Soccer

It's that time again for our one sport a year!! I just love the kids in their uniforms, so cute!!

Aubrey's First Day

Thought I should post Aubrey's first day of school to be fair!

This is what happens when you tell your four year old to keep her eyes open during the picture!!

School Days, School Days dear olden golden School Days!

As you can guess by the title we are back in business, as far as school is concerned. This year I have a third grader and a first grader, and it's been taking some getting used to, to have two kids gone from home all day. So far so good, no homework, though I imagine that will begin this week, and everyone seems to like their teachers. Aubrey is anxiously awaiting the start of preschool next week, and then I will be down to one two mornings a week. A neighbor commented that she wasn't sure was glad she was going to have only one at home, cause guess what? That one is going to be boooored!! Luckily one of the days Aubrey is in preschool is my shopping day and what two year old doesn't love shopping?

Summer

So even though I haven't had a lot planned this summer we are staying super busy. I guess with four kids there isn't many dull moments. We've been going to Jumping Jacks lots( an inflatable play area for kids), and I've been going to the gym, I know shocking, and it just seems like all the little stuff is tying us down. We have managed to go camping twice the summer, the second trip much more successful, though both times we managed to camp next to NOISY people, who stay up all hours of the night. Guess that's what happens when you live in collegeville! We are excited for our family reunion coming up, getting time to spend with those we love best in the world. It's sad to say that school starts in a month for us, crazy, crazy, crazy! I guess I should just stop and smell the tomatoes, hmmmmm!!

Eight is Great!

Well our oldest child turned eight this last month and with that age come a lot of neat things in life for an eight year old.

Caleb had a Star Wars party, and we had the kids eat doughnuts off of a string, do an obstacle course, fight with light sabers. It was a lot of fun and Caleb had a good time.

Calel also gets to be a Cub Scout, which he is super excited about, and very handsome in his uniform too!

A few other perks is Caleb gets to stay up a half an hour later than the rest of the kids, which he holds over their heads often! He also got to graduate out of his booster seat and gets to sit in a seat like an adult.

Probably the biggest marker for turning eight was being baptized. Caleb claimed this day was better even than his birthday. It was a special day for our whole family, and we enjoyed having our extended family here to celebrate with us. We sure are proud of our not so little son!

The End of the Year

Well quite a lot has happened in our little neck of the woods. The kids have finished a successful year of school with Morgan even having a little graduation ceremony. She was asked to perform a song with two other girls out of the whole kindergarten, and we were sure proud of her. I am happy to have less to do in a day, but not as excited to deal with four rambunctious children all summer. Luckily we know lots of friends and have some stuff to do this summer!

I'm pretty sure it was yesterday that I wrote here, but apparently it's been a week! We had a fun weekend. We had made a goal a couple of months ago that we wanted to start hiking more, since our older kids are up to the task. So Saturday we loaded us all up and drove out to Spanish Fork and went up the canyon. We were headed for a hike up to some hot pots, but as we got closer we realized two things. One we didn't gas up and it was going to be close getting home without being stranded. The second thing was as we got closer we saw the cars were lining the road to the hike, so apparently some big group was up hiking. We turned around and searched for a closer spot. What we found was a horse trail that climbed an awfully big hill. I, who thought I was in better shape, barely made it up the hill with the snacks. Andy hauling Oliver was barely breathing hard. And Morgan was still running around! That was the end of our hike, and boy was it fun! That took up most of our day, but it was fun to get out and be with my family.

So apparently blogging is turning out to be like my journal. I commit to writing in it and do so for a few nights, and then months go by without a single entry! I guess I feel like my days are pretty much the same-o, same-o so not much to write about. The kids are all growing and doing well. Oliver's vocabulary is growing all the time, and today when going down for a nap he said, "night night shoe", see how impressive he is!! The other kids are winding down for the school year, which means I'd better start figuring out some stuff for the summer, or we will all go crazy together (especially that all my partners in crime are gone this summer!). This is also our second Christmas time with all the May birthdays and Mother's Day to boot!! Caleb's birthday is on Wendesday and that is what all the focus is on at this point. I can't believe he is turning eight, you would have thought we would survive this long! We're sure proud of him and the young man he is turning out to be. Anyway we are still here, just living life a day at a time I guess!

