Here is another funny video:

And you can see our new stairs!

May 25 through May 31, 2009

On Memorial Day, Kevin and Savannah and Mariah woke up early and ran in a 5K. Savannah ran it in 25:25 and came in 6th place in her age division. Mariah ran it in 29:35 and placed first in her age division. A day of triumph for the Skinners! We are looking forward to the Art City Days race this weekend where we will all run!

Memorial Day was a beautiful, cloudless, green and blue day. We packed a picnic lunch and took it to a field where we played a family game of softball. It was great fun. We decided to record Beth's new trick while we were there -- clapping her hands!

This was the last week of school and of preschool. On Thursday we had preschool graduation. Here are our distinguished graduates:

Cheyenne

Calianne

And here is the 2009 graduating class of Brookside's Neighborhood Preschool:

On Friday night we took the kids out to eat at Arctic Circle (their choice!) to celebrate all their hard work during the school year. It was great fun.

Kevin has been invited to join a men's softball team here in Springville. He started playing this week and is really enjoying it. I haven't gotten a chance to watch him, yet, but I'm looking forward to it! He played twice this week. Megan played once and got to pitch again. They won! She got a lot of people out. It was fun!

Next week, I'm going to have each of the older girls start keeping a blog to practice their writing skills over the summer. If you want to follow any of them and give them some encouraging comments, here are their blog addresses:

Savannah storiesoflandsfaraway.blogspot.com

Sarah thissupersummer.blogspot.com

Megan gigglerthoughts.blogspot.com

Mariah the5Krunner.blogspot.com

Mariah just has one for fun, so it might not get updated very frequently. Savannah's is a blog she already started once. I don't know if she'll use it for her summer writing or if she'll start a new blog. If she does, I will let you know!

SUMMER STARTS FOR REAL TOMORROW!!! Ready or not . . .

On Friday, Sarah's fifth grade class performed several reader's theatres. Sarah got to be Narrator Three in The Paper Bag Princess -- which is one of my favorite storybooks, ever! She did great and had a fun time. We had a fun time watching her! Here is a (dark) video if you want to watch her, too:

On Saturday, we went to see our 6 foot tall, 14 year-old cousin from Idaho, Jacob, play in a baseball tournament in nearby Lehi. We were told that it is the biggest tournament this side of the Mississippi. They have a fantastic team and it was fun to watch. My girls are used to watching softball, of course. Mariah asked me, "Why are they playing with those antique balls?" Funny, huh?

Speaking of softball, this was Megan's first week of games! She got to be the pitcher in the first game of the year. It was so fun to watch her! Kevin has been working hard with her and the practice has paid off. She is going to be great!

She is our only player this year, but Savannah has signed on as an Umpire! I think it is so cool. She gets to use her knowledge of the game, still be involved, AND have a paid job when she is 13! She got to do her first two games this week. We practiced having her call strikes and balls behind the plate, but they just had her work out in the field calling safes and outs. She still has a pretty impressive bellow and she had a great time. She always has liked being in charge and telling people what to do, after all. :)

It has finally warmed up here and I got out the flipflops. Calianne was very excited. Cheyenne has always had difficulty walking in flipflops. When I got them out of the closet, Cali tried them on and asked if they were the ones that belonged to her. Cheyenne said, "Do they fall off, Cali? Because if they fall off, then they are mine." Funny, huh? It is the shoes that are dysfunctional!!!

This week we had two recitals and a concert. First was the concert. Savannah has been in the 7th grade choir this semester and just loving it. Here is her in her cool choir t-shirt and her even cooler homemade earrings (they match the neon-green lettering of her shirt):



That's her in the middle doing her "solo" of three people:

And here she is on the piano helping with "The Rythm of the Rain!":

It was great fun and I think it's neat she finally gets to be in a choir since she has always found joy in singing!

Later that same night, the twins had a recital for their Let's Play Music class. Here they are playing "Do-Re-Mi" on the bells:

Here they are with the rest of the class, getting ready to sing:

They loved being in their own recital! What beautiful girls!

The other recital was a piano recital on Saturday night. I forgot the camera, but Sarah and Savannah both played two pieces and they did really well! Afterward, we all went out to eat at Sizzler. It was a fun evening for us!

We also got our garden planted this week (complete with watering system -- the secret to success!) We've planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, squash, pumpkin, spaghetti squash, green beans, watermelon, and cantalope. I think it might really be summer!!!!! Yippee!

Week of May 4 to May 10

Well, the new rage at the Skinner house is Webkinz! The amazing thing is that from Savannah all the way down through the twins -- they all like to play and want their own Webkinz from the store. These little stuffed animals are available at the store with a code that allows you to sign on in the website and create a home for your pet and play games with your pet and dress your pet, etc. etc. Apparently, it's great fun and of course, you can't have too many. On Friday night, Kevin took me out so I could pick out my mother's day gifts and we passed a display of said toys. When I showed them to Kevin he said, "Should I buy one for each of them?" I said, "If you do, they will think you are the best dad in the whole world!" So he did and they did. He is a softie. He says it was for Mother's day since they will all be mothers some day. That's one nice guy, huh?

