Early birthday SURPRISE!

Ethan has been eying a red-eared slider turtle. He sees it every time we go to Petsmart for Brenna to pick a little something up for her hamster.

Right before dinner tonight, I was browsing through some facebook posts and saw that a girl from our church posted that she was looking for a new home for her red-eared slider turtle and that it was FREE and included everything needed to care for it. I could not believe it. I immediately called Jason over and we did a little chatting, trying to not let the kids hear what we were discussing. I went to our room, so the kids couldn't hear me, and called the family to get a little more information. They gave me the run down on the care and I told them I would call back in a few minutes. Jason and I chatted a little more and decided that we would head out to look at the turtle. We finished dinner and loaded the kids, they had no idea where we were going.

Once we arrived at the families' home, Jason and I went upstairs to see the turtle. After a few minutes, we decided that it was a definite go and we went down to get Ethan. We took him up alone so that we could give him is early birthday present. He was in complete shock. In fact, he was in such shock that there really was no facial expression from him. He just kept saying, "cool". I don't think he really believed that he was going to be taking the turtle home with him.

Once he finally realized that the turtle was really going home with us, he was excited to show his sisters.

He just sat and stared at the turtle for more than half way home...

when he finally announced, "Mom, I have the perfect name. I'm going to name him Jack!" We were so proud of him for coming up with a name all on his own. I loved that he took this so serious and really just took it all in. After the name announcement, he gave me a thumbs up! He was absolutely thrilled and couldn't wait to get Jack home and settled.

Tomorrow we will make a trip to Petsmart to get some water purifying solution...thank you City of Lynden for putting chlorine in our water. Thankfully he had enough water in his tank to get us through the night. I'm sure Jack will be thrilled to have a full tank of water tomorrow and Ethan can't wait to watch Jack be able to do lots of swimming.

I love how pretty his shell looks!

Field Day/last full day of school/Family Fun Night

Today was the last full day of school. This also meant that it was FIELD DAY! Our kids love Field Day at school because it means lots of fun activities all day long. Alyssa's class had Field Day scheduled for the morning. It was fun to just go hang out and take pictures of all the kids having tons of fun! Alyssa's class won the tug-a-war for the 3rd grade classes.

Brenna was bummed that middle school doesn't get Field Day but thrilled that Isom had Family Fun Night tonight so she was able to go on the inflatables. I love that Isom offers Family Fun Nights. It's a great time to get together with the Isom families and have a great time with some good food!

Stocking up!!!

Tuesday evening, my sis-in-law and I took off for Albertsons. We had put together a huge run. We had gone through the Albertsons ad the week before and figured out our stock up deals and then got on to ebay to find the coupons we were needing. Yes, we purchased coupons from ebay. Once we knew we were able to get the coupons we needed, we called the store and placed a special order for each of us.

We have built up a great relationship with the store manager and they do an amazing job at having everything ready for us when we arrive.

Here is what I purchased this last run...

I had two transactions and combined purchased...
70 boxes of Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta (combination of spaghetti, rotini, and penne)...FREE!!
20 jars Peter Pan peanut butter
40 jars Ragu pasta sauce
50 bottles of Wishbone dressing, variety
6 Pop Tarts
6 Sprayway glass cleaner
2 Orbit gum (needed as a filler)
3 pints of Starbucks ice cream (not pictured)

My out of pocket was $58.53, my savings was $562.55...making the shelf cost for all of these items $621.08. That, my friends, is a 90.58% savings!!

Do you notice that some of these items are in boxes?! When you special order you get your items in cases. It actually makes storing these items easier because I can just stack them in the garage next to the shelving unit that I'm already using for my overstock.

I can't wait for our next stock up deal. It's nice that I actually have items that I can cross off of my grocery list for at least the next 6 months...probably longer!

Last Day of Preschool

Tuesday was Ethan's last day of Preschool. He has had an amazing year and absolutely loved his teachers. Ms. Karen, Ms. Gidget, Ms. Janet, and Ms. Nancy...THANK YOU!! (Sorry the picture is blurry. I don't know what happened. Too bad we can't do a re-do.)

The last day was a play day and ice cream party. It was also our day for having Wayne, Weston and Wyatt at our house and Ethan's amazing teachers invited them to join in on the fun.

