September 2018 Chatbook

We've had some sad picture drama around here. Our portable drive where we store everything....died. (Yes, you may shed a few tears for us.) All my pictures, neatly organized are gone. Granted, I still have access to all the pictures on my phone and for that I thank my lucky stars, but there is still so much that was sucked into the void. It is depressing.

However, I blog, so honestly, so many of my pictures made it on here already. So in the end, this situation isn't ideal, but it is not catastrophic. I can cope. And maybe we'll manage to salvage the drive somehow, by paying a lot of money, or indenturing one of our children. Who knows?

I had a lot of photos organized for my September Chatbook, and then I had to start all over. Sigh. But I'm back in business, so here goes.

Let's start with the WHAP map. June has a really hard history class. They were given a map assignment to draw the world with certain things labeled. And they were given the paper on which to draw it. It wasn't a very big piece of paper, but June did her best. She had no idea it was a contest, but she got 'Best in Show' for her map. Not surprising. I think it was excellent.

I really love to play Spikeball. This is not a secret by any means. (It has been almost a year since I got my Spikeball net, and I'm happy to say it is one of the best and most used gifts I've gotten. Thank you mom.) Here we are playing with the Hulse's for Labor day, I think. And with Mahonri. (We beat him a few times when he first started playing, but now we can't touch him.)

When we went to Lake Powell and took Spikeball, we only had one ball with us at the time. Maybe you can tell which one was used more? They look pretty much the same now, but I think it is funny how obvious it was which one was dragged through the sand a thousand times.

I hosted book group in September and Trudy brought her beautiful baby. I hadn't seen her yet and she is already so big. And of course, my girls love babies so it only took seconds before they swarmed over her.

I love finding treasures on Tyler's phone. Here is a great one. I missed this night completely, but I love that Tyler has a mermaid tail on and a sleep mask. And that Pearl is taking the picture. It all makes my heart melt.

Pearl is probably one of our best puzzlers. Most of the kids like them, but Pearl will usually be the one to start a puzzle and see it through to the end. And I like seeing Dad working on it with her. They did a great job on this heart one and it didn't take them too long to finish it.

Daisy is back in ballroom this year. She is level two now. They had to find some new boys to join level two, but I think they will have a whole team. The parents were invited to watch them practice the Merengue one day. Daisy is super cute. Those earrings must be killing her ears.

June brought this emoji challenge home from the library at school. All these emojis stand for book titles. I got most of them. See if any of them stand out to you.

You may have heard about the fires in Utah during September. I believe they made national news? It was really bad for a while, but luckily no homes were lost. (I think that is the case.) Most days you could see the smoke fill the air. Sometimes it would stay down south and other days, it would cover the valley and you could smell it everywhere. On this particular day when we went down to violin, it was interesting, because the smoke was staying in one basic area. It made the entire sky brown.

In the evenings, you could see the fires burning all the way from our house. Can you see the glow at the end of the street?

Since we were outside, we all grabbed flyers. (We still have a ton left from camp.) We had competitions to see whose could go the furthest. Robyn looks like she is flinging a shooting star.

September means school carnival month. I didn't sign up for anything this year. Yay! And kids were coming and going from activities so it was a little disjointed. The younger kids got their hair colored and some face paint.

I like to look at the cakes and choose a best and worst. I thought this digger cake was so creative. It was my favorite.

This cake was...strange. I think it has something to do with Tangled. I get the guy sitting there, but what in the world is the other thing? It isn't quite attached and it is huge and scary. June was looking at the cakes with me and she said, "We must be looking at the back. Let's go to the other side." Nope. Just as weird and freaky on the other side. But it won the award for worst cake in my book. That has to count for something. (Oh, it must be the tower.? Maybe they dropped it.)

Time for some Pip pictures. We have Princess Pip and the Pea. How many mattresses does she need?

It is getting colder, but I think this dog is over bundled.

Can you spot the Pip?

We haven't gotten family pictures for a while. We sent in a audition tape for our family for something and took a picture together. Might as well enjoy a family picture even if it isn't professional.

Pearl made her bed the other day. I wonder if she has been cold at night. There are seven blankets on her bed and those are only the ones I can see...

I'm not sure where Dad was or why, but these fall trees are beautiful.

Robyn has been taking pictures of bio encounters. She got a whole lot of pictures of mushrooms from our lawn. I really like them. I especially like the fairy she found sitting on the mushroom.

June went to Color Me Mine with Hannah and they did mugs. I love her candy corn mug. The orange brew is compliments of Robyn's editing skilz.

We got a truck! Granted, it has some problems. It has been in and out of the shop. The previous owner was not as up front as he could have been about the truck's issues. That is life. But the hope is that we will get Ironman (as the truck has been lovingly named) up and running and it will be June's vehicle. She has to learn stick in order to drive him. (Yes...we are those parents.) Here is June working on the brakes. It is good to get your hands dirty under a car.

It is always fun to lick the knife after your sister cuts her birthday cheesecake. Even if the knife is huge.

Finally, I'll leave you with this gorgeous sunset. I think I got this while watching Robin Hood. Autumn brings splendid sunsets. Happy Fall.

Whale

Day 12 (Whale)

This one fits the prompt fairly well, I would say. I really like this one. When I was young, I thought spotting a whale was one of the most magical things ever. I didn't live near the ocean, so I didn't have a lot of opportunities, so at times when I reached the ocean AND saw a whale, I thought I had hit the lottery.

