Pioneer Day and Hair Cuts

Since last Friday was Pioneer Day for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we decided it would be fun to play the old Oregon Trail game as a family on Sunday afternoon. We could only have 5 family members so Alice and Charlotte weren't part of the trek but they watched...for a little while, before taking off to play their own thing. Curtis was in charge of the keyboard and everyone else just watched and helped make decisions. It was fun but sadly Curtis was the only one who made the whole trip. Nikki, Garrett and I drowned when we tried to float across the Snake River in Idaho. Jack kept breaking either an arm or a leg, and getting fevers. He eventually died either in Idaho or Oregon. They didn't say how he died. It just said "Jack has died". Curtis was 4 miles away from his destination and finishing the game when his last oxen was stolen. He had to wait around for someone who would trade him food for an oxen so he could finish, LOL. This was a game that I think was new when I played it in 4th or 5th grade. We were able to play it online. We sang some pioneer songs for church in the morning and listened to a talk about pioneers. After the Oregon Trail game we took a little break for dinner but then finished off the day with watching "17 Miracles". I swear I cry every time. I love that movie and "Ephraim's Rescue".  It gives me such a greater appreciation for the pioneers.

On Monday I was cleaning out part of Charlotte's closet and was going through her school papers. I found that she had a Kindergarten diploma certificate and I had not gotten a picture of yet. Well, better late than never! Here's our 2020 Kindergarten graduate! Our family also got a certificate for a job well done on distance learning for doing school from home during the pandemic. That was nice.

Monday evening we scheduled hair cuts for Nikki and Charlotte at a friend of ours in our ward. Charlotte went first so that she could play with her friend Tess. Nikki kept going back and forth on what to do with her hair. At first she wanted to color it just to make it different but then she ultimately decided she wanted to try a super short hair do, boy style basically. I wasn't too keen on her trying something that short but decided to let her do it since she's old enough to make that decision. She loves it. Curtis and I aren't crazy about it but as long as she's happy that's what matters.

Alice was with us so that she could play with the twins that are her age. She kept saying that she wanted her hair cut too like Charlotte's (which actually sounds like Harlott's, lol). When we got in the car to go home she was still saying that she wanted her hair cut. I tried telling her that her hair wasn't really long enough for one yet but in the end I contacted my friend Amanda and we went over the next morning and got her hair trimmed to match Charlotte's. It was basically just making the back even with the front so not much got taken off for her first hair cut.

This was before. See, not much to cut off back there.

This was before but we just made the back even with the front.

And now it's her turn. I was going to take an after picture after her hair dried but failed to do that because I was letting the girls play but really it's not much different than before.

Here are some for fun pictures.

Charlotte's hair after it dried after her cut.

The next morning she was dressed so cute in her cute skirt and new black shirt (got it at Walmart on clearance for $1)

I was taking selfies because I was happy with how my hair looked and needed a new profile picture for Facebook.

The girls were waiting for me so that we could go out front and ride bikes since Curtis finally fixed Charlotte's bike, so I got some pictures with the girls.

I decided to use this one as my profile picture because I just love it!

Love these two cuties!

Sewing and Birthdays

Our weekend has been pretty busy even though the only thing we had planned was to feed the missionaries Friday evening.  I went to the grocery store Friday morning to get items we would need for our dinner plus other things we needed. It was the first time that WinCo was requiring to wear a face mask in the store. I hate wearing a mask and will only do it when required. Every time I wear a mask I seem to have breathing issues afterwards. Thus far I have only worn a mask in Costco, Walmart and WinCo but more and more businesses are following suit with the mask rule. I'm not too happy with that but hopefully it will help the way they hope it will.

Anyway, we decided to have taco salad for our dinner with the missionaries so I decided to start chopping vegetables around 3:30. They were scheduled to come over at 5:00 which was also the same time that I needed to take Nikki's friend Angie to work and pick up Nikki from her job. I was expecting Curtis to be home before I needed to leave but of course he ended up working a little late. Fortunately I was able to contact the missionaries and have them come at 5:15 instead and most of the food was ready before I left. I did have to put Garrett in charge of finishing cooking the taco meat when I left but it was nearly done and Curtis was finally almost home.

