Gizmo's Birthday

Twelve years ago today me and Brady became parents to an adorable baby girl. It seems odd to me that it really has been that long, but I guess all parents feel that way about their babies growing up.

Gizmo was certainly a handful when she was little, and we were sure young, but she has been such a blessing to our lives. I am so proud of her and what an awesome young lady she is.

I am a bit late getting her video put together. Even though it is still her birthday, it is late and she is sleeping. Too bad digital cameras were not a popular item when she was little, because scanning our old photos is not all that fun. I hope she likes seeing her belated video when she gets up tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Gizmo!

Utah State Fair

For the past two years, we have loaded up and made the drive to Salt Lake City for the state fair. The kids really look forward to it, and homeschoolers get a killer deal on admission. In the past, there has been one day of the fair scheduled for homeschoolers to get in for a discount, but they changed the rules this year. We had to take in our paperwork, but got to go anytime. Since we had more freedom to pick what day we wanted to go we were able to go on a Saturday. I prefer during the week since there is less crowds, but our schedule has just been so busy that it really was better to go today.

Our first stop was at the photography exhibits. One of Gizmo's friends, who is also homeschooled, won a blue ribbon for a photo of hers. That same friend's little sister won a best in show ribbon. We had not realized that they had entered, so it was fun to find a familiar name. I really need to get on the ball and get the kids submitting something to next year's fair.

Here are some of the highlights of the day.
This is Spike waiting for the girls to finish up cooing over some baby pigs. By this point, he was getting pretty tired.
We finished up the day with a few rides. Princess chose the carousel, which was no surprise. She also picked the most girly horse on there, which was even less of a surprise.
The big kids chose a bigger ride. One of those ship type things that swings back and forth. All of my pictures that I tried to take of them on it did not work out, so here is one of them waiting to get on.And in case you are wondering at this point, Squirt was with us. He was not having a good photo day though, since everyone I took of him he is blurry from his constant need to move. He did enjoy petting a three-week old calf while we were there, and he enjoyed the sights, so it was a fun day for him.

And now my aching feet and I are going to rest and watch a movie with my honey...

Will Learn Times Tables for Ice Cream...

I felt that Gizmo and Spike needed to work on their multiplication facts a bit this year. Gizmo has had them down pretty good in the past, but Summer break does take its toll, and a refresher course never hurt anyone as far as I know. Especially when the reward for doing so is a banana split. For each set of times tables that they pass off to me, they get to color that corresponding portion of the worksheet. Every number has a designated item, whether it be a scoop of ice cream, a banana, or even the bowl. Since Princess is learning her numbers, she gets to color the numbers that she has mastered. I have heard of similar ideas to this before, but didn't see anything online. What is a homeschooling mom to do? Draw one, of course. This was the result...

The date for our Sundae Party is October 15 and they can have whatever they have earned, so I am excited to see if they will be able to do everything.

Gizmo's Projects

Ahh....it is lovely to have had at least part of my evening spent at home and not playing chauffeur. To celebrate, I figure I should post up Gizmo's latest Photoshop project.

Her take on the same photo that Spike had used earlier (it is the photo being used for their current large assignment).

She had a blast playing with the Gradient Map adjustment layer. During some of her free time, she decided to play around with one of her own photos.

Fell off the gluten wagon...

Times have been busy here, and I am still not through with my allergy elimination diet. Like a sucker, I put soy sauce on my Mongolian barbecue when we went out to dinner, completely forgetting that it was not okay. I certainly paid for that mistake. It has been about two weeks and the nausea is still lingering. Since we need a quick answer on what I can and can not eat, I am just going to bite the bullet and get the bloodwork done. Tomatoes and eggs seem to be alright, since I have tried those and felt just fine, so that is something to be happy about.

Life doesn't slow down though, even when you feel like it should. Although we did miss playgroup and chess one week, the kiddos were very understanding. We are not back in full force with Girl Scouts, swimming, chess, playgroup and....as of tonight....I have found Spike a Webelos pack (ya know, the younger Boy Scouts). Hurray! Happy kids make all the running around worth while, even if it wears me out.

I thought I would share part of Spike's photoshop work from today with you. We had a nice one-on-one lesson while Squirt napped, Princess played, and Gizmo was off with her book club. This isn't the main assignment we are working on, but just something I let him play around with for fun. The photo is one of the practice photos we receive with our Practical Photoshop magazine subscription.
The original looks like this: