Homecoming weekend

Alissa has a busy week for homecoming, the cheerleaders had something to do every night plus we were running around getting her things for the dance and dress fittings, etc. Anyway...we all survived and everything turned out great! Here she is cheering at the homecoming game and trying to stay warm. It ended being about 40 degrees, Brrrrr! Thank goodness their warm ups came in that same day and so they were able to wear those.
























Then Saturday was the homecoming dance. Her dress was done Saturday morning so I picked that up and went to have it steamed. Then we went to get her hair done in the afternoon. 2 other couples met at our house for pictures and then they all met up with 4 other couples at Red Robin for dinner. Then it was off to the dance. She said everything turned out great and they had a fun time.

Football games and cheerleaders

Colby and I went to the HS football games last year and enjoyed it, we watched some friends boys play football and just had fun and they are cheap date nights. Anyway, this year we are enjoying not only watching the football games again but also watching Alissa cheer. She has been having a lot of fun and working hard. She did a great job at her first game, it was so fun to watch her. This picture is actually of her 3rd game when Grandma Jill came for a quick weekend visit to watch cheer leading and soccer. I am so glad Grandma brought her camera, she got some great pictures.

Canning peaches, plum jam, peach jam, pickles, salsa, spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes

My camera took a little swim in the river back in May, so I will just link to Ashlee's blog so you can see what we have been up to the last couple of weeks. We are looking forward to getting apples soon for apple pie filling and applesauce, we are also going to try to can an apple cinnamon syrup.

No more bootie!

HaHaHa, that is what we called Racheal's boot that she had to wear for 8 weeks, but she is officially done with her bootie! She had x-rays taken and it is looking great, she still has to wear tennis shoes all summer, no flip flops, until her next appt and then we will see how soon we can start back up with soccer. The season starts the week after her next appt, so we are hoping for good news. But for now she is just excited to be able to walk without her bootie! Yeah!

Driver's Ed is a lot like the first day of kindergarten

You drop them off at the front door, you hope they like their teacher, you hope the teacher likes them. You also hope they make new friends and pay attention when they should. You think about them all day long and wonder what they are doing now as you look at the clock for the one hundredth time. You can't believe she is old enough to be doing this. You worry about them and get so excited when it is finally time to go pick them up and then you pick them up and ask them all about their day and all you get is "it was fine". LOL

Goodbye's are hard, especially when you are 15.

Alissa's boyfriend moved to Texas a few days ago. She had a little going away party for him at our house last weekend, they sat around the fire pit and ate desserts and had fun. So anyway, here is a picture of the two of them that night of the party.

Surgery Day

Racheal's surgery went well, they decided not to put the metal rods in her bones because she is allergic to metal and they didn't want her bones to reject the rods, so she will have longer in her walking boot and a little bit longer recovery time. She had a rough few days after the surgery but is finally walking on it and starting to look more like herself. She had her follow up appointment yesterday and the Dr says it is looking ugly and that is just the way it should. LOL He's a funny guy. So he said it looks like it should and all is well. Hopefully she will be back to school on Monday. Here is a picture of her before they wheeled her away, trying to be brave.

Bridal Shower

I helped host a Bridal Shower Tuesday night with 3 other friends, it turned out very cute. One of our dear friend's daughter is getting married next month. We had a lot of fun and she got a lot of really great things. Thanks to everyone who came and helped! We all made different mini desserts and made a mini dessert bar and had a chocolate fountain and pink punch. We had mini cheesecake bites, tuxedo brownie bites, creme puffs, a chocolate fountain with everything you could ever want to dip in chocolate and then some, and mini cupcake bites and cake balls. I just wanted to pass along what I made in case you ever need any cute dessert ideas. I made the cupcake bites and the cake balls, both were yummy. And they were even better the next day...how that is possible I don't know. Surprisingly the cupcakes were easier to make than the cake balls. Check out the website I found them on and try them. So Yummy!!!! (I will try to post pictures when I can)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/03/quick-and-easy-cupcake-bites/

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/03/cake-pop-lesson-1-the-cake-ball/

We have a cheerleader!

Alissa found out last night that she made the cheer squad at the high school. Now when we go to the high school football games we will get to watch her as well as the football players. We are so excited that she was brave enough to try out and we are so excited for her that she made it. Colby and I were a nervous wreck for her all day Friday. Glad tryouts are over and we can move forward with fundraising...anyone want to donate to a good cause??? LOL

Drivers Ed

Yes, it is that time in our lives where our oldest will be starting drivers ed in July. I know this can usually give parents a heart attack, but that is not the case here. I think we are more excited about it than she is. I had to practically drag her down to the DMV to get her permit. And then I had to drag her to the drivers ed meeting after we signed up. She is not excited at all. She does not like change and does not like to try new things and this is just too much for her to even think about I guess. LOL I ask her all the time if she wants to go driving with me, I would take her to an empty parking lot somewhere and teach her. But she always says no. So I guess the first time she will be behind the wheel is the first day of drivers ed...and I am sure they do not pay those teachers enough money for THAT!!! So as you can see we have no problem here yet, because she doesn't want anything to do with cars yet...I can't even get her to start the car, let alone drive it.

