June 20 - Aurora - 15 years old!

This year, Ro was able to spend her birthday outside of a car and didn't throw up, a switch from her birthday last year. :) Because I am writing this in December, I can't remember really what we did on that day, aside from me being at work. I'm guessing Xela and Ro were at school and the little kids were helping Eric at the properties for most of the day.

Here are a few pictures from the unwrapping of presents.

Grandma Hibbert likes sending
musical cards. Everyone but Daddy
likes them too. :)

Happy (blurry) girl with a (blurry) shirt

And apparently there was some extra-curricular wrestling at the end of presents.

Pretty sure Graigy lost. :)
Lesson learned: don't take on big sister -
you will lose.

For her "party," Ro invited three friends as we went bowling the Saturday following her birthday. The pictures I took, never made it on to my computer, so sadly there is no photographic evidence of said event. They did have a good time and there was lots of laughter.

Years pass by so quickly, it's hard to believe that my six pound six ounce blue eyed baby girl is a sophomore in high school. She is the one that will take on her dad, will show compassion and friendship to anyone and is still as outgoing as she was coming into this world. It will be an adventure to finish the next three years as she finishes high school and works her way to adulthood.

June 14 - Fun with Chalk

Neta got sidewalk chalk as a birthday present, so while Xela and Aurora were at piano lessons, she pulled it out and we had fun on the driveway.

Neta starts with three at one time

Stencils are something new

Little message for Padre

Nate's is hard to read -
I think it was some human something

Creative minds at work

I can't tell what it was we loved
(mental note - use lighter colored chalk)

It's a pretty butterfly!

Sidewalk chalk is one of the simple summer pleasures! I love being outside and playing with members of my family.

June 4 - Piano Recital

My Piano Playing Posterity

Ms Sherry Clowers usually has her annual piano recital the weekend of Mother's Day, but this year, with whatever was going on, it didn't work out. The recital was scheduled for June 4 and we were able to host it at the church building. She usually schedules it at the kids' old elementary school, but there was a cost and intimidating paperwork required, so Eric offered the church gym, which was okay'd by bishop (his girls take piano from Ms Clowers too). We helped set up the gym with Ms Clowers and her family a few hours before the recital, then headed home to physically prepare ourselves (ie shower & eat).

The kids seem pretty calm when they play. I, on the other hand, am all nerves for them, as I sit in the crowd. A little silly, I know, but that's me. They all did quite well. Neta and Ro seem to be the least nervous of the five. Graigry cares, but doesn't care and then Nate and Xela are a little more perfectionistic and therefore a little more nervous. They might say otherwise; this is my perspective. Like I said, the kids did quite well with their pieces. here are some individual pictures of them tickling the ivories.

Neta - "Go the Distance" from
Disney's Hercules

Graigry played a song from
Phantom of the Opera

Ro played a piece from "Narnia" -
"This is Home"

Xela played "This is Berk" from
"How to Train Your Dragon"

I apparently forgot to snap a picture of Nate. I don't know why exactly, except that I remember being so impressed and engaged with his piece - it was really impressive. He played "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis, which is one of my favorite songs, but something about the way he played, brought the piece to life. A friend from church, who showed up to watch, even commented about how wonderful Nate's piece was.

In case you couldn't tell, each of the kids in the recital had one piece that was tied to cinema and then whatever other piece they selected with Ms Clowers. This year, Ms Clowers wanted the kids, the only five kids from one family that were all taking lessons from her, to play a piece together (she usually has duets during her recitals, and she did). She came up with a version of Hungarian Rapsody that all five to take a part it.

I wish I could upload the video, but apparently it is too large for blogspot. ;( I was able to post it on my facebook page, so you can look it up there.

June 6 - Neta turns 9

Neta invited three friends, Halyn, Natalie and Tatum to go swimming with her for her birthday. I took off half a day and took them to the Brookside Pool. Thankfully it wasn't too crowded so the kids were able to play and splash around.

Pool time!

Neta loves the slide

The water was a little chilly and with Halyn small frame and no body fat, she got cold and wrapped herself in a towel.

Snuggled on the warm concrete
taking a quick snooze

After swimming, we came back home to have cake and ice cream. I had shown Neta a picture of a cake that I'd seen on Pinterest or Facebook a few weeks ago. She liked it so I tried to recreate it.

Made out of ice cream sandwiches and whip cream
The cones are crunched up Oreo & cream cheese
covered in magic shell

Birthday girl with birthday cake

Natalie, Neta, Halyn and Tatum
(sorry for the blurry picture)

We opened presents after the cake. We had to eat the cake before it melted.

Frozen play doh

Frozen shirt

What's the prize inside this package?

Playing with birthday play-doh

Happy birthday to my nine year old baby!!

August Outing - State Fair - August 10

I try to take the kids to the State Fair every year; I've been doing it since we first moved here in 2002. However, with Xela and Aurora in high school and taking summer school classes, it has just been me and the three younger ones the last two years. The tradition is: get the free ticket in the IndyStar (local newspaper) and go on the day on which the coupon is valid. Last year, I think all the kids were in school when the coupon was available, so this July (the fair is in August), I got on the fair's website and looked at the discount days to find out when the coupon day was scheduled. Thankfully, it was the Wednesday before Graigry, Nate and Neta headed back to school.

I bought the newspapers, with the tickets included, on Monday morning (for 75 cents) and then took the following Wednesday off so we could go to the fair. We've had a very wet Spring/Summer, so I was grateful that the weather didn't call for rain until later in the afternoon.

Ready to roll our way to the State Fair

Wednesday, August 10, we got out the bikes, pumped up the tires, filled up water bottles, grabbed our helmets and headed out. One of the great things about where we live is that we're pretty close to everything, including the state fairgrounds. It's not quite a four mile bike ride.

