1st Day of School





I just realized that I never posted our "first day of school" pictures!  Eeeek!  Well, better late than never!

 

I can't believe I now have half of my children in school all day!  Brooklyn was very excited to be a kindergartner and she was more than ready for it.   We have all day kindergarten so I was a little nervous about her being gone all day long.  And I have to say, I do miss her!  But she has done really well with it.  Our school district moved us to a 4 day school week with Friday's off this year so that has been an adjustment as well.  It just meanst that the school days are longer.  For the little ones it makes for a big day.  I didn't think that I would like a 4 day school week at all but it's actually been fine. It's kinda nice to have the kids home on Friday - when they're getting along that is:)

Abby started 2nd grade and she loves it.  She's an old pro at this school thing!  She was very excited to get back and see her "horse club" friends.  Yes, they've created their own club and they ride around on their make believe horses.  "Lily" gets fed often from the leaves of my trees.  And Abby is the club leader.  But she informed me the first week of school that occasionally she steps down so someone else can lead.  How nice. A democracy. 

Brooklyn also has a horse.  Her name is Jessica.  Not to be confused with Travis's new wife.  Our horse Jessica was actually invented before Aunt Jessica came to be:)

This picture was taken on the first morning of school.  The girls walk out at 7:10 am to get to the bus stop on time.  The other pictures were taken the day before when both of them had a required 30 min. test to take, which was officially the first day of school, but not really. ( I know, it gets complicated.)  Anyway, there you have it!  Jace is depressed that his playmates are gone and is constantly looking for the uncles that occasionally visit but are nowhere to be found at the moment. 

Which means that I have been doing a LOT of playing lately.....

Birthday Poem by Abby

It was  my Grandma Lu's 80th birthday yesterday and we have a whole lot of family coming out to celebrate!  I had Abby and Brooklyn make up birthday cards for her and we went over last night to give them to her.  Abby decided to write her a poem and it was so sweet that I wanted to make sure we had a copy of it here.  So here it is...

grandma Lu

eye of gold, Heart of gems, face and smile light up the room,

so kind and sweet

can anyone be just like you

of course not

you're what makes me smile and warms my Heart

Family Pictures

While we were in Utah, Darren's mom organized family pictures for all of Darren's immediate family.  Afterwards we took our family and Darren's brother took his family to a nearby park and did family pictures of our own!  Hey, if you're all dressed up you'd better make the most of it!

Brooklyn, Jace, Abby, Colby

 Colby was by far my most receptive candidate for pictures.  I have loads of pictures oozing cuteness from him.  Now, the others are a completely different story.



 
 Just ignore the lifeline on Colby.  It was necessary:)


Abby, Brooklyn, Jace, Colby



Our family pictures ended up being somewhat of a challenge.  You know, for whatever reason getting four kids to look at the camera and smile a normal smile just doesn't work out.  And if it does, your husband has his eyes closed;) 

If you can't tell, I am tickling Abby because she was having a "moment" that was actually lasting much longer than a moment.  And most of our pictures show it. Well, this is as good as it gets.  I'll take it:)



Cabin

 Our annual trip to the cabin happened a few weeks ago and like always the kids loved it!  This year we were lucky enough to stay in a cabin that had a hot tub, and I hate to say it, but I think it was the highlight of the year.  No joke.

Smore's night was also a big hit.  Although, I think Brooklyn would rather make the smore's than eat them.

Colby had a great time with all the cousins and I had a great time letting the cousins tote him around.  Darren has nicknamed Colby "Tank" and he has all of his family calling my little baby "Tank".  Not sure how I feel about that.  This particular cousin is Mackay and more than one person thinks that Colby looks like Mackay.  Makay's only response?  "Well, he has a lot to look forward to."  I think so too, Mackay:)

 Abby learned how to "paddle board" on a canoe.

 Brooklyn tried out kayaking with Ashley.

Lake day just happened to be Jace's "real" birthday.  So we added to the birthday confusion and let Jace know that we were taking him to the lake for his birthday.  Now we've celebrated at least 3 times!  He loved it.  I was obviously messing around with the settings on my camera......

 Darren always feels left out of my blog.  Like I don't do enough talking about him.  So here you go.  This is Darren being "manly";)

And I guess that's all of my pictures.  We also made it to West Yellowstone for pizza and a stop at the candy shop for treats (but especially for fudge).  We went on 4 wheelers, hikes, floated the river and had a great time!

Happy Birthday Jace!

Jace turns 3!!! Wooohooo!! 

Jace pretty much raked it in on his birthday.

This is his new cap gun, courtesy of Grandpa Sim.  It was a big hit.  With all my children.

Abby and Brooklyn made sure that Jace didn't need any help with opening his presents and then again with playing with his presents.  And then they helped out anyway:)

This is the whole party - I made a special trip to Las Animas (a 45 min. drive) just to pick up a Dairy Queen ice cream cake.  It was worth it. 

Jace loved his cake and I lucked out without having to make one!

And then, Jace had another birthday party!  Our first party was actually a week and half early since we were leaving to UT and wanted to get it in.

This party was also early.  I think in the end we confused Jace and he's not sure how many times he gets to turn three! 

But we were able to celebrate with an older cousin, Tyler, and I think Jace loved it!

He definitely loved his 2nd store bought cake, and I was living it up without needing to pull out my cake pans yet  again!

A little bit about Jace at 3:

He is all boy!

                  -He loves to be outside - swimming, boating, riding bikes, running around, just everything!

-He is loud - especially when baby Colby is trying to sleep!

-He loves to play with trains and cars and holds a special spot in his heart for his hand-me down bowling ball game. Thank you Will Durst.

-His favorite color is blue.

-He loves going to Pa's house for milkshakes.  In fact, if he comes home without getting his milkshake he has been known to wake up in the middle of the night and start crying for the missed milkshake.

-He loves everything fruit but especially peaches.

-He loves mac and cheese - but only if it's the microwave kind.

-He loves playing (and fighting) with his sisters and can't wait for Colby to get bigger to wrestle with!

Happy Birthday Jacer!  We love you!



Little Boys

We are officially potty trained here folks!!  And with that comes the ability to relieve ourselves on anything and everything outside - including dad's explorer.   Hey, no complaining here:) To be honest, something tells me the explorer is accustomed to this kind of treatment...

Oh, the joys of being a boy in the great outdoors.

Bring On The Heat

It's been 110 degrees.  For 2 weeks straight.  Need I say more?

Our water bill is gonna be a doozy.