KW Cares Lemonade Stand

As you know, Dan works for Keller Williams Realty. They have a nationwide charity called KW Cares. Dan's office holds regular fundraisers to help their cause. They give money to the Christmasbox House and help their family of realtors all over the country. When they had Hurricane Katrina back east, they raised money to help Keller Williams family members there. Our kids had the opportunity to sign up to do a lemonade stand the first tuesday in June with half of the proceeds going to KW Cares.


To say they were excited would be an understatement. Carly got all dressed up in her pretty dress from Grandma Karen.


And she sampled all of the different foods there. They had chocolate and glazed doughnuts from Dunford Bakers, apples, bananas, mini loaves of freshly ground whole wheat bread with honey and jam, homemade whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, and bottled water.


At first Hunter was really shy, but Carly never was. If anyone walked in the door, she'd say "Do you want some food?" and flash them that sweet smile and puppy dog eyes. They kids ended up with a little bit of money each.
We got on the freeway to come home and as we got off the Redwood Road exit on I-215, we saw a homeless woman standing with a cardboard sign. I got about a mile down the road and felt as if I should go back and give her the leftover food. We pulled up and parked on the side of the road and I walked over and gave her a box with the leftover bread, apples, bananas and doughnuts. She was so excited and grateful and it made me cry. I wondered how long it had been since she had eaten a fresh piece of fruit and then I cried again. Hunter kept saying what a good thing it was we were doing for that lady. I agreed with him, it felt good and I was grateful to share the opportunity with them.

Excited about HP6

Okay, so I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas, but I'm so excited for the new Harry Potter movie to come out in July! I've had that countdown timer on my blog since there was over 200 days left and it finally says 17! I just got done re-reading the book and the kids and I recently watched the 5th movie, so I'm all set. I asked Dan if he'd like to go and see it with me and he said "I'm not that into the Harry Potter movies." So, it looks like I've got my sitter all lined up. I told him I'd take Hunter and he could watch the other 2. Hunter's excited to go with me. We probably won't make it out on opening night, but I'm looking forward to the time when we do go.

The baptism of a flock.

I would say this rainy scene was the normal around here the last few weeks. It's rained like crazy. But on this day, there was no rain. That "rain" my friends, was produced my my daughter, Carly with the hose. You see that cardboard box on the ice chest? That's the box we used to bring home 6 little chicks on Memorial Day last month from the IFA in Riverton. Half price baby, great deal. Anyway, behind said box is one of our gray horse troughs that became the "new" home to the those cute little balls of fluff, complete with chicken wire stretched across the top to keep the cats out. On this day while walking back to the house after feeding the horses, I stepped into a puddle of water as I passed through the little gate.


Imagine my horror when I looked in the "Chick Mansion" and saw this...


And this...


And this! That Carly never ceases to amaze me, the little stinker. My friend asked me if they were Catholics or Baptists. I told her they were "Batholics" since Carly had ever so kindly given them a bath. Those poor chicks were shivering like crazy. I honestly didn't think the little silky would make it. She was worst off of all. Everything in the trough was soaked and slimy and I got the job of cleaning it out.
I can't really say much about it though-
Because my mom will bring up a story about me, a horse trough and some baby puppies that got baptized. And it will be a story that I can't deny.
I guess this was my payback-
Oh, and by the way, all the chicks were supposed to be pullets and that white dude in the 3rd picture is just that... a dude. A Cock-A-"Dude"oodle Dude.

Follow The Guy With The Light Saber!

I found this saved as a draft. I didn't realize I never posted it back in December...

Hunter and Carly got a Lego Star Wars game for our ps2 for Christmas from Santa. Although the game has been out for a while, it's new to us. Our friends already had the game and Hunter has been fascinated with it for a while now. Santa new it would be a hit. So today they were playing it together in the living room while I was loading the dishwasher. After a while, I hear Hunter telling Carly "Come this way! Follow the guy with the Light Saber." And again, this time with a little more frustration, "Follow the guy with the light saber!" And then pleading loudly "FOLLOW THE GUY WITH THE LIGHT SABER!" As I thought of this, a life lesson came to me...

Who has always said "Come Follow Me"?
Who is the Light of the World?
Who has pleaded with us fervently to follow him?

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Thank you Hunter, for helping to remind me to "Follow the guy with the light saber"... for reminding me to follow Jesus Christ.

The Contents of Hunter's Pocket??

The contents of Hunter's pocket today??


One penny,


One marble,


And one very dead earwig...
I love having a boy!

