Kindergarten!

Jared started Kindergarten!

Jared is one of those "cool cat" kind of guys.  In a house full of emotion, he keeps his cool and goes with the flow.  Any talk of starting kindergarten was met with a blase attitude like sure he'd go if he had to, but he certainly wasn't overly excited about it.

He looked awesome in his BYU shirt and his new Nike's he's been dying to wear. 

On the first day his teacher read "The Kissing Hand" to the parents and kids and then gave each child a Hershey kiss to give to his parent.  I didn't want to leave--Jared was too excited about getting a Hershey kiss for himself that he didn't glance my direction once when I left.

Sending your child off to Kindergarten is a rite of passage--it's like the first step to giving them true independence.  And here, it feels even worse, because Kindergarten is all day.  That's over six hours a day where he'll be in someone else's care.  Six hours that I don't know what he's doing. 

He seemed to enjoy the first day, but didn't want to go back.  He told me he was excited for the first day, but now he'd rather stay home.  He was worried about getting on the right bus and none of my reassuring helped him.  His sweet teacher stepped in and gave him a little extra attention for the next couple of days to assure him that he was getting on the right one.

Six hours is LONG for a little boy.  He comes home very tired.  I know in a few weeks he'll adjust to the schedule and school will be fine, but it is hard in the meantime.  The teacher sent home a note reminding the parents of this, so apparently we are not the only ones struggling.

One night, shortly after school started I was laying by him at bedtime talking about his day.  He said, "Mom, I almost cried today at school because I was thinking about all the fun memories I have of being at home with you in the day."  My heart broke, and I knew exactly how he felt.  I wanted to tell him he never had to go back to school--that he could stay with me forever. 

I'm pretty sure Jared felt like his life of having fun was over.  The next morning Jared woke up early so Scott spent some time with him building Legos.  Jared was a new man after that.  He seems to do much better after he's had some play time with his dad in the morning. 

Back to School!

I don't know how it happened so quickly, but the summer is offically over.  School started two weeks ago for the girls!  They, of course, are thrilled to be back in school and love their teachers.  Both girls have at least one good friend from last year in class with them, which makes school even more fun.

Look out 4th grade...here comes Kaitlyn!

Brynn loves everything about 2nd grade!

These girls are growing so fast!  They are both one of the tallest in their class.  Aren't they beautiful!  I miss having them at home with me.  They are both so diligent about their school work and start their homework the minute they get home. 

It is a bit difficult getting them ready to go and out the door on time in the morning...it's hard to get ready fast when you have a book in your hand and you're trying to read the entire morning!  I never thought I'd tell my kids to stop reading, but these girls have a hard time doing anything else.  They definitely try to multi-task and Kaitlyn told me she wished their was an invention where she could read in the shower.

Have a great year girls!

Garage Sale Goodies

All summer long the kids begged me to let them hold a lemonade stand.  Thoughts of sitting with the kids in the hot summer sun for seemingly endless hours on our quiet neighborhood street tucked away from any potential customers made me want to evade the subject each time.

They continued to beg, and beg, and beg.

And then I remembered the time my mom let us have a lemonade stand during a garage sale we had.  She even made homemade cinnamon rolls for us to sell--I was old enough to know homemade cinnamon rolls took a lot of effort to make, and I remember thinking that my mom must really  love us to do this.  Of course the cinnamon rolls were a big hit of our sale, and I remember neighbors buying several at a time.

So when I heard a family from our ward (Steel's) was having a garage sale along with several other neighbors I decided I should jump on the chance to create a great memory with my kids.  All their children are grown and they were happy to have my kids set up their lemonade stand during their garage sale.

And of course, I made cinnamon rolls for my kids to sell--so they would know that I loved them enough to do that too.  (It was a good thing too since the morning we held our sale it was overcast and cool.  A perfect day to sit outside for a couple of hours, but not the perfect day to sell ice-cold lemonade.)  Scott helped think of the slogan for their signs "Garage Sale Goodies."

We all had a blast, and I'm grateful I had this opportunity to create a positive memory with my family.  The Steel's and their neighbors were very generous with the kids and made several purchases.  Brother Steel taught my kids about sales and so all four were yelling, "Ice-cold lemonade, Homemade Cinnamon Rolls" to every potential customer who walked by.  The kids manned their sale for about an hour and a half and made about $30 to split between Kaitlyn, Brynn and Jared.  Not bad for a summer day!

Best Quote of the Day:
Jared was beginning to get thirsty and complained to me.  I told him he was welcome to have a cup of lemonade (I could already tell the bulk of the profits was not going to be from their lemonade sales) or I had a water bottle in the car.  Jared quickly jumped on the water bottle choice and exclaimed, "I don't want to give us a bad bargain!  I'll take the water." 

The idea of a "bad bargain" kept all the kids from eating and drinking their products.

Book Reports

Before school starts again, (only 10 more days of summer for us) I thought I should write about Brynn's 1st grade year of book reports.  To challenge Brynn, whose reading level was already several grades ahead when she started 1st grade, her teacher had her read a chapter book and then do a book report "project."  She made a Candy Land type of game based on the characters and plot of one book, she made a diorama for another and a mobile for another.  She read so fast and finished her projects so quickly her teacher told her she was going to run out of ideas for Brynn.  That made Brynn only more excited--she had plenty of her own ideas!

