My sweet daughter...

Grace picked me these 'flowers' outside today. She was so proud of them and almost crushed when I asked her to please take them outside so they wouldn't blow all over the house. She wanted me to put them in a little vase, so out of mommy guilt I did. Aren't they lovely?

Ok, so while I was posting these pics, she yelled to me from the kitchen "Mom! I put some purple and yellow flowers in there too!". Add some Creeping Charlie, a few yellow dandelions, and Wham-O, a bouquet!

Good day for a swim!

Yesterday the high here was 87 degrees, with at least 185% humidity, it was awful! Needless to say there were some bad storms in the evening...Rich worked from 4pm-3am and has to go back at 2 pm today. Phyllis and Dick were in town and staying at the Heartland Inn, so the kids went over in the afternoon to swim in the pool. They had a ball...thank you Grandmother and Grandpa! Here is the gang in the garage (they were working on the lawn mower, and trying to stay out of the heat!):

What's wrong with this picture

Maybe Ben should take a few more spelling lessons. I emptied his backpack tonight and his spelling folder seems off for some reason.

Matt's 5th grade graduation & Ben's class play

Today was a big day for programs. 5th grade hosted a breakfast and awards program this morning for the big graduation to middle school. They sang 2 songs, gave out a few awards and showed a slide show of the kids. Matt got an award for getting the National Physical Fitness level in gym. He also participated in Safety Patrol. They made silhouettes and wrote a few things about themselves.

Then Ben had an afternoon play and open house. He was the coveted part of Snake in The Tortoise and The Hare. He pronounced all his S words with drawn out ssssssss sounds, which got chuckles from the audience.

It was very cute. Then they had cookies and lemonade and shared some of their schoolwork. They get out of school on Wednesday already....how is it possible the school year is over already??!!

And the new American Idol is!

David Cook! Yes! We were all rooting for him, but thinking that David Archuleta was going to win it tonight. The night couldn't get much better after George Michael sang....he was my favorite college crush singer you know. He looked a bit older, paler, and with an odd looking toupee upon his head, but he could still sing like it was 1988! Then to top off the night David Cook won! Very much excitement in the Kinney household.

I was hoping his eyeliner wouldn't run when he was crying at the end. He and Seacrest looked like they took matching eyeliner classes before the show....hope it was waterproof.

And Paula, what a mess she was, as usual.

All in all a good show! I'm definitely buying a David Cook CD when it comes out!

Lucy and her bear

This is Lucy's favorite toy. It's a stuffed black bear, and most of the time she has it in a headlock. She has to have an edge over someone I guess :)!

Ben and his crystals

Ben and I have been working on his crystal growing kit the past week. We've gotten 4 done so far...he really loves working on this and is so proud of his output. We did the purple and red geode's today, and then we'll have 3 more to grow after that. He's taking these to school tomorrow.