Pool Party Birthday Bash

I often times forget to mention the girls birthdays.....well let's be honest I don't forget to write the post, I forget to post the post. Yes, I have two years worth of birthday posts just hanging out in my draft folder waiting for their day to shine. I know, I know it's awful. Well not this time! Nope, I'm going to post and upload all at once that way I can't miss one again. :)

Now Nanner's birthday was waaaay back in March. Beanie's was in May. I understand that the party didn't actually occur until August, that's life around here. We had a fantastic roller skating party planned for Nanners....for the second year in a row she fell and broke something right beforehand. Spunky was the beneficiary of that skating party this year, hey a non refundable party must go on!

So once again a week before the party we're rushing her off to the ER for a X-rays only to show that yes, in fact, she does have a break. This year it was a distal radial wrist fracture. She got a rockin', heavy as all get out ER specialty cast and we were on our way.

Party postponed. People called. Facebook announcement made. Nanner's in tears because she never gets to have her party around her actual birthday. Mommy feeling like crap because the dramatics aside, the kid was right.

Beanie was supposed to have a combined party with a cousin, who ended up backing out last minute. Crap! Okay, on to plan B. We have many people in our lives who we know we can always count on, and lucky for us we have a whole 'nother family that loves us and as a bonus the have a POOL! Yay! Problem solved. Back to pool party.

Nanners and Beanie agree to have a combined party - Thank GOODNESS! We set a date, we shop for decorations, we buy food. Special cake ordered (that's a story in itself, if you've never seen a 15 year old cry over cake, tell her there's no way you're buying the special made, hand crafted fondant version of the band One Direction).

The party was fun, everyone had a blast playing in the pool. We ate nachos. We had an amazing cake. We took lots of pictures. We laughed. We spent a ton on their gifts because they totally earned them. These girls are amazing when it comes to self sacrifice and they deserved something special this year for sure.

Here are a few of the favorite pictures from the party.

 Lots of people playing in the pool!

 Nanners sporting her major accessory for the day - the Dry Pro. Seriously, if you ever break something you should get one of these! They are amazing!

Uncle Justin meeting Billy the Boyfriend for the first time......awkward....

Emi playing

The final result of the cake. This was a struggle folks, but they finally agreed on something, and the taste was awesome!

Nanners is 10! Beanie is 15! WOW!!!

Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl

Present time!

Showing each other their wares

Wait for it....

wait for it...

OMG!!! SQUEAL!! It's a Nintendo 3DS!!

Beanie had 2 boxes for her big gift....she got to chose only one

dun dun dun dunnnnnn.......FAIL!! After 12 minutes she decided to take the white box and it was EMPTY!! She let me push her in the pool to open the other one.....it had her laptop. :) 

Beautiful girls. Healthy girls. Smiling faces. What more could I ask for??

Goodbye 9th Grade

Well it's official we've survived our very first year of high school.  It wasn't without some hiccups, that's forsure, but we are so very glad to be done with it. We are so proud of Beanie for making it through the end of the year, but most importantly for ending  the year stong. She pulled all her grades back up to the acceptable level, and worked her tail off to make it happen. Great job Beanie! For the last day we wanted something special, something that they would remember for a long time. We made them signs telling them how proud we are of them. We glitted, glued and colored our hearts out for those girls smiling faces. Then we attacked them!!                                               

so assuming.....

HAHAHA!! We got them!

Running is useless!

I will get you all!

Even when you run down the street!

Because it's summer baby!!

8th Grade Graduation

So many people came out to support her!! Beanie had the largest crowd by far! So much love from our amazing family!

MawMaw, Beanie & PawPaw

Beanie & her Principal

Church support!! Amazing! 

Beanie's Homecoming 2012

Homecoming!

Shut the front door!! Homecoming came up on us like a hidden tornado. We had our dress, our hair, everything all planned out. Being a typical teen she decided the day of that she needed other stuff......like shoes, dress, hair, jewelry stuff. 5 hours before homecoming we are frantically doing her over. In the end we got it under control and she made it to the dance before she turned into a pumpkin.

