Our Sunday Visitor

Before church I went out to water my flowers. This is what I found. We had so much fun watching this little guy. My boys loved him the most! They couldn't believe that Heavenly Father could create a bug that looked like a leaf! :)

Preschool Orientation

Colter's classroom door. His name is on the blue hand :) Too bad the picture is blurry, the boys couldn't stand still!



By the end of last year Colter was terrified to ride the bus to school! This year he rides the bus again...his teacher is working on some incentives to encourage him to come to school on the bus! We'll see if that helps! One of the things she is going to do is let Colter hold the bus sign at the end of the pre-school day and be the leader taking the other kids to the bus to go home! Can you tell he liked that idea?



Colter loves 'guys', as he calls them...little people figures! This cool pirate ship had some pretty awesome pirate 'guys'! The toys at the preschool were all so cool! I tried to get Colter to dress up in the princess dresses, but he wouldn't! He wouldn't even wear the cowboy hats...oh-well! I had fun trying! :)



Fishing for fish. this is a sensory table. Every couple weeks they change what's inside it. The boys spent the most time here fishing and getting wet!



Who doesn't love plastic food? Colter has a great imagination when it comes to play acting with plastic food!



A door shot! Again! Much better this time! I think I can quite trying door shots now!



The doors Colter goes in. The boys asked if they could be silly! It wouldn't have been much fun if they hadn't been silly!


Preschool starts next Monday! Cross your fingers Colter will get on the bus!!

1st Day of School!

A good friend recently told me they like to read the end of a book before reading the beginning...so I though I'd start at the end of the 1st day of School! Proof that there was a happy ending to the 1st dreaded day of school ;)


This is what I pushed to the school to pick up the kids. I have to admit I am very out of shape, so this was a good thing for me :)


See, ALL the kids did survive!Some not as happy as others, but none-the-less they survived! How hard can the 1st day really be?



Dally & Aly waiting at the 6th grade doors. Last year Dallas was so nervous and didn't look happy to be at school! I am glad to see her happy smiling face here! Yay for being a big 6th grader Dallas! I love you!



Drea and neighborhood gang! Drea was having such a hard time NOT giggling! I'm sure being nervous didn't cause any of the giggles, did it Drea? This is the only picture taken in the morning where she wasn't giggling :) I am so proud of Aundrea and excited for her 3rd grade year!



These are the shoes Dallas wore to school. She did not get her love of heels from her mother! Come to think of it, she didn't get it from her father either! :)



First day of school outfits! This is our traditional 'stand here for the 1st day of school' picture shot! You'll see this in other posts of the boys.



Still being silly!



This is how the day started...so excited and happy to be going back! How bad can the day really be? Guess we'll have to wait and see...

100th Post!

Today the kids decided after visiting our good friends house that they wanted to have a 'clean' house! The family we visited (the Monroy's) have 4 kids, just like us, and they have a clean and orderly house. My kids were so impressed. I am more impressed that my kids were impressed!!
On the drive home my kids talked about what they could do to our own house to make it feel cleaner and more organized. Their first solution was that we needed a new house! I had a good chuckle at that and told them to keep brainstorming!
When Dave came home we told him the plan. At 4pm we began a very long process which ended with these results...
















They LOVED playing together on the top bunk! (Bradley's new bed!)


Boys closet. Notice how empty it is! It won't stay this way for long!


The toy corner. No more toy room means the kids will store the toys IN their rooms! (I never said they'd stay there to play with them...but I can hope!)


Tada! More of the Boys room.


This cardboard box became Colter's 'car'. It was Aundrea's turn to drive :)


Drea's stuffed animal hanging thing. She is a stuffed animal lover!


Drea's closet. We still need to move some of Dave's stuff off the shelves. :)


Dallas' closet. She is loving how much space she has!


Dallas' room. Notice the piano! She is in heaven!


Drea's room. (Hello Miss Kitty!)


