
To tell you in a rhythm of your Mother's heartfelt love!

We celebrated your Birthday Dinner with Aunt Laura this year. Grandma and Grandpa came over and we had ribs, potatoes, veggies and jello! Mommy made a Funfetti cake with sticky icing, as per Justin and Kalia's request. Justin wanted to taste his moms sticky icing again and Kalia wanted white cake. It was amazing! The whole cake was almost eaten in one sitting, which is unusual for our family.

Grandma is taking you shopping for your Birthday outfit this week, and Mommy and Daddy got your ears pierces for your Birthday- most on that next post. And we are so excited you choose to be baptized later this week! 

New Craft- Family Cross Stich

 Last week as I was searching for Super Saturday projects, and Craft Group ideas for the 2016, I came across Cross Stitch Family Portraits.

It was craft love at first sight.

Cross stitching as never drawn me in, until now. I decided to gather the few supplies I needed, just the hoop and fabric, I had needles and embroidery thread from my craft stash.

After two and half weeks, working on it every spare minute, I got it done. And I love it.
Uber love it. If I thought we needed more then one cross stitch family pic, I might make another one.

Annaliesse loves her pig tails and Barker thinks his hat is sweet. Justin's beard turned out rather ginger and somehow I ended up 1 row taller then Justin :( 

I did Remy's hair crazy and I like it, and Kalia got a scarf with her 2 different color eyes. Its hanging in my craft room on the peg board. Its new home. 

Snapshots

Snapshots of Remy this week.

Hahaha. Apparently she is always around or on me.... surprise surprise. 

Kalia trying to practice piano only to have Remy completely take over. It happens rather often.

She fell asleep on me for like 2.5 hours. Got nothing done but 4 episodes of NCIS. Can you count that as productive.....

She has decided to pose like this for nearly every pic.

Fruit Leather/Sauce

Spent Monday making 80lb of crab apples into fruit sauce.

And the fruit sauce is now being made into fruit leather.

Took me 7 hours from start to finish to make the sauce, and clean up. I forget sometimes how much work I am getting myself into... on hour 6, I was so ready to call it quits. But I got it done, and hopefully the kids will be eating fruit leather for a LEAST a year.

I do have to admit- I am hoping to make tomato sauce this year or next. After Monday- maybe next year :)

By Wednesday I had 2 batches dried. I alway forget what to set the dehydrator too, so the first batch is always guess work. The first batch ended up as fruit chips...at least the kids still like them :)

Note to self. 154 degrees for 17 hours. For next time :)

Added later: The kids and Justin are eating this like crazy this year. It has been 2 weeks and half of the dried leather is gone. Annaliesse especially is eating it like crazy. I have a couple bags of sauce frozen in the freezer, I figure once all the leather is gone, I will wait a couple months then dry the rest. 

Sunday

Trying to take more pictures of doing the normal. Family scripture study this year is getting easier. Way less crying, and bawling- we figure that comes with age- and we figure it will come back as they age :) LOL

This picture of Remy sums up or morning getting read for church this week.

Food Drive/Seadoo's

Saturday was the Food drive we participate in every year.

The food drive is for the Salvation Army, and every year the ward drops bags off at all the houses in High River. Then the community fills the bags with food for the food bank and we pick the all up. The whole town. 

Its a lot of work, one evening is spent stapling flyers onto the bags. A week later the town is divided into Routes and ward families take routes to deliver bags to every home in High River.

Then on Saturday everyone spends the morning gathering the bags off peoples door steps.

The kids LOVE this service project. This year Kalia had a friend over to help deliver the bags, and they had a great time. We managed to do 5 routes as a family, meaning us, G&G and Aunt Laura and Uncle Miles. Then we headed home and put the kids to bed while G&G did another route. So Saturday we had 6 routes to gather and this year we let the kids help run. Up until now we made the kids stay in the truck. With Grandma driving, Grandpa, and Justin running and Laura and I stacking it in the truck/van.

But this year, the kids really wanted to gather, we need to be careful with the truck constantly moving and heavy bags- but the kids rocked it. 

This year we were allowed to take the kids into the food bank to show them the impact of our service.  As well as gathering the bags from around town, a couple women from the ward head over to SA and help sort and shelf all the food that comes in. The Salvation Army told us this year the community donated more this year then any of the last 10 years. Way to go High River :)

After the food drive we took the kids home for lunch and naps. And the whole family napped. It was so niiice. We were just wondering around getting ready to head out on a Bike Ride when we got a text inviting us on a last minute Summer Hoorah.

We met the Lee's at Pine Coulee for a couple hours playing on seadoos. It was so fun, like way fun.
The kids got lots of turns and played on the rocks.

Thanks for the great evening Lee's! We played on seadoos until dark and headed home quite late, lets just say Sunday morning getting ready for church was interesting.