Earth Day 2009

Happy Birthday to our beautiful earth! It was a gorgeous day with 80 degree temperatures and we were able to spend most of it outside! The kids always have a big celebration at Earhart to celebrate with games, activities, crafts, door decorating contests, poem writing and our favorite part...cake decorating contest. We made a dirt cake with worms and won 4th place(I think more because of Grace's popularity rather than how awesome our cake looked...).

Brock and I spent the morning celebrating with them. Jaxson's classroom door award was "picture perfect" with a picture of each child on a little earth where they explained what their perfect earth would be. Jaxson's perfect earth "would have flowers, no trash, and he would hear birds chirping and the beautiful wind". Grace's classroom door award was "best seed planter award" and has a picture of each child in a flower pot as seeds saying, "we are planting seeds today for tomorrow's future".




Jaxson also entered the poem writing contest and here is his poem:
Earth
Beautiful Flowers
Falling Leaves Off Of Big Trees
Cool Air At The Fair
By Jaxson Acker


His friend Grace Evans won first place and they didn't announce any other places, but he is sure he won second or third place!;]

After we left the school we picked up Isabella from Pre-K and met our friends Karen and Maxi and kids at the park for our weekly luncheon. Brock got his first sunburn...he is my child with the most fair skin!
It was a great day and we are grateful for our earth and the lessons we learn on how to take care of our earth to leave for the generations to come and the respect we have for the beautiful place we live!

Link for Life

Our family participated in the Link for Life run at the Sedgwick County Zoo. It was a fundraiser for programs for suicide prevention. Jaxson ran this race last year as his first race ever and since then, we have all competed in more races and we have made quite the improvement in one year. Jaxson's time last year was 35 minutes and didn't know how to pace himself last year, but with his new MP3 player, he did great this year, running in 29 minutes. Sophi beat us all, and this was her first race, finishing in 27 minutes. Grace and I ran together and a few months ago she raced and ran in 41 minutes and this race we finished in 35 minutes! I was really proud of her, she didn't get nearly as angry as she has in the past! Then Isabella won in her age group...and was a head taller then all the other 4 year olds-Jaxson told her she just had to beat the bunny that was leading the race...and she did(you can barely see her in the picture...just behind and ahead of the bunny)! Thanks Derek for coming out and supporting us and watching the little ones, you're a great dad and husband! After you finish P90X, your gonna blow us all out of the water with your running skillz!!

Great friends!

One thing we have loved about Wichita is the great friends we have made here. Most of them are spread out all over the country from Florida to California but we have maintained great relationships and hope to plan a reunion some time in the near future!
The last family in our original group of Wichita friends to leave us was the Michaelsons! Jared, Noelle and their two daughters Mya and Peyton. We connected with them quickly as they are also from Colorado and Jared was actually born in Montpelier, Idaho. We probably have some of the same relatives!! They were a great family and we had a lot of fun with them. We went camping, to our timeshare in Branson, boating, many dinners on the weekend, lunch on Wednesdays and lots of birthdays and weekends just hanging out together! They were always great for a good laugh and a deep political or religious discussion! We will miss them so much but know they will do great and have a bright future ahead of them in Austen, Texas! Good luck Michaelsons...we love and miss you already!!!

How cute is he!!

Grace's spring project

Grace did her spring project on zoo animals. We never actually made it to the zoo..busy year..but thank goodness for the internet.

Silence....

There is a daily struggle I have with myself. I rarely have quiet "me time" and so on the rare occasion I do...I like to enjoy it. So here is my struggle, at some point in the day there is a moment of silence and so I have to try to make up my mind if the small moment is worth the clean up I will inevitably have to do later or if not, I better run off and find what is keeping Brock occupied. This morning I chose to take the silence and after my 10 wonderful minutes of peace, I found Brock in my bathroom, quickly throwing make-up in the drawer and trying to close it and run before he's busted! My eyeshadow was broken all over the floor and my new mascara was all over his cute little kissable face!!! So even though I lost make-up and about 15 minutes of clean-up time...I believe it was still worth the 10 minutes of silence...

