Scouts Awards Ceremony

Last Monday, the scouting group our family is involved in hosted the end of year awards ceremony. The older girls received the badges that go on their vests that they have earned since the last awards ceremony in February. Hailey's group earns beads for a necklace, so she earned the last of her beads to complete the necklace. It is also the ceremony when girls are promoted up to the next group if they are old enough, Hailey was in the kindergarten group this year and she promoted up to the 1st -3rd grade group. Aubrey promoted up to the 4th-6th grade group.
This is Hailey receiving her necklace from her teacher, who looks strangely familiar.
Brynna is singing a song as part of her group's skit. They were demonstrating the things they worked on this year - this song was about the American flag.
Aubrey is sporting the fishing pole she helped make as part of that same skit.
Here Aubrey's putting up her pole and Brynna is demonstrating the etiquette they learned (too bad it hasn't translated to use at home).
If you look closely you can see Brynna coming forward to receive her badges.
This is Aubrey receiving her badges. I have alot of sewing to do.
This is Kora receiving hers. I promise that really is here, I had a bad angle.
The scouts don't call it "promoting" they call it "bridging." We actually have a little wooden bridge on the stage that the girls walk across and join their new group. They also trade in their old vest for the new one (each level group has a slightly different uniform). Before the actually walking across the bridge, Aubrey had a speaking part - a short biography of Sacajawea.
Here Hailey has just walked across the bridge and is being helped putting on her new red vest. She is now in the same group - called the Tenderfoot group - as Brynna.
Aubrey's turn across the bridge.
Her vest is no longer red, she has a blue one like Kora, the second from the left.
Then she goes down the group shaking everyone's hand.
It was a late night, but the girls had a blast. They worked hard this year and really enjoy scouts. It also gives them many opportunities to learn things they wouldn't normally at home. It also lets them do group activities, have friends their age, and get up in front of people. They are already looking forward to scouts starting back up in September!

In-laws

I posted that last weekend my in-laws and parents were in town to attend Kora's piano recital. What I didn't mention was that they both stayed with us. When I told a few people about this beforehand, they expressed surprise. But Kelly and I are extremely blessed to have in-laws who get along very well.

Kelly and I met and started seeing each other our junior year of high school when we lived just a few blocks from each other. We were a steady couple from that point forward, so our parents naturally ran into each other quite a bit. Once we got married and moved out of town, they would get together every once in a while and have dinner together.

My mother even helped my mother in-law organize and decorate my brother-in-law's wedding. (Because his wife immigrated to America to marry him, she didn't have parents around to do that, so my in-laws paid for and organized it.) Since then, my in-laws have moved out of the town we grew up in so they don't see each other as much. But we are very blessed to have been placed in the family God put us in.

Thanks for a great weekend, moms and dads! Too bad I didn't get a picture!

Know what I hate?

Know what's worse than having pimples as a teenager?

YOUR BABY having pimples.

I hate baby acne. That perfect, beautiful skin is just marred by it when all my babies reach a month old. I know it's hormones from me, but I wonder if it's leftover from birth, or is coming through the breastmilk?

Now you can attend Kora's first recital...

Big thanks to my brother-in-law, Tony, for recording this and posting to YouTube!

Kora's First Piano Recital

This weekend, my parents and my in-laws stayed with us to attend Kora's first piano recital. I taught Kora for about a year and a half. Then last fall she started taking from a wonderful woman from a musical conservatory at a local church. She has really blossomed under Penny's tutelage.
We were out of town for the Christmas recital, so Sunday night was Kora's first recital. The conservatory divides all the students into four recitals - two beginner, an intermediate, and one for advanced students. Kora was in the intermediate recital and her teacher says she'll be in the advanced one next year, which is formal. So next year we will be dress shopping for the spring recital!
She performed Pachelbel's Canon in D. She did a fantastic job, making all the adults in attendance cry. That song was played in our wedding, so it was particularly meaningful. We are very proud of all her hard work!

A Modeling Career is Born?

My friend Tiffany makes and sells cloth diapers. She recently needed some "models" sporting the smaller size diapers that her one year old can't wear. So she came over and snapped some pictures of Ashlynn wearing her newborn sized diapers - which Ashlynn then promptly initiated. :-)

Click here for Ashlynn's modeling debut.

Click here if you are interested in purchasing the Longenbottoms cloth diapers.

Odds 'n' Ends

Ashlynn is doing very well, except for a slight tummy problem. Actually, sometimes it is more than a slight problem, and it has changed our easy going, never cries baby into one who fusses so much more, and has trouble staying asleep at times, due to her poor tummy hurting. I'm giving her Mylecon with every feeding, but she still has problems. It also means I'm not getting as much sleep as I was (or Kelly either).

I LOVE having older kids! My two oldest especially have been so great - taking care of breakfast so I can sleep in a little, and pitching in around the house. I should have adopted a 12 year old when Kora was born!