That hair - blue! I know it's really more of a purple, but that bottle said blue dang it! My hands were blue at least. The first of so many dances to come, she looked amazing. You better enjoy these pictures, since she chose not to take any at the dance!!! Yeah, she really did!! {{SMH}} The Boy and I thought she was kidding, but alas these are the only pictures of her first high school dance. In the end all that matters is that everything worked out. Thanks to Auntie Trina for loaning us her dress at the last minute. :)

A moment captured, a memory made.

Memory Monday

I've decided that since I have so many wonderful memories to share, and eventually plan to have my blog printed and bound into a scrapbook for the girls that I would start sharing a new picture each Monday.



To kick us off we have...





Sassy, Me & Beanie falling down Splash Mountain in Disneyland last year. Despite the ponchos we still managed to get pretty wet. Our shoes were squishy with water and we were grateful for those flip flops in the stroller!

Homeschool Motivation

This year has been the hardest year to date as far as getting Beanie to complete her work in a timely manner. By timely I literally just mean getting it done before the learning period ends. That's usually 15-20 days, not counting weekends or days off.

Don't get the idea that I'm forcing her work on these ten page essays or anything like that. I'm not. I'm just trying to get through the day with most of her work completed. Oh, and I would love it if she would stop turning in work that isn't complete. Yep, had tons of that this year! I mean come on, does she really think that I'm not going to notice that she didn't do problems 11, 19 and 25? Really? I think that she assumes sometimes that I don't actually look at her work. Much to my dismay I have to look at every single thing she writes down. Why my dismay you might be asking yourself? Simply put - I'm a busy person and I don't particularly care about the the rise of Islam or the cellular structure of plants.

After repeated talking to her CT and Beanie and The Boy we came to the conclusion that she feels like she's overwhelmed with the amount of work that is required of her. Alrighty then. Well my dearest daughter, hate to break it to you but that's life is what I really want to say. Alas, I don't. We come up with the plan to reduce her book work and increase her projects, for some subjects. Subjects like history, something that she dislikes more than green peas and cabbage soup topped with veal.

We'll see how this goes........please, please, please let this work! I'm sure that I will have grey hairs by the time she finishes 7th grade.

Preteens Make Me Wanna Scream

Yes, I said it. No lovey love over here right now. This has been quite the last few months around the Jones household and Beanie has been quite a lot of the drama. You see she's now at the "I'm the smartest person ever" stage with a little "I'm the biggest so I'll bully you into doing what I want to do" sprinkled on top.

Now don't get me wrong, she is an amazing older sister. She is helpful around the house, great at finding things (super important here!), loves to read to her sisters and welcomes the chance to make pancakes while I check emails and do blog stuff. However this past few months have been just awful, she's defiant, she talks down to the other girls, she acts like they are too young to understand anything, etc. I understand it's part of growing up, especially growing up the oldest of five children, but COME ON! Seriously I may rip my hair out and scream if this doesn't stop soon.

School Awards

As most people know we are a homeschool family, our children attend a charter "cover" school and we do the teaching, planning, etc for them and with them. For our family this works well, and before I get any hate mail let me say that my first two years of homeschooling were done on my own with my private school avadavit. So I have done it both ways, all three if you count the 3 years that Beanie went to public school.

Well as a homeschool family it's easy to second guess yourself and make yourself feel like maybe you're not doing something correctly. That you're somehow ruining your children's lives. That they will never be like "other kids". That they will hate you when they're older because they never ate lunch at the big table in the loud cafeteria. Realistically we know that deep down this isn't likely and that our kids are doing great, etc, but it's easy still.

This year our school did something extra special, they held an awards ceremony for our students that achieved either proficent or advanced on their STAR testing. If you've never been to a homeschool awards show, let me tell you that these are a HUGE deal. We actually had some parents drive over 2 hours with kids and family in tow to see their little smarties few minutes of fame. We invite grandparents, we create a FULL house. :) It was so nice to see all the excitement from the kids, even those that weren't getting an award. They were just happy to have someone they knew up there.

Each child had their name announced and shook our princepals hand, then walked across the stage and stood while the rest of their grade level was announced. They beamed while when they had their moment and it was wonderful!