Her last project took her a bit more time.  Brynn read The BFG by Roald Dahl and wanted to make a timeline of the book for her project.  I was thinking beginning, middle and end.  Brynn obviously went well beyond that.

Brynn had a full page written for every heading--"Before the Beginning", "Beginning", "After the Beginning", "Before the Middle", "After the Middle", etc. After each written page she illustrated it with wonderful drawings.  She was very careful throughout the entire project. 

Her finished report was over 20 pages long.  She taped them all together in a time line fashion and literally had one of the longest reports ever!  I was impressed by her hard work, and her teacher was amazed again by her creativity and writing ability.  She is one smart cookie!

Can't Get Enough!

Every one of us is mesmerized by this little boy.  How can we not be...just look at him!

Nathan is already 8 months old!  I realize more now than ever how fast time flies by.  Nate barely has some blonde peach fuzz on his head.  It sticks straight up and reminds me of his cousin Sam.

Nathan loves to eat real food and threw a fit today during church when the Sacrament was passed--he was not about to let us leave him out of a little bread and water!  (Obviously he'd like to eat the grass too).  He loves a tray full of Cheerios or baby food puffs and even enjoyed our fresh bread this weekend.  It is nice that he can feed himself some of these finger foods now so I can put him in his chair while I fix dinner, and he is content.

He has the highest pitch squeal you've ever heard--it's piercing to the ears and can either mean he's very happy or he's very mad.  I think a couple people at church got an ear full of it today.

Nathan definitely prefers his mom to anyone else.  It looks like his first two teeth are on the verge of poking out--we can finally see them.  He is so easy-going and puts up with a lot from his siblings--especially his little Ellie mom.  He even seems to like some of the antics she puts him up to. 

Nathan leans forward from a sitting position and puts his hands down like he is going to crawl, but his feet are in the way.  It is hilarious, although he gets frustrated.  It is nice that he hasn't been in too much of a hurry to be mobile--life will take on a new level of excitement when he's on the go.

Broken?

Thanks to Brynn's insistence, we have Ellie and her "broken" leg documented.

On Sunday morning (July 4th) Ellie and Jared were jumping off the stairs and onto cushions they placed at the bottom.  Apparently Ellie jumped but missed the cushions and landed on the tile.  She was very upset and would not walk, but I largely suspected she was over-reacting due to the fact that we arrived home late the night before from our two week stay in Utah.  I picked her up and buckled her in the car to leave for church, and didn't really think twice about it until she tried to walk on it during Sacrament Meeting and fell to the ground. 

Still figuring it was more from being tired and wanting attention then anything, I took her to Nursery and mentioned that she was not using her leg and to get me if it continued.  I felt bad when two hours later when church was over I picked her up from Nursery and the Nursery worker had held her the whole time.  She said the one time she put her down Ellie crawled to where she needed to go.

I began to suspect she might not be over-reacting.  I took her to our Dr's office which is open on weekends and they sent her for x-rays.  They told us she fractured the growth plate at the end of her leg bone and put a full leg splint on her until we could see an orthopeadic surgeon. 

Ellie figured out how to scoot around with her big splint, but I still had to help her a lot.  She complained about the splint, and I was imagining how awful it would be when she got a real cast on.  I pushed her in the stroller everywhere I could with Nate in my arms.  I was quite a comical site. 

When we finally saw the orthopeadic surgeon he took more x-rays and didn't think the leg looked fractured after all.  He wanted to keep it splinted for 10 days, and if she hadn't used her leg by then he wanted to see her again to cast her.  Gratefully, after about 8 days of wearing the splint Ellie started bearing weight on her leg.  We never had to get a cast, and I was grateful to have Ellie be independent again!

Did I Mention Kaitlyn Turned 9

Kaitlyn turned 9 on June 3rd--right in the middle of our Children's Music Theater.  It was hectic so I didn't get to write about her, but she did get to bring brownies to rehearsals.  She also had three of her friends from school come swimming with us at Scott's work.  Afterwards we had pizza and ice-cream sundaes with tons of toppings!

Look at this cute curly-haired two-year old

Kaitlyn is a smart, sweet girl.  She loves to read and we often have to make her put her book down to eat.  She is very responsible and showing it more and more.  Just today she made lunch for everyone without being asked, since I was not home and Scott had knee surgery yesterday and can't move around very well.  When I came home and saw everyone eating I was so proud of her for stepping up and helping out.  She always does her homework right when she gets home from school, and I never had to remind her about any school projects that were due--she was always ahead of schedule.

Kaitlyn also has a great talent for creating the mood in our home, and I love when she chooses to bring peace and love by getting along with her brothers and sisters.  She has many friends, and I am proud of her for making good choices. 

Kaitlyn is also a great swimmer and has done very well this season in swim team.  She loves our garden and looks at it almost every morning and watches closely so we're sure to harvest everything on time. She also loves playing the piano, and is a great artist.

At Arches National Park

We are so grateful to have Kaitlyn in our family!