The oldest 5 girls spent most of the weekend at Kelly's brother's house. My in-laws were down at their house to watch my niece's dance recital, and they wanted the girls to come up since Kelly and I weren't going to be able to. So we had about 24 hours of having only one child. It was really weird. And very quiet.

My in-laws brought the girls back after church yesterday afternoon. Then the men went to Sonic to get us hungry females some lunch - none of us had any desire to go out to eat on Mother's Day - and guess what happened? Remember this? Well, my FIL's card wasn't given away, but they did have to take it inside after it had been swiped on the outside and been approved. So my husband has declared he's done with this Sonic and won't go to it anymore. He also has a call into the manager as we have had no end of problems with this particular Sonic. And we've never had problems with other ones.

And a funny: last week we had flipped channels and came across the original Superman movie. Kora came in and watched a few minutes of it and declared:

"This movie looks so... back-then-ish."

Photo Session

Last Thursday my mom and I took the kids to JC Penny's to get Ashlynn's and Brynna's pictures taken (the April birthday girls). I think they turned out very well. This one is probably my favorite.

Here it is in color.

She did a good job on Brynna as well.

Too bad I couldn't afford to get every single one.

It was really hard to narrow it down.

God Gave You to Me

Even though I have now given birth to six babies, Kelly and I are always amazed at how much we forget between babies. When I was pulling out the clothes and diapers before Ashlynn was born, we gaped at how little they were. I had forgotten how much stuff a diaper bag needed to carry. We both forgot how noisy sleeping babies are - all the little grunts, sighs, etc. I forget how many diapers a newborn uses every day.

But I am reminded when Kelly and I sit and marvel at this new little person who has come into our family that we often take life, and children, and family for granted. I know I do. I get caught up in the day to day care and training and teaching of all these girls and forget how I felt when I first held them.

Today Lauryn asked me, "Why did God give us parents?" Of course I gave her the standard answer that God wanted babies to have a mommy and a daddy to take care of them until they got all grown up. Which is fine for a 3 year old, but I wonder how much of it is for the child's benefit and how much of it is for the parents'?

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Ooh sorry. Bad 80's, junior high flash back.

But my mom has left, so in many ways, it is back to reality for me. Of course it is a new reality which involves interrupted nights and lots of time sitting and nursing. But my time of being completely spoiled is over. Not only did my mom's presence allow me to sleep as late as possible in the mornings, she would have breakfast made for the kids and me each morning, and not only made dinner each night, but made many of my favorite desserts.

But she left yesterday after spending nearly 2 weeks here. I can't express how thankful I am for a mom who has the freedom to do that, and a dad who doesn't mind her leaving him for two weeks like that. Thank you both, and I love you!

So today I had to go grocery shopping, as it's back into the kitchen for me, although the girls will be helping out quite a bit. And I have to say that so far, Ashlynn is my easiest going baby. She's very content, a good nurser, and a great sleeper. She's also the most adorable baby ever. Hands down, no competition. Just ask her older sisters. :-)

I Was Wrong

At my trip to the Social Security Office today, I found out it was tied to Ashlynn's birth. (See this post for the full story if you missed it.) The card had been issued so quickly after her birth that I thought there was NO WAY it could have been meant for her - after all, since when does the government move that fast and efficiently? Well, evidently now that you can electronically file for the birth certificate and such, it moves much faster.

So according to the SSA, Ashlynn is not really Ashlynn, but has my name. The question is, what does the birth certificate say? The midwife is going to call Vital Statistics and find out, and we'll go from there. It is correctable, but we have to find out how much to correct. If she has to file a correction on the birth certificate, then we'll have to wait for that to go through before requesting a copy of it. Then we can take it to the SSA and hopefully get everything all straightened out.

Hopefully.

Just What I Need

As if having Sonic give away my check card wasn't enough, now I have something new to deal with.

In yesterday's mail, I received an envelope from the beloved (cough, cough) Social Security Administration. Inside it was a new SS card. And not for Ashlynn, like we assumed. It was for me. Had my full name on it, my address.

But not my Social Security number.

That's right.

I got a new card with a completely different SS number on it. Not good. I call the 800 number, and the lady I spoke with sounded completely surprised (like I'm gonna believe this has never happened before) and told me I would have to take it in to my local SS office and get it straightened out there. And because of the date it was issued, we know it wasn't a mistake tied to Ashlynn's birth and filing for her number.

Wonderful. So on my mom's last day here (tomorrow), I'm gonna have to spend the morning at the SS office trying to figure this mess out. I'm just hoping this doesn't mess us up in other areas, like our credit score. Or put me on the terrorist watch list.

Don't laugh - evidently we homeschooling moms of many are a dangerous lot. (Yes, there's a story here, but it's not my story, so I can't tell it.)