Surgery

And with the end of soccer season coming we have our next adventure just right around the corner. Racheal is having surgery on her foot to fix a rather large bunion and reset the bones in her foot in the right spot with screws. So she will have surgery the 22nd of May and be on complete bed rest for 1 week. She will be in an air cast/walking boot for 6-8 weeks and then she still can't get her foot wet for 2 more weeks after the boot comes off. So no swimming for her for most of the summer. But we had to do it now between soccer seasons, she didn't want to miss her fall season and then we go right into winter indoor season at the college and then spring starts up again. So summer it is. And she has to wait 3 months after the surgery to start soccer again so that puts us at the middle of August and soccer starts the end of August. So now is the perfect time. So wish her luck for a quick recovery and send all the happy patient vibes you can to her to keep her happy all summer. LOL

Soccer comes to an end

Our last soccer game is tomorrow followed by a team family picnic. Sarah played goalie the first half of last weeks game and only had 1 get passed her. She had a lot of shots taken on her and did great!!! We have had a great season and only lost 2 games this season! Great job team! Both Racheal and Sarah scored at the game 2 weeks ago which is pretty fun. Usually just one or the other score, but they both scored in the same game. (proud mama here) Sarah is working as a ref this season and enjoys getting her paychecks. She refs the younger players for their games and likes it.














(Racheal)


Colby and I are hanging up our whistles after this season, we will enjoy watching and cheering the girls from the parents sideline next year. We have coached for 3 1/2 years. WOW! We have loved all the girls that have come and gone on our teams and have enjoyed going and watching some of the older ones now play on their high school teams. We thought it would be easier to coach and only have 1 set of practices and 1 game to go to a week with both our girls being on the same team, but we find ourselves going to more games this year so we can watch old players who have moved on, our niece's game, and some friends of ours kids games. So we go to about 3-5 games a week. I think we are addicted and we love it!

Cheer tryouts

Alissa is trying out for cheer and has been attending tryouts all this week. We are keeping our fingers crossed for her and I think we are more nervous about it than she is. She has been practicing as a 'flyer' because she is so small and seems to like that. (that means she is the one that gets tossed in the air and hopefully gets caught by the boys) So we will know by tonight what the results are. Either way we are so proud of her for just trying. *fingers crossed*

Track star!

Sarah qualified to go to the school cluster track meet (4 schools in our area) from her school, she ran the 4X100 relay, the 400 and she jumped at the standing long jump. She came in 2nd at the 4X100 so she qualified to go to the all city track meet. (all the schools in our town) And she came in 4th place at the all city track meet! Woo Hoo! Not quite good enough to make it to the state meet, but we are so proud of her and keep telling her she is the fourth fastest kid in Nampa! HaHaHa! Congrats Sarah!!!

Braces update

Alissa's top teeth are doing great and we are really impressed with how fast they fell into place. Now it is time to make a decision about her bottom teeth and we decided to go ahead and pull 2 teeth from the bottom to make sure the bottom teeth fit behind the top row. I don't know where she gets her overly crowded teeth from...LOL So she is getting her teeth pulled in a few weeks and then the next day she will get her bottom braces on. She is excited to see how they will look when all is said and done in a year or so.

Soccer, Volleyball, Soccer, Basketball, Dance and more Soccer

That is what we are doing in January. HaHaHa...let me explain because there was a lot of soccers in there.

Racheal, Sarah and Colby are all playing indoor soccer this winter session. Racheal's team had a great first game but lost 19-15, they played a coed high school team that had 2 girls on it and the rest boys. She was very proud of herself when she got tangled up with an older boy and sent him crashing into the wall right before half time. When the boy was heading to the benches he was looking over his wounds on his knees and gave Racheal a dirty look. Well that was all Racheal needed to get more into the game. It is pretty funny how competitive she has become since she is playing with older kids. She has really stepped up her game. Sarah is on a team with friends from her school and loves indoor soccer, her team won 16-2 and she scored 3 right in a row. Colby also scored this week in his game, several of the kids coaches and some of their friends got a mens team together. Their first game was against the local college mens team, Colby's team lost but kept it close at 15-19.

Racheal is playing on our church YW volleyball team, Alissa wasn't interested in playing this year but comes to watch.

Sarah is learning about and playing basketball on a 5th grade school team and has her final jamboree on the 31st.

And Alissa continues her dance classes in the evenings and this semester she has a social dance class for school to count as a PE credit.