Last week of August

Last Sunday in singing time the teachers got to wear funny hats if their class was singing well.  It got the kids motivated and was fun.  

Our garden has done pretty well this year. Our zucchini plant died right at the beginning of the season, but the peas, beans, beets, carrots, tomatoes, and cantaloupe have done well.  We planted watermelons too, but there aren't very many and they are pretty small.  Right now the tomatoes are coming full force.  Doug, Chris, Damon and Jenna are happy about that.  

 Two cute girls snuggling up and resting.

 I tried a new braid this week.  I had done just a single braid across earlier in the week, but because their hair grows straight forward their hair was still flipping forward and getting in their face.  So this way the braid controlled all of their top hair. Kaylee's was one braid curved around.

 Jenna's was two braids tied together at the side.

 The girls are crazy little monkeys.  We got out the slip 'n slide yesterday after if finally warmed up after a week of coolness, cloudiness, and rain.

Everything else seems to be going fine.  The boys finished their 2nd week of school.  Chris will be starting preschool this week.  I went to curriculum night and had book club this week.  I love my friends here and we can talk forever.  I think we finally wrapped things up around midnight.  Doug has been busy with work.  He has low on help and didn't have a sand person scheduled for the weekend, so he had to help with that.  

We are ready for September and for whatever the fall brings. 

Super-heroes / Ice cream cones / and Carnivals.

Some other fun pictures.  Jenna is some sort of super hero. :) I think she says 'super girl' as she runs around.

 I bought ice cream cones, which we haven't had for awhile, so we all enjoyed that.

Yesterday was the Stake Carnival.  They put on a pretty big production here.  They cook hot dogs and everyone else brings chips, fruit, veggies, or cookies.  Then each ward is in charge of a carnival game.  They also have live music and a pie eating contest for the Bishops.  The kids like the games and they are getting old enough to actually do them.  They liked the one where you knock over little army men with a squirt gun the best.  

We took these 2 shots to document the event.  We told the girls to give each other a hug and Doug managed to catch it, what a good photographer.  The girls followed us around pretty well.  It was nice to not have a stroller or anything.  They liked their bag of popcorn and their snow-cone.  They played on the playground but there were so many kids there I was afraid of them getting bumped around too much.  Jenna is getting adventurous and wants to climb on all the ladder type things that go up to the upper levels of the playground.  She does pretty well, but it still makes me nervous.  She almost fell yesterday, but managed to fall onto the landing.  

Jenna is definitely our more stubborn girl.  She refuses to come and will just sit on the grass.  I keep walking but then Damon will go back to get her - but she doesn't like it.  Anyway, she has a strong personality and has reached that age of independence.  These are all the things she likes to do by herself and will let you know that she does not want your help: cut her pancakes, put on her clothes, buckle her car-seat, put on her shoes, and walk across the street.  Kaylee likes to try and do these things too, but if you ask her if she wants help she will mostly likely let you help her after she has tried.  Jenna will scream and scream and scream if you do something for her and she didn't get to do it or didn't ask for help.  

I went to the grocery store on Monday and Jenna screamed the entire 40 minutes that I was shopping because she didn't get to walk (she had asked to ride in the car cart).  Anyway, it is a hard age, but I love the way they are learning.  They count well and can say their ABC's pretty well.  They are getting more consistently right with their colors and they know their shapes well to.  They like to point out what they see as we drive along: sky - blue, clouds, trees, octagon (stop sign), animals and other things. If we drive down a hill they will say hill and then say weeee.  It's pretty cute.  They have gotten better at playing together.  They are not right under my feet so much at dinner time.  Kaylee is good to go find something to play with.  Jenna stills prefers to find things that are not hers to play with: chap-sticks, phones, pens, flashlights, lotion, hand sanitizer, etc.  

Life is pretty good.  We are getting back into a routine.  I started a new set of goals this week and a chart to keep track.  That has helped me try even harder to get things done.  Doug and I spoke in church today and that went pretty well.  Chris will start preschool on Thursday - I am doing a co-op this year, so hopefully that will go ok.  The boys start piano lessons on Thursday as well.  I am having them go to a friend in the ward.  

So until next week - on with our lives :)

Summer karate

Tyler finished his summer semester of karate.  They had their awards night on Monday.  They demonstrated a few blocks and moves they had been working on.  Tyler continues to enjoy it and does very well. 