We had a good visit with the missionaries. They were Elder Blake and Elder Bell. One was from Arizona and the other from Oklahoma. One of them was in South America originally but was reassigned to the Boise mission. The kids and Curtis were excited to show them our playhouse project after we ate and had a spiritual message. They got on the swings but I didn't have my phone out there to get a picture of that but did get a picture of them looking around on the playhouse.

After the missionaries left, most of us packed up and headed over to my in laws. We left the two boys at home to enjoy their video games because our main purpose for going over to my in laws was that my mother in law was going to help Nikki begin her sewing projects. Nikki had already cut out the pattern pieces for her shirt project but we waited to do the fabric cutting until we were with Gaya. I'm so glad we did because I learned a new and better way to cut fabric! She has a rotary cutter and it's so much faster and easier than using scissors and makes nice straight cut lines. Gaya has a nice setup in the room they had built in their garage. It was originally to use as a bedroom but they converted it into her craft room.

My mother in law is not used to working with stretchy fabric so this was new for both of them. Nikki did not pick a very easy project to start with just because of the stretchy fabric but they're getting through it. Fortunately Gaya has a nice newer sewing machine that she can just put the setting in for stretchy fabric and the machine knows what to do. She also decided to surge up the sides to help because the fabric kept getting bunched up. Gaya would sew the curved and more difficult spots and Nikki would sew the straighter easier pieces. Nikki even got to use the surging machine for the first time. She is having fun doing this and can't wait to finish this project and wear her new shirt!

Using the surging machine.

Saturday morning Curtis and I decided to wake up early so that we don't waste the day away even though we hadn't officially made plans yet. I decided to go spray some weeds in the yard while Curtis worked on making a birthday post for his mom on Facebook. It was Gaya's birthday and the night before when we were over there she had mentioned to Charlotte that she still needed to get Charlotte a birthday present since she missed it because of the pandemic. And Charlotte told Gaya that she was going to get her a birthday present too. Charlotte was so excited about both getting a present and picking one out for her grandma that we went shopping in the morning. This was the first time we took the younger kids to the store and we were all wearing masks. We picked up two new tennis rackets and then Charlotte picked out a geranium flower and balloon for her grandma. Curtis picked out an Almond Joy candy bar as well for her gift. Then we took everything home and Curtis, Garrett, the little girls and I went to go play some tennis before it got too hot. We called Shauna on the way over and she came and played with us so we were able to play doubles. Of course the girls only tried playing on a different court for a couple of minutes before getting bored. The only reason they have tennis rackets their size is because my neighbor friend Ashlie gave them to them. So the girls mostly just watched us play. At first we were going to play at the courts by Lincoln Pool but all of them were being used so we turned around and went back to West Middle School. Those courts had some sort of rubber mesh that they laid on top of the old court. It felt a little different but we liked playing on it.

After we played tennis we took the girls over to the playground to play for a bit but we didn't stay long because it was getting hot and it was lunch time. When we got back to the house I had the kids pick out a birthday card for Gaya and then we all signed it. We ate lunch and then played some board games while we waited for my in laws to come over. They were out and about shopping and said they were going to drop in after they were done. So Charlotte and my mother in law had a gift exchange. Charlotte received a stuffed owl covered with sequins.

I found the girls matching shirts that morning on a clearance rack at Walmart for only $1. They are exercising type shirts. Charlotte was especially happy to get the shirt because Alice had two exercise outfits that were handed down from a cousin but Charlotte did not and she wanted one.

We had a good visit with them and then they took off to do other fun birthday stuff. Jack had his friend Rhett come over to play. First they played on the video games and then the 3 boys played the Harry Potter board game that we have while Curtis and I cooked dinner.

And while we were cooking dinner Nikki got her bird out and was playing with him on her head and Alice's head.

