A New Do For A New School

Sarah's new haircut.

Sarah entered 7th grade and Junior High this year and she wanted to do something different with her hair. I took her to a salon and they not only cut it, but they showed her how to straighten it and how to make it not so poofy. She loves it and I think it's darling (even if she does look much older.)

Straightening her hair after it got cut.

Almost done!

The back! So pretty!

First Temple Trip

The week of Pioneer Day we headed to Logan to spend some time with my parents. On July 23rd we joined by Aunt Karen and Gabbi at the temple. It was Sarah's first time going to the temple and her first time doing baptisms for the dead. It was a wonderful, magical experience. It was so neat to be there with Sarah and to watch her experience this for the first time. It was a great way to start off the day and our week.

We were so glad to have Gabbi with us. It meant so much to Sarah.

My girls growing up.

6th Grade Graduate

I sure do love her smile.

One day you'll open your eyes and notice that the little baby you once had is now not so little anymore. Everyone knows those days are coming and that those days will come over and over, but they always kind of surprise you when they happen. One of these days happened in May when my oldest had her 6th grade graduation. I can't believe that she is done with elementary school. I'm going to use that annoy phrase, "where has the time gone?" I can't believe how quickly she has gotten big. Graduation was kind of hard for Sarah because she was only at this school for 2 month and never really felt like it was her school. She still wanted to go to the graduation and even though it made her long for her friends at her old school, she was glad she went. I am so proud of her for being such a good student, for being an amazing girl, and for handling a new school so well. Now on to Junior High.

Getting ready for the program.

Waiting for her turn to graduate.

12th Birthday While Moving

Group picture with the birthday girl.

Sometimes we do the best we can and are just really, really grateful that we have such wonderful kids who forgive us when we fall short. Sarah's 12th birthday was an example of this. She turned 12 on March 5th which happened to fall right during our move. We started moving on the 1st, but it took way longer than expected (moving always seems to) and we were still moving when her birthday came. She missed out on a party with friends this year and had a little party of sorts at home with the family, but it wasn't much. I didn't even get to make her a cake because I didn't know where anything was. Not only that but the camera battery was dead so we had to take pictures on my phone. She was very sweet about it and was very understanding. It just reminds me how blessed we are to have the kids we have. She opened presents and had cake and ice cream and she was happy with that. What a good girl.

When we asked Sarah what she wanted for her birthday she said a
blanket. She has a silly obsession with blankets.

Bracelet making things and a note for a date with mom or dad. She's such a sweet girl.

She was very surprised to find her long board hiding behind the curtain.

Sarah with her new long board.

Singing to miss Sarah.

And this is apparently how we eat cake as a 12 year old.

Blowing out the candles.

Everyone enjoyed the cake, even if it was store bought.  :)

The Science of Dissolving

Sarah's Science Fair poster

Can I just say that whoever decided to have a 6th grade Science Fair a week after returning from Christmas break either doesn't have kids or hates Christmas.Whatever the case, our elementary school held Sarah's Science Fair on January 9th. Of course, we didn't work on it at all over the Christmas break and not much between the time school started up again and a few days before it was due. This left us with A LOT of work that first week in January.

Sarah decided to do her project on "How Things Dissolve."  Luckily Kenny is much smarter than me, and he doesn't have the clouded mommy brain that I seem to not be able to kick, and he was able to help Sarah think through her project, help her design how it would look, and explain to her all that was going on. There's no way it would have worked without him.

Sarah at the Science Fair with her best friend
Addy (who broke her wrist sledding a few days earlier.)

Her finally project was pretty cool. She tried to mix 5 things in water to see which of  them dissolved or mixed. She learned about density and saturation point. Thanks to modern technologies (aka digital cameras and printed pictures from Sam's Club) we were able to take a number of pictures to show the different parts of her experiment.

