First Day of School, 2013

The kids are on year- round school so this past week our 3.5 week-long summer came to an end. School is back in session with Hailey starting 1st grade and Thomas officially being an "upper grader" in 4th grade. 

A lot of people don't care for year round school, but we actually really like it. We make the most of our 3 week breaks throughout the year and its much easier to keep the kids busy. After a week and a half of summer they were already asking when school starts again. They were so excited!

Hailey is again in a French Immersion classroom and just loves it. This year brings a lot of changes for Hailey's school day- she's gone all day now, has lunch at school and half the day her teacher speaks only French. She is so ready for it all and I'm thrilled she gets to have this neat experience.

Thomas had a rough year in 2nd grade but this last year was awesome. With a September 4th birthday we started seeing the effects of him being the oldest in his grade. He was so bored! It wasn't a good thing either and it was a struggle to keep him on task. This last year we had a teacher who'd been pegged as the "really hard" 3rd grade teacher- the one who gave a lot more homework and tests than the others. I was initially nervous to see how he'd respond but my concern was completely unnecessary. He absolutely flourished and it was a great year. After seeing his new 4th grade teacher's homework schedule and curriculum plan I'm thrilled that she seems to pick up right where his 3rd grade teacher left off! It should be a fun, challenging and exciting year for both of them.

Baby Update: 28 Weeks!

28 weeks! Can you believe it? I can, this pregnancy has gone by so sloooowly. Why is it everyone else's pregnancies fly by but your own? I feel like its been at least a year already. I'm officially in the 3rd and final trimester- 12 weeks until my due date! How much bigger am I going to get?!? Yeah, don't answer that question...

Things are going well. Honestly this has been my least complicated pregnancy of them all! I wish it was my most comfortable pregnancy, but yeah, 5th baby- that's not going to happen! Everything seems to happen 2-3 weeks faster each time around. So all those "fun" aches and pains you have in the last month of your first pregnancy, by pregnancy #5 you get those by week 25/26 or so. Sigh. I feel like its a test of endurance at this point and sometimes I feel like I'm doing well... Other times I'm a  lovely mess. : ) 

I'm not as stressed about baby clothes and gear at this point. My mom, my sister-in-law, a neighbor and Adrian's mom have done such a great job of clothing this little guy! I feel like we are doing great in that department. We still have several things to cross off the Baby To-Do List, but we have time. 

See? It's a mess but at least it's there! We have some of Leah's stuff up there right now too. Like the swim diapers. No I'm not stocking up in swim diapers for a newborn in October. Ha!

I've never made it to my due date and I highly doubt I'll make it that far this time. So I'll be full term in just 9 weeks...it will be fun to see when he arrives!

Here's another look at the baby stuff- on the right you can see the darling blanket my sister made for baby. We've also got his coming home outfit there in the pile, with that cute little blue hat on top to wear as well! 

I'll update again in another month or so...

Visit from the Hutsons!

My sister Jenn and her husband and 2 girls finished up an epic summer road trip with a visit to Utah! It was so fun to have them stop by and hang out for a day. I felt bad that they were SO tired and more than ready to go home, but they were good sports! 

On Saturday morning we drove 20 minutes to visit the Salt Lake Olympic Park in Park City. We had such a great time!! 

There were some ski jumpers practicing in the pool which was so fun to watch!

Then we went over to another area and the big kids, along with Adrian did a high adventure ropes course with a zip line at the end.

The kids rock climbing wall was pretty fun too!

Once I'm up at the computer Ill add a couple videos from my phone from the ski jumpers...

Thanks Jenn and fam for a fun visit!!

SL Bees & Happy Birthday Adrian!

It was social media night at the SL Bees game the other night so I got to take whole fam! It also just happened to be Adrian's birthday so it was a fun way to celebrate. 

We all had a fun time! The Bees lost as they usually do, but it was the experience that counts, right?!

Sticky cotton candy fingers!

 We chased Bumble around the park until we could have a photo-op with him. Fun!

Towards the end of the game Leah was getting restless so we had a little girls photo shoot...

July 4th 2013

We had a BBQ and fireworks at our house for the 4th of July. It was fun! 

We ate dinner and played games until it was dark enough for fireworks. The water ballon toss was a big hit- the kids really got into it.

I swear we feed Leah. After she was "done" she walked around to the other kids plates and just helped herself, LOL!

We moved out to the front yard to get ready for fireworks. Sparklers were fun but I think we all lived the parachute men fireworks the most! We've got to get more if those for next year!

Running to go catch the parachute man.

Got him!

Colin showed off his pole-climbing skills. This kid is a monkey!

Just as we were about to start the fireworks I remembered I got a box of glow sticks. Who knew they were going to be just as, if not MORE popular than the fireworks, LOL! The kids had so much fun with them!

Pineview Reservoir - A Sandy Beach in Utah!

A few weeks ago we found we had an open Saturday so I quickly came up with an idea to take the kids to a nearby lake. Adrian was game so we did everything we could to get ready the night before and the next morning we were off! 

I remember when I was young doing fun stuff like that seemed so easy, I oftener wondered why we didn't have outings like that more often. Now I know! I'd say we had about 4 hours of prep work go into that half-day outing. It's so exhausting but it's one of those things you just do because the kids just love it.

I'm so glad we did too. As I get farther along in this pregnancy it's just getting hard to do a lot. So it was fun to have this afternoon together at the lake. 

Leah adored digging in the sand! Her swim bottoms were a magnet for it too. We affectionately called her "Saggy-Bottomed Leah" all day.

Colin decided this was a great time to pull out a new swim suit from the box if Thomas hand-me-downs. Too bad it was about 2 sizes too big, LOL!

Sandy cookies taste better! At one point she even leaned down and licked the sand. Yummo.