I had a wild hair

Jeremy left for scout camp on Monday and I went right to work on his room. My original intent was to tidy up and remove the nice layer of dust that he was collecting. I was going to wash the curtain and then I went a little crazy. I got a wild hair and revamped his whole room. Here is what I started with and how Jeremy's room looks now.

This is Jeremy's prized shelf. Only his most important treasure go here. There are soccer medals, football and basketball trophies. He also has a nice bobble head collection and other little do-dads he likes. Shhhh.... don't tell him I dropped his Ben Wallace and broke his head off.

Jeremy has the smallest room in the house so fitting everything in is not easy. This is his cramped desk/guitar area.

This is his bed and I love that we have his drawers underneath. My mom spent a very long time making his quilt and the baseball theme has been in his room for 9 or more years.

This is just a closer look at the guitar corner.

This is an up close of his border.

These are the Norman Rockwell pictures that I absolutely love. They are in a dark green frame.

So these panels are two pillows, the curtains and the front of a blanket. The all baseball side is the back to the blanket.

The after pictures.

I had all of his favorite pictures in black frames already so they look really nice on the light gray walls.

I picked up these posters at the local guitar shop and found the red frames at Wal-Mart on clearance for 5 bucks. I love how they pop on the black wall. They look a little dark but I couldn't get a good picture without some sort of glare.

I had to leave the sports shelf and the Michigan sign even though they don't quite go with the rock look. Jeremy is all about sports and to leave them out would just be wrong. He has a black chair for his desk but I forgot to get it out of the closet when I took the picture.

His most favorite books and his shell collection. I also hung a row of silver hooks for his hoodie collection. I even left room for the two that are at camp with him.

I moved his bed and it really opened up his floor space. Now I don't have to listen to him kick the wall at night (my room is on the other side of the black wall).

This is the fabric I used for 2 pillows and his curtains. When I was in line at the fabric store there was a young 20 year old guy in line with his mom. I asked him that if he was 12 would he like the fabric for curtains. I told him about the wall colors and what I was doing in the room. He said yes it was perfect fabric then turned to his mom and said "I only had white walls in my room." I got cool mom points, yeah!

I used this fabric for 2 pillows because Jeremy is a musician. He plays the guitar and the cello and loves all types of music. I hope he likes his new room.

Stop Growing Already!!!

The measurements are in and the results are as follows. Yes, the picture doesn't lie, Jeremy is taller than Emily. We measure every July and this year Jeremy grew 3 1/2 inches to a total of 64 1/2 inches. Emily grew a whopping 3/8 of an inch (not quite a half inch) for a total of 63 7/8 inches. She wants me to just tell everyone that she is 64 inches. I think Emily is done growing and Jeremy is just getting started.

One HOT day

The 4Th of July was a real scorcher with temps at 91 and the heat index at 98. Very unusual for Michigan. We have gone to the Henry Ford Greenfield village for the last several years with my aunt and cousin. We always have a good time catching up with each other and the girls are old enough to go walk around together without us getting too worried. The gates open at 6:00 and it is craziness when that happens because everyone wants to get the best place to lay out their blankets. We have learned from years past that we send a scout, aka Rob, to jog out to the field and reserve our spot. That way I can walk with out getting injured and bring the rest of the chairs and cooler in the wagon.

From 6:00 to 7:30 we have dinner and veg out. This is Emily "dying" from the heat. I am so glad I packed the cooler with ice cold water because they were charging $3.00 a bottle.

I wish this was a good book he was reading but it is a sports joke book.

At 7:30 the River Raisin Ragtime Revue plays until 8:00. They are really good.

As the colors are posted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra plays the national anthem. The DSO plays from 8:30 - 10:30. One of my favorite parts is when they play the songs from the armed forces and as they play they asked those who have served or who are serving in that branch to stand to be recognized. It makes me so proud to be an American! At about 10:00 the fireworks start and we have never been disappointed.

Emily took this picture as the sun finally went behind the clouds for the night. It was still in the high 80's at 9:00.

This is Emily and Sarah. They are 15 months apart in age and we have been doing fun things together since they were very little.