 He earned his orange belt.  We finally figured out their belt ranking system: each color has a white / black and the next ranking color stripe.
white, yellow, orange, blue, purple, green, red, brown, black

So the first semester Tyler went from white all the way to yellow, skipping the three striped colors in between.  This time he went from yellow to orange, skipping the three striped colors in between.

 We are pretty proud of him.  Damon is thinking about trying it out this next semester.  We will see.

First day of school

Monday was the first day of school.  Tyler is now in 2nd grade and has Mrs. Pool for his teacher.  She is new to the school but has taught 2nd grade is another elementary school in our district.  He said his first day was awesome!  Tyler has a good attitude about school for which I am grateful.  He is always excited about things. He has a friend James in his class so that is good.  He other two friends are in other classes. 

 Damon is in 4th grade and has Mrs. Doughty.  He is less excited about school, but I think is partly just a show.  When I see him in class he is usually happy and having fun with his friends.

 I walk with the boys in the morning down to their classrooms, it is good to get outside and let the girls and Chris walk.  When it gets colder I will probably send them on their own.  We meet them at the edge of the school field after school and walk home together.  Where we of course all have popsicles.  It has been pretty warm this week.

Last week of Summer

 Well this week was a lot calmer compared to last week.  I basically just let the boys play and enjoy their last week to do whatever they wanted.  They probably got to play the Wii a little too much and we watched a few movies here and there, but it was fun to let the kids be kids.

I have started a new project.  I am taking the girls' baby blankets and sewing them into 2 twin quilts.  Doug was brilliant and suggested that I take a picture of the fabrics so I could play around with the squares until I found the pattern that I liked.  I think this one is the winner.  I didn't have enough blankets to get 9 colors so I had to buy 2 different fabrics to make it work.  I need to finish cutting the squares and then start sewing.  I had to get the girls new pillow cases since I had sewn two of their blankets into pillow cases.

Not much else going on, just some random pictures.  Everyone did get colds this week, so hopefully by Monday everyone will be better. I got sick yesterday, boo. 

Jenna

Kaylee

 I guess some bigger news is that we got rid of the cribs yesterday.  The girls had a blast jumping on their toddler beds.  They did ok their first night.  Doug found them asleep on the floor around midnight (we had put some pillows down in case they rolled out) and they woke up at 3:00 and I put them back to bed.

 Nap time today Jenna went down well in their room.  We put another toddler mattress in our room for Kaylee to sleep on.  I didn't lock the door and came up later to find her playing in Chris's room.  So we will have to work on that.

They are growing up, we might give potty training a try sometime soon.  We'll see how that goes.  Not sure if they're ready or not, but I'm willing to try for a few days.

Damon and Tyler start school tomorrow.  We met their teachers on Friday night.  Damon has Mrs. Doughty (moved up from 2nd grade) and Tyler has Mrs. Pool (transferred over from another elementary school).  They both seem nice so I hope it will be a good school year.

Bat-girl

 Just had to throw in this picture of Jenna - dressing up as Bat-girl as Chris and I were playing Legos.

Hogwarts week 8

This was our last week of Hogwarts Summer School.  We made works of art out of natural materials (rocks), had a read-a-thon, made a magic potion, wrote some goals and summer letters, delivered some goodies to some teachers, and went geo-caching.  

It has been a fun program to keep us busy during the summer.  The boys will get a certificate and some Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and hopefully Tyler will win a wand.  The top person in each house wins one.  Tyler is tied for 1st, Damon is tied for 2nd so we will see what happens.  

At home vacation!

Wow! it's been a crazy, fun, and busy week.  Doug took this week off as our family vacation.  We decided to not drive anywhere and just do a lot of the things around here that we have been wanting to do.  My parents wanted to come and visit us during the summer and we invited them to come during this time, to have some fun with us and also to join in the adult supervision.

Monday we started the week with a trip to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  I had taken the kids a month ago, but the kid zone is always fun and it was less crowded this time.   We also had more time for the Space area and we looked at the dinosaurs again.  We also went up on the roof and saw a great view of the Denver area.   

 They had a Maya display going on, Damon makes a great stone face.

