::first day of school::

First day of school.

(they started on the 28th)

Chloe-3rd grade, Ava-almost 18 months, Porter-1st grade, Cooper-Preschool (2 day)

Chloe on her way in to school.  Third grade.  The other end of the school.  She got in to her classroom just before the bell rang.  I wanted to take pictures of her sitting at her desk, but there wasn't time, and I didn't want to disturb her teacher, and also, is she getting too old for that??

Portie!!  First grade!  Mrs. C.!!!  All day.  The other end of the school.  Eats lunch at school.  We were a little early.  I grabbed a quick picture of him at his desk.  His teacher had already told him to go play outside until the bell rings, so he wasn't too excited about waiting for me to take a picture.  He ran outside as soon as the shutter clicked.  Didn't even tell me bye.  :[

Coop!!  Preschool!  Miss Katey!  Just up the street.  Two days a week for two hours.  Green dinosaur backpack.  Green shirt with trucks and trailers (his faves).  He's suuuper excited!!  He packed his backpack along with the big kids.  He even packed Porter's flip-flops in there for a few days.  He had to have a folder (a green one) and crayons, and a pencil box, and he even put chips in his pencil box incase he gets hungry.  I told him to be nice to the kids and his teacher.  No saying bad words at school.

He walked right in.  Miss Katey was excited to see him.  She took him by the hand, walked him over to his seat and helped him sit down.  

I took a quick picture and tried to sneak out the door just incase he tried to run after me in tears.  He didn't.  He didn't even care that I was leaving.  I stood at the door and watched him for just a sec.  He didn't even notice me.  He was so wide-eyed.  He seemed to be loving it!  I bet he felt like a big kid.  He loves to feel like a big kid.

When they all came home they were excited.  They had a great day.  Port likes his class.  He's got lots of buddies.  He has one friend in his class that we've known since preschool AND they're on the same football team, so that's awesome.  He already wants to come over and play.  Chloe's a little sad not to have a couple of her best little girlfriends in her class, but there IS another Chloe in her class, so that's fun.  Bubb loves his school.  He colored a paper with all the kids' names on it.  He had to color his own name and his teacher's name.  He, of course, used green.  He got to play outside.  He said a boy slid into his back, but he didn't get mad.  He also ate 2 cookies.  Only 2, Bubb??

I've never been a mom who's been excited for my kids to go back to school.  I've never been one to be excited to live by a set schedule and go to bed early and get up early and all the jazz.  This year, however, I was counting the days 'til school started!!  I couldn't wait!  I've never been so excited for school to start in my whole life!  Maybe because it's been such a hot summer, maybe because the kids were way excited, maybe because we were just kinda busy and we needed some kind of routine to calm us down, or maybe they're just plain driving my nuts.  I don't know, but they're in school, and I love it!!  The other day, all three older kids were in school, and Ave and I went to the store.  Just Ava and I alone.  Me and one child.  It was so nice!  And so easy!!  And so fast!!  Anyway...I love all 4, and I've loved our summer together, but we're all glad school has started :]

::back to school dinner::

I'm big on family traditions.  We've been having a back to school dinner for 4 years now, and we love it.  Even our extended family loves it-they want to know all about it too.  We love that!

This year's theme was pretty simple and straightforward...

Work Hard

and

Be Nice

To People

When I decided on that for the theme for the year, I mostly had Bubb in mind.  Especially for the be nice to people part.  He's sometimes not very nice to people-well me...and Ava.  I hope he's nice in school.  We, of course, want all of them to work hard always, an also be nice to everybody.  I just felt like it fit.

For dinner we had roast chicken with vegetables.  I've made it once before.  I got the recipe here.  It's even called "perfect roast chicken."  This blog belongs to my cousins, their food is amazing!  We've made a few things from their site.  The roast chicken was a family favorite after one bite!

