Last Wednesday Ryan (Ben's nephew) went into the MTC - on his way to Jacksonville, FL.  Because he was already set apart as a missionary and couldn't be left alone at his grandma's house, we got the privilege of having him stay with us Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning before Ben drove him down.  The kids absolutely loved having him here.  And since their first day of school was Wednesday morning, they thought it was pretty cool to have him here for that.

 

I'm sure they ran him ragged.  He got to play "Book of Mormon Who", hide-n-seek, and they all took turns making him throw them on the bed. My kids have a LOT of energy but he was a good sport.

   

 Before school they all sat around him while he looked at Ben's mission scrapbook.

I'm pretty sure looking at Ben's book would scare anybody from a mission.  Living in Panama and on a small island for 6 months would give you enough stories to scare anyone. 

Tuesday night, we also got to have Kim (Ben's sister) and her kids visit from Seattle.  My kids love playing with their cousins on Ben's side that we don't get to see very often.

 

 

 

This was the first time they got to meet Miles.  He was loving the attention and walking around with Woody's hat in his mouth growling at people.  The more we laughed, the louder he got.  He's hilarious.

 

School started!!!!

This is by big guy all ready to head off to school ALL DAY!  He was so excited and said he wasn't nervouse at all, but in the morning he had to go to the bathroom a few times which is what happens when my kids get nervous or anxious about something.  But he was super excited to get back to school.  I, too, was excited but also a little anxious for him to be at school all day.  

 

And Sara, well she's an old hat at this.  She was sooooooo excited to go to school.  She LOVES it.  She was even sad when her teacher said she doesn't give lots of homework.  This year Sara gets to have the teacher she had in kindergarten. (We requested she get put in her class.) Mrs. Williams moved up to 3rd grade and Sara has been so excited to get to be in her class again.  She came home and said, "Mrs. Williams has a lot more rules this year."  But she's still excited to be there.

 

Seriously, the school supplies.

 

 

Evan's friend from the ward, Julia, is in his class again this year.  There were 4 from our ward in the same class last year, and only these 2 got put in the same class this year.

 

She's ready to go

 

After a long day at school.  My kids, even Sara, still take naps when they are home.  They need them.  When Evan came home yesterday his eyes looked so tired.  (It didn't help that he has a scratch under his eye from a friend he was wrestling with.)  You could tell he needed to sleep.

They have a new principal this year.  There were some changes to how things are run.  Among them a change in uniform policy.  They have uniforms, nothing new, but were able to earn free dress on Friday for good behavior, turning in homework, etc.  The new principal has done away with that.  Now they only get to have free dress 4 times a year. It's not a big change, but I'm not quite sure I like it.  As a mom, I love having uniforms.  It makes life a little simpler.  But, I also liked for them to be able to choose what they wanted to wear once a week.  But maybe it will prove to be a good thing.

 

Kamri and I surprised them at home with a giant chocolate chip cookie.

Grandparents' Lunch

I tried to have some craft days with the kids this summer.  We were making a bunch of things and I wanted to have a something to use them all for.  The kids also wanted to have my parents over for a lunch date.  So....we decided to use our crafts as decorations for the special event.

 

We decorated the table with a coffee filter flower centerpiece, the bubble art placemats, and hung the paper flowers from the ceiling in the kitchen and in the living room.  

 

 

I let the kids pick what to have for lunch.  The knew grandma really liked grilled lunchmeat and cheese sandwiches cooked on our grill and grandpa loves my chocolate chip cookies.  So we made the sandwiches and homemade juice for lunch.  fro dessert we were going to have warm cookies with vanilla ice cream.  But, we had a storm that day and the electricity went out.  Luckily we had just finished the sandwiches, but unfortunately it stayed off for another 6 hours so we weren't able to have the cookies. So sad. 

  

To thank the kids, my parents brought them these cool glow stick caps.  They were so cool and the kids had so much fun playing hide-n-seek in the dark.

It was a lot of fun and the kids thought they were so special to make lunch for grandma and grandpa.

Cooling off

All summer we've been planning on going to a nearby park to play in their little water area and eat lunch, but we didn't make it until last week.  I decided since there was less than a week 'til school starts we needed to get it done.  So we made some plans with some friends to meet there and at the last minute they had something come up but we were still able to go.  It was a lot of fun and even better that it was free.  

 

Kamri didn't like the water spraying at her, but we stayed on the out skirts and she was doing this cute little giggle.

  

Miles didn't want anything to do with the water until it was turned off in spots.  He was having so much fun with the little trickle though.  He thought it was the best.