We started out by playing in the gym. The boys loved the rock wall. Ethan didn't have a problem climbing this wall alone.

After some time of free play, Ms. Gidget pulled out the parachute. There were 3 of us moms there and we were all asked to participate. It was a lot of fun but I wasn't able to get any video or pictures of the action. It was neat to see Weston and Wayne interacting with all of Ethan's school friends. Wyatt, well, he just hung out in the stroller.

Once we were finished in the gym, we went back to the classroom. There, the kids sang a few of their songs that they sang throughout the year. Their favorite was the "chicken dance". We found out at the party that our son added his own little twist to part of it...a hand wave.

After their "performance" we all had ice cream with lots of fun toppings and cookies.

It was a great afternoon but very sad when we left. Ethan is the baby in our family and today was the last day of Preschool for all of us. It's hard to believe that we are officially finished with Preschool.

Farmer's Day Parade...Pool Goes Up!

Today was the Farmer's Day Parade. It was a beautiful day!! Last year, Jason was working on the day of the parade and I had some how been able to keep the kids from knowing it was parade day and we slept in.

This year, however, was different. Brenna was in the parade this year with the Middle School and High School choirs. There was no skipping the parade today. Jason, once again, had to be at work so he wasn't able to join us. We also had Brenna's BFF spend the night Friday night so that she could attend the parade with us. The kids had a blast. We had to be at the parade route early to get Brenna where she needed to be. So, we found our spot, laid out the blankets, called the rest of the family members that were going to be joining us to let them know where we were and then got Brenna to her pre-parade location.

I am so glad that Tyler and Tanya thought the 10:30 parade started at 10:00 because they arrived just 5 minutes after us and were able to help entertain Ethan before the parade.

We were right in front of the post office and liquor store. In between these two buildings, there is a nice section of grass with some shade. The boys were able to just run and get the wiggles out before the parade started.

Brenna hung out with Wyatt for a few minutes before meeting up with the choir. Brenna loves helping out with Wyatt. I mean, who wouldn't love to spend time with this adorable little guy?

Ethan's friend Connor, and his family, were walking by to find seating and the boys decided that Connor and his family needed to sit by us. It was fun to have sweet Connor with the other boys. He's not use to having cousins/family around so he had a real eye opener. They seemed to have a lot of fun though.

There were several entries in the parade and the kids had fun watching all of the different entries pass by. This was the crew of kids watching...Paige, EmmaRae (Brenna's BFF), Wyatt, Alyssa, Ethan, Wayne, and Connor.

Paige spent much of her time standing like this. Her eyes were glued to all the action. The only thing that broke her stare was the candy flying through the air.

She was so proud of her little bag of candy.

This was our favorite parade entry...

Brenna met up with us after the choir had gone through the parade route. It was fun to have her with us watching the rest of the parade. At one point, all of the kids stood up and I just couldn't pass this picture up.

There was also a Farmer's Market type area in one of the parking lots. It included some food booths as well. Lynden does such a great job putting this day together. There are activities all day downtown.

We didn't stay downtown after the parade because I was determined to get the pool set up and start filling it before Jason got home. I wanted to surprise him. Well, that didn't happen as planned. We discovered a few holes in the upper ring that I needed help with. So, once we got the holes patched, we moved forward with getting the pool filled. It was great to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather!!

Early birthday celebration

Because Ethan's birthday is during the summer and he won't be in school, his teacher allowed him to celebrate a month early with his Preschool friends. He was so excited to bring treats but so confused as to why they were singing "Happy Birthday" to him when it wasn't his real birthday.

It was a beautiful day so the kids all got to sit outside to eat their popsicles. I had found these mini popsicles at Safeway. They were the perfect size for the kiddos, especially since they had just had cupcakes for another summer birthday earlier in the day.

It was also Show and Tell day. Ethan loves Show and Tell. He usually creates something really neat with his legos to show his friends but today he wanted to take his dinosaur. They each get to share about their toy/item and then they answer three questions, asked by classmates, regarding their toy/item.

This is Ethan's Preschool buddy Connor. They are really hoping to be in the same Kindergarten class this next Fall.