I didn't plan out my day too well, what with the pet bunny and all, so dinner was a little later than I would've liked, but it was delish, and we had ice-cream with hot fudge and sprinkles for dessert (no photos of that-we ate it too fast :]

We hope we all have a great school year.  We're super excited about school, teachers, our backpacks, our clothes, our friends, the bus, our crayons, chips in our pencil box, eating lunch at school, and everything else that goes along with it. Some things might change for us midyear (hopefully), but we're prepared for that, and I think we'll do just fine :]

::our little bunny friend::

So, it's the last day of our summer vacation.  It's early in the morning (well, like 7ish, to me, that's kinda early-especially during the summer).  Chloe comes up to my room, wakes me up very gently and tells me, with a little but of panic in her voice, that there's a bunny rabbit in her window well.  I, half asleep, said "are you sure it's a bunny!?"  Like an 8 year old doesn't know what a bunny looks like.

Anyway, I went down to her room, and saw this in her window well..

A little back story...While Matt was deer huntin' the week before, I mowed the lawn in the evening.  I was getting ready to rake up some of the extra grass (we have a mulching mower and sometimes it leaves clumps of grass on the lawn and it's a little unsightly).  My neighbor was out.  We chatted for a bit.  A lady rode up the street on a bike.  A few minutes later her husband and teenage daughter walked down with a big box, then a few minutes after that they started to walk up with a big box full of bunny rabbits.  Nor your normal sight, so my neighbor and I went over to ask about it.  They said that the mom (on the bike) saw a whole bunch of bunnies on the loose down in the field at the end of our street (like somebody didn't want their pets anymore and just dumped them in the field).  So the dad and daughter went to rescue them.  Anyway...this lone bunny must've missed the rescue box that night because he hopped into our window well a few days later.

So we took care of him all day.  We gave him a bowl of celery and a bowl of water (which he kept spilling and I kept having to refill), and the kids would go outside and drop grass down there for him to eat.  Anybody who knows us knows we don't do pets.  Anytime he'd hop too close to the window, Chloe would run away down the hall and hide around the corner.  Porter wanted to keep him.  I didn't. Port called Matt and asked if we could.  He even named him "Happy Hopper."  That's a bad sign-when you name it.  I was hoping I could get the neighbor boys (they rescued a bunny a few days earlier) to take him, but they weren't home.  I REALLY didn't want to keep this bunny.  All I could think about was cleaning up his poo.  

The day went on.  We kept feeding and watering Hopper.  Every once in a while, Port would say "we're taking good care of him, aren't we??"  It was pretty cute.

Then after Matt got home, we talked and laughed about the bunny, and I told him how much I didn't want the thing, and then I tried the neighbor boys again, and they were home!  They were SOOO excited to come get it.

I was SO relieved!  I can't even talk about it!  It's so funny too because I grew up with pets.  I even had bunnies-2 of them!  I had cats, dogs, a gerbil, and 2 bunnies (not all at the same time though).  And now, the thought of even one pet that stays outside gives me such anxiety I feel like I can't breathe.   Life is weird.

::the brigham city temple::

On Saturday (the 25th) we got to go to the new Brigham City temple open house.  It is beautiful!!  We got to bright all the kids and walk through the whole thing!  Chloe thought it was so neat.  She got to see it already earlier in the week with her activity days group, so this was her second time through, but she was still way excited.  We looked for peach blossoms everywhere (Brigham City is famous for thier peaches).  The glasswork inside is really beautiful  I've never seen so much beautiful glasswork inside a temple.  Port loved it, I think.  He kind of liked walking behind the signs and under the ropes, and every once in a while he'd show us a really pretty chandelier or something he thought was really awesome. Bubb kind of cried a lot.  He was hungry and tired.  He wanted Matt to carry him the WHOLE time-which was ridiculous and hard.  He was pretty difficult, but then once we got inside and things started to cool off and quiet down, so did he.  He saw the beautiful things, and I think he felt the Sprirt within, and was able to appreciate the temple and enjoy being in there.  He walked around on his own and was much easier to be around after that :]  Ave just stayed with me.  I held her the whole time.  She was a good little Teenieweenie :]  We all really loved it.  I'm so glad we got to go.  It was really neat to be able to take the kids in there.  I'm not sure if they'll remember it (definitely not Bubb or Ave), but hopefully Chloe and Port.  This temple is especially important to us because it's so close to home (maybe 5 minutes away).  We hope we can go often. 

