Lemonade and Bake Sales

My friend/neighbor's husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease and was given 8 or so years to live. They decided to sell their home so that they could get one with all the main living on the same level since he was not going to be able to use stairs after a while. He was diagnosed with Multiple Systems Atrophy which is a fancy way of saying the different systems in his body will one by one stop functioning. The last saturday of August they held a big moving sale yard sale. I got the grand idea a couple of days before this big sale to see if my girls wanted to do a bake sale. They are always begging and pleading for me to let them do a lemonade sale and I thought this might be a good time to do it. I talked to my friend Jessica Mortensen to see if her girls wanted to join and she said yes and that they have a Lemonade stand we could use. I originally thought that we could do this at the yard sale and then donate the money to our friends for their medical needs. But after talking about my idea with their daughter who said she knew they would not take the money and then later while thinking about it I didn't have a good feeling about donating at this time. So we didn't donate but we did have the stand off to the side of their yard sale.

I made pumpkin cookies and brownies and Jessica made chocolate chip cookies to sell. We also had homemade lemonade from Jessica and country time lemonade from us. Ryker helped set up the stand and stayed for a little bit but was not there for most of it. Rylee was there but wandered around back and forth. Avynlea and Victoria ended up being there more then any of the kids and so they got the biggest draw from the profits. I am happy to report that my cookies and brownies sold out first and fast. They were a hit! Some of the neighbor kids saw what we were doing and asked if they could add some no bake cookies to sell and since all of my baked goods were gone I said sure, so they could earn some money. 

I helped at the yard sale and was put in charge of the selling with one of my friends daughters. The parents were in and out but mostly in doing a lot of packing and they were starting to paint the inside also. I thought they had too much going on but it all worked out great.  When I finally found a time to take a picture of the kids selling it was only Avynlea and Victoria and it was after my items had all sold. The kids ended up making $60 in total which was pretty awesome. They had fun and made some money while doing it!

High School Cheer!

Thursday night we got to go watch Kenedy cheer for High School for the first time. It was hot but luckily the kids brought water bottles and so it wasn't too bad for them. Kenedy had to sit out a little bit because she was getting too hot and so I bought her a water bottle from concessions and had her drink it. Luckily she bounced right back and was able to finish cheering. Sara and Grandma Alison came to support and watch her and that was really cool of them to come. Kenedy did so good and I was so impressed. I could tell that she was having fun and that this is what she really loves to do. It was the Freshman team playing against Timberline and with about2-3 minutes left Timberline ties it up. I was so worried that it was going to go into overtime. After 2 1/2 hours I just wanted it to be done. Luckily our Meridian High team is awesome and scored a touchdown with less then a minute to go! 

Yep

A couple of random pictures of my kids!

We have had a couple of summer storms that happened in the middle of the night. At 2 in the morning Kefford and I woke up to a massive lightening storm with hail and rain. It was pounding down and the lightning was crazy flashing every couple of seconds. I don't know how they did it but the kids managed to sleep right through it all. The second time it happened Kefford tried to get some lightning shots but could.t get anything great. I still like the pictures he took though. 

Rylee and I were polka dot matchy this day after church and so I had her take a picture with me. 

I have my good friends daughter in my Nursery class with me and we have a special bond. Aubree is so cute and so fun and she always wants to come over and play. I told her Mom to bring her over on Monday so that we could hang out and do nails while her Mom went visiting teaching. After I painted her nails I asked Aubree if she would smile for a  picture with me. She said no but when I bribed her with a cookie she suddenly was full of smiles for the camera. Love this kid!

Back to School

On August 12th my two younger girls went back to school. Avynlea is now a 4th grader and Rylee is in 2nd grade. I know I say this every year when school starts but it is true every year. I cannot believe how big my kids are getting. It is so fun and sad all at the same time. I love my girls and I love their unique styles! Here's to a great new year of school!

And on August 25th my two older kiddos started their new school year. Kenedy is now a Freshman in High School and Ryker is a 6th grader at the Middle School. I was pretty nervous for them adapting to their new schools, especially Ryker since this is an entirely new experience but they did great. All of my kids came home happy and excited after their first day of school. 

I have really cute kids and I love them lots and am so grateful for each of them and their own uniqueness. 

