Updating

Time flies when you're busy!  Here we go, another catchup post!

I received a bunch of photos from some friends with pictures of big sister at girls camp.  YAY!

Big sister tried out the swing!  (She's braver than her mom.)

 Working on our service project, making reusable sanitary pads for girls in Africa.

 On the hike

Crafting with mom
 
S'mores!


Shortly after the kids started school, we got to go out to Fallon, NV for our niece Tiffany's wedding.  It's been a while since we had been back.  It was a long drive, and we were exhausted when we got to the hotel.  To my surprise, one of my best friends from high school, Guy, was the person working the counter when we checked in!  I haven't seen him in at least 14 years, and it was so fantastic to see him, and see pictures of his wife and kids.  Husband and the kids got settled in for dinner, and I went to my friend Traci's house to get ready for Tiffany's bridal shower.  The shower was a success, lots of presents and the chocolate fountain is always a good idea.  The next morning, Husband took the kids four-wheeling at Sand Mountain.  I had lunch with my nieces and my sisters, then we headed out to help set up for the wedding.  After setting up, I met up with Husband and the kids at the Dairy Queen.  The kids were fascinated by this place I had gone to in high school.  It was fun to point out the school and see some of my old hangouts.  After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a quick swim, then hurried to get ready for the wedding.  We made it in time, whew!  Tiffany was a beautiful bride, and her wedding was wonderful.  The kids all loved seeing her in her wedding dress.  We had yummy mexican food for dinner, and then the kids were all about the dancing.  Big sister even got her daddy to come dance with her!






We helped clean up a bit, until our kids started getting ornery.  When they get to that crying/tired phase, they're useless in cleaning up and so are we.  So we headed back to the hotel and slept.  Back home the next day!  It was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but it was fun.

Big sister and her cousin - I love that they're such good friends!

We had to get a picture with the bride, of course!

We took advantage of the pretty scenery and had big sister take a picture of us.

On the way home, I had to snap a picture of the desert.  Fallon will always have a special place in my heart!

Upon returning home, we discovered that our peach tree had outdone itself this year.  We had a lot of peaches, more than we've ever had.  We should have thinned it, it was looking pretty sad with all it's branches hanging to the ground.  The peaches were pretty small, too.  But they were tasty!  We got ambitious and bottled everything!

One of four boxes - YUM!

Little brother was excited to help! 

Husband was so good to put in just as much effort canning these peaches as me, if not more!  It was a lot of work, but we got 28 quarts.  That's pretty good for our teeny tiny tree.  The kids are loving the home bottled peaches.

Husband and I went on a date one night - a hike up Butterfield Canyon.  We came upon these deer who were drinking rain water out of the potholes in the road.

Love those gorgeous fall colors just starting to come on!

On Labor Day, big sister went with a friend to Lagoon, so we took the other kids on a hike to Lake Mary.  There wasn't much lake left, there was a lot more sand and dirt and rocks.  They did pretty good on this hike.  Afterward we went to Chuck-a-Rama, always a hit with the kids.  It was just a nice relaxing day, a perfect end to our summer.

Little brother started his first day of school.  He's doing preschool for one more year, since he has such a late birthday.  He is loving it and I can tell he's much more mature this year, and learning even more.  He loves his teacher, and loves it when mom comes to help in his class.  

We had our niece Kylie live with us for about 11 days while she worked and waited for her apartment at BYU to be ready.  We had a little deja vu moving her in.  Little brother was helpful, he scattered the hangers everywhere and handed them to Kylie when she needed one.  So helpful!  I ended up taking her to WalMart to buy stuff she needed - I swear we did that last time we moved her into a BYU apartment.  LOL There were probably a hundred other college kids at WalMart when we got there.  It's funny to see all the things that get cleaned out when the college students arrive.  

We decided not to do a big family picture this year.  We're finally all at an age where they don't change too much year to year.  I did want to get the kids pictures taken, though.  I can find better photographers for less money than what I get charged for this crappy school pictures.  So we took the kids one Saturday afternoon.  It was supposed to be in the morning, but the battery on the van died.  Daddy was at work and couldn't come home 'cuz he was the only pharmacist that day.  He would have to close the whole pharmacy in order to leave.  I called and rescheduled for that afternoon, then walked over and got the truck from Daddy's work.  Perks to being just a few blocks away from work!!!  We finally got to the studio that afternoon.  The kids were a little more disheveled than they would've been in the morning, but the pics turned out just fine anyway.

