Zip Zip Hooray

And I wonder why I am exhausted.

We have had a whirlwind week.

Here are a few highlights-- Greer turned the big 13.

Yikes another teen.  Heaven help us.

Byron helped the girls make the cutest flip flop cookies

out of Nutter Butters for her pool themed party.

 Greer planned it all-- just handed me a shopping list

put the rest of us to work.

She played a series of "Minute to Win It" games...

from seeing who could eat a donut the fastest

without it falling off a string....

  to moving Oreos from the forehead to the mouth using

only facial expressions, to playing "Junk in the Trunk"

where they had to shake their booties to shake

ping pong balls out of empty Kleenex boxes..

Of course, I was too busy running around to take many pictures.

But I did get cute ones of them swimming in the 84 degree pool

(thank you Gobily's for spoiling these kids).

 And I got pictures of some of Greer's food spread--

her flip flop cookies, her Veggie platter with the sign: 

"take a dip"...

 Her blue Kool-aid:  "Pool Water", peach rings that were labeled

"life preservers", licorice labeled "pool noodles"-- you 

get the idea.

She obviously knows her way around Pinterest.

 They roasted S'mores, played, giggled and jumped

on the trampoline.  Greer must have thanked us ten times

for such a fun party.

Kind of nice to get thanked when she did most of the work!

 The next morning, Holland and I got up before dawn

to help out at the Bubble Run.

My friend Jeanie and I set up and manned the Baldapalooza booth.

We were the charity partner for the race.

 It was pretty cool-- for the first time they've run the race 

here in Boise, they had over 7 thousand participants.

Not bad.

 The race track snaked around the fair grounds

and was filled with lots of families covered in

colored foam and bubbles.

 Case in point-  here's Holland along with two other friends.

And they were just the volunteers.

 I think everyone got drenched and dyed.

 If not running through the "bubble bogs" in the race...

certainly at the end when they had a field of foam

they launched out over everyone and everything.

 It was a blast.

We came home tired and happy.

Oh, one more thing.

This is what Greer unwrapped from her family.

Can you guess what her present is?

It is all she wanted and my husband (aka MacGyver)

built a top notch- much higher quality one than we could get on line...

drum roll please...

Zip Line.

 It goes at least 200 feet across our upper yard.

And hasn't stopped being used since he put it together

Saturday afternoon.

 Even Kean is addicted to the speed.

That's him on  Byron's lap.

Trust me, it's a bit scary the first time- stepping off at the top

but once you go, you want to go again and again.

A Close Call

Reese is our shyest.

While Holland and Greer seem to have no issues with getting up

in front of anyone who will listen and singing-- this one

surprised us and decided to try out for the school's talent show.

She said she had to keep the tradition alive (both her sisters have sung).

 Well she made it-- and little Miss Brave

got up and sang in front of her school and a bunch of parents.

 She told me she was scared to death, shaking like a leaf

and not sure she ever wants to do it again!

But she did it and I'm so proud of her.

Then last night, after the big performance, we celebrated

Greer's birthday.

That's a platter of donuts-- no birthday cake for this girl.

 I think she had fun with her darling friends.

Kean was off all day, woke up from his nap sobbing

and then added to the festive atmosphere by throwing

up while everyone ate pizza.

On the bright side, he hasn't been eating much of anything,

so pretty much only threw up pedialyte.

Also, to keep things interesting (and keep Mama stressed)

he had a fever that was running just under 101 (he was 100.9).

We earn a trip to the E.R. at 101.

Alas, he seemed to feel better after throwing up-- and only

wanted to be around the ladies.

 His fever came down a bit (finally broke at 10:45 p.m.)

and he was much happier.

Go figure what that was all about.

 He woke up-- acting fine.  No fever this morning.

But he still won't eat hardly anything.

I've luckily gotten him to down some Pediasure

mixed with cornstarch to keep his blood sugar levels

from plummeting with the Chemo.

I'm actually looking forward to taking him in on 

Tuesday for his big Chemo appointment so the 

doctor can check him out and see what is going on!

A Dozen

I'm still pinching myself that Greer is actually 12!

Guess it is true in that about a dozen of the girls from

our church came over to decorate her room as a birthday surprise.

 I love this very sweet tradition and clearly, so does our girl.

She's having friends over Friday night-- but

opened a few cards and gifts tonight.

