Up dating the blog

Playing a little catch up. Go ahead and go back to March to see the things that have been added:)

Pictures Ben took for a scout project

Ben was working on a photography merit badge and these are some of the pictures that he took.

The farm down the road just had seven baby cows born and our neighbor Lynn was nice enough to let up come in and take pictures of her cows, pigs, goats and sheep.

We also stopped by the humane society to take some pictures

Ben thought this dog looked like he was laughing

He also took pictures with Abbygail and her chicken

We experimented with a photo program that can turn part of your picture into black and white while leaving some of the picture in color. It is a pretty neat program. You color the object like you would use a crayon and what ever you touch keeps its original color.

Table Rock in the distance

So I told everybody that I wanted to take pictures and of course I had the normal

"do we have to?" Kyle said the only way he would take pictures was if he could bring his sword. ( he got this for his 16 birthday. It is a replica of a sword from a Japanese anime called Bleach.)

Goofy faces. Sisters can bee so annoying!

See mom I'm smiling

You can choose your friends but you can't pick your family

Big Kiss!

Deck

Before

Helping hammer in the hurricane ties

Noelle and Abbygail were awsome. Kyle was busy at track meets a lot of the time during the building process and so the two of them helped to do the heavy lifting and attatch the ledger board and clips to the house. They helped drill the bolts into the side of the house and they

were amazing. Talk about Girl power!

I know that this isn't the best picture but I wanted to show you what we have been working on. Once it is finish I'll take a shot when it's not cloudy and about to rain. I'm still working on the planter boxes with the strawberries around the edge. Next to the fence line I am going to build some boxes for herbs and some tomato plants. (Dad that top board that is going across needs to come off. I just had it there to stabilize the boards while attaching the hurricane ties. I just forgot to take it off for the picture. ) On the side I have two Japanese wisteria plants that are going to grow up and cover the top of the pergola with pink blossoms. I'm excited!

Pool

It has been cold wet and rainy most of this spring and on the first day that it was sunny and not raining we pulled out the pool, scrubbed it clean and filled it with water. The kids were not daunted by the cold water one bit. They jumped in and had a ball. The next day it was a little drizzly and they didn't care they just wanted to swim.

Can you see the hole where Nikki has lost another tooth?

The tooth fairy has been busy at out house!

Macho Macho Man!

Academic Achievement Award

Noelle has always been a self motivator. She is one of those children that I don't have to remind to do their homework, she just does it. She is such a hard worker and I appreciate all that she does. This week at school she was awarded a pin and certificate for her good grades. She has had all A's and one B for the last 2 trimesters and she was among 41 other students in the 7th grade that received this award! There was a poetry contest that the whole school participated in and they chose two poems from each grade and Noelle was one of the students that was chosen and recognized during the ceremony. Way to go Noelle! I am so proud of you!

Noelle and her friend Kaitlyn