Life Happenings

On Friday August 8th I headed down to Nyssa to go to the funeral of my sister-in-laws baby girl. Kylie was 6 months along when she noticed she hadn't felt the baby move for a couple of days. Ultrasound soon showed that her little baby had died while in utero. It was such a sad thing to have happen to Kylie and Andrew and we felt really terrible about it all. Kefford and Kelsey had to work in Baker that day and could not reschedule all of the appointments they had. So I went with just my kids. They had a graveside service for Eliza Jane and it was really lovely and hopefully what Kylie and Andrew needed. 

After the service her ward hosted a luncheon and then after that the kids and I went to Keffords parents house to hang out with family for the day. Dustin and Sara had come down from Utah to be at the funeral and I had a lot of fun holding and playing with their little one Charlotte. She is adorable and looks like a little eskimo baby with her dark eyes and thick dark hair. Such a smiley and happy baby I love being around her. I took a couple of pictures of me with this smiley cutie and really wish my camera was working better. 

On our way home Avynlea took this picture of the sunset with my phone. She likes taking pictures of sunsets!

Early in the physical therapy Avynlea was really struggling with the pain and not much progress was happening. I told her that if she worked really hard and tried hard that at the end of her journey I would take her on a celebratory date to Panda Express. We were able to go and do it on a saturday before school started and it was a lot of fun. We love Panda Express and it was fun to be with my girl who had worked so hard to make her arm better.

Tents and Dinner

A week before school started Ryker decided he wanted to set up the 2 person tent in the backyard and have himself a solo campout. I really didn't think he would make it the whole night and even said that to him but he really wanted to do it and so we agreed to let him give it a go. Ryker brought his stuff out that he wanted to have with him and I had to ask him why he felt like he needed to have 8 books for one night. Apparently he was not sure which one he wanted to read. Silly kid. The next morning Kefford and I came downstairs and found that Ryker did in fact manage to stay outside all by himself. Amazing! I had Kefford take a couple of pictures for me before he woke him up. We left the tent out there for three days and twice Ryker stayed in it alone and once Kenedy was in there with him. Good times!

That weekend Kefford and I were trying to decide where to go for our date night and he suggested taking the kids with us out to eat. We have recently just finished reading the New Testament as a family and to celebrate we get to go out to eat as a family. So we headed to Dennys. It was good times and good food. The only draw back was the air conditioning in that place. It was freezing cold! We tried to hurry so as to get out of the chill. I took a picture of Avys goose bumps to show how cold it was!

Screw

Here is Avynlea holding the screw that once held her elbow together. It was not as big or impressive as I had imagined it in my head but it is pretty cool that she can keep it and that it was once a part of her. Maybe we can make it into a cool necklace or something!

After her Surgery her Dr gave me a picture of the x-rays they took. The top picture is showing where the screw was before they took it out and the bottoms ones are after the removal.

Surgery take two

After we got back from the beach Avynlea had another Therapy appointment to see how her arm is doing. Garrett checked her all out and proclaimed her healed and almost 100% back to normal. She had maybe 1% on her stretching and a few degrees left on her bending but those would come with time and there was nothing left for him to do. She has been wanting to run on the treadmill since she started there and Garrett promised that when she was all done with therapy she could do it. Today was the day! Avynlea got to run on the treadmill for 5 minutes and she loved it, crazy kid! This was the day I realized my camera was pooping out on my phone and I could not get any good pictures. Not a good thing, I managed to get an ok picture of Avynlea and Garrett but it is nothing to write home about. Blah. 

The next day Avynlea went into surgery one more time to remove the hardware from her arm. This time she had to be at the hospital at 5:00 to get all checked in and be ready for her 8:00 surgery. Basically the same things happened with her prep and everyone who came in were really nice and helpful. Avynlea requested to keep the screw they were taking out and so I had to sign some release forms in order to be able to take that home. Alison came to be with us and got there right before we were taken back to recovery to see her, great timing! Avy was still sleeping when we got back there and then slowly took her time waking up. She seriously looked like a little Angel lying on that hospital bed. Avynleas recovery was a lot better this time around. Once she woke up she ate a popsicle and then went to the bathroom and once we got home she was peppy and completely normal. Sara and Bailey and Kenedy went to the Temple that morning to do baptisms and when they dropped Kenedy off came in for a visit. Alison also stopped by on her way home to take Rylee and Ryker to the farm with her. We were given a prescription for pain that I never had to fill and Avy didn't even have to take any pain medication at all. She did great and I am really hoping this is the last hospital visit for a long time!