Mills Moments: 2013

6/18/13

First week of summer.

We had a great first week of summer. On Monday I had a meeting for Young Women's then we went to the pool with some friends. The kids had so much fun! I was happy to get some sunshine. :) This pool is just in Canyon and was pretty fun. Our gym in Amarillo has an outdoor pool that is really fun! We went there Saturday as a family and had a blast. We plan on spending lots of time there this summer. They have a fun kids area where the water is just over a foot deep with a slide and guns that you can shoot water at people with. There is also a fun splash pad and big slides for older kids. Emma really wants to learn how to swim this year so we spent most of our time on the deep side while Ivan and Levi played on the kiddie side. We were too busy playing to take any pictures that day though.

Emma got way cold...because it is ALWAYS windy in Texas!

He had a blast!

This is my buddy Hunter.

He had a good time too.

We spent lots of time at the park that week and the kids love just playing in the backyard. Rollie Pollie's are the new favorite way to spend our time. Emma collects whole families of them and Levi likes to bring them in the house to play....and break them in half. :(

Levi and Emma both smashed their fingers in our back door one day. The wind was blowing just right to slam the door as they tried to come in the house. Levi just lost some skin....Emma ended up with a black pinky that we later found out on an x-ray is fractured. Her nail is going to fall off and we had to torture her by sticking a hot needle through the nail to drain it. It is looking much better now though and it doesn't seem to bother her anymore.

I have been VERY busy getting ready for girls camp and am so excited to leave next week! I am the camp director this year and am very grateful that it is stake camp. We have lots of things to do to get ready but it is going to be worth it! I made these cute bags for my girls to put their journals (which I am also making) in and their camp books and scriptures. I used a paper doily as a stencil and free handed their initials for the monogram. Our theme is S.M.I.L.E so I included that as well. It stands for surrounding myself in light everyday. I took these pictures at night with my cell...they are much cuter in person.

I had our leaders draw names for secret sisters this year and am way excited about it. My secret sister is Sister Harmon. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met! I know she enjoys sewing so I made her a cute sewing kit in a mason jar. I put batting on the lid and covered it with some scrap fabric I had so the top is a pin cushion. Inside I put the contents of a small sewing kit I got at the dollar store, safety pins and a cut pink measuring tape.

For the second day I made these super cute bobby pins. Brittaney usually has her hair pulled back in a ponytail and uses bobby pins to hold her hair back. I just used bobby pins and buttons I had at home. I slid a round piece of felt into the bobby pin and then glued it to the button. Then I just cut a cute piece of scrapbook paper and put them on it. :)

Brittaney is moving the first week in August so for the last gift I wanted to make her something to put in her home to remind her of us. The young women theme this year is "Standing in Holy Places." I bought this little frame at the dollar store and found the printable on pinterest. I used ribbon and a little flower that I had at home to dress up the frame.

Grandma Marjie will be here a week from today to watch the kids and they can hardly wait! Emma is counting down the days. :) Ivan is my hero and is coming to camp to be one of our priesthood leaders for the week. Our camp this year is 5 hours away so it is hard to get priesthood leaders that can travel that far or stay that long. He is serving as the first counselor in the Young Mens presidency right now and the other priesthood leader that is coming is our Young Mens president so they should have a good time.

5/31/13

Emma finished 1st grade!

Miss Emalee is sure growing up! Here are pictures I took of the first and last day of first grade. She has grown a ton! She lost inches of hair and gained a few teeth! You can also see the drastic difference between Washington grass and Texas grass. I miss grass you can actually walk on barefoot. ha!

She brought home a cute book called "My school memories." It has some awesome art work and lists losts of her favorite things. One page has a cute quote that says, "Throughout my life, I'll change my mind, Our "growing" is never done, but just for now, while I am 7, these are my NUMBER ONES!

Number one song: Book of Mormon Stories 3.

Number one color: Blue

Number one book: Hank (Hank the cow dog)

Number one TV show: Spongebob (The only thing she could think of! ha!)

Number one dessert: Chocolate Cake

Number one place to shop: Hobby Lobby (That's my girl!)

Number one Holiday: Memorial day. (because it was most recent I assume.) :)

Number one subject in school: Bre (This cracks me up! Apparently Emma is queen and Bre is her subject?)

Number one toy or game: Carebear and Mario

Number one snack: Yogurt Raisins

Number one famous person: Justin Bieber (Not that she knows anything about him. lol)

Number one word: Family

Number one movie: Monster High

Number one thing that plugs in: Radio (She listens to primary songs EVERY day.)