We finished off the night with watching movies. The younger kids, including Jack's friend, went in the office and watched the old version of Little Rascals and then a Clifford the Big Red Dog movie. Nikki, Curtis and I watched "Shipwrecked" on Disney+. It's an older movie that was made in 1991 I think. Then we put the boys in charge of getting the little girls to bed while Nikki, Curtis and I all walked around our neighborhood a couple of times. I cleaned up the kitchen when we got back and didn't get in bed until after midnight so I felt really tired this morning.

I do have to say that I was impressed this morning by Garrett. We had church at home today and Garrett got himself showered and dressed in church clothes without me saying anything. Then he got our front room all set up for doing church, including getting the sacrament ready. While I was working in the kitchen on cutting up a pineapple he found the little girls in the family room playing and told them to go get dressed and even helped them get their dresses off the hangers for them. He also picked out our hymns for today, although we did change one song just because we wanted to sing pioneer related songs to celebrate Pioneer Day. (We sing a total of 3 songs: opening, sacrament and closing). I also noticed that Nikki took out the trash in the kid's bathroom without me saying anything, which was really nice. And she also volunteered to help Charlotte tie her dress when Charlotte was trying to ask me to do it for her while I was still cutting up pineapple. It always makes me so happy when my kids jump in and do things without me asking or telling them. For that matter, while we were playing tennis yesterday Jack was gung ho on getting chores done at home with Nikki. Yes he does it because he wants to earn his video game time or to have a friend over but I didn't have to tell him that. He already knows and he just did it first. Both of my boys have been pretty good at that this summer.

Hunting Grasshoppers!

Yesterday morning it was cloudy and even sprinkled a little here and there of rain. It was so nice that after I took Nikki to work at 9 a.m. I came home to do some yard work out front. I noticed my lavender bush was ready for some trimming as all of the blossoms had dried out. While I was cutting the bush a big grasshopper jumped out of the bush. I told Charlotte and Alice about it and they came out to see. They watched him jump around for a little bit until they lost sight of him in the other bushes and flowers by our front door. Charlotte had mentioned wishing she had a bug catcher and cage to catch the grasshopper in. The boys used to have little bug cages they made in scouts years ago but apparently they gave them away. I tried to think of what I would do when I was a kid and then thought of finding a shoe box to make a cage out of. Fortunately I still had my box from buying my shoes last month so that's what we used! First we taped up the holes on the bottom with duct tape. Then taped the holes on the top with clear tape. After that we covered the top with plastic wrap and taped it down except for one corner. We had to make sure the grasshopper we caught would have air so I had the girls poke lots of holes in the plastic using a push pin and again on the top of the box because the lid was attached so it might be closed sometimes.

After the box was finished we went for a walk on the path by the canal behind our home because I figured that would be a good spot to find them. The path goes a ways but then stops because there's a field. We walked clear to the field and didn't see any grasshoppers but we did see a bunch of dragon flies. I let the two neighbor kids come with us as well. We brought plastic cups for catching the bugs and a piece of cardboard to slide underneath the cup. I did find a few grasshoppers in the field but they kept flying too far away from me so we gave up and started walking back. I kept scanning the sides as we walked and finally about halfway back I saw a grasshopper jump towards the fence and then fall down into a spider web. How lucky is that? I used the cup to cover him and then slid the cardboard under. Charlotte brought her box over and I let her take over on getting the grasshopper into the box. She was successful and very happy about it! She named him Polka Dot. We did see one more grasshopper after that but I was not fast enough to get him before he flew away over the fence.

Charlotte, Alice and our neighbor friends Bryson and Brooklyn.

If you zoom in you can see him on the right side of the box. He's a light brown color with spots.

Charlotte brought him inside to her room for a little while after we got home but I eventually made her take him outside to the back yard. He spent the afternoon out there and by evening he wasn't hopping around much, so the kids opened the cage to let him out but he wouldn't fly or hop out. He was still alive though. They decided to put him in the grass where he stayed until this morning. We were surprised to see him still there. When Charlotte said he was still out there this morning I asked if he was dead but she said no. Sure enough, he was still alive but just sitting in the grass. I got him on the end of a stick and was able to get a picture of him with the girls. Charlotte later put him on the fence and now he is gone. I told Charlotte that Polka Dot is happy that he didn't die and that we actually saved him because he had fallen in the spider web. If we hadn't got him out of the web then the spider would have gotten him. That made Charlotte happy to hear.

