School's out for Summer!!!

 

We did it!!! We made it through another year of waking up every morning at 6:30 and rushing around for 2 hours to get everyone off to school mostly dressed, fully fed, and missing only one or two things :)

(These were all taken on their last day of school, except for Elise which was on rainbow day, which was her 2nd to last day, and it was not that cold, but she was determined to wear her hat and big jacket.)

I have thoroughly not enjoyed our morning routines, even on the best day, so I was very glad to welcome the last week of school (which was quite an eventful one). Here's what I go through every morning, "Haley, your alarm clock went off 45 minutes ago!! Get out of bed!!" "Nicolas and Kaden, stop playing and get your clothes on!" "Brynlee, go put your blanket in your bed and get dressed!!" "Shaylin, stop pestering Molly!" "Elise, no, it's not time to wait for the bus, please come back inside!"

I sure do love my kids, even with all the craziness in the morning, and almost every time they are all off, I find myself thinking, "Well, we did it again."

The best decision I made this year was breakfast time together. For almost the entire year, I got up and made breakfast so that we could all eat before Nels left. Since they are not fully awake, this has proven to be an excellent time!!

I Never Expected

I have learned many things as a mother, and a lot of them are things that no one ever told me, or explained.  I'm not sure why, because most of them seem pretty important.  So, as a result of this finding, I have decided to start a new section that I will add to at least once a month.  These are all of the, I never expected's in Motherhood, and even in Pregnancy! 

I never expected that I'd only have time to clean the toilets when they grew enough hair that they were no longer recognizeable as toilets!

Yes, this is a picture of my toilet (I never said these were all going to be the nice, I never expected's).  I thought I'd start with one to break the ice and show those people who have the crazy idea that because my children are dressed each day, that I have everything else done too!  I took the opportunity to capture the beauty of my growing toilet before I cleaned it this morning, and no, this is not the worst it's ever gotten.  This is 3 weeks worth of growth, with a chemical free scrubbing in between (thank heavens for toilet brushes sitting right next to the toilet; now why don't I have the chemical there too, so that I can do this without having to walk into the kitchen, get it, then walk back to put it away?  Oh, yes, because my cupboards in the bathroom are full, and it would just look too messy to put it next to my hairy toilet on the floor!  Pretty funny if you think about it.)  Anyway, the moral of the story is, toilets grow way too fast!!!! 

Sarah's Growing Up

Yes, it's true Sarah is not quite so little anymore.  She has become quite the little grabber, and we are all getting a kick out of it.  Anytime we are holding her, we can expect her to reach for anything and everything.  Once she has a hold of it, it goes straight into her mouth, which none of our other kids have done before.  I think this ones gonna give us a run for our money!!  She has also begun blowing raspberries into the air, and cooing at her toys.  She is so quick to smile, and none of us can get enough of her!!! 

12 Years!!!!

SURPRISE!!!  I am writing on my blog!  I have been inspired to try again!  I wanted to start with this picture because (minus the laundry in the background--hey at least it's folded!) Nels and I have been married for 12 years this month!  I sure love this man, and am grateful for the journey he's taking me on.  With how fast the time is going, I already think about how amazing it's going to be to share all of my life with him!  He has taught me so much, and we have both been through more together than I ever imagined!  My mom recently visited and let Nels and I go to the Bishops' Storehouse together.  It was so fun to work as a team, doing service.  It made me very excited for serving a mission with this great man!

Summer

This summer has been so much fun, so here are a few pictures to update everyone (minus our Canada trip, I still need to go through those pictures).

Brynlee has been bugging me for months to take off her training wheels, but I assumed she needed more time and I kept urging her to wait awhile. She was persistant enough, that I finally gave in, ready for having to work and teach, and see her frustrated, and just really be a bit annoyed. Well, I was wrong. I gave her the bike, gave her a push, and she was off. She's now a pro. The sad thing is, then Shaylin wanted to try, so Nels took her wheels off, gave her a push and she crashed...quite a few times. She finally said, " I can't ride my bike because I haven't lost a tooth yet" (Brynlee had lost her first tooth a few days prior and it made a great immpresion on Shaylin). Thankfully, about a month later she tried again and was sucessful. But sadly, I didn't get a video of her because Haley was the one that helped her (what a good sister. Where was her mother you ask, yes, she was inside doing housework! Dumb dirt, it's always getting in the way). Oh, yes. I almost forgot to tell you what Brynlee's motivation was for learning. I didn't even realize it until after it was too late. For months I've been saying that the girls can't ride their bikes in the street. They'd always ask why Haley could, and do you know what my answer was? Yes, I didn't think it through very well, it was, "Haley can ride her bike in the street because she has a two-wheeler." I guess I figured that they'd never learn to ride a two-wheeler. But oh well, we live in a double-culdesac so there are very few cars, and they are pretty good at watching for them. All we have left is Elise, and I think she could do it no wif I let her. She was riding Brynlee's right before we took them off, and she wasn't hardly even using the training wheels. They grow up way too stinking fast! Haley and I took a trip out to Sacramento, CA to see my sister, