Down we go

I'm not sure how it happened. Maybe one of the kids tripped, or maybe it was all intentional, either way the kids all had a blast rolling down the hill in John and Carol's front yard. We ended up next door because we had caught all the lightning bugs in our yard, and there were more to be had next door. The hill is not very steep, but it has enough of an angle for them to have fun.

Catch!

Another way we were able to run off energy and kill time was by catching lightning bugs.

Everybody got in on the action, even Jilly who can not stand even lady bugs!

It was quite funny to see all 6 kids run around for 30 seconds and all stop dead and

look for more bugs

4th of July

Well, we had quite a busy night at our annual family bar-b-cue, so I'm going to break up some of the posts so as not to bog everybody down with stories and pictures.

We didn't take the camera with us when we walked across the street to the playground, and when I say we I mean, Jilly, Riley, Noah, Krista. Courtney and Lexi were already over there. The kids loved swinging and going sown the slides, and it was a nice way to run off some energy before we had to hurry up and wait for it to get dark to see fireworks!

Ammendment to Squishies

OK, so I was wrong about how Courtney and her "boyfriend" got on the subject of "squishies". It was much more innocent than I originally thought. Here's how it REALLY happened...Courtney and Nolan were hanging out at lunch, and he informed her "Ummm...the, uuhhhh, thingy that holds your squishies is showing a little bit."

Courtney still has not gotten use to checking to see if her bra straps are showing, but Nolan, who is very (and I do mean VERY) shy wasn't very sure how to let her know. Hopefully Courtney won't disown me for sharing this story with everybody....here's to hoping!

It's official

There is no stopping Cooper now. She will stand up and (ever so slowly) start to walk to what ever has her attention at that moment. It really is the cutest thing, to watch her wobble across the room to be with the "big girls". She so desperately wants to play with Courtney and Jilly whenever the two of them are running around.

Squishies

Just a little back ground on the terminology...Courtney's little "boyfriend" from school made some comment about another girls "squishies" (breasts) and Courtney thought it was the funniest euphemism she had ever heard, and we have been using it ever since. Now for the real story...

Just a lesson for the rest of you moms out there reading this...when the kids are "helping" and they are too quiet...go and check on them....

Courtney and Jilly were (supposed to be) helping fold some laundry the other weekend. Well, Jilly decides that she wants "to wear a boo boo over her squishies like Courtney", but it just keeps getting better folks...Courtney decided to get out the camera and have a little Victoria Secret fashion shoot. Ohhhh the things these two are going to get into together.

Warrenton Pony show

We were not ready for the amount of people at this show for the division that Courtney was in. She did a great job jumping 8 fences again, and she did 2 divisions with the same jump course that day. The first division only had 12 riders, that is a class size we were all use to. In the second division however there were 27 riders, 3 of which were our girls Courtney, Carlee, and Bella. They all did a wonderful job, Carlee received a 2nd place ribbon in the flat class, and Courtney got a 7th place in one of the jump classes. Out of a field that big, both girls realised how well they must have ridden in order to place out of 27 riders.

Congrats kiddos!

Warm up

Courtney and Moose went to the Cedar Spring pony which is a warm up for the Warrenton Pony show (which is the oldest Pony show on the East Coast, and a very big deal in this area) and did a really great job. Usually the division that they do has four jumps, this time Fay decided that Bug and Moose were ready for the next step, and they took on an 8 jump course. They did a great job staying on course, and Courtney was very proud of herself, as well she should be...they walked away with the Champion ribbon. But more importantly, Bug was told by Fay that the jumping she did was the best she had ever seem from Courtney. Great things happen when one is out of their comfort zone just a little bit.

Too much time in the magic van

For those of you who don't know, the mini-van (or magic van as it is called around here) has a DVD player. Thankfully, both Courtney and Jilly love 2 movies...Spirit and Lilo & Stitch. For the most part Spirit is in, but when Mommy gets tired of it I can usually talk Jilly into watching Lilo. Well, Jilly has cracked us up the past few days. She will just start reciting lines from the movie at random when she is in the house, or out and about. You have to really know the movie to get why the lines she picked are funny, but she wanders around the house yelling (as I said at odd intervals) "Tricky fish...TRICKY FISH!" or "all we had was stinky TUNA!" She puts so much inflection into it, that all of us about die laughing!

last day of school/report card

OK, so I know it's been a while since school ended, but here's a pic of Bug on her last day of being a lowly little 6th grader. The only good news about waiting so long to post this one is that I get to brag about Bug's report card at the same time.

For the last grading period, Bug got all A's. It's hard for me to believe that she is my kid sometimes, she is so much better at the whole school thing than I ever was. What's even better is that for her year long average, she got all A's for all her subjects except for keyboarding she got a B.

I've never been one of those parents who gets mad if she doesn't get A's, all I have ever wanted from her is for her to try her best. If it requires more studying because she doesn't get something, then that's what we do. As long as she understands the material, does her homework, and studies for her tests, she should have no problems. To me it's all about the amount of effort she put in, not the final outcome (also my philosophy for horse shows) everything else is just gravy.