The First Day of School!

WOW! Two posts in two days... that's a record for me I think!

Well it's done. I am officially the the Mom of all Elementary School aged children. They are all at school. Most Mom's have to wait years and years (17 years to be exact for my Mom) for all their kids to be in school at the same time, I just had to wait 6 and all three are there together.

I didn't know how I would feel today. Yesterday I was SUPER Excited that school would be starting (the Summer was getting a bit too long). Before school we were too busy getting everything ready (lunches, snacks, back packs, new shoes on, hair looking half way decent, blessings from Daddy, me needing clothes on so I could take the girls into school, pictures of the cuties on the first day, waiting for the bus, and so on) to be sad.

I put Nathan on the bus, and he was so big and so brave to go by himself. He just hopped on! No problems at all! Thankfully he gave me one of his "Big Hugs" first, but he did great! Then I put the girls in the car and drove to the school. They have all the lower grades meet in the gym the first few weeks, so we walked in and found their classes in the gym. By this time Kate had had enough of my picture taking and was ready for me to just say "Good Bye". They were so big and brave too! No tears, no holding onto my legs, they just sat nicely with their classes and waited for their teacher to take them to their rooms.

Nathan's bus had arrived too and he was sitting with his class and he was super big and brave as well! There were no less than 4 girls crying/clinging to the teacher or their mom's and not wanting to stay. Nathan was just sitting nicely and smiling at me and giving me "high 5's"! I know he is going to do amazingly this year!

So I wasn't sad as I watched them walk to their classrooms. I wasn't sad as I walked out the front doors and to my car. I held it together all the way home... until I started to turn onto our street. Then it hit me. They were all gone. They will all be at school, every single day for the rest of their lives. That's when I cried. How often have I said, "Be careful what you wish for." Cause it always comes true. How many times when I was home with 3 babies, at my wits end, not knowing how we would even make it thru that hour/afternoon/even that day and I would say to myself, "It will all be better when they are old enough for school." Yeah, except that your entire world is gone for half the day. And you have to sit at home hoping that they have a friend to sit with at lunch. Or that someone will want to play with them at recess. Or that they even eat their lunch (I'm so worried about Lexi. She never ate her snack at school last year. I just don't want her to starve every day, the poor thing.). Yeah, I'm a bit of a wreck right now. I know they are smart, I know they are wonderful, I know they will learn & do well, but I'm their Mom and I have to worry about them!!!!

Any way, I'll fill you in on their day at school later. But I just needed to get all that out while I was still feeling it!

The Last Day of Summer

Yes, I know Fall doesn't officially begin until the day after the girl's 6th Birthday (on a side note, can you believe they are going to be 6? Yeah, I can't either!). But today was our last day of Summer break. We haven't been able to do many fun things for the last few weeks (maybe I'll post about that after this...) and because of that they had resorted to reminiscing about the "good old days" when Mommy took them fun places. I've heard many a comment lately that starts with, "Do you remember when we..." then they proceed to relate all the wonderful things we have done in the past like: went to Anna's pool (yeah, but we did that last week and the week before and the week before that...), climbed the mountain in Grandma's back yard, went to the Beach, went to that old town with Anna (pretty much anything we have done with Anna is worth remembering!), saw the Scarecrows by our Pre-school (we will be doing that again soon!!!), etc.

One of the things they reminded me of was the neat little State Park that is just a few minutes from our house. It is built over a old lake shore that is covered in tons of Dinosaur tracks. They also liked going to the Ossuary with Grandpa M., but that is in Provo and not very accessible on a moments notice! We will be sure to make a stop there again, especially since Lu-lu thought that Grandpa worked there! So we made plans to go to our Dinosaur Museum today.

Lexi is following in my footsteps and has decided that she would like to be a Paleontologist when she grows up! I love it! I hope she follows through better than I did. But from about First Grade up until my Sophomore year in High School I wanted to be either a Paleontologist or an Archaeologist... then I ended up with a degree in MFHD (Marriage, Family, and Human Development, or the "fall back" for many girls at BYU!).

Any way, all the kids love this place! It's small and not overwhelming and has just enough to keep their attention w/o them getting bored! The grounds have some nice little trails you can follow through the "forrest" (but even areas behind our house look like a "forrest" here!). At one point in our little jaunt Nathan was positive we were lost! Even after we were in the car he was still certain that we had been "lost in the woods for hours!" & that we barely made it out before the family of wolves found us... Silly boy!

All in all we had a good Summer. I'm very excited for School to start tomorrow and the kids are too! I promise to update again with all the first day of school pics tomorrow!

PS. I don't want to forget something else that Nathan said today while Lexi was talking about what she wanted to be when she grows up. Katie said something about being a Veterinarian (also a former aspiration of Miss Lu). Then Nathan piped up and said, "Mommy, I just want to always stay with you. I don't think I want to do anything when I grow up." Oy, Mr. Nate! This along with his undying love for me and promises that, "I never want to get married! I only want to live with you and Daddy!", make me wonder what my son will grow up to be. We will see!