April Fools Day

I'm a little behind on my postings but we had a really fun April Fool's Day so I want to blog it so we can keep these memories!
The night before I froze cereal in water and in the morning I put a little cereal and milk on top and Jaxson was so confused and then caught on early that it was April Fools...Grace was completely oblivious to the fact that it was frozen underneath and kept eating..LOL. Then Sophi was so surprised that I even made her breakfast(we teach Independence around here;)...) so she started eating too and was a little confused but kept eating so she wouldn't offend me...ha ha!! Then I said I'd make them their real cereal and I put blue food coloring in the bottom of the bowl and cereal on top and then when they poured their milk it all turned blue! FUN FUN!!
The kids had all kinds of jokes to play on friends all day and I even put a fake spider in Sophi's purse...I don't think she has even found that yet...that will be funny!
For dinner we served cupcakes and ice cream...or meatloaf in a muffin tin with mash potatoes colored pink for frosting and white for the ice cream! Kids loved it!!

We played a few jokes on friends and family too. I texted all my family that Derek was offered a job, training other Chem-Dry's in Logan, Utah. I can't believe I got so many of them to fall for it, I actually got hung up on by Jan and a very upset mom...sorry guys...maybe one day!! And thanks to Boozie, we left a message for Jared Michaelson to call Mr. Fox with Fox Attorneys and left the zoo's number. Gotcha Jared! I love this day!

Jaxson's Spring Project!

Jaxson picked the horned toad lizard this year for his second grade lift spring project. He had to do a one page report on the lizard and give that orally by memory and a visual to go along with it. I wanted him to decorate the roomba up...I thought that would be funny, but he opted to do a clay scultpure instead. We bought a 10 pound brick of clay and after some good advice to use thread to cut it, I walked away and nervously told him to go at it! He definately has the creative side that I lack and so a half an hour later, this is what it turned into! I was so surprised and pleased with his work!! Absolutely amazing!!! He is only 8 years old..very impressive if I do say so myself. He usually always does well on his projects, but struggles with the oral reports because his voice is so soft when public speaking. He had it memorized and practiced several times and he just got his grade back. He scored 4/4 on the oral(woo hoo!!), 3 1/2/4 on the written and 4/4 on the visual!! 11 1/2/12 total! Yea Jaxson!!

Sophi turns 17!!!

Sophi's Birthday! She is now 17, which was my favorite age! It's so fun to have her here to celebrate her birthday with us and share in this exciting time of her life! Her birthday fell on a Sunday so we woke her up early with presents(she was actually already up on the phone with Germans friends and we sent her back to bed!! Family tradition!) After church we had a our first ward linger longer and we brought a cake to church and everyone sang to her and Clark Rogers who shares a birthday with her! It was a fun yet relaxing day. With her crazy schedule of school and soccer, homework etc., she enjoys Sundays so I'm glad she got to have her birthday on a relaxing day!! Happy Birthday girl! Make it a great year!

Gannons visit for Spring Break!

All the Gannons(except for Jamie) came out to visit us for their spring break! Poor little Logan was sick for the first half of the trip so we had some good down time to just hang out and be together! Once he was feeling better, we stayed busy at the mall, chuck-e-cheese, movies, restaurants and celebrated Sophie's birthday early at Sumo, our favorite! It was great as always!
Bella and Michael got along soo well! Their favorite activity was taking a bubble bath together! This was done NUMEROUS times throughout the week!
This was the only picture I happened to capture of the week! Grant, you need to send me the pictures you took so I can post more! Great week, thanks for coming Gannons!!!

Camping in Arkansas

For Springbreak, mom flew out from Las Vegas on the $29 special to Wichita and we decided to meet Stacie, Jess and Milo and go camping! We picked someplace in the middle and ended up in Hot Spring, Arkansas. It happens to be Bill Clinton's home town we discovered in our search! Supposedly there were great camping spots there...but we knew better than to get our hopes up because it was Arkansas!! Let me tell you, we were wrong! It definately exceded our expectations! Rain hit the area a couple of days previous to our arrival so we ended up searching for an alternative to tents(much to mom's relief since she opted to sleep in the van). We found a KOA which is my kind of camping. It was a little cabin with beds in it and that's all. We still cooked outside, each cabin has a firepit and picnic table. Derek being the great dad he is, slept outside by the fire in a tent with Jaxson. It had very clean bathrooms with showers and a pool...good to remember in the summer! Here are some pictures of us making smores our first night there!