Number one vacation: Grandma's House

Number one animal: Cheetah

Number one smell: Rain

Number one candy: Reese's Pieces

Number one sports team: Aggies (Daddy has brain washed her. She said it's the only team she has cheered for.)

Number one hobby: Making things

Number one thing to collect: Acorns (This was easier to do in Washington)

Here is a picture of her Forever Friends page. She picked all 3 people from primary. haha Duke and Lillie are both in her school class as well. The picture of Jordan on the top is his cool red bunkbed and him. The picture of Duke is Emma at Piano lessons and Duke asking if she can play outside...and her teacher of course. The picture on the bottom is of Lillie at recess. She has made some great friends here in Texas and we are grateful for them all.

And of course she is a straight A student! She was lucky enough to have 2 great teachers this year. Mrs. Wilson in Washington was so sweet and was really sad when we moved. Miss Musgrave has been great and was happy to have Emma move into her class. We are grateful for good teachers. Emma is an excellent reader and is very fast! We are so proud of our smart little 1st grade graduate. :)

5/15/13

Birthday Pictures

These two little kids are growing up! Emma turned 7 years old in April and I can't believe it. She is as smart as can be and has a very sweet demeanor...most of the time. :) She is doing very well in school and has straight A's. She is beyond the reading level they test for first grade and has been for months. She has great comprehension and reads fast! She is also good at math and loves science. She has struggled with handwriting a little bit because they are learning a different style of writing here in Texas than what she learned in Washington. When she started writing she liked to write in all caps and I didn't really care because she was writing! Now it is a little bit of a problem but she has made great improvements this year. For mothers day last week we made cards for all of our Grandma's and Emma wrote the messages for the inside. My dad didn't believe that it was Emma's handwriting so it must not be too bad. Can't figure out how to make the picture straight. Sorry!

Emma is also taking piano lessons again here in Texas. Her teacher is our Bishop's wife and we love her. She is very technical and really stresses Emma learning timing and the notes. She has made a lot of improvement and I think she really likes playing the piano. She does love to challenge me when it is time to practice and acts like I am torturing her though. :) We have a new neighbor girl next door who is a year older than Emma whose name is Emily. Emma wants to play with her every day and the rule is she has to do her chores, practice piano and have homework done before she can play. It has really helped to have an incentive.

Emma loves to play with her little brother and they have a lot of fun together. We have a fenced in back yard at the house we are in now and they love to be outside. The weather here is so different from Washington. It is HOT right now and it is only May. We have seen temps as high as 97 degrees already. The crazy part is a storm will come in and the temp will drop 50 degrees over night! Emma only has two and half weeks of school left though and we are ready to play in the sunshine!

Levi turned 3 the beginning of March. He has so much personality we don't know what to do with him! He adores his big sister and asks all day long if we can "get Emma at school." He just got tested last week to get into the speech program at the school and is very qualified. haha The speech teacher says he is very smart and can make all of the sounds she asks him to but he needs a lot of help with articulation. He leaves off the beginning, end and middle of words. Mostly he just uses vowel sounds. His teacher says he speaks very much like someone that couldn't hear. He has made a lot of improvement with his speech since we got tubes in his ears last August. He is pretty sensitive to loud noises now and always covers his ears. I can understand most of what Levi says but I spend all day with him. His first speech appointment was on Monday and he loved it. He was so excited that he got to go to school. He will go Mondays and Fridays and it is just for half an hour. He only has two weeks until they finish for the school year. I might get him into a summer speech program through the college here in Canyon.
Levi is also a very funny boy. He loves to laugh and tease. He has the best belly laugh! He has decided to be pretty independent. This week he got ice cream all over his face from an ice cream cone. Ivan picked him up and took him to the sink to clean him up and he got really mad! He ran back over to his ice cream cone and smeared it all over his face so he could wash up himself! He is pretty sure of what he wants. We potty trained Levi right after his birthday. It was a breeze! By the end of the first day he would tell me he needed to go potty and we even went to a friend's house that night without any accidents. He has also been completely night time trained and hasn't had any accidents. He is a normal kid and has had a few random days where it seemed like he didn't know what or where the potty even was...but they have been very few.
We did a photo shoot last night for both of their birthdays. I love to take pictures and it helps that I have such adorable little models. Ivan found this cool abandoned train depot that was perfect. Enjoy!