These kids were struggling to all smile and look at the camera at the same time.  So Mom started doing a crazy dance and pulling faces behind the photographer to get them to at least smile.  I LOVE the way this picture turned out.  Real smiles, folks!

Little brother.  Ohmygoodness can this boy talk your ear off!  I guess because our middle 2 were delayed in communication, I'd forgotten about the 9 million questions kids can ask every day.  I think this kid asks double that.  He wants to know about everything, and will keep asking until I give a satisfactory answer.  He's curious and wants to know everything.  If he doesn't know something, he will make up a story.   He's getting really good at baseball, football, basketball.  We're going to have to get him into something in the spring!

Big brother.  His real smile - it just melts me!  His first few days of school were a little rough.  He knew people in his class but didn't feel comfortable just playing with them.  He didn't play with anyone at recess for several days.  Fortunately, my friend works there and intervened, forcing him out of his shell and helping him feel comfortable playing.  In the midst of all that, he was still just our happy boy, loving school and learning.  He is progressing in his communication and speech.  His latest tests show that he's not progressing as fast as we'd like, but he is making progress.  He is such a smart boy - the teacher and speech pathologist both commented that his ability to just watch the people around him to figure out what he's supposed to do is amazing - most kids his age can't do that even without the delays.  He's good at reading, spelling, and math. We did have a little meltdown moment last Friday.  The 1st grade was doing a wax museum.  He was a librarian.  He had his part memorized and could say it pretty darn well.  Unfortunately, when we got to the gym to see him, it was mass chaos.  Poor kiddo.  I'm not sure how it was supposed to be going, but it was clear that it wasn't really all that organized.  Not good for big brother.  Just as I finally found him, a group of boys that were playing around bumped into him.  That was it, he just lost it.  *sigh* I hate that shutdown thing.  He told Husband later "I was just confused."  Amazing that he could even articulate that!  I couldn't see his teacher anywhere, but little sister's teacher was right there and noticed immediately that big brother was not ok.  She asked who his teacher was and then went and found her for me.  His teacher took him back to the classroom for a break, and we finally just took him home so that he could calm down.  Darnitall.  His struggles are very real, and it breaks my heart sometimes.  But he is still just my sweet, happy, hardworking boy.  He's got this!

Little sister is loving the new school.  She's made friends and loves her teacher.  Sometimes she plays with other kids at recess, sometimes by herself.  That's our little sister - if she's not interested in playing what someone else is, she's perfectly happy to hang out with herself.  Can't blame her, she is pretty fun!  We had a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the year with completing work.  We've gotten rid of the headphones, and I thought maybe she was just getting distracted by noise.  I went to her classroom, though, and her teacher runs a tight ship.  It is quiet when you walk in there.  Her teacher is amazing.  She and I worked to help little sister get caught up.  I finally just wrote "finish work" on the back of her hand.  Her teacher emailed me the next week to say how impressed she was that little sister was doing so well on completing her work!  She even got nominated for student of the month because she recognized a weakness and worked on it.  Go little sister!  She is also loving the school choir.  The 1st day was a bust - I dropped her off and she went to the back doors like she's supposed to, but they weren't open.  Most kids just went around to the front, but little sister is a rule follower and knew they normally aren't allowed to use the front doors.  So she just waited.  Someone finally let her in, but she didn't hear the choir on the stage when she walked into the gym, so she assumed she'd missed it.  She was inconsolable.  My friend came to the rescue again, staying with her until she was calm enough for class.  The teacher was right on top of emailing me about it and assuring me that she herself would come early on Wednesday to personally make sure little sister made it to choir.  I was rather impressed that her teacher was true to her word!  So we started off on the wrong foot, but she is now loving it.  

Big sister is growing up and facing all those typical adolescent challenges.  She's had a few more struggles this year.  One particular day, she'd gotten hurt in gym and went to the nurses office.  The principal saw her and asked to talk to her in his office.  Apparently, he just noticed that she wasn't "as smiley" as she was last year.  What principal #1 notices that one student is not smiling as much as last year and #2 calls that student in to talk about it?  I tell you what, some of these educators are beyond amazing.  He talked to her and then took her up to the counselor.  The counselor talked to her a bit and is following up.  It's nothing out of the ordinary for a 7th grader, but she is genuinely struggling with some things.  I love that the principal noticed and talked to her about it.  She's doing well in school.  We're still taking a very hands off approach.  We tell her if we get notification that she's missing an assignment, but that's it.  She has been awesome (for the most part) about getting started on her homework right away and getting it done.  She's awesome, this big sister of ours!