The next day we went downtown to the main strip and I fell in love with this little place! It is called Hot Springs because it actually has natural mineral water that comes out of the ground at 140 degrees. There are several places along the strip that you can fill up on the water, most places it comes out warm, but there are a few that it comes out cold and really good! We filled up many times!

We also found a great hiking trail just off the main strip. The picture with the wall and staircase is the end of the trail and in between two main buildings! Who knew Arkansas was so beautiful!!! It was a great hiking trail and took us up to the very top of the mountain to overlook the little city. We brought some snacks and sandwich fixings and I even got Jaxson to hold my hand towards the end! The kids all took turns holding Milo's leash and we ended the hike exhausted! It was a wonderful memory that will stay with us for a long time!














We were there on a Sunday but too embarrased to go to our church in smoky clothes so we drove to the closest church. We had a fun time singing along with the Christian band...even the drums! New experience!

Then our last day, we decided to pamper ourselves for being good campers! Again, Derek, the superdad, watched the kids while the rest of us went to the last open bath house left in hotsprings. The day before we actually all went on a tour through a bath house that is no longer open for business but were really popular in the 1800's and early 1900's for the water's healing effects. So we decided we wanted to try one out, they offer private baths...but we weren't ready for that yet, we chose to go to the open pool instead. There were 3 pools below and 2 above and each at a different temperature but all hot! They bring you a glass of the natural mineral water while in the pools and there are little waterfalls to sit under! It was very relaxing and the minerals in the water make your skin really soft! Here is our picture before and after.



We finished our trip up by eating at a little burger joint (everything on the strip is small business' that are clean, well kept and seem environmentally friendly). However, the poor guy didn't know spring breakers were out yet and was very understaffed. What should have been a 20 minute lunch turned into 2 hours! Jess even started bussing the tables and refilling drinks for others since Jess seemed to be the only person available!! LOL!! The trip was great, we found Oregon in the midwest, a new place that we love and hope to go back and visit more of the national forrest there where it's warm enough to be in the lake. We had great company...thanks Jess, Staice and Mom!! Fun camping food...tinfoil dinners, eggs and bacon, hotdogs, cobbler! Smelled like smoke but could shower and wash clothes! And great memories to last forever!

Spelling Bee

Every year grades 1-5 have a class spelling bee and then the top boy and top girl go on to compete against each other in front of the whole school and all the parents. Jaxson won (for the second year in a row) in his class and Grace was the 1st runner up for her class. (Her prayer the few days before the spelling bee were that her good friend Megan would get sick so she could take her place...I'm glad some prayers aren't answered;)!!) Jaxson passed the practice round but then messed up on his first real word which was Remember. He went too fast and forgot the second 'em'. It's a little nerve racking with all the people watching you and having to spell out loud. Then after the spelling bee, this is how the conversation went Jaxson: If I would have gotten that word right, I would have gone far... Mom: I know, you would have done great Jaxson: Actually, I think I would have won Mom: You're probably right;) I love his optimistic out view and I was just proud of him for making it that far and Grace for almost making it! I'm so glad our kids are smarter than we were!!

Tax season

This time of year keeps me busy as I am having to enter in all the details of the business into our Quick books. After everyone(but Brock)left for school, I took an hour to get busy. Brock stayed pretty content to run around and play coming around only twice to ask for a snack. Other than that he was really good....or at least I thought. After I finished, I found him pushing around Grace's baby stroller with the toilet brush instead of a baby inside and he some how got into the garbage and had pulled out an orange that had gone bad and after ripping it open, he must have realized it didn't taste good because it was ALL OVER my bedroom floor. He also dumped a bag of pretzels onto our bed, colored blue marker on his face and emptied my bottle of wrinkle cream(I'm still not sure where?)!!! And this was ALL while I was sitting RIGHT here and admiring how well behaved he was! Let's just say, the next hour we were even busier cleaning up! After the internal screaming all I have to do is look at his cute little smiley face and I forgive him and I'm so happy(after it's clean) to have these little moments in my life!