After the museum Doug and I stayed in town while my parents drove the kids home for quiet time.  Doug and I took a tour of the Pepsi Center.  It was pretty interesting seeing the visitor's locker room, the practice gym, weight room, 3 restaurants, and a court suite.  The tour lasted 2 hours and after walking around the museum all morning we were tired of being on our feet. 

 We drove back to the museum to watch an IMAX film on lemurs. We missed the one on Jerusalem.   Then we decided to have dinner closer to home and went to the HuHot at 144th street.  Doug and I had never eaten there, so that was a fun experience.

 We made it back home a little after 8:00, the kids were mostly in bed and we just kissed them good night.  It was a great afternoon and evening to spend together.  It also ended up being our anniversary date - since on the 9th would be our 13th anniversary.

Tuesday Grandma and Grandpa watched Chris and the girls while Doug and I took Damon and Tyler to Boondocks.  It was so much fun to actually enjoy those types of activities instead of just baby-sitting while the older kids played.

While we were gone the younger kids played and went to the park.

 We started out on the go-karts at Boondocks.  We kind of made Damon try it.  He really didn't want to do it.  He was crying and mad at us afterwards for making him do it.  But then we played laser tag and he felt better.  We played a bunch of arcades and a game of bowling.  We stopped for lunch and got the boys some hamburgers and fries and McDonald's.  It was tasty Tuesday at Cafe Rio, so Doug and I ate there ($5 for the burrito and salad, yum).  We had a lot of fun and stayed quite awhile.  It takes longer than you think to do all of the activities because of all the waiting in lines.

We got home around 3:30 and got an easy dinner ready, pasta and some left-over grilled chicken.  Mom and I went to Relief Society in the evening.  It was called 'Swap 'til you Drop,' I brought some clothes and toys that we didn't need and swapped them for some new things.  I got some clothes for the girls and some clothes for me.  It was a lot of fun.  My mom even found some things for her.

Wednesday we went to the splash park in Loveland. It is a nice park but very big.  I haven't dared take all the kids by myself.  I was glad for the extra help from Doug and my parents.  There is a canal that runs right by the park, so I feel like I have to keep a closer eye on everyone.

 The kids loved the covered sand area.

Tyler liked to climb around on the playground. 

 My mom and I stayed in Loveland and shopped for a bit.  We found some deals at Carter's, mostly clearance for the girls for next summer, also some pants for Chris and winter pj's for the girls.

After dinner we all went on a bike ride.  We borrowed a bike for my mom so that we all could go.

 We like to play restaurant - the girls served up lots of ice cream.

 Jenna climbed a new section on this trip.  Tyler was good to help at the top.

Thursday we were going to go on a hike, but I felt like staying closer to home.  Also my brother was in town for work and he joined us for the day.  So Doug and my brother went golfing in the morning.  

The rest of us went to the park and went geo-caching.  This was actually an activity for our Hogwarts summer school.  It was a lot of fun.  I downloaded an app and found that there were some caches right at our nearby park.  So we followed the dot and looked around and found two caches and added our names to the log.  They boys had fun on this real life treasure hunt.

I found a baby-sitter for lunch so that my parents, my brother and Doug and I could all go to lunch.  We went to the local Thai place.  It was nice to sit down and visit and enjoy some good food.  I liked my dish but it was a bit spicy for me. 

Then my parents had to go back to the airport and Doug and Marcus went into Denver to spend some time together (bowling and dinner) before going to a pre-season Broncos game. They had a lightening delay which was frustrating, but they had a good time.  My brother is a die-hard Broncos fan so he was really excited to go to a game even though it was pre-season. 

Friday we took a day off and just chilled at home.  I was getting tired from all of our fun.  We did go swimming after dinner.  This was the first time we had taken the girls to a rec center swimming place.  I just can't take all of the kids by myself so we have to wait and go when Doug is around.  They cried at first, but got better as they got used to it.  Jenna was a bit more nervous and wanted Doug more.  Damon and Tyler went down the slide for the first time this trip.  They really liked it, so that was fun.  The girls went down the little slide in the kiddie area and they liked that.

Saturday we did our normal cleaning and I ran errands in town.  Doug and I were going to go on a date for our anniversary, but we felt like our previous date and all of the fun things we had done during the week were enough for us.  We did watch a movie in the evening with some ice cream.

Whew! what a fun and busy week.  Thanks mom and dad for coming out and making some fun memories with us.  Now we just have one more week until school starts!