'Twas the Night Before School

...and for hours on end, all the creatures were stirring with....I don't know.  Can't figure out a good rhyme.  Oh well.

New start!  As is tradition, we did school blessings tonight for all four of our school kids, plus James--because he will not tolerate being left out of something as cool as this!  These pictures are not great, but here they are!

 James clamored up into that chair, immediately folded his arms and closed his eyes, and did not move a muscle until his blessing was over, not even to take a picture! The only thing that changed was his smile--anytime it started to wane, he would immediately stretch it all the way across his face again.  So stinkin' adorable!

 I'm very grateful that Jared is able to bless our kids in this manner-literally, and spiritually.  I don't remember the specifics, but I do know the feeling of peace in our home was strong, and that is so very important.  School starts tomorrow--woohoo!

And this picture--well, this one is great!

...happy school year to all-now lets all eat steak!  (That's as good as that poor excuse of a rhyme is going to get!)

JD's First Homework Assignment!

And its not even school yet!

 JD finished his summer homework assignment today, and I just love how it turned out-mostly because JD is such a good artist!  I don't know how he does this!  JD read "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and kept a journal of the main ideas for each chapter.  He wrote them all up for the middle of his display board, and then drew the good guys and the bad guys as seen below.

 JD just looks at the illustrations in the book and free hands them-no copying involved.  I usually consider myself pretty "okay" at drawing something, but he's in a league of his own!

With that, JD is ready to jump into 3rd grade!

Meet the Teacher

I really meant to take a shot of each kid in their own classroom, but alas, tackling Meet the Teacher night with 4 kids in 4 different classrooms was hard enough-I had zero time to take out my camera!  As it is, we "lost" JD's bag with gluten free granola bars at some point, and backtracked to three of the classrooms before we found it.  We got there right when it started at 5:00 and left at 6:16, which is one minute after it ended.  Whew!  It was busy, exciting, and frustrating (only when a few boys who shall remain nameless started drawing Captain Underpants on a 5th grade whiteboard and then play cool math.com on a 3rd grade computer)....but mostly exciting.

Karianna has Ms. Medina for 5th grade this year. We don't know much about her yet, but I immediately loved her demeanor-positive, upbeat, and high expectations.  She made Karianna feel at ease, her classroom looked scholarly, yet welcoming, and Karianna has several good friends in her class.  We found out they are going to the same science camp that I went to as a kid, and I volunteered as a chaperone--just hope I get selected as one of the 15!  Karianna also visited the orchestra room and grabbed some info about starting up with violin again.  She only briefly considered switching to band to play the flute, but in the end stuck with violin.  She is officially excited for the year to start!

JD has Ms. Soltis for 3rd grade, and honestly, we don't know much about her either!  Turns out, she is super easy to talk to, already know a lot about me having talked to Karianna's old 3rd grade teacher, and was especially interested in JD's celiac disease, and James' medical conditions.  She is expecting a baby in November, and her long term sub will be Karianna's 3rd grade teacher who retired last year, so that is a nice set up!  JD's best friend Brenton is in his class, and that's all he cared about honestly!

Jordan has Ms. Cawood, who I love as a 1st grade teacher!  He is in class with Logan and Brigham, which greatly excites him!  He will be starting up with speech again a week into school, and upon entering her classroom, immediately noticed a list of sight words and read straight through them. Our work over the summer paid off, apparently!  Jordan was excited to see his first desk filled with his new books, one of which we have at home.  He seemed comfortable immediately, and I am completely not worried about him as we start the year.

Sara has Ms. Davis, who we also love as a kindergarten teacher-she's probably my favorite out of the four teachers we have this year.  Ms. Davis does such a good job implementing "extras" into the curriculum, which I really, really appreciate.  Sara--goodness gracious.  I don't think I have any reason to be worried about her transition!  She walked into the room and immediately left my side to explore. She said hi to Ms. Davis and told her all about getting picked up.  She went to the calendar area and starting pulling out books to read.  She went to the kitchen area and asked Ms. Davis if she could play.  She was so comfortable in the classroom and not bashful at all about taking to those around-she even said hi to another girl named Bella, telling her she liked her necklace.  She'll be just fine in kinder this year, and I was so glad to see that.