All in all a lot of things were learned.
1. Don't procrastinate. We were up with Sarah until almost 11:00 the last night trying to finish her poster. I had told her numerous times in the weeks before it was due to start on her report, but she never did. She learned a valuable lesson and I learned not to let her get away with not working.
2. Sarah learned a lot more about dissolving and how it all works. Kenny explained some things that were even foreign to me so she definitely learned more than she was planning on.
3. A hard lesson she learned was if you want to do well in life you have to put in the time. Sarah was so disappointed that she didn't win anything during the Science Fair. We had to explain to her that those who won worked on their projects over the entire month they were given. They put in the time and created a good project. She learned that waiting until last minute may get the job done, but not done as well as it could be done.

At the Science Fair

Learning Jingle Bells

Sarah has been working really hard on her violin. There she is playing Jingle Bells. At this point she could still only pluck the violin, but she still did a great job.

The Busyness of Sixth Grade

She's so excited to learn to play the violin.

Sixth grade has proven to be totally different than any of the other elementary years. Sarah is in a great class with nice kids in it. This is a change from her class last year and it has been so nice to see the difference it has made in her and her happiness. She had some great friends and that is so important. Not only has her class been better, but sixth graders get opportunities that the younger kids don't get. Student council is one of those opportunities. Sarah wanted to try out for student council and at first I was tempted to tell her no because we don't know how long we will be living here, but she wanted it so bad that I went ahead and let her try. She was so excited when she learned that she had made the student council in her class. It means early morning meeting on Monday, being hall monitor every now and then, selling beef jerky once a month during lunch on Fridays, and  doing morning announcements. Sarah loves it and the lessons in responsibility she's learning has been good for her.

Another exciting thing about sixth grade is the option to be in the orchestra. Sarah wants to do all the opportunities provided her at the school so, of course, she desperately wanted to be in the schools orchestra.While Kenny was in DC I took Sarah to the meeting to learn what orchestra is all about. We ended up going to the local music store and buying her a violin that night. She was so excited and couldn't wait to learn how to play it. I'll have to post videos when she's learned a few songs.

Pretending to play the violin.

Learning to Cook

Learning to cook

I decided this summer that my kids need to learn how to help out around the house more. It's my job as there parent to teach them to be adults and they're getting old enough that they should be doing more. Summer is a perfect time for this and I took advantage of it and showed them how to cook a few things. This day Sarah was learning how to make Frog Eye Salad and Ben was making chocolate chip cookies. Fun times at our house.

Sarah showing off her salad.

Ben did awesome with his cookies. They were delicious.

Idaho and the State Fair

6/18

Our Miss Idaho

Sarah learned about the USA in school this year (5th grade). At the end of the school year they got to choose a state to learn about and the 5th grade put on a state fair, showing off their chosen states. Sarah, of course, chose Idaho. She learned all she could about her former state, and the place she hopes to live again one day. She made a great poster and it was fun to go in and see her the day for the state fair.

Sarah and her friend Gabby (who was being Jack Sparrow for her state)

More Birthday Donuts

She's not at all happy to be turning 11!

We stopped and picked up birthday donuts on the way home from Sarah's birthday fun at Planet Play. I found some cute egg shaped donuts (it's getting close to Easter) and I thought for sure the kids would love them. Turns out they really don't like filled donuts. It doesn't matter if it's cream or jelly filled or anything else, they just don't like them. So again I struck out with the donuts, but the did have a lot of fun decorating them and they ate the outside of the donuts. Next time no filled donuts.  :)

Adam just wanted to eat the frosting. He knows what's good. 

Ben showing us his finished product. It says, Happy Birthday Sarah.  What a good brother.

Dan actually did the best when it came to eating the donut.

Can you tell who's donut this is?

Hannah with her donut.

Sarah showing off her donut. Man she's getting big.

Happy 11th To My Sarah Kate

Sarah with all her presents.

Sarah had a great 11th birthday. I can't believe she's growing up so quickly. She often informs me that she now only has 2 years until she's a teenager and 5 years until she's 16. I'm excited to see her grow up, but I can't help being sad to watch her grow up. Luckily she's turning into a fantastic kid so I feel pretty lucky.

First in the morning on her birthday we allowed her to open presents (one of the advantages to being off track for your birthday.) She did pretty good this year on gifts with a fishing pole, new bag/purse, 2 Monster High Dolls (one from grandma and grandpa) and a Skylander character. She was pleased and that's always good. We had a fun filled day after that. We headed to IKEA for free kids meals, gotta love Tuesdays, and then headed over to Planet Play to use our Pass Of All Passes. Happy Birthday Sarah Kate!

