Another school year begins

The boys started school again at the end of August.  We met their teachers the week before and they were both very excited.  Grant has the same teacher as last year, Mrs. Wallis.  We really like her!  It is hard to believe that Grant is in 3rd grade now!

Talmage has two teachers in his classroom, Mrs. Sliva and Mrs. Farley.  We have had Mrs. Sliva as a long term sub for Sandra last year so it was fun to see another familiar face.  He is now a big 4th grader!  Crazy how big that seems!  

They are both loving school and doing really well... it seems like no big deal to start back to school these days.

Sandra started back the week before and is at a different school this year.  She is also doing really well and we are hopeful that we will have all of the kids at the same school next year, if not some joining her sooner!  Jeff takes her in the morning and I pick up in the afternoon.  She is making lots of friends and her reading is really starting to improve (that might not have anything to do with the school though ;)).

Since Jeff walked her into her class the first day we got to see her at her desk :)

Mhari was also really excited to start school.  She doesn't qualify to go to pre-k at the school so that is sad.  Instead I am working on teaching her how to read at home.  She has been doing well and really likes to call it home school.  I think she will be super ready for school next year!

Happy Back to School everyone :)

Gardens with friends

Before school started for everyone we headed out to the Botanic Gardens with some friends for one last big play date!  Sandra had already started, but everyone else had a great time (I will post Sandra's pictures soon).  Summer seemed to drag on and ended feeling like we saw lots of different doctors... tonsillectomy will do that to you I guess.  By the time summer break was over I was sad to have to get back to the morning grind, but ready for the kids to get back to their schedule and learning ;)

Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying their friends:

Aftyn and Hadley

Mhari is talking to Aftyn through the "telephone" tubes :)

Doing a bird egg quiz

Bird song game

We ate lunch on the lawn and the kids enjoyed some soccer while we rested from the heat.  Clark got a turn with the soccer ball too... he was very happy!

Little Lorna just keeps getting bigger!  So pretty!

Enjoying the pond.  I was a little nervous that Clark was going to go swimming, but he stayed on dry ground thankfully!

There were coy fish in the pond as well as lot of turtles.  The kids never wanted to leave!

We had a great day and now it's back to the school routine!

Fun with Daddy

Daddy was taking a nap one day after work... Grant found a good way to join him ;)

Too cute

We are borrowing a friends Bumbo for Lorna... Clark has been enjoying it for her though!

Clark trying to climb up on Daddy

He did it!

The kids love having Daddy around to climb on!

Six Flags Day!

The kids earned free Six Flags tickets from the school again this year.  We invited some friends from school and brought our awesome friend Kayla with us too.  We were a pretty big group with lots of different personalities.  It seemed like it took longer to decide what to do, but everyone had a friend to hang out with so that was fun too.  We had a fun time... here are some of the pictures from our afternoon/evening together:

Our group

Talmage and his friend Nathaniel

 Grant and his friend Gabriel

 Trying to not get wet on the roaring rapids ride.  The kids got a little wet... I got soaked!

The swings...

Grant 

Chica

The rest of us...

From my angle

 Kayla and Sadnra

The bobsled ride :)

 Yay for Six Flags and reading lots of books :)

3 month cuteness

Our little Love Bug is already 3 months old!  Man time moves too fast!  She is a sweet baby and is growing so much!  She weighs about 13 lbs and is about 24 inches long.  She doesn't really roll or anything yet... fine with me.  She does great on her tummy and loves attention.  She will coo and smile.  We all just love her!

Here are some pictures of her little photo shoot ;)

tummy time

so pretty

Look at those chunky legs and arms!!

Oh, and she loves to chew on her hands!

Happy 3 months little Lorna... looking forward to lots and lots of more months to come!

Bouncy

We recently inherited a bounce house for the kids to play in.  That is pretty cool considering the fact that I would never think to go buy one on my own.  Here are some pictures of them enjoying their first day in it :)

Clark wasn't sure about it.

The big kids bounce too much so he didn't last very long.

It's a pretty good size though for the kids ;)

Good way to get out some energy too

 So fun!  Hope the kids get lots of use out of it, especially as it gets closer to cooling off some outside ;)

Good-bye tonsils!

Sandra has some huge tonsils!  I didn't even know she did until a year or so ago at a Dr. visit.  She isn't sick often and so I didn't think too much about it.  While learning about large tonsils we found out that they can cause kids to not sleep well... BINGO!  We figured out what was going on with our little Chica.  She snores and never seems to get enough rest.  It was time for the tonsils to go.  It was great timing too since we are not back to school yet.  

Here is her before picture:

The hospital nurses commented on how impressively large they were.  That made me feel better that this was important to get done.  The doctor also commented on how large they were.  

This is the morning of her surgery.  She's got her new penguin that her primary teacher brought her as well as her chipmunk.  She loves animals!

Waiting to go back to surgery.

And after only about 40 minutes she was back with me... and so sad :(.  

The popscicle did help cheer her up, but she was upset about having an IV and kept talking about how her throat hurt.  Poor girl!

Once we got home she took a good nap.

She woke up much happier!  I'm sure get well balloons from our friend Kayla helped too :).  

The rest of the kids also loved the balloons... she bought enough to share.

They had a blast with them for the next week or so.

Sandra took about 10 days to fully recover.  Not the funnest surgery, but not that bad either.  It was tough when her recovery got worse around day 5.  She was waking up at night and really in pain.  I'm so happy to be done with it all and that she seems to be getting more rest at night too!  We love our Chica and are so happy to help her get some better sleep!