NOVA Graduation

...NOVA...
Nurturing. Opportunities. Values. Accountability.
That's what Maddy and the rest of her 6th grade class
have been learning about with Officer Ruch
for the past several months.
The kids made rockets,
spent a week going "electronic free"
and wrote personal constitutions.
Today they earned awards for all their hard work...
Can't believe I'm doing all the
end-of-sixth-grade stuff again already.
Seems like Kenzie just finished,
and now here's Maddy...
knockin' at the door of the Jr. High.

getting a natural smile from this girl...
nearly impossible.
I tried to catch her, but she flipped
that head of hers right around.

Getting congrats from Principal Gibb and the officers.

So proud of our Maddy and all her hard work!

celebrate eight...one more time!

Today was the one with the presents
and Lady could hardly stand the wait.
We had to wait for conference...
then lunch...
then more conference...
4:00 was a long wait for miss bug
but somehow she survived.

big brown eyes...

...this is the real Laityn...
a complete goof

with a closet full of goofy faces!

and get ready for the freckles...
her nose and cheeks are sprinkled
and summer will mean more little angel kisses
on her sweet little face.

oh yes...did I mention I whacked the rest of my hair off?
and I LOVE it!

presents are the mostest fun

had to watch "Tangled" the moment we came home
I'll admit...it's one of my favorites too!

and of course, no one can turn eight
without getting shiny new scriptures

yup.8 candles.you can count them.
...if you wish...

The past week has been good to us.
Probably in the top ten weeks.
Tim was offered a job with Alpine School District.
He will be the assistant principal at East Shore High.
It's located on the west side of the freeway,
by UVU in Orem.
It's an alternative high school with about 400 kids.
There is daycare for young moms
and lots of troubled teens.
Tim will be perfect there.
I can't wait to see him shine!

Celebrate Eight!

Today my Lady Jane turned eight!
she is my baby girl...my BABY GIRL...
not quite sure if I wanted her to be so big, so fast.
She is the sweetest, cuddliest, little bit of nothing.
She loves nothing more
than sneaking into our bed
in the middle of the night...
she has it down to a science,
and sometimes we don't even know she's there...
until she puts her cold feet under my legs
and I give her a squeeze and send her back.
She loves everything around her,
and is absolutely, positively certain
that the note she left today
in our backyard fairy garden
will be answered when she wakes...
hAppY biRthDaY Laityn-bug!

at our house...
the first friend party happens when you turn 8
so it's a BIG DEAL!
Lady decided on a Hawaiian Luau...
which helped the party budget...
since I did this same thing for Kenzie's #8.

...flower leis for all the friends...

...tissue paper flowers...

...the birthday girl...

..and the most important thing...
the FRIENDS!

...stringing shell bracelets...

...making flowers to take home...

Can't have a luau without doing the Limbo!

singing "Happy Birthday"
before making ice cream sundaes.
and Laityn yelling "Go BYU" in the middle of the song!
It was a proud moment for Tim.

...wishing...

Laityn informed me that all her friends
want to be invited back for her next party...
I'm guessing that means we did good.
Stay tuned for celebrating 8...again..
with the family!

day of fools

Years ago we started playing
April Fool's jokes on the kids...
Our best ever:
taking stuff from the kids for nearly a month...
pretending we had no idea where it was...
mailing a nice big package to the "thompson fam"
which arrived on April 1st
FILLED with all of their OWN stuff!
This year wasn't as well planned, but it did the job.
We toilet papered the bedrooms
and yes, we set off Carter's motion detector
and had to wait until he was asleep again...
We put packing tape
across the doorframes in the basement
so Kenzie and Maddy walked into a wall of tape
first thing in the morning.
There were April Fool's jokes being played all day...
and many persons hiding and jumping out
to scare persons passing by
FUN DAY!

Carter/Jace's room

Lady's room

of course...why let good toiletpaper go to waste...
my dad would have rolled it back onto the cardboard
and expected us to use it...
we, however,
used it to make a mummy instead.

Since I forgot to post about pack meeting,
figured I'd just tack it on to this one.
Last week, Carter earned his Webelos award.
YaY for him and all his hard WORK!

not the best picture...
that's what happens when someone
takes forever getting the camera focused.
The faces just got sillier
the longer we waited...

Carter is a good boy, and we are so proud of him.
He can read almost as fast as me,
and is always telling me to hurry and finish
the book I'm reading,
so he can read it next...love him!

hello, my name is. . .

Indira Gandhi.
This name has been in, around, and all about
our minds, computers, papers, and notecards
for the past two weeks.
Reports, timelines, bibliographies...
all to prepare for today's
WAX MUSEUM
All the 6th graders
dressed up themselves,
dressed up their desks,
and gave the performance of their lives.
Each student gave a 20 second
life sketch...memorized perfectly.

if you wondered...
Indira Gandhi was the first female
Prime Minister of India.

She also cut poverty in her country by 20%.

like I said....perfectly memorized
and perfectly delivered.
way to go Maddy girl!

and this....nothing to do with India
but everything to do with SPRING!
I cut these mini irises in my yard today...
figured I'd better bring them inside
since the wind might blow the rest away tonight!

how do you catch a leprechaun?

I'm not quite sure how this little tradition started...
but somewhere in the last few years,
it became NECESSARY to set
LEPRECHAUN TRAPS!
I think I have the teachers at school to thank...
those darn Leprechauns made a mess of the classrooms,
left trails of green glitter,
and always a treat for the class.
So now... we spend March 16th
devising our own traps.
Jace and Lady lined the inside of their traps
with clear boxing tape.
The plan was that the Leprechauns would follow the $
and try to get the shiny treasure in the box
Once inside, those tiny Leprechaun feet would be stuck...
Stuck so tight nothing could pull them away.

Jace explaining how the trap would
absolutely, certainly, for sure
WORK!

What Leprechaun could resist
a shiny ball of tinfoil?

"See...he will follow the money trail...
try and get my shiny bracelet...
and surprise! Stuck in the pan!"

WELL...
Those tricky Leprechauns came
ONE boy and ONE girl
They stole most of the money
and left behind decoy Leprechauns.
Of course, the decoys were stuck tight in tape
and some end of the rainbow gold
was left behind.

Shredded green paper made a trail through the house...
it led to the fridge...
the milk had magically turned green.
Such TRICKY tiny people they are.

our end of the rainbow gold was eaten up in minutes
and new plans are already being devised for 2012.
Maybe that will be the year
we catch the people in green!