First day of School 2013

The first day of school has come and gone. On that first day I sent away these cuties:

I was left with these two at home. I wish that I could have gotten a better picture of Henry, but he wasn't happy that James was pulling on him. Henry would have rather been crawling around than sitting on the couch for a photo.

Henry still takes naps (thank heavens) so while he took a nap this is what James and I did:

Katherine on her first day of Kindergarten!

 Jacob 2nd grade.

Mariah--4th grade

Wyatt--7th grade and Bethany 5th grade

Amanda is a senior!! Wow, I can't believe that.

So some may wonder how I can get all these kids to school....simple: I make them ride the bus. I don't like the traffic that occurs around the schools at the start of the day and the end of the day, so I simplify my life and let (make) them ride the bus. I mean how else can I do it when every school it starting at the same time and I have 4 different schools? So I have Amanda at the high school and she actually gets to drive because of early morning seminary. Wyatt is at the Middle school. And then I have these two at another school:

 And these two go to the same school:

 So other than Wyatt and Amanda this year, everyone has a buddy at their school. It works out nice....until it comes to parent teacher conferences!


These are just some cute expressions that James had as I was taking pictures that morning. He is such a ham!!

Summer Recap

We didn't do a lot this summer, yet we had some fun times and made some memories. So to recap. Wyatt, Bethany, James and I all had birthdays this summer. We took a couple of trips up to see Grandparents....and even got to see my Grandma and some of my aunts! I am only going to post a few pictures and so you will get one post of our summer via pictures!!

Wyatt's Birthday present from his primary teachers! How cool is that of them. Thanks for that!

Wyatt did summer band and they had a mini concert on the school front lawn. So hot and fun too!

We went up to my parents for Gabe's 20 year class reunion.....and the kids had fun in the trees.  Amanda was working and couldn't come with us.

 Henry with my Grandma K.

 Another trip north to see family. This was taken at the War memorials outside of Cody. Again Amanda had to work.

 This balloon actually came right over the house and I thought it was going to land on our roof! But it made it right to the vacant lot across the street. We have a balloon rally every year, and don't have to go anywhere to see it as it comes right to our door!

 Love this smile! This is some of his birthday loot!

 My birthday cake that the kids made and decorated for me!

Summer piano recital.

 I played a duet with Bethany for this recital.

 Bethany with some of her birthday loot.

So there you have it our summer in just a few pictures! We had fun and now it is off to bigger and better things.

Can I?

The other day I took the kids to summer school. I had enrolled them in an enrichment program. When I dropped them off, I noticed that there were a bunch of books and other items that were discarded and being given away. Under the table were some alphasmarts. I know that they are outdated.....they were brand new when I was  doing my student teaching in 1998. So I picked up a couple. I remember that they were great for typing skills and I know that they can be connected to a regular computer to print. Unfortunately the cable to print wasn't included...but they will still be fun for my kids to practice on. So Jacob takes one and starts typing, looks up at me and says "Mom, can I type a letter?" I said "Sure! Which one do you want to do? A? B? C? D?" He looks at me funny and says "Not that kind of letter!!"

Jacob's Birthday

Jacob is now 7! Wow, where has the time gone? He is a ball of fire. He has his opinions and now he is startin to express them. He has a complete green thumb and can grow things that I thought were impossible. I love his energy and his spirit. I love his smile and how quickly it shines. What a grown up little man I have here.

Pirates!

On Valentines Day we didn't celebrate much because Jacob actually had a concert for school. So instead of getting all romantic and having candle lit dinners and chocolate.....we set sail for the school and enjoyed a night of pirate songs. Doesn't he make a cute pirate? (Blue striped shirt)

Missoula Children's Theatre

Every year we have had the Missoula Children's Theatre (MCT) come to our town. My kids have never really been interested in it until last year. Last year Wyatt, Bethany, Mariah and Jacob all tried out. Wyatt was the only one who made the cut and ended up being Grouchy in Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. So fast forward to this year. The kids come home with the announcements for the try outs and I am thinking "Really?? Do I really want to do this again?!" But, I decided that we could at least try out and see what happens.
I guess I should explain what the MCT is and does. They are a traveling group that comes to our town and brings everything that you would need to put on the play.....but the actors. They bring all the props, the script and the directors. One of the 2 directors is also one of the major roles in the play. They hold tryouts on a Monday afternoon and pick their actors. Rehearsals start that evening for some of the characters. They hold rehearsals every night and by Saturday they have their one and only performance. So a week of hectic is in store if a child makes the play. But they do a wonderful job at what they do. I am amazed at the outcome considering how much time they have to work with. Last year we were able to help them take down the set and seriously everything fits into the back of a Ford pick-up truck!