Happy bikers!

The kids enjoy riding their bikes, I enjoy riding with them and there's never enough time to do it, so we head to the fair via pedals and get to park for free once we arrive (another bonus!). This morning we left around 9:00, got about a mile and I decided to double check that I had our tickets. Good thing I did because they were not in by backpack. I called Eric and he brought them to us (thankfully I remembered where they were - on the kitchen table).

We headed to the Monon Trail, a popular paved bike trail, that follows the old Monon Railroad line. It goes right by the fairgrounds where the park and pedal was located. We got there just after ten and headed into the fair. We're usually one of the first guests there, which is part of the fun, for me at least.

I had seen on the website that there was a Lego display and so we headed out trying to find that location. The  map of the fairgrounds that I had, lead me to think it was on the opposite of the fairgrounds from where we were, so we hit different places while in route to the would be Lego display. First was Department of Natural Resource exhibit where the kids could do some catch and release fishing. Graigry had gone fishing at a scout outing, but Nate and Neta had never gone fishing before.

Listening to fishing instructions

After the instructions, kids got to pick a spot with a mentor, pull a pole and toss out their bait.

I caught one!!

They got to catch three
before their turn was over

Brothers in fishing

Graigry holding the fish as instructed

He caught a catfish!!!

It took him a few tries,
but he finally got his three

Nate with his blue gill

After fishing, we headed back to the would be main street and found goats. Nate and Neta wanted to bring one home. Let me think about that for a minute - NO.

Trying to get some food,
which is hard when the goats stretch
to get some for themselves.

Nate with his would be pet

This goat didn't wait for handouts.

Neta and the goat getting food

My kids with kids

As we continued to the Lego display, Graigry found a spot selling kettle corn. He had brought his own money so that he could buy his OWN big bag of kettle corn. He quickly exchanged $8 for a long bag of the tasty treat and we moved on to the next kid friendly exhibit, which happened to be the 4H barn which had miniature golf for the kids to play. My goal during this stop is to keep track of the kids as they went to different "holes" in the 4H barn. My payment was to nibble on the popcorn while Graigry was out putting.

The trio at different holes

This hole was more of a challenge 

Then we found the Girls Scout's spot. They had "artifacts" in three different sandboxes that the kids could "dig" up. Hidden in each of the boxes were four - six Indian pennies. If you found one, you got a prize (a Capri-Sun juice pouch). Socks and shoes were taken off, I was again dubbed guardian of the kettle corn and the kids jumped into the boxes.

Neta - the archeologist

Nate & Graigry looking for buried pennies

Graigry asking the leader for hints

The kids were anxious to find any of the pennies and were told where the last discovered penny had been tossed back. After finding the most recently hidden penny, Nate got the Capri-sun and the others got a dum-dum lolli-pop.

Penny found; Prize given

I enjoyed nibbling on the popcorn, but was a little bored and wanted to move on, so encouraged the kids to brush off, re-shoe and we moved on.

Finally, we found the spot I'd been looking for, but there were no Legos. Just several painted buffaloes. I can't remember the name I saw on the map, but upon seeing the buffaloes, I realized my misunderstanding. Thankfully there was a race car replica that the kids could get inside and "drive" on a race track.

Nate - the focus Indy car racer

Neta ready to take on her brother's score

They thought that was pretty cool, especially Nate who would love to grow up and be an Indy race car driver.

We took one last turn at the "Tiny Hands" farming. It is something that we've done every year. Well, it's for children age 2-10 so this would be Neta's last year.

Farmer Neta

Nate asked if he could ride a tractor

Harvesting tomatoes

We made the turn on the east side of the fairgrounds and headed to the animal barns. Much to Neta's dismay there weren't any horses around yet. We did see the "World's" largest sow and bull. There was also a litter; the kids liked watching the piglets interact with each other. I'll admit, the piglets are cuties.

One of my piglets
watching the other piglets

Now, one of the things we HAVE to do at the state fair, is eat an elephant ear. You haven't officially been to the fair, unless you've partaken in the deliciousness of that fried bread dough covered in butter and cinnamon sugar. (Yes, now my mouth is watering. Mmmm!)

Love, LOVE, LOVE
Elephant Ears!!

Because they are so large, I split them in half. This year, as Xela and Ro were unable to come with us, I bought one for them to share.

Finally, after going full circle, we found the shelter that had the Lego display. Inside, the first thing displayed were also some "CAN"struction projects celebrating the 200th anniversary of Indiana's statehood. Then came the Lego displays.

There was a farmland scenery
all made out of Legos.
It was soooo cool!

They got to build for a few minutes before I told them that it was time to go, to which, after some more prodding, they reluctantly obeyed. We had to walk through the fairway, which was now open and enticing walkers-by to waste $5 to play a game which they would likely lose (I have a bitter taste in my mouth for such games as I was snookered as a kid by such games). I finally caved and the kids used their own money (I wasn't going to pay for it) and played a dart and balloon game. These were actually kids friendly and they each came home with a small stuffed animal.

Piano lessons started at 3;30, so in order get home in time, I wanted to leave around 2:30. We were a little late leaving, but making good time (rain was also chasing us). We called Eric to give him the heads up that we were off. He was going to meet him at some intersection along the trail. We pedaled faster than he expected and met up at 21st and the Monon (he originally thought he'd meet us at 30th, but he wasn't there yet).

Eric picked us up, we put the bikes into the van and headed to piano. We hadn't moved a mile down the road when the clouds opened and bathed the roads with their water. I had thought about riding my bike to the house while Eric took the kids to Ms Clowers' house, but his look at me changed my mind. I enjoy riding in the rain, but was glad that I was in the van.

I enjoy traditions and the fun I have with the kids on bike rides, in the rain and at the state fair. :)