 Don't ask me why... but she's wanted a pair

of suspenders for about forever.  I'm afraid we'll

be seeing these on her every day from here on out.

 Of course, we had to have her favorite dinner

and a little cake.

 Speaking of cake, you'd think Boy Wonder

would be all over that.

Nope, he continued his aversion to food from yesterday--

hardly eating anything today.

My friend Calene came over this evening (well after dinner)

to bring Greer a gift.

And somehow we got Kean to eat some chicken and cake--

while he was swinging!!

Hey, whatever it takes, right?

Two Guns At Once

That Greer girl!

We have a tradition in our family-- my girls can get their

ears pierced when they turn 12.

(That was the rule for me, thus the rule for them).

Greer won't be 12 until the 27th of this month

but she has not let me forget that Holland got her ears

pierced two weeks before her birthday-- so guess where 

we went yesterday.

 Greer totally had us laughing.

The store had two women on "the guns" so she was able to get

both done at the same time.

Get this, she didn't even flinch, blink or react-- at all.

 In fact, she just sat there waiting and waiting.

We had to tell her it was d.o.n.e.

 To make an exciting day even more exciting, we met

up with her good friend from school, Lorien (who also just turned 12),

to get their ears pierced together.

The Marriage Proposal

We celebrated (yes, again) Greer's birthday with my twin nieces,

Katie and Lindsey this evening.

Hey, any excuse to party, right?

I also wanted to tell you about Greer's 4th and 5th grade

end of the year music program.

Her school does the same program every year-- I've sat

through it for Holland's 4th and 5th grades, and now Greer's

4th and 5th.  Two more to go, when Reese gets there.

 The highlight this year, though, was Greer won the audition

to sing alongside one of the cutest boys in the school.

The song is hilarious -- we had to split it into two.

If you only watch one video-- watch the second one.

Here are our two little stars...

 His mom and I have hopes these two will marry someday

so we can play the video and show these pictures 

at their wedding.

 Now wouldn't that be fun!

The Festival of the Moths

So last night's birthday party had a little hitch.

On top of one of the girls having a reaction from having too much dairy (ice cream),

another having an allergy attack and still another having a headache-- our part of 

the valley has  been inundated with swarms of moths.

Thousands, thousands and thousands.

It's gross and icky and freaky all at once..

A few of the girls were spending the night and they freaked out at the number of moths

in the barn (a few sneaked into the little loft apartment and that was  a few too many).

I guess some of the girls called their parents they were so rattled.

We finally got them settled down and moved into the house and onto the couches.

But poor Greer felt bad and felt like those dang moths ruined her party.

Dunt, dunt, da da... Byron to the rescue.

He came up with the idea of turning lemon into lemonade, well, actually,

the moth fiasco into the 2014 Festival of the Moths.

For breakfast this morning, we lit candles and let the girls

dance around the table and the light.

 We also made moth shaped  pancakes and sang moth themed songs.

 It seemed to work, Greer was all smiles...

as were all the girls.

 We voted Kean the Moth King.

Hey, every festival has to have a king.

And doesn't it say somewhere that your hair is your crowning glory--

well, check out that crown!

 Kean's royal reign continued after his nap

when Byron's good friend Shane Harris came by to 

pick up the tractor he keeps stored at our place.

 Guess who got a ride?

The Moth King had a good day.

Eleven and in Heaven

I must love my kids or something like that.

'Cause tonight we let Greer invite half the female population 

over to the house for her birthday party.

Okay, so maybe not quite half but it was sure girl world here this evening.

I think they went through about half a bottle of dish soap

to make the slip and slide extra slippery.

The girls gobbled up dinner...

 and opened presents...

 before heading down to Grandpa Bodily's for a long swim.

I don't know what we did to deserve getting the best neighbors around...

but we sure scored in that department.

Motorcycle Jeff came by to rescue the token boy

and take him for a ride on the Harley.

 They always greet each other with a fist bump.

So love that.

 And ladies, if you haven't already joined the Motorcycle Jeff fan club...

look who brought a surprise present for the birthday girl.

I'm telling you, this guy is golden.

 Greer opted to replace the traditional birthday cake

with s'mores and ice cream.

As I write this, they are all up in the barn playing games,

talking about boys and watching movies.

Ah, to be eleven again!