And so, in just a few days, this will be life at home:  two happy boys, best buds, shirtless, and enticed by stacking and knocking over water bottles.  I'll take it!

Last Week of Summer: Bass Pro Shop and Culvers

Believe it or not (well, you have to believe me, because what other choice do you have?), we actually went to Bass Pro Shop and Culvers after our zoo visit in the previous post!  We were gone for over 5 hours today, it was a crazy busy outing, but we definitely got in our share of family togetherness!

We spent quite a while in Bass Pro Shop, just because the kids LOVED all the animals!  We decided we want to buy these in the future (distant, if I have my way):  

 We also decided we want to invest in these camping chairs that have canopies! That type of a purchase I approve more of.

 The fish of course drew their attention for a while.

 But we spent the bulk of our time doing this.

 The kids love these arcade-style shooting ranges, and honestly, I do too!  Jared gave them little tutorials on shooting, and they did pretty well!

 Our favorite animal, and close enough to get a shot of it!  Love that Karianna looks like she is in shock, and James was trying to see the bear behind him the entire time Jared was trying to get a shot!  JD has to go to the bathroom, and Sara is hiding behind her hair apparently.  Jordan looks like the bear is his best buddy and Jacks...well, he's looking at me because that's just his M.O.  Love my kids!

We hit up culvers afterwards for ice cream.  Even after a long outing, the kids did great just sitting, eating their ice cream, and talking.  With each other.  Kindly.  See, this is why we should get out more often--I think it brings us all closer, even in situations where we could start to get on each other's nerves.  :)  

Last Week of Summer: The Zoo

We haven't been to the Zoo in a while because it is just too hot.  However, we braved it today, and it ended up being a great visit-mostly because it was overcast and windy!  It was still pretty warm, so we spent a good chunk of the time at the splash pad.  Jackson seemed to really enjoy it, and he splashed up a storm!  

 We visited the animals on our normal trail-giraffe, lion, tiger, monkey, orangutan, komodo dragon, etc.  We saw the dik-diks (gazelle look alikes) standing on their hind legs reaching way up into the trees, which was cool!  We saw a neat little leopard tortoise waddling around the fennic fox exhibit (the foxes were adorable, even in sleep).  The lions were asleep, but the male was laying in a great position for us to see him!  We took the back walkway to get a really good look at the rhino-he kept flicking his ears at us, which James loved.

 Karianna, bless her heart, is getting a little bit old for the splash pad!  She had a great attitude, but wasn't too interested in playing or getting wet.  She helped with the baby a lot, and enjoyed sitting with him in the stream to play. Time moves way too fast.

 I told Sara to pose, and this is what she gave me!

 The best group pic I could get of all the kids!

 Jacks kept leaning over this little spout and covering it with his hands, thus when it went off, he would get sprayed in his face!  He didn't seem to care!

 Those are all my boys!  <3 p="">

 I enjoy this picture quite a bit!

 The Zoo now has 3 komodo dragons, which is cook-two smaller ones, and one that is starting to rival the old brother and sister dragons who died a while ago.

 LOVE this shot!  We got all the kids (minus Jacks of course) on the bars, holding on for dear life while I snapped a shot!

 We ended at the Orangutan hut, where we got to sit in the cool air (really, it was cool!) and see a zoo worker feed Kasih and Daniel M&Ms!  It was funny, they kept spitting them out, like, "what the heck is this?"

We spent about an hour and a half at the zoo, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We left just as the sun was coming out--good timing!