Cruel

Day 11 (Cruel)

Robyn can draw realistic people, but she has a whole slew of cartoon people since she often does cartooning. I love all her styles of characters. This picture in particular tells a story. You may have to decide for yourself what has happened.

Flowing

Day 10 (Flowing)

I'm not a very good artist, and one thing I have never learned, is how to draw folds and wrinkles in clothing. I can draw a shirt, so it looks like a shirt, but it also looks like someone scotch guarded the life out of it and you are looking at it from straight on. Not a fold or bend anywhere, except maybe at the elbow. Definitely not my strength. This drawing from Robyn is a good interpretation of the opposite of what I do.

Precious

Day 9 (Precious)

Robyn drew this while sitting in the copy room. Mathew was in there with us playing his guitar. I think Robyn could see how precious his guitar is to him. And she realizes how precious a musical instrument can be since she plays several. Music in general is precious to me. It helps me change my mood and picks up my spirit. Singing along loudly (and possibly out of tune) to a song is one of my favorite things in the world.

Star

Day 8 (Star)

This is one of my favorites as well. But who doesn't love Audrey Hepburn. I love her movies and show them to my kids. Some of my favorites are My Fair Lady, How to Steal a Million, Charade, and Wait Until Dark. What is your favorite Audrey Hepburn movie?

When You Forget Balloons...

June's big gift was her trip to Cedar City to see the play, but we still celebrated with her on her actual birthday. The kids got her some stuff and the Grandmas are always very generous.

Daisy picked out some snail earrings online. They were super cute, but I think Robyn may have been more excited about them because of her snail shirt.

Robyn made June this really cute picture/card.

Robyn got June a violin case. She has been needing a bigger case for a long time.

Her original case didn't have room for extras so her shoulder rest was always carried around separately. She has even forgotten it a few times when we went to lessons. Not any more.

Grandma Dargan must have been thinking along the same lines because she sent violin music. (I better hear a lot more practicing June.)

Granny V sent June's present a couple months ago. She didn't want to forget, so she sent it along with Daisy's gift. So June had to wait a long time to open it. 

I made a strawberry swirl cheesecake. I've decided that I don't like working with strawberry puree. It doesn't seem to work like I want. Although it always tastes good.

It is hard to believe that June is sixteen. Time flies. She is such a good kid. And such a good friend.

That is why I felt awful when I forgot balloons for her. It is always a tradition to pick the kids up from school with balloons. I vaguely remembered there was something I was supposed to do the next day...but it slipped my mind. After school June texted and asked me when I was picking her up. I texted back and asked her WHY I was picking her up. She said, "Because of the balloons."

Oops.

I felt I had to repent, so instead of regular balloons, I did something completely different. I got a whole bunch of balloons and filled them with odds and ends. There was confetti, candy, money, challenges, and even water in a couple. We numbered them up to 21. But she was only allowed to choose 16, so there was the possibility she might miss out on some of the treats and get tricks instead.

She did get one helium balloon and that had the instructions attached. She had no idea what was coming. (Bwah hah hah)

I needed a boy around for one of the challenges and I had seen Mathew around the corner at Steven's house so I texted him and told him to come over. Apparently Steven was having a birthday party and the entire crew came over. (Don't worry...his party was finished. We didn't interrupt.) But it made for a great audience. It was perfect. We called on each person to stand up. June would choose a balloon and then the person would pop it over her head.

Can you see the confetti in this picture? I chose red because that is June's favorite color. And we already had a ton of blue confetti in the driveway, so now we needed red confetti on the lawn.

June drew a challenge. She had to choose two people and beat them at Spikeball.

June played with AJ and played to five points. It didn't take her long to beat him. (He wasn't bad...she just has lots of practice.) Robyn was a much harder opponent. June barely pulled out the win.

June got another challenge right away. She had to put on lipstick and kiss a boy on the cheek. There were plenty of boys to choose from. We finally got a volunteer, but he didn't want a photo. Too bad.

More confetti. June managed to get all the confetti balloons.

June managed to avoid the water balloons for quite some time, but she finally found them.

Since June only got to choose 16 out of 21, there were some balloons left over. Since it was Steven's birthday just days before, we decided he should take the last ones. He was game. I was sad that June had used up the last water balloon. It seemed Steven needed one of those. So I ran inside and got a cup of water. June did the honors and poured the water while Cedros popped an empty balloon. It was funny because Steven noticed the pause between the two. He said, "I heard the balloon pop, but the water didn't come right away."

Steven got two of the challenges. The first was to make up a limerick. I'm not sure Steven even knows what a limerick is, but he did his best. This is what he came up with:

There once was a lovely potato
And it smelled strongly of tomato
Red was its color of fancy
But it was eaten by someone named Nancy
That was its lonely fate-o.

The rhyme scheme isn't quite right, but we'll give him points for his first limerick.

He also got the challenge to have someone draw on your foot. He thought that was really weird. (Yes...we are weird.) June was willing to suffer with him, and luckily there were siblings on hand more than willing to help. Robyn did June's foot and Steven's brother, Spencer, did his.

Success. The balloons ended up being so fun. I'm actually glad I forgot to get regular helium ones. This may be a new tradition in the making.

And don't forget lunch. June loves to try new restaurants and foods. Dad recommended DP Cheesesteaks and I figured they needed some company. Delicious food and I love hanging out with these people. 

Happy Sixteen June! This is going to be a great year!