More of Aundrea's room. Notice the carpet...it may be the last time we see it for a while :)


By 8pm the boys were in their jammies and wanting to go to bed. By 8:30 the girls were in their rooms; Dallas went to sleep quickly, while Drea in her room stayed up (with the light on!) to read. Bradley has been out of his room several times, he is having trouble with the new arrangements. Let's hope after one good nights sleep he likes it! ;)

I love food!

So most of you know how much I love recipes! I collect them actually. Most of them I have made and like too!
Tonight while surfing one of my favorite blogs (on food of course!) I found this great recipe I MUST try! For all you mom's with picky eaters I think you'll love this! I'll try and post my review on what I think of this recipe after testing it out on my family. Yellow squash Mac'n Cheese.

For those of you who wonder if I've fallen off the face of the blogging planet...I have not. I'm in a station of my life where I'm trying to find a balance of how to get things done and be EVERYWHERE when I need to be there, all the while with a smile on my face. This has been an exciting summer to say the least. It has also been one of the most emotionally and mentally challenging times of my life, hence the need to find a balance. Something has had to give and I let it be my family blog. For all of you who don't follow my other private blog on my mom I'll give you a quick update on my mom. She has clung to life the past 2 months. We really thought she was going to pass away in June. She did a quick nose dive into the final phase of her dementia, but seems to plateauing now. There is no improvement, only decline. She is on a liquid only diet. Her total liquid intake each day varies from 16-40 ounces. Her total calorie intake is about 150-450 a day.
Some of you may wonder, 'Christy, is this hard to see your mom go through this'. The answer is 'yes', but it has been an incredibly awesome and spiritual experience too. The pain that I've felt has been few and far between compared to the sweetness I felt. This has been a difficult experience, I won't lie, but it has been an experience that has changed me for the better and helped shape who I am. If I could go back and have the choice to go through this I probably would do it again. Funny how life experiences however painful can be so strengthening too. I want to be the best 'I' can be, and if that is what I'm to learn then I want to learn it now!

Have you already forgotten about Yellow Squash Mac ‘n Cheese? Let me know if you try it and like it, and I'll do the same!

What's on the menu?

Tonight while I was off picking up my rental car (which is another story in and of itself) Dallas decided to make dinner. She did this all on her own, no coaxing from me! She preheated the oven, found a 9X13 glass baking dish, got out the blender, the eggs, milk and flour. She melted some butter in the oven till it was melted and bubbly and blended together in the blender the eggs, milk and flour. She removed the HOT and melted butter from the oven and poured in the blended batter and returned the dish to the oven. Baked it for 20 minutes and removed it from the oven...all while I was gone, with no idea she was doing it! She called me on my cell phone to let me know dinner would be done soon and when was I going to be back! She then proceeded to fry up some sausage links. When I arrived home in my super stylin' rental car the table was set, and food waiting to be devoured! Can I just say how awesome she is? She's getting all grown up on me, learning to be so responsible!
Her thoughtfulness saved me from frantically doing dinner when I came home. I had a visiting teaching appointment in 20 minutes...dinner would never have been done on time if it had been up to me to do it!
I love watching my kids do thoughtful things that remind me of why I am lucky to be their mother!

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

My kids and I got to go spend time with some good friends in Orem today swimming. Our old Bishop has a pool in his backyard (which is really more like a park!). We moved from Provo about 8 years ago, but every summer we continue to go there to swim. This morning we ran to Target to get Dallas a new swimsuit and then got on the freeway to go. At about 106th South I realized I hadn't put my swimsuit in the van :(. We got off the freeway and had to come home! Needless to say we were a little late, but we made up for it by staying until after 4pm! Bradley swam in the deep end the whole time with his fun noodle. He jumped of the diving board perhaps a million times! Dallas and Aundrea loved jumping off the diving board and the water slide too. Colter did go off the diving board after seeing the other kids do it. He however didn't like going under the water! He continued to jump off the diving board, but only if I was holding his hand so he didn't go under the water!

We need to do this again! 3 hours just wasn't enough. Enough to get sunburned, but not enough to last until the next time! And next time I'll remember my camera! Am I not married to a photographer? I should take a camera with me everywhere I go! Oh-well, I will next time...