It's right on Main Street here in town.  It's been kinda fun to watch it being built.  We can see it from our front porch (well if we go to the one end of our front porch).  

It was SUPER busy!  We heard that something like 24,000 (that's twenty-four THOUSAND) people went through on that Saturday.  It was hot, and we had to wait around a bit, but it was worth it.  

This is a mosaic painting of the temple just outside the concession area.  I'm sure they'll move it to somewhere else after the temple is dedicated.  It was painted by the youth.  Isn't it neat?

Here's our whole group.  My parents and Billy and Gloria came up to see it too.

Thanks for setting it all up for us, Jennie!  We sure enjoyed it!

More about LDS temples here.

::flag football::

Port's playing flag football again this year.  He had his first game a couple of Thursdays ago (the 23th).  He did pretty good!  He's a little older than last year and Matt's not coaching, so I think that made it better for him (when his dad coaches, he tends to want to baby it up a bit).

There were a few touch downs, a few tackles, a few belly bumps, one awesome touchdown pass, and lots of flags pulled--all on both ends of the field.

A little pre-game huddle...

Probably the best part of the night...

(the treat afterwards)

He's had another game since, and has another one tomorrow, and it's been pretty fun to watch him.  He has a couple of buddies on his team, so that makes if even more fun.  Matt says he's got a few things to work on with him.  He tells Port that he needs to watch more football so he can see what he needs to do.  Port gets excited about that...kind of like it's his homework.  The Cowboys play tonight, and he's all kinds of excited about that!!  He's wearing his Cowboys shirt at school today :]

::family pictures::

I finally finished our family photos!

(more here)

::cheer camp::

So a couple of weeks ago, well more like 3 or four weeks ago, our cute little neighbor girl came over and asked us if we'd had a chance to look over the flyer she had put in our mailbox.  I told her I hadn't really looked at it.  Chloe came to the door with me.  Morgan, the neighbor girl, with her cute little voice and her bright blue eyes asked Chloe if she wanted to come to cheer camp.  Chloe, of course, said YEAH!!  So we signed her up.

She went a couple of weeks later and had SO much fun!  They learned 2 cheers and a dance in 3 days of practice (Monday-Wednesday) and had their performance of Thursday.

It was a hot 3 days of practice!!

Performance day.

This is her group waiting for their turn.

While they waited...

Their cheers...

(My videos are WAY overexposed!  I guess I need to learn more about the video side of my camera!)

I wanted a little photo of her with the cheerleaders in charge of her group.
(Morgan is the girl to Chloe's right.)

It was fun to go watch her.  She had lots of fun all week (even though it was SO hot!  She loves her shirt!  Port was kind of awful at her performance-which is annoying because he has kind of (kind of) out grown the being awful stage, but he was so bored.  We had to explain to him that sometimes it's not all about him.  In a couple of weeks, Chloe will be bored at his soccer and football games!  I think that made him feel a little better.

In other news...
Bubb called me homegirl yesterday.  He told me I "could go tell that, homegirl!"  It was SO funny, but I tried not to laugh.  He said it so seriously...like a boss.  Like he thought it would make me mad or something (he's been a big poo lately).  So I just kind of said "uh!!" and he kept saying more stuff and ended it all with "homegirl." 

