Back to school, got the end of summer blues!

Johanna in one of several new Dr. Who shirts-first day of 10th grade

Camden-first day of 5th grade and Ed first day of 2nd grade

Logan first day of 8th grade

We spent our last week of vacation in Salem at Grandma and Grandpa Hoth's house.  It was a great week.  We missed Johanna-who had colorgaurd practice, and Blake, who as a job.

 Had fun at the Children's Museum-especially the outdoor playground

Logan communing with the giant chess set-and preparing to totally stomp me

Big bubbles are so cool

Had fun walking across the river-a big tree fell not far from us-it was so loud-it sounded like thunder.

Ed loved playing with Charlotte-and he loved sharing Charlotte's paleontology set with her

We spent a gorgeous 2 hours at the beach, before some dreary fog rolled in.

Obviously the kids didn't mind the fog at all

Amazing!  No, these munchkin's aren't sand artist prodigies, but it was so cool we had to take a pic

Hooray for Summer!

Camden and Ed celebrating their last day of 1st and 4th grade.

Johanna and Logan look equally excited to be finishing up 9th and 7th grade

Ed and Cam enjoyed a last day of school party at our friend's pool-Ed mosly hung out in the hot tub-with about a dozen other kids.

 Cam did some fancy jumps off the diving board.

Johanna(sporting her new, Emma Watson do) and Logan both have high adventure hikes this weekend.  Neither of their packs really fit them...too skinny! So hopefully their shoulders can handle it and they have an awesome time!

Happy 10th Birthday Camden!

Thank goodness for my extra fridge!  It was all taken up with party food.

Camden had a "Survivor" Party this year.  The kids were divided up into tribes and had to complete challenges for team points.  They all had a great time!

This challenge involved fishing a gumball out of a plate of whip cream without using your hands and then blowing a bubble

Everyone had a smile on their face before the
"Mystery Food Challenge", but later.......

 this poor kid is trying to choke down "crushed ants" i.e. olives.  The kid laughing next to him almost puked up his "pig blood" a minute later.

This is The Grid...

Yeah for four packs of Chewy Spree!  Cam had this on the list of things he wanted for his birthday.  It was the only thing he received from "the list", but he was pretty happy with it.

 Just a fun, summery picture

I think Logan looks really handsome in this picture-it reminds me of Dad.  He is playing guitar at the Spring Concert at school.

More fun stuff this week!

Our toothless boys-both of them lost teeth yesterday!  Cam pulled his tooth out, then Ed, who usually won't touch his until it literally falls out, went to work on his too.  It must have been convenient for the tooth fairy. 

Proud of Logan-our Stake did a Book of Mormon reading challenge for all the youth.  Logan read the entire book in 67 days!  He marked with his red pencil every time the Lord was mentioned as well.  The card he's holding was to keep track of the chapters you'd read.  There was a big dinner last Wednesday celebrating the accomplishments of our stake youth.

My best Mother's Day gifts-I sure do love these kiddos.  They've made every Mother's Day special.  This year was no exception.  I got a lovely breakfast on the deck.  Johanna made popovers, Cam whipped up some honeybutter, Logan picked flowers, and Ed picked strawberrys and Columbine for me to suck the nectar out of (really-I had a little dish of Columbine and strawberries at my place).  I got to attend Relief Society at church where they had a buffet of treats for us to enjoy during the lesson.  We topped it off with a delicious dinner that I slaved over Saturday with our neighbors.  I also loved the gifts Cam and Ed made at school-so cute!

Our family honors continue.....Johanna received her schools President's award for maintaining a 4.0 gpa and also Freshman English student of the year.  Her good friend Zoe copied her acheivements.

Thurman's Rule! At least for one day.....

Friday April 26 was a winning day for us Thurmans.  First Johanna finally aquired her drivers permit, Logan cleaned up at the Southern Oregon Penta Games (it's a math...thingy...) and to top it all off-Camden took first place at the Pinewood Derby!  Whoo Boy!  I don't know if I can handel all the success!  All the kids were pretty happy-it's fun to win sometimes.

