Last Week of August

On Monday,  I took the kids to the pool right to after school.  The kids love going swimming in the afternoon.  

Tuesday evening I went to the open house at the kids' school.   Dave stayed home with the kids while they played legos.   

Wednesday was the usual short day where the kids get out at noon.  We invited four other boys from church that are in kindergarten over for a playdate with Ty.  None of the boys are in Ty's class, but they could still play at recess.  We invited Chase, Marcus, Diego and Jack Daly.  They played legos, played outside, watched a short episode of Rescue bots while they ate popcorn, and checked out the fort behind our house.  They all got along well and had a good time.

Kate went to an audition for the 5th and 6th grade performance for Willy Wonka in November.  They had to sing happy birthday alone, learn a dance and read a paragraph.   Kate gets to be an Oompa Loompa along with her friends, Ada and Annika.  Sophi and Ella are in it too.

After the audition Kate went to activity days at the church.   Jack went to Lyas' house for several hours.  

On Thursday, I went to the school and ate lunch with the kids.  It was really fun!  I love talking with the kids and their friends.  Ty ate the fastest I've ever seen him eat.  He must have been hungry.

Thursday after school was a bit crazy.  I picked the kids up from school and we did homework.  Then at 4:30 we went to the school to the Band Try it Night.  In order to be in band in 5th or 6th grade you had to go to it.  We went and Kate tried blowing in a flute.   She made a sound pretty easily.   They wanted us to try more instruments,  but we had to leave.  I forgot checkbook so I had to go back later and pay.  Luckily there was a guy there that had a bunch of used instruments that I bought a flute for $107.  Kate loves it! She blows into it all the time.  I even remember a little bit from playing it in middle school.

After the band night we went to Ty's first soccer practice of the season.  They didn't have a coach so I volunteered.   There are only 6 kids on his team and only 5 were there.   It went ok.  I realized I'm not sure what all the rules of soccer were.  Kate and Jack helped me along with another mom.  It'll be an interesting season.

Later that evening I went to a relief society activity.  They were doing yoga and having massages.  I was pretty late but it was fun to get out while Dave put the kids in bed.

Friday was Dave's day off.  I washed windows while Dave reinstalled the directv satellite.   It took him several hours to get everything reconnected and wired from the roof to the crawl space and back into the living room to the tv.  

After school we went to the pool for a few hours.   Then we went home so Dave and the boys could watch the first byu football game of the season.  Kate went to sophi's house for a willy wonka party.  I picked her up at 10 pm.

Saturday we actually slept in.   It was so nice not to have huge projects to work on.   We mowed the lawn, changed the oil, etc. Then we headed to Albuquerque to go to the temple.   

While Dave went to a session the kids and I went to Kohls and Target.   Then we got frosties from Wendy's and went back to the temple.  While I went to a session dave took the kids bowling.   

We went to chickfila for dinner.   It was action figure night so there were lots of people dressed up.  They had a climbing wall that Kate and Jack tried.   They also had Bumblebee and the Batmobile.  

Ty was mad because he wanted to go play longer inside Chickfila in the playplace.  Ty wasn't impressed by seeing Bumblebee because "it's not a real transformer.  Just a car."

The Batmobile

Today was just a normal Sunday.   I played the organ.  Nick didn't want to go to nursery. Dave stayed down there most of the time and Nick still cried a lot.

After church we did our usual walk home.  We spent lots of time looking for golf balls by the golf course and found 8 of them.  Then we came home and had big drinks of water (it was hot!), drank orange julius and ate nachos.   Then we played croquet.

Ty was playing on the driveway with the jogging stroller.  It knocked him over and he fell on the cement and got a huge scrape above his eye.  A few minutes late Nick fell down and got an ouchie on his knee.

Since the kids were gone at school all day this week, I spent lots of time with Nick.  He loves walking with the kids to the bus stop in the morning.  He gets his shoes on, folds his arm for prayer in the entryway and marches down the street.  He gets excited when he hears the bus, gives kisses to the kids before they get on, and waves to them as they leave.  

Words that Nick said this week:  ouchie, buckle, stroller (strollo), drink, bus, show, shoe, 

He's also amazing at hiding.  I lost him several times at Kohls.   He wedged himself in the racks and holds really still and quietly.   

Other random pictures of Nick from this week.  

I dried some apples and Nick enjoyed munching on them.

Nick decided to reorganize the bottom of the fridge for me.

Quite a few times this week I found Nick laying down on the rugs in the kitchen.  

I also made some pear fruit leather.  Nick loved it!  He's kind of picky and doesn't eat much, so I'm happy to find something that he'll actually eat.

I ran over to my friend, Teri's house on Monday.  I pushed Nick in the jogger, but I let him walk with his stroller first.

3rd Week of August: School, Funeral, Stroller Pushing

This week was the first full week of school for the kids.  The kids rode the bus home from school one day, but I picked them up after school the other days.  A 30 minute bus ride on top of a full day of school was a little long for Ty.

