This n' That

Time has been moving at an exorbitant pace. We finished school on May 18th. Since that day the girls have been rushing to finish their 4-H Record books. Record books are the documentation of all the things they did throughout the 4-H year. They are incredibly time consuming if the child does not keep up with it throughout the year. Of course, my children started out the year with the best of intentions, but never followed through. I swore last year we would not be sucked into the tiring stressful madness that is, Record-Book-at-the-last-minute; yet here we were! We had a bigger advantage than last year being that is was not our first year and we had some idea of what we were doing. Kiley and August participated in many more activities and events this year; their books contained far more than before. Their participation and areas of community service and leadership earned them several awards. Last year they only received a pin for their first year participation. This year, however, they received 7 different awards. They were very proud of their accomplishments, and of course the pins they are now showing off on their hats. The 4-H hat is part of the uniform and all awards (pins and patches) are affixed to the hats to show to others. This past weekend the girls participated in the town Rodeo Parade with their 4-H club. 

August, receiving her awards.

Kiley, receiving her awards.

Julia and Emily with their friend, waiting for the parade to begin

My mother-in-law got to hold the banner in the parade. Lucky her!

August and Kiley with their djembe drums.

The girls' best friend hurt her foot and has to wear a cast. Poor girl.

Once they were finished with their books they had to get all of their entries to the County Fair ready to submit. August planned on submitting her quilt. I wrote about her progress here. I am happy to say she did finish her quilt by working long, exhausting hours. She is sad to have to give it up for a month after she had just finished it though. I'm hoping she gets a nice blue ribbon for her efforts. 

The quilt before the quilting and binding.

The back

The final result.

All four girls submitted art/painting entries to the fair this year. Emily and Julia were so happy to be able to do things like their big sisters. They are hoping for ribbons as well. Three of the girls are going to be turning in a table setting for competition. August is doing a Cherry Blossom themed setting, Julia's will be based on the book, "Are You My Mother?" and Emily's will be based on the book, "velma gratch and the way cool butterfly". Those aren't due to be submitted until next week, so I'm sure you can guess what we are working on this week!?!


In other news, Adam and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary over the weekend. Usually we go away for the weekend, but we stayed around town and ended up working instead. The kids were all with Adam's parents so we still were able to go out to eat a couple of times and be alone for a few days. He has been remodeling a house for the past several months and he had the backyard left to landscape before the job is complete. We are all looking forward to this job being over so he can move along to the next job. I got to learn to lay sod, it was actually kinda fun, like working a puzzle. 

The yard after we weeded it but before the sod

And after, didn't I do a great job? My husband is the best teacher.

Emily and Julia are taking swim lessons for the first time. For this week and next they will learn how to not drown. We are setting up an above ground pool this summer, so these girls need to know how to swim. Plus, by six-years-old, it's just not cool to swim in a life jacket all the time. 


I have more but I'll save it for another post. This one is long enough. Have a fun week!