I guess this means...

We are painting the Dining Room!











The wall paper was pealing off in one corner (it just so happens to be the "time out" corner) and was buckling in a couple of other places. So I just started ripping it off. I'm still not sure what got into me! But the kids liked it and helped me too! It was even easier than when we did the wall paper in the kitchen. I won't even need to get out the steamer (which, between our house and 4 or 5 other friend's houses, has been one of our best investments!). Some good soapy water and a sponge will get the rest of the gunk off this time!


Good thing I've been meaning to call around and get quotes from painters for some other rooms in the house!

Do you think this is big enough?

The girls are playing Soccer this Spring!!!! We finally got their team T-shirts from their coach. Apparently the league didn't realize that not all 5 yr olds are 5' 8" and weight 100+ lbs. Cause I can easily wear their jerseys!???!

As you can see they are just a *tad bit* too big. The cute pink shirt on top fits Miss Lu perfectly at the moment! It's one of her favorite shirts and isn't too big or too small. The green shirt under it is their Soccer jersey. Now I'm not too sure, but I think maybe a smaller size might have worked better for them... don't you?

They had their first game on Saturday and it was soooooo much fun! I really wish I would have listened to my Dad when he tried to get me to play Soccer at their age. I was too nervous and scared cause I didn't know how to play and I did think I would be good at it (the story of my life when it comes to sports and musical instruments). Then when my brother started playing at 4 yrs old, I feel in love (remember I was 16 at that time)! I think Soccer is one of the best sports! Every one can play, you don't have to be coordinated enough to be able to hit a small ball with a stick (I can't play tennis or baseball or golf), you get tons of exercise, and it's just plain fun!

Their little team was pretty good. They have some kids that have played before (I think there was a Fall season that I didn't know about) and they totally knew what they were doing! The girls were in there and trying and got to kick the ball a few times! I can't wait for them to learn more and continue to do more in their games!

Spring Break!

Last week was Spring Break for the kids! Never mind that they already had 2 days off at the first of the month for Easter & an entire week in February for "Winter Break". I've heard that some towns near us are doing away with "Winter Break", I would love that! I'm not quite sure why we need kids home for a whole week in the middle of February when there's still a foot of snow on the ground and it's barely 30 degrees outside...cause if they didn't have it we could be done with school before the 4th of July! But I digress! Some day I *might* possibly (but probably never) get used to the wacky school year in this crazy State.

We stuck around here for the week and planned a few fun day trips so as to not drive each other crazy!

On Monday we went to a neat old village a few hours and another State over from us. They have an entire village reconstructed to look like it would have in the 1830's. They moved a bunch of the old houses to this one site and set them up with a Village Green and farms and such. They have people dressed in period clothing in the houses that explain about life in 1830's. They have lots of hands on activities and things for kids to make/do.

We went with our friends Miss. A & Mr. B & their new baby brother A. The kids had lots of fun. But my camera battery was on it's last leg and I only got a few pictures before it died.

They loved churning and eating butter. Then we went to a barn where Lu-Lu "talked" to the sheep and got one to come over to the fence and let the kids pet her!



Then they found the hens hiding in the barn and decided that they needed straw to eat (I tried to explain that hens like grain and corn, but they insisted). So they threw extra straw into the area the hens were in.

Then they chased a Rooster...

Then Nathan said he wanted to find the Cows so he could milk them! I don't think that was one of the activities they let kids do. So I need to find a place that lets kids milk cows! He still needs to check that experience off his life list!

We also saw how they made pottery and watched a man make a really nice pot in about 2-3 minutes, it was crazy fast! Then we got to ride on a wagon pulled by to very large horses. I'm not up on my horse breeds, but these were BIG! Lexi loved the horses and wanted to pet them, but I wasn't too sure they were the "petting zoo" kind of animals!

We had a wonderful morning with our friends! And I think it will be a great place to go back to. It's one of those places you can find something different every time you go.

Tuesday we had to stick around town cause the kids still had Gymnastics and Ballet classes around 12:30pm. So we just ran errands and went to class. The girl's recital costumes were in and they were able to try them on! But Kate's was a bit tight (the teacher ordered the same size for Lexi & Katie, but they are NOT the same size at all!). So hopefully Kate's new one will be here soon! Miss Katie loved hers cause it's pink and "Soooo Beautiful!". Lexi was less than thrilled because she saw that the dress came in purple and blue, but the teacher ordered pink for all the girls. Poor Miss Lu! She just isn't a pink kind of girl! But she will still be so cute in it!

Wednesday the kids and I headed to the Aquarium. It's one of our favorite places and we went during the Easter vacation at the beginning of April and bought a Family Pass for the year! It's only about an hour away from our house (which seems like nothing in UT, but is a HUGE road trip in our area!) so hopefully we will be able to go quite a bit!