  Here's Cam's car, ribbon, and the hotwheel we copied.  Thanks to Grandpa for cutting the car out, mom for the cool paint job (also won best paint job) and Dad for the fast wheels.  Cam helped with everything too.

  Logan came home looking just like this.  He has been very excited about the Penta Games and that his school was hosting this year.  Good job Logan!

Johanna and BFF Sofi after the final showing of Seussical Musical.  Johanna has been rehersing for months.  It was so much work, but they all had so much fun!

Johanna with the other "Bird Girls" backstage waiting to get cast pictures

 Johanna and friend Bella putting on their stage make-up before a show

Ed, Cam and I enjoyed an afternoon of bowling at the "Mother-Son" bowling event for their grade school.  We missed last year, so they couldn't wait to attend this time.

I got to go with Eddy and his class on a hike.  It was quite long and steep, but the kids did great!  It was fun to be with Ed, even though he did forget his backpack with our lunches inside-at least I had the water!  Thank goodness for prepared teachers-she had an extra lunch for Ed.

Eddy McFee-NOBODY touched his loose tooth-so it just hung in there as long as it possibly could.  I thought for sure he was going to swallow it at night.  Nope, it came out at school.

Logan sold 2 "soccer parties" at our youth auction, complete with a soccer pinata and cupcakes made by myself and 30 minutes of soccer games presided over by Logan.  It was very popular and almost caused some bad feelings among those interested (thus the need for 2 parties).

All the fun we've had

Our family was all over the place on the opening weekend of Spring sports.  Logan had a game at 8:30, Cam had the little league parade at 10, also Johanna had play practice from 10-5:30.  Ed had a game at 11, which Logan refereed at and Cam had a game at 2.  I taught a piano lesson at 5 while the men were off at Priesthood session.  We all broke for lunch at our local Hawaiin diner-practically the only time we were all together all day!

Go Cardinals-Go number 9!  Cam is enjoying his first try at baseball and is learning a lot.  The whole league had a parade to the ball field last Saturday.

This tart was so good!  It looks so gourmet too-I felt gourmet making it...

My Easter cake-moist from scratch white cake in three layers with lemon curd, cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut.  Delish!

My only Easter picture-and I got new clothes for all the kids too!  Camden and Ed had fun at our community Easter Egg hunt-though we waited an hour for a 20 second hunt.  Oh well.  It was a beautiful day.

 Classic baby falls asleep in the gazebo picture

Dinner in the gazebo will never be the same with that big house now in the field behind it-Dad can't keep his eye's off it!

Dad rigged up a fun shooting range for the boys

Eddy's best knight birthday ever!  We had so much fun with all the cousin's

 We played several games and everyone dressed up.  This was a "kill the balloon dragon game"  I poked a foam tube through with toothpicks-it actually was quite dangerous-it looked like a mace.  The kids tooks swipes at the dragon and popped all the balloons-it was a blast!

I love how Olivia is hiding sweetly behind her knight (Danielle posed her).  Charlotte refused to play dead and have Eddy pretend to have vanquished her.

The kids were all so cute.  They decorated shields that Dad had made for them-of course he went above and beyond to make amazing cardboard shields for everyone.

 All the kids adored the pinata-Dad rigged it up in a tree and pulled it up and down while the kids swiped at it with balloon swords Danielle had made.

 The Capitol blossoms were amazing as usual and we enjoyed several hours playing there

My Chillin's

We made our own wet parade through Salemtowne with Daisy and Mia and my kids.  Johanna looks so thrilled to be with us, but it actually was fun just to be outside and see all the flowers.  Daisy fell asleep and Mia mostly enjoyed herself-though she did ask to "go home now" through the last part of the walk

And here's my contribution to funny pictures of Dad on our blogs-that's the remnants of Ed's pinata on his head.  I think everyone got to try it on.