Sunday, August 12, 2012

Happy Birthday Kamary!

THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!!!

In our church, girls turning 12 graduate from Primary and go to a program called Young Women that is geared toward teens. Kamary has always been mature for her age and has been tired of Primary for quite a while. I think she wanted to go into Young Women when she was 9 or something. So it has been an excruciating 3 years waiting to be old enough to graduate!!

Her birthday was on a Sunday and so she spent it in Young Women. Several girls had July birthdays so we ended up having cake to celebrate. Church is always better with cake! :)

Instead of having a birthday party this year, Kamary wanted a day out with her friend. So they went to Subway for lunch and then saw The Avengers movie. After that they wanted to go to Hobby Lobby. I tell you, my daughter can definitely out-shop me!!


Kamary and her friend Kayli at Hobby Lobby.

Here is Kamary with some of her presents. She loves black and white and the zebra print looked black in the store but when we got home it turned out to be brown. Kamary said she liked it anyway.

Yes, there is a blue bowl in the picture. The blue bowl has been part of Kamary's history for almost an entire year. This past year, she has had some digestive issues with nausea and feeling sick (no, she does not have an eating disorder--everyone asks me that). So it started with feeling nauseous and having the blue bowl nearby in case she threw up (which has only happened once the entire year). Her blue bowl has taken over the role of being a security blanket. In the past few months her sickness has come and gone, but even on days when she feels great, she still wants her bowl nearby--just in case. She does leave it behind when she goes out, but when she's at home, the blue bowl is her dearest friend. :)  Dad likes to tease her and hide it, knock it out of her hand or throw it in the swimming pool. That's what dads are for.

 Opening presents

 Everyone loves opening present time. The kids get so excited to see what their sibling gets (aka--what they get to play with when their sibling is not looking)

 Kamary and her stash which includes a lot of Monster High stuff.

For Kamary's birthday cake she decided she wanted a tie dye cake. She wanted to decorate it herself.

Making tie dye frosting.

Kamary hard at work, being her extremely creative self.

Looking good. She had to fix the part I tried.

The end product.

Lauren posing with the tie dye cake.

Kamary and her cake.
Dad actually baked the cake and it was a complete hit! He added pudding here, something else there...but everyone actually ate the entire cake instead of licking off the frosting! I think Dad just nominated himself to be the official Birthday Cake Baker!

Blowing out the candles. I wanted to put on 12 candles (instead of a 1 and a 2) to see if she could blow them all out at the same time. She got pretty close.

She really had 3 days of celebrations. The outing with her friend, her actual birthday and then the following day Aunt Char, Uncle Von and her cousins came to celebrate. She chose homemade chili and cornbread for her birthday dinner. She decided that having 3 birthday celebrations were a little too much. Sometimes good things come better in small packages.

Kamary feels very mature, responsible and grown up now that she's 12, and in many ways she is.

All about Kamary

Favorite Color:
Black and White

Favorite Food:
Anything in the crock-pot
(especially Italian Chicken Pasta)

Favorite Book:
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman

Favorite Movie:
The Avengers

Favorite TV Show:
Psych

Favorite Scripture Story:
Captain Moroni and how he fortified the cities

Favorite Song:
Wasted Tears by Hailey Reinhart

Favorite Artist:
Heart or Taylor Swift

Favorite Movie Star:
Willie Garson (Mozzie on White Collar)

Hobbies:
Reading, Writing, Drawing, Fashion Design, Recycling, Creating miniature accessories for dolls, Monster High, E-mailing and Fashion Design games on the internet 

Favorite School Subject:
Art

Favorite thing about Young Women:
Not being in Primary

Something special about Kamary:
Kamary is a strong willed person, which is actually a good trait. She makes good choices and can do anything she puts her mind to. Once she decides to do something, she really does it!
Examples: Homework was always a fight until one day when she decided to get good grades. She's done her homework every night without me even asking. Another time, we talked about daily scripture study. She wasn't so sure about that until one day when she decided to just do it. And she hasn't missed a day in over a year.
She's a great babysitter, keeps track of her school work, does her chores and makes good choices about the books she reads, movies she watches and music she listens to. She is a great big sister, an example to her friends and a great missionary. There have been several times when she has had to stand up for her beliefs at school. She's a strong girl and we're so happy she's in our family.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Summer Randomness

Here are some random pictures and things that happened this summer. :)

 This was Jason's Father's Day dinner--Yummy Kabobs!

For Jason's birthday Hanna drew him a picture of Hawkgirl.

Here he is opening presents. For his birthday and Father's Day he got a new camera. But I couldn't figure out how to work it and so not many birthday pictures turned out.

Here is Hawkgirl.

Lauren loves to take the camera for a spin. Here's a cute self-shot.

This was the summer of lost teeth! We called this two toothed Sunday because Kohler lost 2 teeth in one day.

Here is just one of our bountiful garden harvests. We came home with this much every week! It was a fruitful Summer. We grew onions, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, zucchini, crook neck squash, butternut squash, okra, cucumber, tomatoes, carrots and corn. Hanna and I did the garden together as part of her Personal Progress. It was a fun project to do together.

Brynlie eating a home-grown carrot.

Here is Kohler's smile with another tooth missing. In all, he lost 4 teeth this Summer.

Surprisingly, Lauren also lost a tooth this Summer. We didn't even know that her tooth was loose. But I guess they were wrestling around and pop--out comes her tooth. That's usually how my kids lose their teeth.

On the 4th of July we had a morning breakfast and water fight (no pictures, sorry) and then we came home and had a grand BBQ. This was our flag fruit pizza. Yummy!

Little Smokie loves sleeping in our bed. We walked in to find her snuggled under the covers.

Silly puppy. Now the big doggie is jealous and wants to sleep on our bed as well. Too bad, she's just too big.

At first I thought someone had drawn a mustache on Brynlie but this is a true chocolate mustache!

Hanna was busy this Summer drawing and painting pictures. This was her best work.

A close up shot. She's very proud of this one.

For the 24th of July, the Stake did a big pioneer celebration. They asked Hanna to paint a life-size buffalo for one of their games. It's not really full size because buffaloes are HUGE, but it was still really big. Everyone loved it and Hanna felt really good helping out. 

This was the room all set up. The "Pioneer Children" would come in and hunt for food. They shot the cardboard animals with Nerf guns. It was the most popular and favorite game.

Here I am with Brynlie enjoying our breakfast at the Stake Pioneer Pancake Breakfast.

There was a spot to make Indian headbands. The kids had a great time.

Another lost tooth. This time, Kohler was playing with Alyssa. He got socked in the mouth and his tooth popped out!

So now we have a vampire, snaggly toothed boy! He looks like a Jack-o-lantern! :)


 Going back a little...this is the yummy Black Forest Cherry Cake that Jason made for my birthday! It was perfect!

As a birthday present, my sister-in-law colored and cut my hair. She is so sweet. 

I didn't think I was going to get anything for my birthday, but Jason surprised me with a date night to Native New Yorker and an Ice Cream Machine. It was a great surprise.

 Here is Lauren at her preschool graduation. It was a lot of fun and now she's ready to go to Kindergarten! She couldn't be more excited!

Summer flew by, but we had fun keeping cool in the sun! (I rhymed...ha ha)