::When in doubt, stay at the Hilton::

Last Saturday was Mantua's Little Valley Days celebration.  We only got to go to the fireworks.  Matt usually golfs in the tournament during the week (which they didn't even have this year because his dad wasn't there to organize it), we usually go to some kind of activity during the week, I run in the dam race on Saturday morning (which I LOVE), we watch the cute little parade, we have dinner up at the park where we watch fireworks, and then when it's dark, we watch fireworks.

We missed it all (well not the fireworks)--because we went to Idaho.  Yup.  Idaho.

The annual Twin Falls trip fell on the same weekend.  It wasn't terribly fun.  It's getting a little old (for me anyway).  The older kids love it (Chloe and Port), Coop even loves it, and probably Ava does too.  I have a hard time entertaining 4 kids for that long when you have to be out all day with only a hotel room to go "home" to.  Ave is too little for movies, and, well, it's Idaho, so what else really is there?  The shopping's not great, it's tough to take 4 swimming by myself, and it's too hot to do much outside.

This trip had an extra snag in it too.  I want to preface this story by saying that I wanted to stay at the Hilton in the first place.

We booked rooms at a hotel that we've stayed at lots of times in years past.  I didn't go last year on account of Ava being only 3 months old (and I just don't love golf trips that much).  So I guess maybe it all went to H in the one year I didnt go?  So we get in our room and it smelled a little iffy.  Eh, sometimes they just do.  Whatever.  Not bad enough to be a deal breaker.  Then, we're getting the kids ready for bed (showers and such), and we discover that the tub doesn't drain.  Nice.  We pull out the sofa bed, and there's trash under it.  Gross!  Then I start to wonder what else they missed in the room.  I start to pull down the covers on the beds-looking to see if the sheets look clean.  They didn't.  I called downstairs to ask for clean ones.  They front desk said it'd be about a half hour because housekeeping was on a break.  Uh, ok.  So I decided to go fill the ice bucket (you know me and my ice).  I took the lid off, no liner, and it was wet inside, AND there was hair in it, AND the lid was dirty-straight dirty! OH NASTY!!  So Matt and I started walking around the room looking to see what else was dirty.  By then it had been close to an hour since I had called about the sheets.  I walked downstairs myself with the ice bucket to show the girl at the desk and to ask if I could get sheets myself.  She said they keep the sheets in a different place.  I told her I have kids I have to get to bed (it was 10:30) and that I wasn't too happy about the wait.  She apologized.  I showed her the ice bucket.  I told her I wasn't too sure the room had been cleaned.  She looked at her computer and said it showed that it had.  I said well the room says otherwise.  She apologized.  I thanked her for the clean ice bucket and went back upstairs.  So about 15 minutes later (10:45 pm) the housekeeping lady shows up with "clean" sheets singing "doo duh doo duh doo" as I opened the door.  Doo duh doo duh doo??  At 11:00 at night?  When I called over an hour ago?  And I've got 4 little kids who need to get to bed?  Doo duh doo duh doo?

The next morning, after a HORRIBLE night's sleep for all of us, I got up at 7 to go for a run.  I finally got to run down the canyon.  I've wanted to for years, but never could because of tee times or babies or whatever.  It was beautiful!  I (sort of) ran past the big waterfall, I got to hear it and smell it, I ran past a lot of smaller trickling waterfalls.  I loved it!  I got back and was just about the step in the shower when I saw a bug crawling on the towel that was on the floor (that you step on when you get out).  I yelled for Matt to come see it.  I asked him if it was a bed bug.  We yahooed it.  I swear it was one!  Matt squished it and put it in a cup.  We were outta there!  In a matter of 10 minutes we were packed and the hotel general manager was in our room trying to talk us into staying in one of their extended suites.  What?  Why, are the bedbugs smaller in there??  I told her thanks, but I think we'd be more comfortable somewhere else. (Like THE HILTON!!)

