Picture Heavy

We have had a few award ceremonies this week. Tuesday was Alex's day. He received the A/B honor roll award and the citizenship award. I am so proud of him. I know he worked extra hard all year to keep his grades up. He has matured so much this year and grown into a fine young man. Here is are a few photos of his day.

Alex

Alex and Mrs. Manguson

Lucas' 5th grade graduation was tonight. He received the Math Excellence award. This award came with a $500 cash awards to be used towards furthering his education. That means if he wants to go to the Mott Aquarium in Tampa we can tap into this money to help pay for it. Or if he wants to go to summer camp, we can use this money. I am so proud of him. Here are a few photos of his night.

Mrs. Whitt and Lucas

 Here are the two of them with their principal Mr. Mazoli.

Mr Mazoli, Lucas, and Alex

 So after the award ceremony we went home and they goofed around outside taking pictures. They are such funny kids.

Me and Lucas

Lucas, Connor, and Alex

Nicholas

Lucas

I think I'll keep them :)

Warms a mother's heart!! I thought I would share this photo of Alex vacuuming the living room at our house. Technically this is his chore and he should do it at least once a week. Most weeks I have to tell him, then he whines, procrastinates, and tries to get out of it. This week he stepped up, grabbed the vacuum and got to work. He is such a good boy. (most of the time :)

We took Lucas this weekend to get his ear pierced. A lot of people won't agree with my decision to allow him to get this done but I did it for several reasons.
1. He is a good kid who does amazing in school and shows extreme responsibility skills for someone his age.
2. It was something he wanted and I wanted it done right using sterilized materials. I have two older brothers who would go to their friends over the weekend, have a friend pierce their ear, come home and my Dad would make them take it out. That was my Dad's decision, he was entitled, they are his kids. That was 20 years ago, the world had ugly funks back then that could be caught on a dirty needle (or ear ring). Imagine all that on steroids and you have what kids face today.
3. It wasn't that big a deal to me. He wears it for a while, gets tired of it and takes it out. Or he never tires of it and wears it all his life. Who cares? You have to pick your battles and this was not a battle for us at all.
4. He asked for it almost two years ago when he was 10 years old. I said no, I told him I wouldn't say no forever but I wasn't going to get it done when he was so young. I told him to think about it and if he still wanted to do it in a couple of years we would talk. So this was not a spur of the moment decision.
5. I told him I had authority to make him take out any earring I thought was inappropriate or just looked stupid. He agreed.
So here are a few photos I snapped when he took him to have it done. Love that kid!

I hate buying groceries with a passion! Why? Oh I could come up with hundreds of reasons but I'll just tell you a few.
1.Having to maneuver around SLOW people. I just want to yell at them "MOVE PEOPLE" or ram my cart into theirs and pretend it didn't happen as I walk on by.
2.Unloading the groceries when I get home. Either I wait to buy groceries when the little people are with me (when I want to punish myself), so they can help bring them in or I buy them while they are in school and have to tote it all in by myself. I choose the lesser of two evils and buy them while they are in school.
3. Knowing at some point they (all my men) are going to want me to take this recently bought food and create a meal for them. I am not a bad cook. I make pretty good food. I just don't like to. Over the last few year I have come to dread cooking.
So before I head out to buy groceries, I thought I would take a moment  to share this little mini project I created yesterday. I used some of the new techniques I learned over the weekend while at the three day crop :) Sorry about the shine from the flash.

It has been soooooooo long since I blogged. We have been going, going, going with family, church, school, the house, a trip to Mexico. I have just now had a moment to breath. So while I was breathing I thought I would share a few things I created over the weekend. 

I was fortunate enough to go down to Bonita Springs this past weekend for a National Scrapbook Day three day crop hosted by Scrapbooks Etc. We stayed at the Trianon Hotel and it was "muy" awesome. Let me tell you, these ladies know how to throw a crop. The food was great, there were so many giveaways. I think at last count I had won 5 prizes. The tables weren't crowded and everyone was so nice. I really liked the goodie bags. None of that junk you wouldn't use, it was full of papers, 6x6 templates, adhesive, stamps, flowers and so much more. It was all in a Utility Bin from a company called Thirty-one.  I thought the bins were store property for us to use as garbage cans but I soon found out they were for us to take home.  Totally awesome! I had the most fun, there is going to be another three day crop in July and October and I plan to be at both :)

So to get on with it here are a few things I created. The first one is a alter-art project for my best friend to hang in her daughter's room. Followed by a few layouts I scrapped of my family :)