So tryouts. I asked and the kids all wanted to try out. So I said what the heck go for it! So I went to pick them up and I was a little early. As I found out last year, if you are early then you get to see some of the auditions and then are there when they announce the parts. So I am standing there with Henry praying for my kids. I am praying that more than anything, they are disappointed when they aren't picked. Each of my children were sitting in a different section of the gym, and after a moment of searching I knew where they all were. Then comes the moment of truth......drum roll please......Mariah made it as a towns kid.....Then Jacob is announced as a rat.....Wyatt is called up as a cook!!!!! Seriously!! 3 kids in the play. I was happy for them but at the same time I knew I would have one little girl with hurt feelings and I needed to tend to her first. I am grateful that I put her first at that moment as she was devestated that she didn't make it. But I think by comforting her first I made her feel like it was okay.

I looked at the schedule and we lucked out....no rehearsal that night! So I had a moment to regroup and figure out how to do this. The schedule was do-able thanks to a good friend "M".  One of her girls made the play and was a cook with Wyatt and both kids are at the same school. So we traded rides. She would pick up Wyatt and her daughter and take them, I would pick the kids up and bring them home.

We made it through the week of practices and then comes the play. I think I was more nervous than the kids. They did awesome! So here are my three little actors:

I included this pictures as this was Wyatt's favorite part. He was so excited when he found out that he would be the one that would put a pie in the director's face!

We look forward to next year when I will have 5 tryout for their next play!! That could get interesting.

I do have to admit that I am pretty proud of my kids this last week. First I am proud of Bethany. After that initial shock of not making it and her 3 siblings did, she didn't make a big fuss over it. She wasn't sad when they had to go to play practice and she didn't....and if she was she didn't show it. Then on Saturday right before the performance, she said a blessing on the food. As part of her prayer she prayed for her siblings in the play that they would have a great production. I admire for that.

I am also proud of the three who made it. They didn't gloat or rub it in that Bethany didn't. They just went on their way and were troopers for how much work they had to do at the practices. They even tried to include her and asked her to help them learn some of their lines. Way to go family!

Oh Brother!!

Every once and a while I can catch these moments.....today I caught two!

I caught Jacob reading a story to Henry. Henry was loving it! Jacob would read the page and then show Henry the pictures....it was priceless. Henry was "talking" to Jacob as well and getting so excited. I think he was telling Jacob what an awesome brother he was being today.

Then later I caught Wyatt doing this:

These 3 boys were actually sitting and watching Blue's Clues....James' favorite. But I think it was awesome just to see them doing something together and not fighting.
Brothers are just the best!

What a crew!

Trying to get good pictures of this many kids can be really hard.....especially when a grandpa is standing right behind me making them laugh!

This is the first time I have had a chance to take pictures of all my kids. What a better time that right after church on Henry's blessing day? What a great bunch of kids!

Helpers

Coming from a large family and having such a large family myself I understand that there are lots of opportunities for work to happen. The other day we had some shingles blow off the roof and Gabe was able to fix them.....but he had lots of "helpers".  I have lots of "helpers" everyday as I try and do my daily chores. But this picture really touched my heart. I didn't get the exact shot that I wanted, only because I was too slow in getting the camera out there. There was a point when they were helping daddy that they were all faced away from me and that was the shot I wanted.....instead this is the one that I got:

And let's face it....once they know that you are taking pictures it is hard to get that perfect shot as they start posing and the spontenity is lost. I think that I love just capturing those moments the best....you know, when no one knows you have the camera and us just take the picture.

The kids LOVE helping daddy and they always want to go with him to do things. They think that he is the greatest on earth (I do too). It really melts my heart as their mother when I see him taking them under his wing and showing them how to do these things that I have never done.

Trick or Treat!

This year Halloween was different. For the first time in a long time our ward didn't have a trunk or treat party....I was a little disappointed as we usually hit that party and that satifised the children's urge to go trick or treating. So instead we let the kids go out in our neighborhood. I snapped pictures of the kids in their costumes before they left and let me say we had one neat looking group of kids. The nice thing about this year is that I really didn't spend a lot of $$ on the costumes or even candy for that matter. I spent $5 for some pretzels that we gave out and because we didn't have many, we made sure the lights were all out so it looked like no one was home....I know very un-Halloween like. The kids had fun, and that is all that matters.

Stitches?!!?

So the other day I get a call from the school. I don't know why, but everytime I pick up the phone and see a number from the school district I cringe....this was no exception. The only problem is that I have 5 children in the public schools and they don't label the schools' numbers as which building it is coming from, so maybe that is why I dread it. This time it was Jacob's school. It was actually my sister-in-law, who is their school nurse. She told me that Jacob had an accident on the playground....(holding my breath because the last playground accident resulted in a broken arm)....and he has cut his eye and might need stitches. Another cringe. Since I had children napping, I called Gabe and discovered that I would have to wake the children as he was pouring concrete and couldn't get away. The whole time I was waking up kids and getting them ready and in the car and the trip to the school to get Jacob, I was planning. IF he really needed stitches I would have to take him, and I couldn't take him with the other kids in tow....so I would go get Amanda out of school and she would trade me cars and take kids home to babysit while I took  Jacob to the doctor to get his eye fixed. So I picked him up and took him to where Gabe was so that we could decide if we needed to take him in or not. We decided that it wouldn't be possible for the doctor to do any better than what his eye was doing on it's own. As the cut was actually on his eye lid....not near his eye like I had thought. So we left it. He had a black eye for a few days, we put neosporin on it to keep the germs at bay, and watched it heal.....very nicely as a matter of fact. Yes, he will have a scar, but I think it would have been worse if we had taken him in. His nickname is now Bruiser....