So that's where we went for our 2nd night, and it was much better.  Matt kept saying how much better it was too, and that I should've listened to him and stayed at the Hilton.  Ha!  You'd think that after 10 years he'd listen to me in the first place, right??  :]

So the moral of the story:  When in doubt, stay at the Hilton.

Other than the hotel ridiculousness, it wasn't bad.  We went to Home Depot to look at house stuff, took Chloe shopping, took the kids to the smelly jumpy place (ohh it's nasty), and swam at the hotels.  We missed Richard and Susan a lot on our trip.  We missed them a lot during the whole week they were gone to the MTC.  They came home yesterday for the night just to do laundry and pack a few more things, then they were headed out today for California for the whole 18 months.  We miss them already.

Anyway, here we all are at the fireworks in Mantua.  We had fun there.  Matt didn't win anything in the raffle (he usually doesn't), but it's fun to try.  Jennie, Jared & Sarah, and Amberlee & George were there, so that was lots of fun. 

::swimming lessons::

The 3 big kids took swimming lessons for a couple of weeks, and it just got over on Thursday.  They loved it (for the most part).  Port and Chloe did...Bubb, not so much.  He had fun, but didn't want to get his face or hair wet.  Port was the EXACT same way, and now he's a fish, so we think there's hope for Bubba :)

Chloe learned some water safety (she had to rescue her teacher)...

Pencil dives...

Knee dives...

(the pool at The Peak isn't deep enough for real dives)

...and all kinds of different swim strokes.  The first week of class was swim strokes back and forth and back and forth, and she.was.tired!!

Portie learned how to just swim!!  And he loves it!!  He worked on his back floating, front crawls, and he got really good at opening his eyes under water (which I don't think was a swimming lessons requirement, but he was pretty proud of it).

Look at him go!!Bubba learned how to get his hair wet without getting his face wet (nice, Bubb!)...

Some water safety...

How to jump in...

He also learned how to kick and make big splashes, how to blow bubbles in the water, and how to hop on one foot in the water (again, not a swimming lessons requirement, but he was very proud).

And Poor Mae-Mae.  She looked like this most days.  Red cheeks (full of Fruit Loops) waiting for it to get over so she can go home and eat lunch and take a nap in the air conditioning.

On the last day they got some free time.  They turned on the fountains, and let the kids play with all the toys.  Avie was SO excited about this part!  She's been watching for 2 weeks without being able to join in.  This time she got to play too (a little).  She walked right up to the pool and started to step right in!  Good thing I was holding on to her.  She has no fear at all!  She splashed around kicked her feet, and when it was over, she was pretty wet.

Next year I kind of want to try the Brigham Pool for swimming lessons.  They have a diving board and much deeper water.  I couldn't this year because 3 year olds have to be in a parent/child class, and there was no way that would've worked for us (not with Ave).  We'll try it next year, and see how we like it.

::farewell::

We had to say goodbye to Matt's mom and dad on Sunday.  We had their official farewell on the 8th (July) and got to hear them speak in church.  They gave beautiful talks.  We got to hear their testimonies and why they felt like they needed to serve a mission at this time.  They were set apart on Sunday.  The whole family (minus Adam and his family and Jordan who's on a mission in Argentina) was there for it.  It was nice and a little sad at the same time.  

We took some pictures in the foyer afterwards.  It's kind of fun to see how everyone's changed when they get back.  They're going to San Fernando, California for 18 months.

See Chloe's face?  She was having a rough time.  She's known for a long time that they were leaving, but I think it finally hit her.  She realized that Grandma was leaving.  She started really crying right during a prayer, and hasn't quite mastered the quiet cry.  Poor thing.  All I could do is hug her and tell her shhhh softly.

Some of us went up to their house afterwards to talk and play some games.  I'm glad we did.  We got to spend some extra time with them and say bye at their house, and not in the church parking lot :)

They'll be home for one night at the end of their training at the MTC, so we'll see them then, then it's off the Cali. for 18 months minus a week and a half :) 

(yes, we're counting down)