Dance Adventure

We entered a new venture this last fall... dance. Something that I did when I was about Carly's age until my oldest sister, Cammy, decided to pick horses over dance. Hunter got out of school at 3:05 and dance didn't start until 4:15. I never really figured out how to spend that hour before dance started. Some days I'd get her ready before we picked up Hunter and we'd drive around until it was time. Other days, we'd go home inbetween picking up Hunter and I'd get sidetracked doing something else and we'd inevitebly be late. One thing was always for sure though... Carly would always fall asleep on the way. I hated that. Hated that I had to wake her up and send her tired little self off to someone else. She'd always emerge at the end of her class happy though- Always full of smiles with a sticker on the front of her dance leotard and a candy in her hand. She loved it. We're trying to decide if she'll dance again this fall. If she does, I'm taking her somewhere else. Communication wasn't one of their strong points at all at that dance studio and I felt a bit lost all year. It wasn't just me, either. Other mom's were lost and confused too. Also, they started dancing last September and didn't have any kind of performance until the 2nd week of May. I was a little disappointed about that. I was also floored to discover just how expensive it really was to put a 3 year old in dance. $35 a month for lessons, $49 costumes (used in only 2 performances, hers currently is being used as her "new" swimsuit), $19 "competition fee" + $5 per person to get in to see her at Taylorsville High School, and the ultimate shock, her $50 recital fee that was being held at Kearns High. Do you know how many girls were at that recital and they were getting $50 from every one of them?!? I'm sure it didn't cost that much to rent the auditorium. Oh and while at the recital, you could not take flash photos OR video the performance. What the heck? They wanted to charge us $25 for a CD with her 3 minute dance. Forget that, we recorded it anyway. That's like taking my kids to a horse show and them telling us, "Sorry, you can't video your kids running barrels" So when Dance was finally over and 4-H was started, I was really appreciative of the nominal fee to participate: $36 per child for the whole season. That included 3+ months of wednesday night practices at the Riverton Arena AND 3 horse show competitons. Whew! Thank goodness for 4-H! That dance studio was just all about the money. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now. Enjoy her dance pics from her two performances (And if I can actually get my videos to load, I'll put them on too!) By the way, when I tried making the pictures bigger, they looked all pixel-ey and not good at all. Might be because I loaded them straight up from blogger instead of from Picasa. Don't know. Anyhow, wish they were bigger, but they aren't.


Dance competition at Taylorsville High School.


Taylorsville High School.


At Taylorsville with her trophy. Everybody "won" a trophy. She's so proud of hers!


Taylorsville.


Recital at Kearns High School


Kearns High School.


Lisa and her kids came and watched Carly. Makayla was so sweet and brought Carly some flowers!




Now, if I can just get those videos to post correctly...

May Mini Riders Show

So I am finally done editing the rest of the May Mini Riders Show pictures. I was going to pick a few to post, but decided what the heck and posted all of them because with them all together, they tell the story of that day...

Hunter getting ready to go into his "Showmanship at Halter" class

Carly in her halter class.

She's in the assisted group so I was out there helping her.

Weston

Hunter in Western Horsemanship

Makayla in Western Horsemanship

"Hi Makayla!"

Jackson

Our good friend, Emily.

This is their group lining up in front of the judge. It's supposed to be a straight line. We called this one "circle the wagons!" Too funny. Little kids are so great!

Makayla backing her horse up and...

She gets a blue!

Hunter backing his horse up and...

He gets a blue too!

Carly and Dan

Hunter doing Speed Barrels

Speed Barrels

Speed Barrels

Speed Barrels

Take her home Hunter!

Hunter doing Poles

Poles.

Poles.

Hunter Barrels

Barrels

Barrels

This was Carly coming out of Speed Barrels. I've been trying like mad to get the video uploaded and it keeps having an error. So I guess I'll have to do a little explaining for those of you who weren't there.

Yes, she's crying... I mean really, really crying. Dan took her in for speed barrels and was running along side the horse. See where her reins are? Well that's where they were the entire time. Dan let go, figuring Carly had the reins and also figuring Cookie would follow him while he ran. Dan weaved between barrels. Carly and Cookie didn't and that's where all the problems started. Cookie continued to trot faster and faster and then she was running. Not just a slow lope... running! Yes, we had a total runaway. She ran all the way down to the other side of the arena and back down the the side opposite of Dan. Carly was holding onto the horn and screaming at the top of her lungs. I just knew she was going to hit the dirt and that it would be a terrible fall. My knuckles were white as I held the camera, watching helplessly. I knew Dan was down there and would do what he could to help her. To my complete surprise, she held on and the horse was stopped at the gate by my sister, Lisa. Who, by the way, didn't even know it was Carly on the runaway until she pulled her off the horse. Carly was crying uncontrollably now and Dan threw her back on the horse and walked her through the event. We all told her what a good Cowgirl she was. I'm saying she had Celestial Glue on her butt that day, because the only reason she didn't fall off was because God was watching out for her.

So, that's why she's so sad in these pictures.

After the runaway, Carly did not want to go out and do poles.

Dan promised her he'd stay by her the entire time.

She still wasn't happy, but she did it.

And I was proud of her.

And very thankful that we were being watched over!