Here's Polka Dot and the girls. Charlotte had not brushed her hair yesterday or today before taking pictures, lol.

Work, exercise, visits and more!

On one of our walks this week Curtis and I walked from our house to our church building by way of cutting through neighborhoods since Midland doesn't have sidewalks that far. It ended up being about 2 miles each way. It was a nice walk but once again my left foot was hurting on the side of my foot. Sometimes even with these new shoes I still have problems but at least it's not every time. Some days I don't have any problems. Anyway, the sun was setting by the time we were coming back and even though this picture doesn't do it justice, it was a beautiful sunset looking out from the neighborhood we were coming out of looking at the fields and the mountains. I'm going to be sad when the fields are gone. They already started building a new subdivision in part of the field.

The only way I can get my little kids to eat corn is by eating corn on the cob because of course it's just so much more fun! This was actually only the 2nd time we've had corn on the cob this summer. Looks like I'll need to buy more of it and more often!

Last Saturday was the first Saturday in awhile that we really didn't have plans so Curtis took the opportunity to take his truck over to his dad's house to work on his brakes. His dad has the tools that he usually needs. However, after taking everything apart he discovered that his truck is going to need some specialty equipment to be able to do his brakes so he'll have to take it in somewhere to get it done. That's kind of a bummer because we can usually save money by doing brakes by ourselves. Oh well.

While Curtis and Garrett were over at his dad's working on the truck I was back at home working on spraying weeds. First I sprayed Round Up around the perimeter of the fence and house and other places that needed it. When I had extra I would spray weeds on our neighbor's driveways. Then I went through the lawn and spot sprayed with Zamzows Ultra which is safe for lawns. I ran out before I finished though. I did buy more but still need to finish spraying weeds in part of the back yard.

Curtis really wanted to play tennis and so he took the 4 younger kids with him to play tennis by the Rec Center and then drove over to a new park off of Midway that is barnyard themed. While they did that Nikki and I drove to Walmart to get her a skirt pattern, then went to Zamzows to get more of the weed stuff, and then on to Hobby Lobby where Nikki picked out some fabric that she really liked and is going to make a skirt out of. It's white with black owls all over. We're going to have to line the skirt so it won't be see through. So now Nikki will be making a skirt, shirt, and dress. She's so excited to do it that we already cut out the pattern for the shirt Saturday evening but are waiting to cut the fabric out at my mother in law's because it's been so long since I've done anything like this that I don't want to mess up.

Nikki wanted this shape of skirt. There was a different pattern she wanted at Hobby Lobby but it was $20. So she found this one at Walmart for half the price. She's not going to put the cummerbund piece on it though. She likes how it flares out.

Saturday was Grandpa Norton's birthday (I'm sure he celebrated in Heaven) and I felt bad that we didn't make it over to visit grandma that day so we made sure to get over there Sunday evening.  Curtis and Jack rode their bikes over to grandma's this time while the rest of us drove over in the van. Curtis and I have both been wanting to do more active things lately. While normally I would have wanted to ride bikes with him, it was too hot at that time of day and some one had to drive the kids who didn't want to ride bikes, lol. However, we put Jack's bike in the back for the ride home and Curtis rode his bike home alone since Jack didn't want to make the ride back. He's lucky his bike was small enough to fit. We visited, ate ice cream and played a game. This time we had Nikki choose the game so that she would play with us. She likes Mexican Train.

Last week I was about to go ahead and buy that Little House on the Prairie set that I had seen at Walmart that had the entire series in it but when I went back to the store it was gone. While I was disappointed, later I found reviews on Walmart's website about that particular set and many people said that the packaging wasn't good on the inside. That the discs slid into something on a piece of cardboard and also some discs would freeze up while watching. After reading those reviews I decided that I would just be content with what I had. But I had to at least finish off the set I had buy purchasing seasons 3 and 5 through Amazon Prime. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm so excited to finally have a complete series! I tried buying them years ago and had problems with the discs in both seasons so I returned them, twice! Hopefully these ones won't have any issues. I started watching the series with the kids on Sunday so that I could introduce Charlotte and Alice to the show. We watched the pilot and the first episode in season 1. They loved it! It kind of back fired though because after watching it Charlotte has been telling us that she really wants her own horse....again. Yes, we've been through this before, lol.