Opening her Monster High doll from Grandma and Grandpa.

There doll was way cooler than ours, apparently, and she was so happy to get it.

Her new bag that she helped pick out. I guess in some ways it's good to be older.

Oreo Cake Messes

The Oreo Cake.

We were busy the day of Sarah's party. We spent the morning a Scheel's and didn't get home until an hour or so before her party.I wasn't feeling great by then and I wasn't feeling like making a cake. We stopped at Walmart on the way home and bought Sarah a cake and she loved it. It was an Oreo cake with cupcakes around it and she was so excited. I felt bad that I didn't make her a cake, but she didn't mind so I managed to be okay with it.The girls had fun putting cake all over their faces and giggling a lot. I was shocked the the 11 year old girls got so much messier than the 9 year old boys did at Ben's party.

Sarah with her cake.

Blowing out the candles.

Getting cake in her face thanks to her friend Gaby.

The girls with their cake covered faces.

Party Time 11 Year Old Style

Sarah's birthday party was on Friday night March 1st. Normally this would be a great night for a party, but because it was the last day of school before they went of track, it turned out to be a bad day for a party. I guess most families going off track in March wanted to get away. The result is that out of 10 girls invited, only 3 came to her party. She was pretty good spirited about it. She said it was the curse of the Newbry family to throw a birthday party and not have anyone come. She also said it was her turn because Ben had had the low attendance party 2 years in a row. I was pretty impressed with her willingness to go with it. She was still a little disappointed, but she did well.

Even though there weren't many kids here they managed the make the most of it and they all had a lot of fun. I will admit it was one of the weirdest birthday parties we've had. It began with Sarah's friend Gaby. She called after school and said she could only come if I came and got her. I told her I'd pick her up a little before 6:00. I lost her address and was a little late and when we got there we found out she had been standing outside since 4:30 waiting for us. Now, keep in mind this was March 1st and the high temperature was about 35 degrees. I felt awful. If I had know I would have let her come over at 4:30 or earlier. Her mom was gone to Idaho for work (which I guess she does often) and left her 18 year old sister in charge. This sister went on a date at 4:30 and locked Gaby out of the apartment. It's all such a weird situation and we've actually had Gaby over a few times because I feel this need to take care of her as much as possible with out imposing. Anyway, it was a weird start to the party, but then it got weirder.

Sarah's friend Sierra brought her little brother Zen. She could only come to the party if her brother came, which is totally weird in my opinion. So allowed Zen to stay. He's a 2nd grader and a little pain in the bum. Man that kid was awful. He whined non stop if he didn't get his way, he pouted because he didn't get the prize he wanted, he was rough and not very nice, it was all just a mess. The last thing I wanted to do during my daughters 11th birthday party was babysit a 7 year old out of control boy whom I'd never met. I mean really, who does that sort of thing?

Lastly, I noticed as the party was beginning that I was feeling rather sickly. I was really hoping the flu would hold off until the party was over, but I didn't make it that long. About an hour before the party was over I could hardly stand anymore. Kenny sent me to bed and finished the party by himself. I'm so grateful to him for being willing to take over for me. I haven't been that sick in a really long time. I was in bed the entire next day, which is not like me at all. Kenny did awesome. He finished the party, cleaned up, took care of the kids all day Saturday, and even took them to the store so I could rest. He's the greatest.

So that was the weird party. Even in the middle of all the weirdness, we managed to throw a great party. They popped balloons, did a treasure hunt, opened presents, ate cake and cotton candy, did the tape ball game and a skit game. It was great fun and we can't wait until next year. (Hopefully more girls will come.)

The Treasure Hunt

Trying to stomp on each others balloons.

Time for presents. With her friend Gaby.

Being silly with Kayla

Posing with Sierra (she's the one that brought her brother.)

Sarah and Sierra doing their skit.

Ben and the girls showing us their skit.

Making cotton candy.

The tape ball game.