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.

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!

Christmas Updates

There are just too many things going on during the Christmas season to make blogging one of my last priorities....but now that the year is almost done, I am trying to update so I don't forget anything.

Mariah had her Christmas concert and did a wonderful job. She was playing the part of a snowman and was too cute thanks to the art teacher who helped to paint her face.

Wyatt also had a Christmas concert for band. His was combined with Amanda's so that night was a LONG one for us. We started the concert at 6 and weren't home until after 9. But there was an hour long intermission in there as they were thinking the first part of the concert would be longer. Next time the instructors said that there wouldn't be that long of a break. I am going to have to sit through the entire concert from now until Amanda graduates as they combine the middle school band concerts with the high schools....which makes for a long night for the rest of the family as they don't seem to enjoy listening to the bands as much as I do.

Henry is getting bigger every day and much to my dismay he found his thumb....this isn't a very good picture, but I knew it was probably going to happen. This is one baby that is too much like his oldest sister. She wouldn't take a pacifier either and was sucking her thumb by 3 months. Henry absolutely refuses to take a pacifier and will start gagging if you make him try too many times. The funny thing is that he won't even suck on my finger (he used to earlier). He has found his fist and occasionally will find the thumb.....but it is happening more and more often. These are just a few pictures that are too cute not to share.

We had Christmas and the kids enjoyed the holiday. We have started waiting longer to put up the tree.....it has sort of become a tradition now that we wait to put up the tree until the kids are officially on their break from school. We were really blessed to have a Secret Santa drop off some presents for the kids. We are grateful to them as they made Christmas just a little sweeter for the kids. Somehow the Santa knew the deepest wishes for my kids and came through.

We are gearing up for the New Year. We know we are getting old as we have started a tradition of ringing in the New Year on New York's time. This way we don't stay up so late!

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.

Birthday and Baptism

Man, how these things sneak up on you sometimes. I was telling Gabe around the first part of August that Mariah's birthday was coming up (Sept 1) and that she was going to be 8. For her this is a special birthday as it means that she is able to be baptized. I suggested to Gabe that maybe we should start planning for that as it was coming up fast.....he said, don't worry we have plenty of time. Her birthday actually fell on a Saturday this year, perfect for holding a baptism and also perfect for her to be able to remember the day she was baptized as it would be her actual 8th birthday. The Sunday evening before her birthday, Gabe and I realized that we needed to get on the ball if we were going to get this done on Saturday as there are many people to call, an interview with our bishop for Mariah, the arrangments to make sure the church is open.......(you get the idea). Thankfully things just seems to fall into place and work out that the building was free, we got the interview taken care of, but I think that I fell short in calling those who should/could have come to the service. But regardless we were able to have Mariah baptized on her birthday and what better gift could she have gotten? We are so proud of her to have chosen this option and the things that it leads her to know and how she seems to have grown so much. After the baptism we had a BBQ for those that wanted to come share it with us. We had a lot of fun and many thanks to those who helped with the food.

I can't believe that she is 8 already! She is an amazing little girl.

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!

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.

Latest Creations

I seem to have times were I feel more creative than others and this last few weeks have been like that. I have been trying to catch up on my mending and in order to do that I also had to create as well. Part of that creative process led me to make this:

I only made the green dress, the cream apron we are borrowing from my mother.

 This is for the pioneer trek that Amanda gets to go on this year. Our stake has a trek for the youth once every 4 years, for those who are 14 and up at the time. This is the year and since Amanda is old enough, we are fortunate that we get to make the preperations for her to go. One of these is making her a dress so that she can experience the handcart trek like a pioneer women would have. This dress was a stretch (a HUGE stretch) for me to sew. The YW leaders asked that we bring the fabric and they had a night where the mothers came and helped make them. There was no pattern----I HATE sewing without a pattern. They laid Amanda on the floor and measured her and cut it out and then told me how to sew it together. That is not the way I like to make dresses, let me tell you. But we got it done. 

Because of that creation it lead me to make these: 

I had enough fabric left over from Amanda's trek dress that I could make her another full skirt and these other skirts for my other girls. Besides that I made a scripture bag for Mariah too......and I still have fabric left over! These jean skirts for the younger girls were so easy to make. I followed a "pattern" that my friend Jenna had posted on her blog.(Skirt pattern) I modified it a little as I wanted my girls' skirts to be a little longer. But since I had the general idea of what needed to happen it wasn't so hard.

Trying to get my mending pile done also led me to those skirts as I had a bunch of jeans that had huge holes in the knees and I couldn't patch them to make them usable that way anymore, but I could use them for skirts. I still have a ton that I am going to cut off for shorts. But I found this pair of pants that I could fix and did for Bethany:

There was just a small hole, but I didn't think that she would want anyone to know that I mended it, so I put a star on them. I thought that they turned out cute, and seeing as they are putting these sorts of things all over pants now days.....heck why not.