Back to school we go

First week back to school! Cameron started the 1st grade on Tuesday and Connor started 4K (4-year-old kindergarden for you non-Wisconsinites.) Does it make me a bad mother if I say it was a glorious week??? I figure I am due for this, as the last two years I spent the first day of school crying my eyes out. I don't know what was different this year, maybe because not much is changing - Cameron is still going all day like last year, and Connor was in pre-school last year, he'll just be going more often now. So my day consists of getting Cameron out the door to the bus by about 7:40, then I have the entire morning to exercise (uh, that's my intention anyway), get showered and ready for the day. Connor eats lunch at 11 and then I drop him off at school by 11:30 and Kate and I can embark on any adventure we wish.....Target, the mall, the park, whatever we want!! And even when she starts melting down in the grocery store, I can always remind myself that it is only one child melting down, not three (yes, that has happened before...)

I think it's going to be a good year :)

Cameron right before heading out the door to catch the bus - he was SO excited to go, but not so excited to get his picture taken.....

Connor "posing" for his first-day-of-school picture. He is such a ham.

At school with his friend Kyle. He was pretty anxious for me to get going. In fact, I think his exact words were "Go away mom!" Nice.

Summer madness

We have started on the mad dash of trying to cram in everything we want to do before school starts. It has been so crazy I can hardly keep up with it all. So instead of feeling the stress of not posting about everything going on, I have just decided to throw on a few random pics and call it good for now.

The EAA Air Show in Osh Kosh.....so AWESOME.

At the Drive-In! The kids loved it.

Playing at the park!

One of Cameron's many T-ball games.

Taking in some mini-golf on a Satrurday afternoon.

Water show in Muskego (all you WI people should check this one out - waterbugs.org - it's a FREE show every Wed night.) That's me at the top of the left pyramid. ha ha.

Whew, I feel so much better now.....

The last post about our trip, I promise...

OK so it's kind of embarrassing that we've been home almost three weeks and I am still putting up pictures, but I just want to have some of these memories on here of our fun trip.


We went over to BYU campus a couple of times. It is such a beautiful campus and I love going there because I have such great memories of college. And those mountains are SO gorgeous. It's unreal.

A highlight of our trip was meeting up with James and Katie at the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. We hadn't seen them since we left Washington 3 1/2 years ago. It was so good to catch up and see their cute kids.

Cameron and Connor with Gabe and Nolan, their 3rd cousins (anyone ever met their 3rd cousins??) I just know Cameron and Gabe would be great friends if they lived close.

We also were able to go to the Oquirrh (however you spell it....) Mtn. Temple Open House. The boys loved the cookies and water bottles at the end, of course.

We visited one of Keith's highschool friends who has a cool bachelor pad complete with star wars EVERYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. So I have a few pics of the highlights.

Keith's parents have a go-cart and many many hours were spent with cousin Garrett driving the kids around the backyard - good times!

Wedding Bells

Jennifer and Ryan were married on July 10th in the Idaho Falls Temple. They are so cute together. It was a great day.



Here are just a few random pictures...

The boys with some of their cousins (Kylie, Garrett, Josh) and Keith's aunt Janet.


Connor is so cute wearing his little tie!

Kate and me with Janelle and nephew Spencer (Spencer is not her child, btw, she is just the helpful aunt...)

These last few shots were taken at the wedding luncheon. I especially get a kick out of the one where Kate is doing that cheesey squinty smile and she is missing her front teeth, it looks so funny! She LOVES her big brother Connor, if you can't tell from the pictures.

Let Freedom Ring

Gotta love the Provo Freedom Festival. We've been away for several years, so it was fun to make it back for some of the festivities. We checked out the hot air balloon launch the morning of the 3rd, it was neat to see all the balloons taking off...

My favorite balloon....

Off they go!

On the evening of the 4th we watched the fireworks from the roof of the office building where my dad works. It's adjacent to the hospital and about 5 stories tall (the hospital is 6 I think??) but anyway, they are two tallest buildings anywhere in the vicinity. So right before the fireworks are going to start the wind picks up and we start seeing lightning out to the west of us. It kind of made me feel like a sitting duck on top of the building, so we were kind of nervous, but we managed to stick around for the fireworks and then we were out of there!!

I didn't get too many pictures on the roof, I was busy taking pics with Molly's Nikon D5000. We're considering getting one like that, or similar, but I don't know about all that $$$ for a camera, plus they are just kind of big and bulky. But I LOVE taking pictures, and it's been on my mind for years.

Another fun part of our trip was the swimming pool by my dad's house. We spent a lot of time out there and it was so much fun.

My dad playing in the water with Kate. She floated in her little lilypad for hours it seemed like.

Part 2 will be up soon!!

Star Wars and Surprises

OK, so I am a few weeks late on this, but we've had a lot going on - parties, a funeral, a wedding, missionary farewell, travelling, etc. Cameron turned 6 on June 25th. (It seems like a long time ago because that was the day Michael Jackson died and doesn't it seem like he's been in the news for MONTHS already??? ) Anyway, we had a little family party.....

(Kate looks like she is trying to strangle him here....)

And then on Saturday he had 9 (yes 9!) of his friends over for a Star Wars party....

We made light sabers from swim noodles we bought at the dollar store. The kids loved them, and it was great because they could whack eachother pretty hard and not get hurt.

Making their own spaceships.....

Eating cupcakes and drinking Yoda Soda. It was a Perfect Day!

What made the day even better was the SURPRISE graduation party we had for Keith. I have absolutely no idea how I kept this secret for several weeks - I am HORRIBLE with secrets/surprises. Our friends the Sullivans had a BBQ at their house and Keith thought it was a birthday party for their little girl. It was SO hysterical to see the look on his face when he saw all the people from work and then the big balloons with "Congrats Grad" written on them and realized the party was for him. I loved it!!!

I cut up Keith's graduation cake before I got a picture of it (argh!!) but here is a shot of several of the group outside eating....

Next time I get a minute I'll put pictures up of ourUtah/Idaho trip :)

Girl Hair 101

I have been so excited to see Kate's hair grow longer over these last few months, and at the same time kind of freaked out because I don't know how to do little girl hair! I can barely do my own hair for goodness sake! So we have been experimenting a little bit.....

This is the standard fallback hairstyle we resort to most of the time. I just stick a barrette in to get the hair out of her eyes. It looks cute and Kate doesn't fight me on it which is a plus.

Lately I have been doing a lot of the one little pony tail on top. I have usually about 15 seconds before Kate starts squirming and/or running away, so it gives me very little time to practice or get the part straight. And then she inevitably pulls the elastic out and her hair sticks out every which way and looks crazy.

We just barely pulled off pigtails for the first time the other day.....I love them!

Any advice for me? How do I get her to sit still, how do I get those elastics to stay put in her hair? Help me!