As the World Turns

I kept thinking that we really didn't have much to report, but as I sat down to write this blog I realized we've been up to some things so here in a nutshell is the last month of our lives.

We managed a trip to St. George for the weekend is search of some sun and warmth and we had a good time together. We managed to find some sand and sun and realized we like to hike alot. Since that trip we have checked out numerous books on good hikes around our area!

Morgan had her sixth birthday and had a little party with some of her classmates. It's hard to believe she is six already but her birthday means spring is just around the corner. Morgan also lost a second bottom tooth!

Oliver went into nursery and at first thought it was just fine, but has since decided maybe it's not for him after all. It probably has something to do with nap time being right then too.

Caleb finished off the Harry Potter series and is on to other great books. He also has been learning magic tricks with a deck of trick cards he got from the prize box.

Andy has managed to stay busy at work, even though there isn't much to be had right now. His boss keeps warning his crew that they might not be able to work very much, but so far we have been fortuante in that regard.

Aubrey is precocious as ever, we've been dealing with lots of jealousy over Morgan's birthday but soon that will be old news. She still loves her babies, and dress up clothes.

Really life is always full of accomplishments and goings on, it just feels like life I guess.

Something lost and something found!!

We've had a lot of changes in our lives in the last month or so. Our old van decided no matter what we did it was not going to cooperate and be licensed, i.e. pass emissions and safety. We decided that it might finally be time for a new van. The van is like my dream come true and I love driving around in it!!

Morgan lost her first tooth last week. She's been pretty excited as it's been loose for quite some time, and those of you who were around might remember our battle with Caleb, Morgan's was nothing like that. One yank and it was out, no pain and not even much blood. It's weird how they are a year apart in loosing thier first tooth.

I finally decided that I was tired of our carpet always being so dirty, so we decided to add laminate to our family room too. And I got to tell you I love it! The room feels cleaner and warmer since we went with a darker color. So alot has been happening and it all seems to be for the good!!

Sladeals

As you can see we have started our own little band with Oliver on the drums and Caleb playing the guitar, unfortunately thier dad is singing! We've had a lot of fun with this game and it's bringing out the rocker in us all(though I think Oliver mostly just likes to whack stuff!).

My not so baby

I wanted to show off Oliver a little and his expanding vocab. I taught him sign language for eat and drink, and he mostly does eat for everything, and he tells me eat oh.. fifty times a day!!! I think this kid has Andy's metabolism. In fact he was walking off to go find something to eat!! As you can see shoe isn't all the way there yet, but it's pretty cute and he's only been doing it for a day or two now. As you can see my baby isn't much of a baby anymore, in fact he goes into nursery in February, I'm a little sad it went by so fast, but I guess I should know by now babies don't stay that way forever!!

Belated Merry Christmas

Well I guess my vacation is over. Apparently the Christmas Season overtook all my time and I couldn't blog for awhile!! We had a wonderful holiday and managed to spend time with lots of family. A quick trip to Wyoming and Montana allowed us to see my family and it's always good to be home. The kids did pretty good for Christmas and are now enjoying the spoils of said holiday. The wonderful thing about traveling is it's so good to be home. You miss your bed, and your routine when you are gone. We've been working on getting back in to the swing of things and resuming normal life. I love the start of a new year the all the things that you can change this year! My big goal is to get to know our ward better. I've resolved to have a new family over once a month for us to become better acquainted with. We'll see how it goes I guess? The pictures are of our family doing the nativity, the kids an our gingerbread house(thanks Joy), and Morgan all ready for her big program, isn't she beautiful?