My Cell City by Kyler Meredith

The assignment: to make an analogy of the parts of the cell. Kyler compared a cell to a city. I thought it turned out fabulous!

SYTYCD in ATL

It was so AWESOME!!!!
You can read more about our fun night here.

Crazy fun with duct tape on a Sunday afternoon

Yes, they came up with this all on their own.....

Priceless

Tonight before bed I was helping Kierstyn with her talk for the Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation. One of the last lines of her talk was: When I get in bed at night and snuggle with my covers, I think about all that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given me and I think about how I can help take care of those things. As she was dictating and I was typing, she stopped and said, "This doesn't really have to be true, does it?" (meaning that she really thinks about these things when she goes to bed). I suggested that if she went to bed tonight and thought about those things then it would be true. :)

So she headed to bed with a sticky note list of things to think about. This is how I found her when I went up an hour later to check on her:

4th place

Kierstyn placed 4th in the Cross Country meet today! It was sooooooo hot, too (apparently it was a record high). Way to go, Sis!

Kierstyn's Birthday Money Breakdown

Remember The Meredith Birthday Party Plan 2010? Back in March when we implemented this, I was already dreading September. Why? Because I just knew that Kierstyn would want to plan a huge, labor-intensive, creative party (that girl has been making big plans since the day she was born!). She had 6 long months to plot and plan ideas for her birthday party--eeek!

But you wanna know the CrAzY thing? She decided not to have a birthday party at all. Of course we had a birthday cake in M'boro with cousin Mia. And then she took our whole family out to the Japanese steakhouse for her birthday dinner (her favorite!). On Friday (yes, 2 weeks after her birthday) she decided to have a good friend spend the night. We got a cookie cake, ice cream, M&Ms, and a movie. That qualifies as a "party," right?
Easiest birthday party of the three. Who would've guessed?!

Kierstyn's birthday money breakdown:
cake w/ Mia $15
dinner @ Ichiban $60
cookie cake $8
ice cream $4
M&Ms $3
movie $5
--------
$95

...and the girl has $105 spending money left over!

random pictures...and the stories to go with them

This project has been quite popular in the blog-o-sphere as of late....we used this blog and this blog as inspiration when we framed the mirrors in our master bathroom a couple months ago. Here is my mirror:and here is Kelly's:There are several different ways you can do this but we opted for the easy way (no 45 degree angle cuts) and we're quite happy with them. They make such a huge difference! We're going to do the mirrors in the kids' bathrooms, too, but first we have to tile the backsplash.



Trevin's spelling words this week....Scrabble Spell is one of his favorite spelling homework assignments. :)


Kierstyn's new shoes...bought at the mall (I don't do malls).


Look! I finished my picture wall!
and this cutie jumped in my shot :)


Remember how I said I don't do malls? Well I actually went to the mall 2 times in the same week! My friend and I are going to the So You Think You Can Dance tour in ATL in a couple of weeks so we went shopping. Here's a sneak peek.....The rest of the outfit involves a black shrug, new jeans, a fun dangly necklace, and these c-u-t-e new shoes I found at Marshalls today!
...for only $10!!!!!

blah blah blah

Yesterday was a completely unscheduled Saturday for us, meaning there was absolutely nothing we had to do. Those kind of Saturdays are extremely rare around here, like they only come around twice a year (if that). So what did we do? Slept in, read, recycled, went to the mall so Kierstyn could get some new shoes, shopped at Sams, went for a walk while the kids played at the playground, and played games! So nice.

Just made reservations in Orlando for Fall Break! YaY! We'll be there 3 full days and part of 2 more days. Any suggestions/helpful hints?

My to-do list for tomorrow: exercise, mow the grass, stop at Walmart for more spray paint, finish the "picture wall" I've been working on, type poems for Kyler's English teacher, laundry, vacuum, mop the kitchen floor, and feed the kids something besides popcorn and hotdogs for dinner. Who thinks I'll really get all of that done?!

My Primary lesson today was on talents. I contacted all the moms and had them list their child's talents and then we played a game where I listed all the talents and the kids had to guess who I was talking about. They loved it! Trevin is in my class and this is what I listed as his talents: fast runner, good athlete, super singer, uses good manners, good reader, and good older cousin. :)

Kyler is finished with Cross Country; Kierstyn's season just started. She came in 8th place at her meet last week. Trevin is taking a tennis class on Wed. nights while the other 2 are at piano lessons. He likes it. It's so fun to sit back and watch him....he's such a "teacher pleaser"--he always runs to collect the most balls. And speaking of teachers, Trevin LOVES his teacher (at school). He says he wishes he could go to school on Saturdays, too.

Bugs in the house.....eeeeeeeewwwww!!!!

I'm going shopping this week with my fashion stylist (KC, I need a LOT of help!). We're going to the SYTYCD tour later this month and I need something fashionable to wear so they'll let me in the door.

I wonder if I will ever finish my blog book from 2009. I was almost finished with it when my computer crashed in January of this year. It took me almost 6 months to get over it and start over. I think I'm up to July now. The good news is that I'm up-to-date with 2010 so I'm actually not that far behind.

I don't think my dishwasher is working. The dishes are NOT getting clean.

I finished To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday. I've read it before but it's been a looong time. I think every parent should read it. Atticus Finch is such a good example of how to treat your children. I'm looking forward to renting the movie this week.

It is 9:24pm on a school night. Why are my children not asleep????

Double Digits

Kierstyn is 10!

French toast for breakfast...
(The french toast was great; the melted wax from the candles in the french toast was not--oops!)

We had cake in M'boro last Sat., then went to the Japanese steak house for birthday dinner on Monday night. Her actual birthday was spent going to school, at cross country practice, piano lessons, and then hitting tennis balls. I did manage to sneak in a cupcake when we got home. :)
Happy Birthday, Sweet Kierstyn!!!
We love you!

Mia's baptism

We were in M'boro for Mia's baptism Saturday. What a beautiful girl! Kierstyn gave a talk on the Holy Ghost.Afterwards we celebrated with pizza and cake. Mia was sweet to share her special celebration with Kierstyn....so the cake was for both of them.

Happy Birthday, girls!!!

Star Triathlon

Kelly did the Star Triathlon in Manchester on Saturday. We were even there to cheer him on (and take pictures) this time! Of course he was AwEsOmE! :)

(not) Made in the USA

It has recently come to my attention that my family does weird things at the dinner table. Like concoct smoothies with odd ingredients and play "Guess what's in this smoothie." Our all-time favorite dinner game is the "Take something off the table" game...I'll tell you about it some (other) time.

Lately we have been checking our clothes--while sitting at the dinner table--to see where they were made. And then of course we have to locate each country on the map (which is conveniently located adjacent to the dinner table.....I am always looking for an opportunity to educate my children.) :)

Look at all these places!

Mexico
Madagascar
Indonesia
El Salvador
China
Haiti
Bangladesh
India
Pakistan
Peru
Honduras
Nicaragua
Vietnam
USA (Trevin's undies!) :)
Malaysia
Thailand
Sri Lanka
Hong Kong
Laos
Dominican Republic

And tonight at the dinner table, I (all of us, actually) discovered a country I had never ever in my entire life heard of: Lesotho. I had to Google it to even figure out where it was.



Does anybody else do weird things at the dinner table?!