Pranks and Art Galleries

Ally has been getting a LOT of recognition for her art work. She's won multiple awards, including a gold key for a charcoal landscape which was then sent on to a national competition. She's really amazing. And to top it all off, she has some of her pieces in the local gallery as artist of the month! We organized a reception for her on Sunday, May 5th to celebrate her accomplishments. 

This is Ally and her teacher Mrs. Lynn Felts who has helped Ally immensely with her artwork since she started classes at the high school two years ago. Notice my beautiful cookies! I slaved over those babies for several hours... I hate making cookies. 

The art she decided to display was based on her family collection. 

Everyone loved it! 

We had so many people show up during the 2 hour reception. I couldn't get over how proud I was of her! 

More of her artwork was displayed in the hallway. 

Jace admired the wall very much. 

Emma dislikes events like this... so she hid in the back and ate cookies. Smart girl. 

 

Some of the artwork we didn't really "get." But it looked cool! I would put that in my house. 

Overall, the cookies were delicious and the art was amazing. How much better could it get? 

The next day, we pulled a prank on Kyle, a friend of ours. 

He sometimes leaves his truck in a parking lot while he's at work, which is way too tempting for us. 

We had been talking about a previous prank he had pulled on a friend in which he had taken a nasty couch and left it in the bed of his friend's truck. Ally decided we should pull the same prank on him! 

So, we called up another friend, Drew, and had him help us load up the couch on our trailer.

That thing was gross. It had all sorts of bugs on the bottom and a couple unidentifiable stains on the cushions... It was almost perfect!

But, not quite gross enough. We ran into Walmart and grabbed some catfish stink bait. 

Now, it's perfect. 

We even left him a small peace offering of Juicy Fruit gum!

We were hot and sweaty when we finished, but satisfied with a job well done. 

Unfortunately, pranking isn't on our bucket list. How did we miss that one?! 

*UPDATE: I totally left you hanging on the prank! Here's what happened afterwards... 

Kyle came back from work and saw the chalk first. Then the couch. After laughing for several minutes, he drove by the clinic where my dad and I were working to show us the trick "someone" had pulled on him. I played along for a bit and pretended I didn't know who did it... Until he began to blame Drew. I couldn't hold it in after that. I confessed that Ally and I had been involved in the trick and then helped him dump the couch before his 4-H meeting. I consider it a success! 

Oh Jonah!

 

 

Hi! This is Julie with a quick update.  I haven't posted anything on the blog for a LONG time - it's good to be back. 

This afternoon with just one child at home, I thought I would be getting lots done around here...but no.  Here's how one little boy has dominated my life today - in a sweet way - of course!

 

How did I not notice what he was doing? I must have been in my own little world!

 

Oh, that's right.  I was so disgusted by what I saw in the trash can that I immediately had to clean out the growing masses of mold in the bottom.

 

He's done with the flour and onto bowling with cups from the sippy cup drawer.

 

I have learned in my years as a mother to just grab the camera when I feel like crying! :)

So that's what I did.

Have a great weekend!!

#35

We have officially checked off #35 on our summer bucket list! Just in case you haven't memorized our list - which we are expecting you all to do - #35 is braiding flower crowns. This one is kinda sentimental for us because we did this all the time when we were kids. When we were younger, Ally, Emma, and I would get so upset because we didn't understand why our grandpa was mowing down all the beautiful purple flowers in his backyard! Years later, when the magic faded, we realized that they are, in fact, weeds. I still maintain that they are exceptionally pretty weeds nonetheless.

We began our search for the magical purple weed/flowers. It didn't take us long to find a giant patch of them in a local park.

As you can tell from the picture, they climbed a tree. This would count as #15 (climb trees), but we didn't climb more than one (trees), and I did not climb a single one. So, that's still on the list. 

Try to ignore the big blue blur... I was having some visual problems... 

Look at us in our magical purple flower/weed crowns! This is sisterly bonding if I've ever seen it. 

Thanks for reading! Keep track of our bucket list by clicking this link - Summer 2013 Bucket List

Prom - 2013

Most girls at 11:00 a.m. on prom morning are getting their nails done, fixing hair, and getting anxious about whether or not they're going to trip on their dress. 

We cleaned the house. 

I just made it sound a lot worse than it actually was... It wasn't bad! This is a really short list for us. When you split up a list this long among 7 kids, there isn't much to do at all. One of the perks of having  a large family! Soon, we were starting on hair and makeup. 

At one point we had 11 people crowded into our bathroom to watch the preparations. It was enjoyable craziness! 

I did Ally's hair, which I was nervous about because she has extremely thick, very long, silky hair! It's absolutely gorgeous... but a giant pain to fix! It turned out well though, if I do say so myself! 

I curled my hair and then Emma pinned it back. She learned this from Pinterest. It was so pretty! She did a great job. :) 

By 4:30, the food was ready and people were beginning to arrive. It was time to make our grand entrance! 

Katie coordinated with my dress! How cool is that? In case you didn't know, we got our dresses at Goodwill! Mine cost all of $25. Turns out... I didn't actually get to wear it. But you'll get to read about that in a few minutes. 

Annelise's hair took a little longer than planned... 

Eli (her date) waited patiently for her like a perfect gentleman. 

Everyone was telling us to pose... We're good at that. 

We all felt like paparazzi were hounding us! So. Many. Cameras. 

He must be thinking, "Yeah... She can't do this. She's going to hurt me with this pin."

...And he would be right. I couldn't do it. In my defense, I was the first girl to try it. So I did pretty well! 

Awww... They are so well coordinated! 

So cute! All that waiting was not in vain! 

Walking in heel in the grass is NOT fun or easy. But at least we were looking good! 

Work it, boys. Model those tuxes/suits. 

Dad was being goofy and pushing our dates away. 

Ha. Haha. Good one, Dad. 

I got bored of pictures... so I kicked off my sparkly, gold heels to play some catch with my little bro. 

We LOVE him! 

This is our sweet ride. I had a slight (ok, HUGE) dress mishap when we were practicing getting out of it. My whole zipper in the back split open. Maybe buying a dress at Goodwill wasn't such a "good" idea? 

Did you get my pun?! Yeah... it wasn't great. You should laugh out of sympathy. 

                                          

Being the Goodwill-ers we are, we have practically stock-piled our closet with formal gowns! Just kidding... but I did have 2 that I could pick from. I ran home and changed in about 5 minutes. Dancers are used to speed changes. I got this... 

I am so thankful Kyle and his mom couldn't find a tie to match my ruined dress. God is great! 

Even with the little things. :) 

Finally, we were ready to head to the prom! 

What a snazzy group we were. Even with all the chaos and wardrobe malfunctions, we weren't last in the line-up! We were close... but we weren't last. Yes! 

Overall, it was a great night! We danced, ate chocolate covered strawberries, and had a fantastic time with good friends. It's a night I will never forget!