The nice thing about these is the boxes are the size of a regular movie box but it has 5 discs in it!

My Little House on the Prairie set. I love this show and am so happy to have the whole series now! Look how skinny the new ones are compared to the older sets. I may have to slowly replace them to save on space. 

Yesterday evening Nikki was working and neither Curtis nor I felt like cooking dinner so we ate a little bit of leftovers and then headed over to get some more food from Del Taco. It was the first time either of us had gone there and it surprised Nikki (in a good way). She was the one at the window doing the money tendering. She had asked us if we wanted sauce and we said whatever you recommend but she was looking at what we ordered and was partly still shocked to see us that she forgot to put sauce in the bag but that's okay because the chicken crunch burritos that we ordered were plenty good on their own! We also got churros and mini donuts for dessert. It was fun to finally go eat at the place our daughter works. She's grown a lot and become more confident. She's up to working around 40 hours a week now. Most of the time she's either taking orders or doing the tendering at the window.
Nikki decided to ride her bike to work today because she too wants to get more exercise and eat healthier. I wonder if Curtis riding his bike to grandma's might have motivated her, lol. All three of us also put an exercise app on our phones to help us with doing exercise at home. Nikki woke up yesterday and today around 6-6:30 a.m. to exercise before she showered and got dressed. I honestly was shocked to find out that she weighs a little more than I do now. So it will be nice to be on this being healthy/weight loss journey with multiple people. We can help each other! I also recently heard that my friend Whitney is trying to lose weight as well, so we're encouraging each other now. She even brought me some frozen fruit mixes for blending up and a couple of shakes.


Most days my girls don't like me doing anything with their hair. They don't even like me to brush it. Since Alice had an accident last night and had to take a bath this morning I took the opportunity to do her hair after she was dressed. She looks so cute in piggy tails. (I just looked over at Alice while typing this and saw that she took out her piggy tails already! And it's not even lunch time yet. Figures.)

One thing I decided the last couple of days is that I need to get my kids back on a routine and to practice things for school before the school year starts next month. Charlotte and Jack both have packets of papers that their teachers had sent home to work on over the summer. We are just now starting to do them. I think we had a long enough hiatus from school work. Even Alice did a little worksheet this morning from her preschool book. I have had this preschool book for years but can never really get my kids to do much out of it so there's plenty of undone pages in it. It was nice to take a break and not be on any kind of schedule this summer but it will also be nice to get back into a routine. School is just around the corner!

Roaring Springs

Friday evening Curtis and I were talking about what our plans were for Saturday and I said the only thing I had was going fabric shopping with Nikki and his mom for her shirt she's going to sew. Nikki didn't have to work on Saturday,. Curtis mentioned the idea about doing something with the kids and then I thought how about Roaring Springs? How often is Nikki going to have a whole day off after all? Jack and Charlotte had earned free passes through a reading program at school and because Garrett is hard of hearing he received in the mail a flyer that July 11th was Deaf Awareness Day at Roaring Springs and that we could get $13 off of each ticket. It was perfect timing! 

We also decided it would be nice for the oldest 3 kids to have a friend that they could run around with at the park while Curtis and I watched the little girls. Secretly we contacted the friend's parents before telling our kids about it. We wanted to make sure it was going to pan out with everyone having a friend. When I finally texted Nikki about Roaring Springs because she was just getting off work at the time, she said what about fabric shopping? I said would you rather go fabric shopping or go to Roaring Springs? ;)  Nikki was able to bring her best friend Angie, however Angie didn't get to stay the whole day since she had to work. She ended up leaving around 4pm and her mom picked her up. We arrived at the park around 10:20am. It opened at 11:00am but we were able to get in early to get our locker and get ready. Most of us had already put sunscreen on at home. Garrett had his friend Austin and Jack had his friend Rhett. Our tickets were good for us to stay until 8:00pm so that's what we did, although Nikki was ready to go around 5 or 6 since her friend had left. They all had so much fun though! Some had so much fun that they didn't stop to put sunscreen as often as they should so of course they got burned. I think Garrett, Austin and Nikki got it the worst. They are learning painfully that it would have been worth it to stop and put sunscreen on. I totally get it though, I've been there and done that so many times! Jack and Rhett were smart and wore swim shirts all day.

