School's Back with a Vengeance

One thing I love about school is all the fun activities my kids get to participate in. Each grade is responsible for putting on a program for the parents "to see how much they have learned". Isaac's kindergarten program was pretty early in the year, but it was still cute.


They sang a song and recited a poem for the parents. They were so proud of themselves.

This year was the first annual 3K fundraiser for the school. Caleb and I decided to job/walk it and had a ton of fun. It was cute to see how many people pulled out chairs and sat in their lawn cheering the kids on as they ran.


After the race, they had a safety fair with a fire truck, ambulance, and police motorcycle to look at.

Every grade has a Moms and Muffins/Dads and Doughnuts morning. Parents come and read with their child while eating a treat. Isaac had his Moms and Muffins last month and Caleb's is this month.

Finally Caleb had his grade program. It was a halloween theme with songs, poems and a reader's theater (play).


Isaac's favorite part was the "O My Darlin Frankenstein" sing a long. They did such a good job.

All these activities may be a lot of work and keep us all busy, but the kids sure love them!

Halloween...Mario style

For Halloween this year, we went with a Super Mario theme. The boys love playing Mario kart and were so excited to dress up like the characters.


Caleb was Mario, Isaac was Luigi, Noah was Wario, Seth was a goomba, Mike was Waluigi, and I was Princess Daisy. It was so fun and easy to make the costumes.


Isaac had his Kindergarten costume parade at school Friday morning.


Caleb had his parade after lunch with the entire school. It was a little crazy, but fun to see all the different costumes. Isaac was happy to join in the parade, since we were helping at Caleb's class party.


Mike took the boys trick or treating on Saturday night. Eventhough it was a little rainy, they brought home a ton of candy. Now it is time for detox! :)

Caleb's birthday

It is a little late, but life was crazy there for a while. Caleb, my little boy, is growing up so fast. He turned 7 this year! We had a Pokemon birthday party. It was pretty fun, and easy. There were tons of ideas out there for me to choose from.


We made our own pokeballs.


We played bingo: "Pokingo"


We wrapped each other up in cocoons like one of the pokemons like to do. That activity was a blast.


We had a pinata. Everyone loves a pinata.


Ending up with a pokeball cake. Love the pokeball. So easy! So everyone had fun and no one got hurt, so I consider that a big success!

First Day of School

My oldest two boys are finally both off to school. Caleb started a week before Isaac did so now they are both at school. They were so ready, as was I. Isaac was so excited to finally follow Caleb to school instead of dropping him off and going back home. So far they both love school.


Caleb on his first day


Isaac on his first day


Here they both go off to school. Now I only have two little ones at home. I can get much more done now and when Seth naps, boy is it quiet. I could get used to this.

My baby is 1!

Man, how fast time goes by. I can't believe little baby Seth has turned one. Technically it was a couple weeks ago, but I have been busy. So here is a post with some of my favorite pictures of him.


Welcome Seth. Born August 14, 2009!


2 Months old.


4 Months old.


Tummy time at 5 months.


Trying baby food at 6 months.


10 months old. Such a happy baby and loves to stick his tongue out.


Seth loved his birthday cake, or at least the icing.


Seth is such a big boy. He has started to take his first steps, goes up and down the stairs on his own, and says "uh oh" when he drops things. We love him dearly.

Summer Means (Part 2)...

For me, summer means...

Gardening.
We finally tried to take care of weed control and created a square foot garden. We planted: tomatoes (cherry, romas, and regular), bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, red and brown potatoes, cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe (with existing strawberries and raspberries).


We had a late snow fall that had me a little worried, but this has been my best garden yet and I look forward to canning salsa and chopped tomatoes.

Making Jam.
Each summer, Mike's sister Nicole, and I make jam. We went a little crazy this year. The kids played well together so we just started working. Ten boxes of pectin, over 25 lbs of sugar and who knows how many pounds of fruit later we have this...


Yeah. 10 batches of jam...that is 54 jars of jam (27 jars for each of us). We are well set for the year, though wiped out at the end of the day.

Making fruit leather.
I tried something new this year. I was given some apricots and wanted to make fruit leather. I didn't want to turn my oven on (even though would have been on the lowest setting), so I tried making it in my car.



It wasn't quite flat, but still worked out fine...and it was super easy! The boys loved it too.

I love summer time. I can't believe it is over. Between my projects and getting the boys to all their activities, we have been very busy. But in a good way. Now we are ready for school.

Summer Means....

For the boys, summer means....

Sports and Water Fun!!!!

Caleb and Isaac are allowed to choose one summer sports camp. They both chose Little Hoopsters, a week-long basketball camp. They had a lot of fun.


Here is Caleb at Little Hoopsters.


