Fishing

I have a confession to make.  I am not a good fishing mom!  I feel terrible even typing that out for others to see.  I am sure both my grandpa's shake their heads at me from heaven.  I'm sorry.  I don't like the smell of fish. I really don't like it when the children want to touch the fish.  I am not a good fishing mom.  Neil is a good sport despite my lack of enthusiasm and takes the children fishing each summer.  Matthew loves to fish and he was so excited that the younger children wanted to go to the fishing pond this morning.  I enjoyed taking pictures of him helping Joshua and Lydia catch fish.  We spent the morning and came home with three catfish.  Lydia really wanted to catch a dogfish, but she was happy with what they got.  I tried really hard to not tell anyone to wash their hands and just be a good sport.  I hope they will have happy memories of fishing and not just of their mother not handling the experience. 

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What's happening at our house this afternoon...

This afternoon we have all kinds of playing going on.  There are 5 Waite children, 5 George children and 4 Andreasen children all playing together.  I think I am slightly outnumbered.  I do have Julia and Matthew here as back up should I need them.   All the children have been very good and enjoyed playing together.  I guess today our house qualifies as the Kool-Aid house of the block.  I always wanted to be the Kool-aid Mom and have the children hang out at our house.

 As I type this I am listening to the children play football together in the yard.  I loved playing football growing up and I love listening to the game going on.  Sometimes I join in, other times I just enjoy listening.  Before I know it, it will end up with someone hurt or upset, but I'll enjoy it while they are happy. 

Happy Father's Day!

This post is dedicated to Neil. He is such a good dad! Neil is willing to do things with the children and for them.  He is a good sport about all the craziness that happens at our house.  Thanks for being willing to read to us, play games, talk sports, give bike rides, and all the other things that come with being dad! Neil is a good example for each of us.  He is great at presiding, protecting and providing. Thanks for enjoying life's adventures with us. Thanks for making life fun and exciting.  We love you!!!

Good Citizens

Emma and David started public school this year.  They both had very successful first years.  They did well socially and academically.  I think they both liked going to school.  Both Emma and David were awarded good citizenship awards this year.  At Parkside each class voted for one boy and one girl who were good citizens.  I was so proud of David when his name was called out.  At the middle school the teachers selected the student the was a good citizen.  Emma's teachers all had positive things to say about her.  We are grateful that both David and Emma did well in school this year.  It was a big adjustment at first, but they were both up to the task.  We are proud of you!!

Happy Birthday, Dad

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday.  My parents are in Scotland setting a good example for each of us by serving the Lord as missionaries.  My dad has always set a good example for me.  I am so glad that he's my dad! I know I was stubborn and hard to deal with sometimes as a teenager, I wasn't always grateful then for the rules my dad set. I am grateful now.  I love you, dad!  I hope you had  a wonderful day in Scotland!  When I told Lydia it was grandpa's birthday she was determined we should bake him an orange colored cake with green frosting.  She thought he could come and eat it with us or we could take it to him.  It was really cute when she said that baking the cake would give Grandpa just enough time to come and he would get here as soon as it was done baking.  We ate orange colored cake last night and sang "Happy Birthday".  I already had pink frosting in the fridge so Lydia didn't get green frosting.  Maybe next year.  I love you, Dad and hope you had a good birthday and enjoy being older than the dirt.  Love, Sarah

Closet remodel

Last year for my birthday I told Neil I wanted him to build a window seat in the dining room.  I have loved having the window seat that he built for me.  I decided that projects around the house make perfect birthday gifts.  This year I told him I wanted to remodel our bedroom closet.  I started looking at closets online to figure out the best way to use our space.  He's a good sport so he went along with my ideas and helped make them happen.  We have a walk in clostet, but it usually looked crowded and needed cleaned.  We took out the shelves along the back wall and put them up in the hall closet.  We put them closer together so they are the perfect size to hold the totes with the kids pictures and scrapbook things.  We moved the closet rod up in the closet and made enough room to put a second bar on one wall.  We found a pant rack on amazon that we bought to put under the closet rod on the other wall.  We used it for a pattern and Neil built three more racks (two for our closet and one for Emma's room).  We are still working out the hangers on the racks, but they are working really well.  We put up some shelves back on the wall that we took the shelves off, but we put them closer together so they can hold shoes.  We also bought a couple of  closet rods/shelves at Lowe's that go around the corner so we could use that space efficiently. Sorry I don't have any before pictures, but here are the construction and after pictures. I love the extra space for clothes and I love how the closet looks organized and clean now.  Hooray for improvements! and Hooray for my wonderful husband that makes the projects I want to do priorities and realities!! Thanks so much!!

Neil and Dallin working hard. I hope that shelf doesn't fall on them.

Making sure it is all straight and level. Dallin loves helping his dad.

Everything is down and ready to be remodeled.

Our new and improved use of space

I love the corner rods

The hall closet that now has the boxes that used to be in our closet and all my sewing things.

Kindergaren Corner

This coming school year will be different than we have ever had before.  We decided to let Emma (8th grade), David (6th grade), MaryAnne (4th grade) and Dallin (2nd grade) all go to school.  I will only have Julia (12th grade), Matthew (10th grade), Joshua (kindergarten) and Lydia (preschool) home to do school.  I saw a reading corner on pinterest and really wanted to make one in our school room.  Neil kept telling me the area I wanted to use was small, but I was sure it would work.  We put it all together last week.  I love it!!  Joshua and Lydia have spent lots of time there doing school things.  I really like the shelves that are at their level.  They are made from rain gutters so they can hold little games, crayons and things that children need to get to.  I am excited to have this time to focus more on Joshua and Lydia. I am sad that the others will be gone during the day, and that I didn't really take the time to make each of them my focus.  One of the first things Joshua and Lydia are learning in school time is to get dressed each morning. Julia says she is never going to let her children have pajama days, at least not as often as Joshua and Lydia like to have them.  I think kindergarten should be about making learning fun and not take all day.  I am so excited to use our kindergarten corner.  Thanks, Neil for helping me make this project turn out exactly how I wanted it.

I think that Joshua loves his kindergarten corner

Baseball season

We are right in the middle of baseball season.  We were going to let Joshua play t-ball, but as we talked about it we realized that Dallin has never gotten to play. It didn't seem fair to let Joshua play and skip Dallin.  I didn't want both of them to play because t-ball plays Monday and Wednesday and Coach pitch is Tuesday and Thursday.  It seemed like too much time away in the evening.  Dallin has done really well and enjoyed playing coach pitch.  He helped his team get a triple play.  He tagged a runner out at 2nd after the ball was caught and then he threw it back to first to get the runner out that had left for 2nd. It is hard to get a good picture of Dallin batting. It seems like every time I try he hits the first pitch, before I am ready.  It is fun to watch the kids learn and get better each week. He is on a really young team and they are all learning together.  I love this level where they don't even keep score and everyone cheers for each other.  Go Twins, and go Dallin! It has been fun to watch you play and cheer for you to do your best.

Dallin running home

Playing pitcher

At bat

A hit and off to 1st base