THE NEWTON'S

It was the last day of school today. Ashley and her fellow 5th graders played hard all afternoon with their amazing party.  They had pizza and soda's and cookies and chips and they were allowed to sit wherever they wanted too in the cafeteria! :)  Then they moved onto an inflatable to climb through, over, under and around... A DJ was set up on the patio and they had a dance party- even with a microphone the girls jumped in and took turns singing along with the music. Ashley didn't want me taking pictures of her, but I snuck one of her standing with friends and getting into the dancing... Angela and I then hopped over to Alyssa's classroom and witnessed their own dance party.  The desks made a great dance floor in the middle. They even convinced their teacher to come and join in the dancing... A great class and a great teacher- it was her first year teaching and she was great! Then we went to the hallway to stake a good spot for the clap-out.  Our s...

It is amazing how much our kids can learn in one year.  Last year at this time Alex didn't know how to hold a cornet, how to blow into and make any noise, or what the difference between a quarter note and a full note was. Last monday night we attended the 6th grade band concert and I was amazed at how far all of these kids have come in one school year.   Here they are playing "Theme from 1812 Overture" Tcaikovsky/arr. Higgins And here is a fun little song "Traffic Jam" Timothy Loest

The kids sang some songs for us at their graduation... they did a great job!

It seems like it was just so recently that Alex graduated from Kindergarten... That really was six years ago- how time flies! Today was Angela's Kindergarten Graduation.  Our baby is now ready to go to first grade next year!

We have amazing leaders for our Activity Days groups in our ward.  The older girls had a mother daughter garden party this last week and we had so much fun! The leaders just went above and beyond with the decorations and the only thing that would have made the night better- is if we didn't have as much of our ever present Oklahoma wind! :)  I went snap happy with the camera and still didn't get pictures of lots of the yummy food that was brought!

The 5th grade got to go to a Red Hawks baseball game for an end of the year field trip.  The Red Hawks are Oklahoma City's minor league baseball team. Ashley and two friends that I got to hang out with for the day... We had AMAZING seats! Right to the right of home plate and only four rows up!There were lots of schools there so we were lucky to get such great seats! Gotta have the balpark treat... the girls experimented dipping their cotton candy into their soda and trying to then eat it before it just melted away! One of the foul balls took out the far top window in the restaurant out in left field!  Too bad it was foul, we could've used a run! It was fun to go and hang out with Ashley and her friends.  I made the mistake of wearing shorts though and am paying for it today with some sunburned legs/knees... whoops!

Monday night I was letting the kids watch some tv before bedtime.  I was trying to catch up on a few things on the computer and yelled out to them to finish what they were doing and get ready for bed.  I then walked out of my room and saw Alyssa and Angela intently drawing, unpausing the tv for a second and then drawing again... They were watching a cartoon character being drawn out on the tv and stopping it for each step.  I think they did an great job drawing their Perry the Platypus, only problem is I forgot to take a picture of their drawings and I can't find them now!

We were dog sitting a little dog (cupcake) for some friends and I realized I hadn't heard the girls or the dogs in a little while.  The week before some strong winds took out a couple fence sections so we had to have the dogs on a leash or hook them to a string lead when we let them outside.  I looked outside and had to grab my camera.   Alyssa and Angela had set up an elaborate house on the fort.  Complete with guard dogs! :)  Now Jojo has no fear and I saw him putting his paw out and realized he was going to make a jump for it... a few seconds later he did... just jumped right down with no fear and walked off.  Poor cupcake is not big on jumping and she had to endure a longer session playing house with the girls before they let her down. lol! Almost every tuesday this school year we have hosted a playdate after school with what we've dubbed the "three musketeers"  Olivia on the left, Lincoln on the right, and Angela.  Skyler...

I've been neglecting my blogs lately.  I've been telling myself there isn't really anything to share- the vacations are where the excitement happens and I should journal about those moments, but that's not true. Yes I need to journal about the vacations and share, but I also need to journal about the day to day stuff and share that as well. :) I have a lot of pictures on my camera that are similar to this: Ashley is like me.  She would rather be behind the camera than in front of it having her picture taken.  We both had a little bit of a lesson last week when I was trying to find pictures of her- without all her siblings in it as well to send to her teacher at school for a 5th grade slide show.  I just didn't have very many pictures of her without anyone else, and without her hand held out to block my shot. She and I both agreed that she would not put her hand up to block shots as much- and I wouldn't try to snap random shots of her so much that she wou...