Calianne was playing Webkinz the other day and she came running into the kitchen and yelled, "MOM! GUESS WHAT! GUESS WHAT! I GOT AN 80 ON WEBKINZ!" Then she ran in and said, "SARAH! SARAH! GUESS WHAT! GUESS WHAT! I GOT AN 80 ON WEBKINZ!" Finally, she ran to Savannah (we were all within about 15 feet of each other) and said, "GUESS WHAT! GUESS WHAT!" Savannah decided to wager a guess, "You got 80 on Webkinz?" "YES!" Calianne gushed. Then she ran back toward the computer and we heard her say, "She is a good guesser!" Funny, huh?

I can't show you any pictures this week since the camera is still broken, but I can describe Bethany to you. She is crawling everywhere now, including up the stairs, but not down. When she wants me to pick her up, she does this thing where she shows me how distressed she is by crying and squeezing her eyes shut. The funny part is when she opens her eyes to see if I am watching and if I am, she squeezes her eyes shut again with more crying. Such drama!

Last week, when we were on our way back from St. George, we stopped in Beaver to see the gravesite of Daniel Tyler, an ancestor of Kevin's. As we walked through the cemetary, Cheyenne had her hand in mine and she was talking about when people die and then God will bring them back to life. She said, "God just needs to put the batteries back in. Right, Mom?" That sounds pretty close to me.

If I had the camera, I would have taken pictures at Sarah's Hershey Track Meet which was this week. She ran the 800 and the 200. She has been running all the way around Brookside (about .7 mile) for two months so that she could do well. It was so exciting to see her work hard at something and want to do well. She ran it in her best time ever. She didn't place, but her dad and I see a winner in all her hard work and her personal victory.

Savannah had her last track meet this past Friday in the form of District finals. The meet was all day long. Savannah ran the mile in 6:35 and then ran the final leg of the medley which is 800 meters. It was fun to watch her. I think she had fun, too.

So today was Mother's Day and it's been nice. I love the cards the most. Mariah's card says she loves me and thanks for lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast and then tells me of the card, "You better take care of this safely." It is a very pretty card. I think she worked very hard on it!

Megan wrote on her card, "Hope I can do any thing to help since you always help me. Love, Megan." After I read it she said, "I was going to put that I'd even help with dishes, but then I decided not to because I really hate doing the dishes!" You gotta love that unconditional promise, huh? Funny!

Savannah and Sarah wrote me very nice things, too and, of course, my Kevin B. who I love very much.

I hope all is well with all of you. Happy Mother's Day!

Jake's Wedding

Look! Here's a copy of that picture I was telling you about!

Week of April 27 to May 3

Here's our track star! Savannah had a meet at Springville High, behind our house, so of course, we all went to watch. She's been running the mile. She ran it just under 7 minutes. That was on Tuesday. On Friday she had another meet -- her last before the district meet next week. The coaches announced that if she wanted to be in the race where she could earn points for her team, she'd have to run the mile in 6:30 or less. Just give the girl a goal, I guess! She ran it in 6:31 and her coaches said they'd let her in. One more week of track! It's been fun!

This weekend we went to St. George to see Kevin's brother, Jake, get married to his girlfriend Sarah. She looked stunning and the setting was very beautiful, next to a pool with Southern Utah's red cliffs in the back. I wish I could show you a picture, but my camera got dropped on the concrete while we were at aforementioned trackmeet and for some reason, it doesn't work anymore! It is really too bad, because it was an almost complete gathering of Kevin's Dad's side of the family. We saw uncles and aunts and cousins and Grandmas and Grandpas, too! Maybe someone will send us a copy of that picture they took of all of us! That would be grand, indeed.

After the wedding, there was a reception and we got to visit with the family while our girls took the opportunity to swim in the indoor pool next door. We stayed there that night in a super nice three-room condo. What comfort and convenience, eh?

On the way home, we got to stop by my sister, Margaret's house in Cedar City. My brother-in-law, Rick graduated with his bachelor's degree this weekend. Kudos to Rick! So, we got to see my sister and her family, and because of the graduation, we also got to see my mom and dad and my sister Amy's family again. How fun for us!

As for our basement project, I didn't get as far as I'd hoped. It turned out that I taught preschool, so I had less time and I didn't get to the project until Friday. Then I ran into an obstacle in the form of old carpet glue. I will tackle it again this week.

Preschool was letter V. What fun since we could do V is for Violin! We looked at the violin and I played it and we read stories about fiddlers. We made a little pipe-cleaner guy with a paper fiddle. On Thursday we learned about a full orchestra. Then we sidetracked a little and did V is also for Vine and we read Jack and the Beanstalk and then made dandelion curly vines in the backyard. It was fun AND it was my last time teaching this year! Wow! I can sit back and relax for the rest of the month!

I also got to spend some one-on-one time with Sarah this week. We went to my favorite store and got her some clothes for summer. It was good for us to have a whole afternoon together! She is such a terrific girl.