Back To School

As of today we officially have 7 out of 10 members of our family are back in school.

Kaylie started first on Aug. 20th, followed by Sydney, Tyler, and Emma on the 21st, my new semester began yesterday, and McKenna started her first day of Kindergarten today.

 

Kaylie is a 7th grader at Lakeridge. Though I can tell she is a little nervous about attending Jr. High with all it's unknowns, I have been really impressed by how brave she has been. She seems to be adjusting well. She has good friends. I think Spanish is her most overwhelming subject because her teacher speaks only Spanish for the entire 80 minute class period. One good thing is she gets to have that class with Sydney. She thinks orchestra will be her favorite class, she is playing the violin. I'm looking forward to seeing her develop that talent.

Emma is our 4th grader. I think this will be a great year for Emma. She has good friends in her class and a great teacher. She loves to learn. I really hope she has a postive year. She needs one. She deserves one. It seems she teeter-totters every other year with feeling content and happy in her classrooms. I really want Emma to have a good postive year of learning and socializing. Emma still loves to read. She works hard and is always so thorough and organized.

Tyler is a big 6th grader. He's top dog at the elementary school. I can see Ty growing up everyday. He is maturing and is becoming quite the big help to me around the house. He's always the first to finish a task then come back and ask what else he can do. Ty also has a good teacher and good friends. I predict a great year for Tyler. He wants to get involved in student council this year. I think he will do so well, he is a natural leader.  

Sydney is also top dog at her school. She is in 9th grade this year (a freshman, can you believe it?)

She has one last year at the Jr. High then off to High School. It's hard to believe that she will graduate in less than 4 short years. Where does the time go? Sydney is enjoying seminary. She is so happy to finally be 14 and caught up to all of her friends. Junior High can be some rough years I wish Sydney and Kaylie the very best!!!  

Todd is in 2nd grade this year. He sure is growing up. He is doing well in school, but writing is not his favorite thing to do. Homework is going to be a challenge for him this year I can already tell. Not because he can't do it, it's just getting him to sit down and concentrate. He wants to be done by the end of a long day at school, but mean mom makes him get right on his homework. It might be more appropriate to say that his homework will be a challenge for me. Todd can be a stubborn one but he is such a hard worker I know he can do anything he sets his mind to. He will still go to speech class this year, but he really is doing so well. He's pretty awesome.

Here's most of the gang on their first day of school.

McKenna is in Kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN! I am excited for her. She loves being in school. She loves the friendships she makes but she is also really excited to begin reading books. She is surrounded by readers all day long at home and I think she has equated reading to being a big kid. She had a great first day even though most of all her school and church friends are in the other class. She will easily make new friends. She did cry when I brought her home today without taking her to the cafeteria to eat lunch. Somehow she thought that would top off the whole day of fun. Sorry to disappoint, McKenna. Thankfully she got over it quickly while she ate M&M's and told me all about her day.

 

As for me, I'm back in school after a few week break. I took two classes this summer, and I'll be taking 3 classes this semester, one of which is math -which has me slightly nervous. Well, actually a lot nervous. I really do love feeling like I am accomplishing something with each new semester. Someday, aways down the road I'll have a degree to show for all this hard work. That day will make me happy.

 

Ken is enjoying NOT being in school right now.

 

Daric wishes he was.

 

And Aftyn doesn't know any better. She just goes with the flow.

 

My house is strangely quiet at selective periods of the day and although it feels a little weird I'm not complaining.

 

Here's to a great new school year kids, I wish you all the best success and FUN times!

 

 



Sydney's 14th Birthday Photo Shoot

My oldest baby turned 14 last week.

She is now almost 3 inches taller than me, and loves that fact.

She is a sweet, lovely, beautiful gal.

As always I took a boat-load of pictures.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!!!

Love you!!!

Summer Wrap-up

Summer is coming to a close, I can hardly believe it. Soon we'll be back to our regular life of school, homework, & crazy schedules.

But first...

Here are a few things we've done this summer...

This is a LONG post with lots of pictures because I need proof when my kids say we NEVER do anything fun, or our summer was SO boring I can say...NOT SO!...we had FUN!

The Orem summerfest is always a great day of fun!

This little adventure hiking Bridal Veil Falls was really fun for Ken and I but the older kids were a little nervous of the height. I don't think they were scared for themselves but they didn't like the little ones being so close to the edge of the falls. Sydney and Kaylie held hands the whole way down keeping an eagle's eye on all the little ones. It was pretty cute to watch.

Kaylie learned how to bake bread this summer and in typical Kaylie fashion she taught her younger siblings how to bake bread too.

Kay loves to bake and she almost always has a group of eager young fans cheering her on as she patiently shows them what she's doing and let's them help. 

Kaylie's bread is GOOD! I solely blame it for at least 5lbs. I've put on this summer.

Sydney learned to french-braid this summer. I showed her once and she just took off braiding every one's hair in sight. This is Kaylie's hair on Sydney's first try. Not too shabby.

We did some home improvement projects this summer. Here Ken is replacing the lights in the kitchen. That project is still in the works, but will be a big improvement when it's all done. We also painted a few rooms that we started clear back in January...we move rather slowly sometimes.

Sydney and Kaylie both went to girl's camp this year. It was Sydney's 3rd year and Kay's 1st. Because of fire danger they were unable to go to our normal camp. Kaylie was devastated for a few days because she was SO looking forward to going to Mia Shalom, but they found a new camp, made the best of it, and had a great time in the scorching heat and the pounding rain.

On Pioneer Day we hiked Stewart Falls. This is such a nice, beautiful hike. One of our favorites!

The kids have enjoyed riding the dirt bike. It was having trouble starting so Tyler worked on the carburetor and now it starts on the first kick. That was a pretty cool victory for him. Nice job, Ty.

While the girls were at girl's camp Ken had a front yard campout with the kids including a redbox on the laptop and popcorn to munch on. Now that's what I call camping!

I could add 100 more pictures of Bear Lake but I won't. That was awesome FUN!



Lots of summer days were spent riding bikes, splashing in the kiddie pool, and soaking up the sun.

I got to have a play day with my old roommates. Fun day!

Ok, our summer wasn't all fun. We did have some sick days too. Almost all of us ended up with some icky gunk.

Over Memorial Day weekend we visited a pioneer village. The kids LOVE stuff like this. It's a treat for all of us.







We've gotten lots of use out of our pass of all passes enjoying trafalga and seven peaks several times. I wish I had the picture of McKenna and Daric on the rock wall they are great climbers. Miniature golf, laser tag, and bumper boats are also a blast.

Zachary's tree gave us more delicious peaches this year.

We spent time REMEMBERING together.

And we spent lots of time PLAYING!

Sydney and Kaylie got to go with Ken to Denver on a business trip.

They got to go the Denver temple to do baptisms.

They also visited the zoo.

See kids we've had LOTS of FUN!

We also had McKenna's birthday in June. We have Sydney's birthday to look forward to in a few weeks.

The kids got to see all of their grandparents this summer and many of their cousins.

We missed those that we didn't see. :(

I'll admit I actually cried on the kids last day of school because I was afraid of having them all home all day long for the whole summer. I thought for sure I wouldn't be able to get homework done and that my days would be nuts trying to meet the needs of eight separate individuals. But I was a little over dramatic, this summer has been my favorite so far. I have loved having the kids home. They are such great little people. They are so helpful and instead of making my days harder they made them easier. I'm looking forward to them going back to school but only because I love to see them learn, grow and challenge themselves.

YAY FOR FUN SUMMERS!!! 



Hope you had a great summer too!