And The Winner is.....

Laura Belle!!!!! At the kids' school they have what they call caught ya's. Whenever a student gets "caught" doing something good they get a caught ya. The caught ya is a little ticket saying what the good deed was. Part of that ticket gets sent home to the parents and the other part gets put into a school wide drawing. Once a week the drawing is done and the names that are picked get a prize. This week Laura was one of the names drawn. She won a Legacy Eagles water bottle and a certificate for a free burger at In and Out burger. She got the caught ya last week for helping clean up the class without being asked. If only I could get her to do that at home more often! James also got a caught ya the very 1st day of school for being the best example of how to behave in and out of class. Kenni hasn't gotten one yet this year but it was just about every other day last year that the kid was coming home with one!

Pies, cookies, and cupcakes...Oh My!

Yesterday was Art in the Alley in town. It is a little street fair held monthly downtown and various people come to sell goods or just advertise. My friend Holly is super crafty and can do just about anything. She makes the best sugar cookies (besides Laurel's and Aunt Vicky's) awesome looking cakes that taste good too, purses, hair accessories and the list goes on and on and on for Holly! Check her out at www.hollywhodesigns.com Anyway...Holly was telling me that she was going to make some stuff and have a table at Art in the Alley. I asked if she minded if I make some pies and tagged along. So yesterday I spent my WHOLE day in the kitchen making pies. I made 8 total pies and cut two into slices to sell by the slice. I ended up selling 3 whole pies and 7 slices. One of the whole pies and 3 slices really don't count though.....Greg, Laurel, Mikey and Josh came down and showed there support and also the best teacher in the world Mrs. Erickson came too. We had a lot of lookers but not too many buyers. We were told business is much better during the winter months with the cooler weather and winter visitors. At the end of the night one of the head honchos came by and told us she was going to have to check with the health dept to see if we could come back :( Holly had called and asked before hand but never really got a total straight answer on the subject so we just tried our luck. So we'll see if we can continue on our venture.....

My kitchen counter with all the pies

The kids' wagon (which came in super handy) all packed

My van wagon and all ready to roll

Bittersweet

It was a bittersweet weekend in the Ozbirn household. We decided it was time to get rid of the dogs. The dogs were not happy outside and were causing a lot of trouble. We had trial of letting them in the house. That didn't work out well either. Gunner ended up going to a friend of James' and Macy ended up going just a few houses down the street. We can see both of them still, and they both went to good homes with kids and other dogs. Even though it was super stressful on me having the dogs I miss them.

1st day of school 2010

Well today was the first day of school for the kids. This year they are in a brand new school! There is still a lot of things that need to be done at the school but it is learning ready. I forgot to take a picture of the brand new campus though. I did at least remember to take pictures of my kids!
Yesterday as soon as Laura woke up she wanted to make her lunch. She was so excited to make that lunch! I told her to wait until after dinner so as soon as she was done eating she went to go make it. I convinced her to wait until after I cleaned up dinner. Then as soon as I walked out of the kitchen in she went. It wasn't even 5:30 so I made her wait until at least 6:30. She sat and watched the clock and as soon as it hit 6:30 she bolted for the kitchen to make that lunch! She also kept telling me yesterday that she was going to bed at 6 pm. I told her to wait until at least 7! The other kids went to bed at 7:30. Of course as soon as the kids went to bed it started to storm! So with the storm and all the excitement of school the next day I think it was 9:30 before they fell asleep!
I was up at 4:30 this morning because we had a night visitor. A single little cricket that made a lot of noise! I finally gave up and got out of bed at 5:30! I could hear Laura stirring around in her bed then but she waited to get up until I got her up. She was no problem to get ready this morning. The boys even got up without a fuss! Kenni was easy to get ready but James was another story. He didn't want to wear what I had for him and he didn't like the socks I had for him. He wasn't going to eat breakfast this morning either but he finally changed his mind. He finally got over his fuss and the rest of the morning he was fine. Maddi didn't want to get up very easy this morning but she did alright. After everyone got ready we went outside to take pictures. Then it was Kenni's turn to fuss! He was mad because his lunch box was in his way so that just ruined everything. Once we got to school everyone was fine though and they were super excited because they all got to play on the playground together. All of their teachers seem really nice and I think it's going to be a pretty good year!

Look Mom! No Floaties!

For a while now Maddi has been totally capable of swimming with no floaties but she just was scared. For the last few weeks I have managed to get her down to only one floatie. Now yesterday we finally convinced her that she just doesn't need them anymore.

While we were swimming the kids were trying to get on each others backs....It did work so good!

I also wanted to try to get a picture of all the kids together by the pool.....

1st Maddi was crying...

Then she was MAD!

Oh then she was perfectly fine and ready to pose....

Then Kenni was mad...

I finally got them all together and then...

a helicopter just had to fly by and then that was end of taking their picture!!!!!! I tried but unfortunately my children aren't the best at co-operating with me!!!! Oh well...A day in the life of the Ozbirn's!

Almost Double Digits

We celebrated Laura's 9th birthday this week! I can't believe it's been 9 years already since she has been born! She grows up more and more each and every day. This year she made her own cake and it was delicious! She was so excited for her birthday she was up at 5am. Then about noon she asked me where Daddy was and what was taking him so long to get home from work. I told her he wasn't taking so long she just got up too early! She wanted hot wings for dinner so when Daddy got home he made his baby girl hot wings with extra hot sauce! That girl loves her hot sauce that is for sure! While the hot wings were cooking we did presents. We got her rock band so she can have some new songs to sing. After dinner we had cake and played rock band with her. She had a great birthday! Already she is talking about her birthday next year!!!!

Ouch...There's Cactus

Today I took the kids over to the golf course and took some pics of them at the cactus garden. Maddi was scared of the cactus so didn't cop-operate that well and the boys kept running around and stepping in cactus! I couldn't figure out how to make my camera flash so the pics turned out a little darker than I wanted but all in all they are still good pics.