It was nice that the oldest kids were able to go on all the rides that they wanted. Curtis and I took turns watching Alice and Charlotte. They had the kiddie pool roped off to where you couldn't just hop in anywhere, you had to enter and exit at one end of the pool (they were counting how many people enter and exit because of COVID). We totally think they should make this permanent! Last year we had a hard time keeping track of Charlotte because she would just hop out of the pool from anywhere and take off. It was so much easier having one area to enter and exit. Alice didn't really do much but she did go on a few small slides in the kiddie pool. However, we managed to talk her into going down the big racing ridge slide, where four sliding lanes are next to each other and everyone gets their own lane and races down on a blue mat with handles. I was surprised that they didn't have a height restriction. We didn't learn that until after Nikki, Charlotte and I went down while Curtis and Alice watched us. Then I learned Alice could so she said she wanted to do it. Charlotte was mad though because we forced her to go on the ride again when she wanted to go to a different pool. Since there were only four lanes and 5 of us I went down with Alice and Charlotte. I was in the middle. Curtis and Nikki came down after us. Alice said it was fun but that she did not want to do it again. So cute! Other than that ride the only other slide I rode on was the family ride where up to five people can sit in a tube and ride down a twisty slide. It was called Mammoth Canyon. I did it twice. Charlotte loved that ride! Curtis was also able to do that one and another called Avalanche. Curtis and I were content though with not feeling the need to ride all the big slides this year. The oldest three kids had their friends so they could do just that and we watched the girls. It was nice.

This is what Garrett's back looks like today. He's been going shirtless every day. I wish it were that easy for girls! 

We packed food in a cooler and in the van so that we could eat lunch in the parking lot. We picked a spot by the grass and trees.

The girls and us were hungry a lot earlier than we had planned so the four of us ate by ourselves and later I took the boys out. I didn't think to get a picture of the older kids though.

This year Curtis and I both wore a shirt all day long because we really didn't want to get burned. I think we also put sunscreen on 3 times. Yay, it worked! No sunburn for us! The girls were pretty much burn free as well except under Charlotte's eyes got a little red.

We were all so worn out the next day that we slept in. Thank goodness it was a home church day! When we do go to church we have 9am Sacrament meeting. We spent a lot of time relaxing on Sunday.

Monday (yesterday) I did some deep cleaning in the girls room and I finally brought in the toy buckets and bag that have been hiding in the garage for months. I was able to go through the buckets first while the girls were swimming in our small pool out back with their neighbor friends. So I was able to get rid of a bunch of little toys and some stuffed animals. Now that the girls have big beds I decided that Charlotte's big stuffed dog and Alice's big stuffed bear could sit on the feet end of their bed. That left lots more room for the smaller stuffed animals in the corner net.

In the evening we took Curtis's sister Shauna and her husband John out to dinner as payment for their help on our patio last spring. We took them to the Indian Creek Steakhouse in Caldwell, the same place we ate for our anniversary in June. Their food is really good! We especially love their appetizer of BBQ'd shrimp. I'm not a huge shrimp fan but I LOVED these! I didn't get a picture of us but I did however get a picture of a sign that was by the front door that made me laugh.

Today I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods and while reading toward the end of the book I realized that I remembered these stories I was hearing and remembered that I had read this first book last summer as part of my summer reading program through the library. I thought that I had started reading the book and then for some reason didn't finish but nope, I did finish it! I just didn't read any more of the Little House books after that because for the program I was supposed to read different types of books. I can't believe how much work they had to do just to be self sufficient and survive back then. We have it so good today! I'm excited to read the rest of the books!