First Day of school 2012

 So I have been looking forward to this day for a long time.....well, I guess more so in the last few weeks, as my kids have gotten tired of playing nicely together and needed more structure than I could provide. I am not a morning person, but this year will be a little easier as Amanda is able to drive herself to early morning seminary. The other children ride the bus and that means that they have to be ready by 7 AM. I know I could give myself some extra sleep by driving the children to school, but I have decided that it isn't worth it to try and get the youngest ones up and ready so we can all go and then the hassle of the traffic around the schools at that time......besides I have 4 different schools this year! As the kids were getting ready for school this year I got the camera out and snapped those typical pictures but this is the one that I got the most kick out of. All of my kids needed new tennis shoes before school started. I got lucky because they also needed pe shoes too. 5 kids off to school times 2 pairs a piece.......that is a budget nightmare. Thankfully KMart also had a sale about the time of buy one get one half off. My lifesaver! Although I wish it had been a buy one get one free sale. So each of the children were able to pick their own shoes and this is what we got:

I loved the fact that they were all so brightly colored and brand new.

I do take pictures of the kids individually, but rather than bore you with all of those I will just post one of all the kids (minus Amanda who had to leave for seminary before I could remember to get this one):

From left to right we have Jacob 1st grade, Mariah 3rd grade, Bethany 4th grade and Wyatt 6th. Of course James isn't in school, but he was up and wanted to be in on the action as well. Some may be asking where Katherine is:   she slept through this entire process and I let her as she didn't have anywhere special to be!

And just so Amand isn't left out, here she is ready for her junior year of high school!

So the first day was mostly uncomplicated for the kids. They arrived home from school and as typically happens all the homework falls on my shoulders because of the information updates that you have to do. They want to know every phone number in the book in case of emergency. Each child had the same form to varying degrees and each one had about 6 papers that needed to be filled out and signed. Try doing that five times over! Next year it will be worse as I have Katherine starting kindergarten!

The only funny story I have about today is also embarassing for Amanda. Yesterday was the first day she drove herself to seminary and then to school. She calls me from the school about the time she should have been pulling into the driveway, and she was upset. I asked what the problem was. She told me that she left the lights on the whole day and the car wouldn't start. She asked if I would come and jump start the car. Thankfully, this is something that Gabe has taught me how to do and I KNOW how to do it. So I told her I would. As I was mentally preparing a list of what would have to happen so I could do that, she told me that one of the teachers had some cables and would help her out. Great! That saved me a trip to the school. Then when she told Gabe about this, he reminded me and informed her that she already had the jumper cables in the trunk! I had totally forgotten that she did. All in all, she is okay other than her bruised ego and it could have been much, MUCH worse right??

So we are off and running with all our school activites and homework!

Green thumb

 Jacob has a green thumb....no not literally, but he does have a great knack for growing things. This spring he came home from school with a red solo cup.....full of sunflower seedlings. I put them in the window and we let them grow there until they got a bit bigger. Then I told Jacob that we needed to move them to a bigger pot so they could grow. We moved those seedlings to a bigger pot.....and they died. Jacob was so upset that I went out and bought another package of sunflower seeds so we could replant. Then as those were doing so good, the dog got to them and half of them died. So we again replanted....and waited. Jacob made sure those seeds were moved when the dog was outside and made sure that they got the right amount of water. Then, they got tall and started to show signs of blooming.

We waited and waited until it started to bloom. Just the very day that it fully opened disaster struck again. Jacob had been putting the pot up on the BBQ grill while the dog, Benelli, was out. Last night it was on the grill when the wind picked up and blew it off. Sadly, the tallest plant (the only one blooming right now) was broken. I was quick to notice and cut it off and brought it inside. Now we can enjoy this bloom and wait for the rest of them to finish.

Hopefully the rest of them bloom before something else bad happens.

SHHH.......they are sleeping!

 Last night I went to check on the kids before I went to bed. I was mainly checking on James as he is having a hard time staying in his bed. It was so precious that I had to snap pictures of all the kids. I think that sometimes as a mom, this is my favorite time of day (depending on the type of day we had).
This is Bethany:

This is my favorite and the one that sparked the whole spree of pictures (Wyatt and James):

Jacob:

Mariah:

Katherine...notice the shoes on her pillow. Aunt Heather was having a garage sale and she found these. Didn't want to let them out of her sight long enough for bed.

Now for those of you who are counting, yes there is one missing. I will post next on why she is missing in action.