Last Week of Summer: Free Birds

I'm going to have to fix some of these pics later, but I'll just post them for now.  We attended our final Harkins summer move today:  Free Birds.  It was not my favorite movie of the summer by any means, but the kids enjoyed it-I think it may have been the only one they hadn't seen before except for the Lego Movie.  Which was my favorite by the by!  We didn't miss a single movie all summer, and Thursdays worked out so well-less crowded, especially the parking lot!  James did extremely well for movies this summer, and he got better and better with every single one.  Jackson wasn't too bad as well-I usually fed him within 30 minutes of the movie starting, then he would sleep for 30-45 minutes, and then wake up for the rest of the time.  He never got too fussy, and that was super helpful, as the only adult tending to 6 kids in a crowded movie theater.  We are already looking forward to next year's movie line up!

Final Week of Summer: Lunch Date

 This is a simple one, but we enjoyed going to McDonalds for a lunch date!  The kids especially appreciated this location, which had multiple game stations.  They even did a nice job letting other kids have turns when their time was up!

Final Week of Summer: Dino Museum

 What can I say, we love this museum!  Jared had a day off, so he spent the morning playing with James and Jackson while I went to the dinosaur museum with the kids.  I really, really would have liked to take James, honestly-I think he would have enjoyed parts of it, but it would have also been really difficult to monitor everyone, so this was the best option.

 I love this picture, and Sara is such a drama queen!

 JD was very excited about digging up the ribs of this dinosaur in the excavation area!

 Both boys were super excited about the pteresaur area!  I so did not spell that correctly, but oh well!

We had a lot of fun at the museum, super glad we were able to squeeze this in!

She did it!

I wish I had a gorgeous picture to match my gorgeous daughter, but alas, I'll have to add one in later!

Karianna was scheduled to sing "Gethsemane" in sacrament meeting on Easter Sunday.  She got a really bad cough though, and couldn't sing more than a few words without hacking up a lung the day before Easter.  We unfortunately had to cancel her special number, with the goal of doing it over summer.  We got past James' surgery and looked at rescheduling things.  Originally, Karianna was scheduled to sing on 7/20, however we opted to go camping, and moved it to 7/27.  Every now and then, Karianna would make a comment, worrying that she would lose her voice or get a cough again.  It made Jared and I nervous for her sake--that first experience really, truly doing a musical number in church is a big deal for future musical opportunities!  She would tell me all the time that she was 80% excited, 20% nervous.  We crossed our fingers.

Karianna practiced with my mom a few times before the today rolled around.  She sounded beautiful each time.  I should mention, I was singing with her, but only on the chorus, and only to add some harmony-that's it.  It was her number, and sounded so beautiful in her sweet, angelic voice.  She did great at each practice, no issues at all, and Mom played the piano perfectly to match her.

Karianna woke up today with no nerves showing at all.  She was perfectly calm-I think I was more nervous than she was!  When we got to church, we realized we were not on the program.  Of all days-they forgot to put the special musical number in!  My mom took care of that with the Bishopric, and when sacrament was over, we prepared ourselves to sing.

So how did it go?  Amazing.  I was in utter amazement at my daughter, and had to take severe control of my own emotions to avoid losing it at the mic.  Karianna's voice rang out so clear throughout the room, and the words to Gethsemane are so poignant-it was a perfect, beautiful testimony from a beautiful young lady.  Many people told Karianna how wonderful it sounded, how brave she was.  She told me she didn't feel nervous at all once she started singing.  I feel very strongly that the spirit worked through her today to touch the hearts of many in attendance.  I am so very, very proud of my daughter, so very, very humbled to be her mother.  She is so mature and grounded, more so than I remember being at her age.  We are very blessed, that is for sure.

And with that, Karianna has her first true musical number under her belt!  She sang a solo in our primary program last year, but that felt different-the entire primary was behind her, two other children at her side for their own solos....today was different.  I was behind her, but for all intents and purposes, it was her moment to share her talents with everyone around her--and it was perfect.

Love you Karianna!