I took a bunch of pictures on our other visit so I didn't take as many this time. But Lexi took her camera and got some good shots of some things! One of these days I need to get David to upload her pictures to the computer so you can see her work!

The kids love the Beluga Whales, the Sea Lion show (Nathan's favorite, especially the newest Sea Lion that is only one year old! He kept watching for "the wittle baby Sea Wion!"), they loved touching the Rays & Sharks in the touch pools, and just wandering around and taking in all of the neat things there are to see!

All these pics were taken when we were on our way out of the Aquarium. Oh, and wasn't it so nice of Nathan to pick that nice Tulip for me? Yeah, I wasn't too happy about that (I have this thing about my kids picking other people's flowers... I don't like it or allow it. Grrr!).

Thursday we had our friends over to jump on the Trampoline and have lunch. Then when David got home from work we headed to a local indoor water park! It's attached to a Holiday Inn and we bought a package for a stay at the hotel and passes to the water park. Our weather has been nice, but still not swimming weather, so it was nice to have the option to swim indoors on our vacation without spending thousands of dollars to go somewhere warm and far away (we have to save all of David's Vacation days for UT in July & for the BYU Football games in the Fall!).

The kids had a blast! Last Summer in ID each of the kids went down a big water slide with David, but none of them were to thrilled with it at the time. But this place had a really nice big kids area with 4 small, kid friendly water slides, water works to play with, and a big bucket of water that dumped out every 10 min. onto all unsuspecting people in the area! They had fun just climbing and sliding and spraying each other & us with the water!

Then David and Nathan decided to go down one of the BIG water slides. They said Nathan was too short for the two tube runs that they had, but he could go down the enclosed regular slide. Nathan was hooked! He loved it! He had to go on his own, David could go after him, but not with him... and he was totally fine with it! His face at the end in the splash pool was priceless. He was so excited and happy at the end every time! Lexi tried the Big slide too and said it was OK, but once was enough for her. Katie was chicken (much as I imagine I would have been at her age) and didn't go down it once. I think she only went down the little yellow "toddler/baby" sized slide the whole time, but she loved that! So all was well!

We had lots of fun sleeping in our "pretend house" (as Katie likes to call all hotels/motels), playing in the arcade, eating our yummy brunch buffet (aka. second breakfast, cause we picked up Chocolate Muffins at Costco the night before as a treat for breakfast), having personal pizzas for lunch, and playing in the water! It was a fun couple of days and soooooo worth it! We will for sure go back, but probably not during a big school break next time!

Sorry about the pics... the lighting was bad, it was inside, there was lots of water, and I was trying to take pictures of kids, who didn't want to stop moving. You get the idea. It wasn't the easiest thing to do!

My Mother's Day Gift!

I know it's not even May yet, but I didn't really ask for anything for our Anniversary or Valentine's Day (both in Feb) and I've been wanting a "Mother's Necklace". So I told David this is what I wanted for all three events!

I love it and have worn it almost every day since it arrived! David said I couldn't, but I know he doesn't mind!

If you like it check out the lady's site. She has so many pretty things!

90 Degrees...

Yes, 90 Degrees. That was the temperature outside at 3pm this afternoon. The normal "high" temp. for our area at this time of the year (remember it's still the first week of April) is around 50 degrees. Normally we are wearing long sleeves, pants, and a good jacket (usually a rain jacket) at this time of year. For the last week we have been easily wearing shorts, short sleeve shirts, and flip flops!!!! We still need jackets in the morning, but by noon we haven't needed them. It's been soooooooooooooooo nice. It's a good thing I started buying Summer clothes back at the end of Dec/beginning of Jan (you laugh, but I really did!). We are getting lots of good use out of my well planned purchases!

I know it's not going to last and before I know it it will be cold and wet again. But I'm going to savor every second I can with the kids outside while it's nice!

This is how we spent our 90 degree afternoon:

Oh, yes! Your eyes do not deceive you! We (actually it was all David's idea!) bought a trampoline for the kids! They have been patiently (meaning only asking me about it no less than 10 times a day) for about 2 weeks. It was ready to be picked up before David left for UT over Conference weekend, but we knew we wouldn't be able to put it together until he got back. It was a very rough wait for them!

But today was the perfect day to put the silly thing together. The kids watched from the swings, then go bored and watched from the deck, then got bored and watched some shows inside the house... you get the idea, the process was not fast enough for them. It actually took longer than David or I thought it would too. We started at around 3:30pm and didn't take a break until almost 7pm. Needless to say, we were all tired and hungry (like I said, no breaks, next time we will remember that people need food). But they earned a well deserved "test jump" right after dinner!

The kids are so thrilled! Daddy is their favorite person in the world for putting their new favorite toy together for them! Hopefully we will have a few more days of nice weather to enjoy it too!