Mission Possible

This years youth conference was lots of fun. On the first day they split the kids into groups so you may or may not have known some of the people in your group. Emily was so excited about her group. She got to make new friends and get to know others better. One of the games was to pass and orange from one person to the next only using your chin. No hands allowed and you had to stand on a thin board with out falling off.

Emily and Kira had some problems but they finally got it.

Then Emily passed it along to Devin. Their team won this challenge.

They had to do a 3 legged race so when it was their turn Devin grabbed Emily's free leg and carried her to the finish.

One of the fun things they did was go to a local go cart/putt putt golf place. They closed the place for the 100 + youth that attended. This is the sign out front and Emily acting silly. She felt she had to do something because of the UPS car.

Most likely to be a ninja?

So at the band awards they had mock elections and Emily got most likely to be a ninja. I have come to learn that ninja is a game that they play in band during their free time. It is played by hitting a persons hand in one motion and not get hit by another person. I don't get it but from what I heard you have to be stealth and ninja like. So this is Emily and Chaz doing a ninja move for me.

At the end of the awards the two old drum majors hand off the maces to the new drum majors. It is a whole routine that is cool but I only caught the last movement of the new drum majors.

The kids move so quickly across the stage that this is all I could catch of Emily as she picked up one of her awards.

What can you buy with those $10.00 coupons?

I love getting those $10.00 cash coupons from Kohl's and JC Penney's. The kids and I scour the stores to find just the right things to use our coupons on. We did really good this trip. We purchased $76.00 in merchandise and only ended up paying $16.33 out of pocket. That's $59.67 in savings. So this is what we found.

All of the kids at school are sporting these hats that they have given a cute name to. They are no longer fedoras they are now fedora spunk hats. I have never heard them referred to as this name but when Emily came home with hers I had to take Jeremy to get one for himself.

Jeremy's isn't part of our savings but he did get a $20.00 hat for $5.99.

Kohl's had all of these earrings and bracelets at a steal on the clearance rack. We spent the most out of pocket here, $12.95 for 9 pairs of earrings and more than a dozen bracelets.

This bracelet and Emily's fedora hat cost us a great low price out of pocket of $3.38. I can't wait for our next coupons to arrive!

Becoming a Deacon

As I mentioned in a prior post Jeremy turned 12 recently and along with this comes some big responsibility. In our church when a young man turns 12 and is found worthy he is given the priesthood. Jeremy was excited and nervous about this day but I couldn't tell. He can't wait until next Sunday when he gets to help pass the sacrament. Jeremy has been so lucky to have awesome men in his life who have helped us teach and mold him into the incredible young man that he is.

Each of these men stood in the circle as Jeremy received the Aaronic priesthood and a blessing. They all have a special reason for being asked to be there.

Paul Allen has always given Jeremy words of advice and was his primary teacher.

Dave Walker has been like a second dad to Jeremy. He fills in for Rob when he can't be at camp outs. Dave also baptized Jeremy and confirmed him a member of the church. Today he gave Jeremy the priesthood and a blessing.

Bishop Laker is the awesome leader of our ward.

Rob of course is Jeremy's dad.

Lorin Sommer was the bishop of our ward when Rob and I decided to adopt. He helped us get everything together so we could apply to be foster then adoptive parents. Without his help we may not have Jeremy.

Bill Rogers was our home teacher at one time and has always held Jeremy accountable for his actions at school, home and church. He always encourages Jeremy to be an example.

Brandon Hooley is not only our neighbor but he is our current home teacher and Jeremy's priesthood advisor. He delivers great messages and helps me out at times with getting Jeremy to scouting events.

Ian Hanna and Jerry Fulk are the two men at Jeremy's side. Jerry was Jeremy's cub scout master and helped Jeremy through those years. He was also one of Jeremy's primary teachers. Ian is Jeremy's current scout master in boy scouts.

Jeremy in his suit. The funny thing was that when the bishop called him up to the podium they both had black suits, white shirts and green ties on.

This is Jeremy's line of priesthood. Dave gave him this and he is already bugging me to hang it in his room.