Our 4th of july

 Our 4th of July was good this year.  It was filled with food, fun, and of course, fireworks!  Here are some pictures from that day.

 We made a cake to celebrate, and the kids each took turns blowing out the candles. 

Later that night, we went the our friends, The Reece's, and let off fireworks.  Calvin especially liked this.  He saved up all his money and bought his own fireworks.  Abby was a little timid with the sparklers at first.  She just wasn't sure about holding something that was on fire and "spraying" everywhere.  Then, later on as the night wore on she got braver and soon was lighting her own sparkler (With help).
Elsa loved it and was right there by Calvin's or Clint's side as they lit the fireworks.  Dallin loved it too.  Although I found him in the house with some of the others doing karioke (sp?).  He is definately not shy that boy and if he wasn't singing  he was shooting off some roman candles or something like that.   
Well, that day was fun and we can't wait for next year.

Then in the days following the 4th, the kids finished up 1st & 3rd grade.  Elsa got an award for A/B Honor Roll and Calvin got the same.

(Sorry Calvin's picture is so dark.   I think it was because Calvin was farther away than Elsa was.) 

We're NOT going private!

Yeah, you read that right.  After much thought and some research (of the blogger settings), I've decided not to go private.  I've toyed with the idea of going private for a couple of years but never did because it's been fun to meet up with long lost friends who found my blog.  Yeah, I realize that there are those crazy people out there who get to the blog though google search and whatnot, but don't they also go to the park, store, school, etc.  I'm not going to stop taking my kids to those places.  Besides, I have found out that you can actually go into the settings and take your blog out of circulation as far as web searches go. I think that's enough for now.  Plus, it's not like I'm going to post our personal information.  Also, my sisters husband said that there are at least 100 blogs created every minute, so that narrows the chances of some weirdo finding ours.  So I think we'll be just fine.

We're going private

After viewing a video on Youtube about how someone took a little boys photo off of a blog to use it for an adoption scam he was running.  I thought "scary!"  So now we're going private on July 20th.  So if you would like to still view our blog then leave a comment or email us your email so we can put you on the list. Thanks!

Every kid has his day

Today Clint, Dallin, Abby, and I went to see Calvin and the rest of his GATE class perform as "living statues" of our founding fathers and mothers of this great country.  The GATE class put together a little "museum" of living statues, such as Martha Washington, John Hancock, Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, etc.  Calvin acted as George Washington and did a great job.  (In my opinion....I might be a little biased.) They performed for the other kids in the school (so Elsa got to see him too.)   Calvin was so excited to do this and to wear his costume.  The day before, he was trying on his costume, he said, " You know, Mom, some of the other kids are just wearing hats."  I said, "Do you just want to wear a hat too?"  He said, "No, I want to wear my costume."  "Good boy!" I thought, "I don't have to strangle you."  I spent that whole day figuring out how to make his wig, ruffles on his shirt, and sleeves(which you can't see in the movie because he has his hands behind his back).  He was so proud to wear it!

In the video you'll hear clapping in the middle of his little speech, but they are clapping for the other kids as they finished their little speeches.  Sorry I haven't figured out how to get rid of background noises.  Anyway, both Clint and I are so proud of him.   Enjoy!