And here is Isaac.
Caleb also is signed up for soccer in the fall and spring. They had a summer camp during June. He learned a ton there. Hopefully, they will continue that program each summer.


We are looking forward to starting games in the fall.
They also had swim lessons, which made it easier to take them all to water parks.

They love playing in water.


Fun times with cousins.
The summer has been a fun one, though busy. We can't believe it is almost over.

Isaac's Birthday

Better late than never...Isaac celebrated his 5th birthday with a pirate party. Arr...we had a parrrty. :) It was a pretty basic party, but the kids had a blast.


Here they are playing Sharks and Minnows (yup...it's just tag).


They also played "Musical Islands" of course to the song "Row Row Row Your Boat".


They did a "Walk the Plank" relay race. They had to steal the gold coins and put them in their team's bag.



Of course they had to do a treasure hunt. They followed clues to find parts of the map and put it together to show them where the chest was hidden. I didn't get a picture of the chest, but it was a spray painted diaper wipes tub. It was pretty cute.


Here is Isaac with his cake. By far my easiest cake to decorate. I went the easy route, with still keeping in theme. All in all, it was a fun afternoon. The kids had fun and Isaac really enjoyed his birthday. He is getting so big. I can't believe all that he can do. We just love him so!

Bronco Days

Each year, the elementary school has a carnival that they call Bronco Days. Since Caleb went to school, and I hadn't participated in a single fundraiser yet, we thought we would give it a try. We had ordered an entire pizza for dinner and a ticket card for twenty activities for the boys to share. We had an enjoyable evening. Most of the activities we chose did not have a very long line.


Here are the boys with their faces painted. Isaac with a "Strongman" face, Caleb with "Fu Man Chu", and Noah with "the Count". You can also see their hair is sprayed (which by the way painted their skin since their hair was so short..it took a couple days for it to fade away). They got temporary tatoos, balloon swords, and played a few games. The boys really had a blast.

It's the end of May!!!!

So here we are in the end of May. We have been enjoying the nice warm spring weather. My garden has been planted for a couple weeks now. Then, today, May 24th, I woke up to this....


Yes, a good two inches of SNOW weighing down our poor tree.


You can almost see my poor plants under all the snow. Thankfully, it is not too cold and it should warm up in a day or so. I will then go assess the damages on the garden. Hopefully, it won't be too bad.

Ah.. spring in Utah. You never know what you are going to get!

Mother's Day Luau

The kindergarten grade had a Mother's Day Luau yesterday for all the kids and their moms. The kids performed a hula and then taught it to us. Here it is:


Here is the second half. My camera only takes one minute videos.


After the hula, we made a candy lei with notes in it and had banana splits. I am so glad that I can participate in activities like this. It is a fun time for Caleb and me.

That Noah!

So Noah has gotten into climbing on anything and everything to get into whatever he wants. I have to watch him all the time. He already broke the tv by trying to climb up the front of it to switch the dvd he was watching. Here he is trying to unlock the chain we set up on the laundry room. Why he wants in there, I really can't say.


Yes he pushed Mike's computer chair out of the office and stacked another chair on top of it. What are we going to do with him.

Isaac's Butterfly

In preschool, Isaac was learning about bugs. Each child got to take home a caterpillar and watch it go through the cycle and turn into a butterfly. They were so excited. For our first attempt at this activity, it went fairly well. The kids loved it. Here is the caterpillar:



Here is his butterfly:



Here he is letting his butterfly go:


It is fun to have hands-on activities for the kids. They are learning so much and it is great to be able to participate in it. I am proud of all our kids this year.

What a difference a haircut makes

During the winter, we always let the boys grow their hair longer. Then we buzz it come spring. I didn't realize how different they look until we compared them side by side. I also didn't realize how shaggy they got. :) Here is the before:


Here is the after:


We had quite the pile of hair when we were done. Now they will be cooler for the summer heat.

Easter Pics - a little late

After all the computer problems that I have had, we finally were able to get my pictures off my camera and onto my computer. Mike had to reformat everything...blah blah blah, but it is now working correctly! Yeah! I have several posts to make, so here is the first. We keep Easter fairly small. Pretty much all the candy they get is from the family egg hunt. They made out like bandits this year. They do; however, get church outfits every year. Here they are in their new Easter outfits.


They look so handsome...and boy are they excited. They do grow up fast.

Priorities

It is always frustrating to me that there is never enough time in my days. There are a million things that need to be done, not to mention the things that I want to do. I guess that is why we need to prioritize. It is so important to make time to spend with the kids. They grow up so fast! I went out on Saturday after our storm to play in the snow. Since I am not a fan of snow (except to look at through a window) this was no small thing. The boys had a blast though and it was fun to enjoy this time with them. They will be too big before I know it.


Here are Caleb and Isaac with their snowmen. They are so proud of them.