Ty seemed to like kindergarten.  He said he didn't know any of the kids names, except for a kid named Corbin.  He played with his friend, Marcus, from church at recess a little bit.  He didn't really want to go to school when he woke up each morning, but once it was time to leave for the bus, he was excited.

I took the kids to the pool a few times right after school.  It was great to get some energy out after being good all day.  

On Monday, August 18th, my friend, Juli had a brunch to celebrate my birthday at her house.  Lots of my friends were there:  Angela Vest, Angela Anderson, Juli (of course), Sylvie Johnson, Elizabeth Allen, Bonnie Olsen, Teri Kierstiens, Kristy (that just moved here so I don't know her last name yet), Erin Sintay, Megan Tripp.  It was really fun to eat yummy food and chat for a while.

I was planning my menu on the couch.  Nick snuggled up with me to look at the pictures of animals in my cookbooks.  We took a selfie together.  

Dave left early Tuesday morning and went to Denver for work.  He didn't get home until late Thursday evening.  He has bad luck and his returning flight home was delayed, so he got home much later than planned.  

Wednesday, Kate and her friends, Sophi, Annika, Ada, and Ella performed for the Golden Years dinner (for everyone 55 and older in our ward).  They did their synchronized swimming routine that they did for the school talent show in May, except they added a part for Ella.  

Friday we finally got tired of Nick having his binkie.  I cut the end off of it and then gave it to him.  He tried to suck on it, but was annoyed and dropped it.  He didn't seem to care too much.  He only cried a little bit at bedtime and naptime for a few days and not every time, but a few times.  He's much happier without it and he talks more now.

We went on a walk to the North Mesa picnic ground park on Friday night.  Nick pushed his little stroller the whole way there and almost the whole way home.

Thursday I went to Santa Fe for the first time in a while without the big kids...just Nick and me.  We took a whole bunch of stuff back to Lowes and Home Depot.  It's the first time in years that we haven't bought anything there.  It's so nice to be done with house projects!  

On Friday, I went to the school and ate lunch with the kids (and Nick too).  Jack's class was supposed to be having a picnic outside (they do that every Friday, I guess), but it was raining, so Nick and I got to go to their classroom and watch silly cat videos with them.  

Monday night at 11 pm, Dave's friend, Bobby, called to see if Dave could help him with a family emergency.  It ended up that he needed a ride for him and his roommate to the police station.  His brother in law had been in a fatal accident, but we didn't know that before Dave left.  

Trent Johnson, that was killed, is the son-in-law of our neighbors and friends, Bob and Lynda Judd. We are friends with them and several of their adult children and their families that live in town.  Trent has two sons, one of whom is Kate's age and plays often at the Judd's house with Kate, Jack and Ty on the trampoline.  I spent a good chunk of time emailing and calling people to plan things for the family.  I am Lynda's visiting teacher, but wanted to do something for them.  I took them dinner on Friday night.  Saturday morning was the funeral.  I was asked to help organize some brunch food for the family before the service.  I asked several of the family's non-member friends (since Trent wasn't a member of the church and his family wasn't active) to help, which they very willingly did.  I also played the organ for the funeral.  It's a very sad situation.  My heart aches for their family.  

On Sunday, we actually didn't walk home from church.  There had been an earthquake near San Francisco Sunday morning, so Dave had to go into work to do some emergency response work.  The kids were thrilled to be able to just drive home.  I actually took a really long nap and didn't even wake up to the kids noises.  That hasn't happened in a long time.

Riding the Bus 2014

Ty wanted to ride the bus to school on the second day of school.  I offered to give him a ride, but he turned me down.

 

 

Back to School 2014

Today was the first day back to school.  Kate and Jack were up early ready to go.  Ty took his time waking up.  He likes his sleep.  After some stretching in bed, a warm shower and some breakfast, he was ready for school.

 

Ty's teacher is Mrs. Schembri.  Jack had her for kindergarten and we loved her!  Today was only an orientation.  So Ty got to go out to the playground and learn the rules and play while I listened to Mrs. Schembri talk and then fill out paper work.  We had two more hours to kill when we were done before the kids got out, so Ty said that he wanted to go home and drink a caprisun and then play animal jam on the computer.  (He passed up biking at the skate park and a doughnut!) 

 

Jack is excited about his 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Neil.  There are only 15 kids in his class, which is great!  Jack said that Mr. Neil jumps a lot when he's excited and they're already earning a pizza party. 

 

 

 

Kate loves her 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Hawkins.  She's exciting about switching classes and tomorrow she'll find out who she shares a locker with. 

Los Alamos County Fair

The Los Alamos County Fair has a lego category in its Hobbies and Crafts division.  The kids each worked on a lego creation of some kind and entered it into the fair on Friday.

We dropped their creations off on Friday.  They were judged that evening.  Then Saturday we went to the fair (in the top floor of the library) and checked out the displays.  The kids were thrilled to see that they each won 1st place!  I'm not quite sure how the awards were given, but most entries had a ribbon.

Kate made Mia's Treehouse Bakery

Jack made an army ship

Ty made a robot hideout (with some cute little robots on it)

When we were driving home from picking up their legos, Ty said, "Mom, we rocked!  Those other kids went down!"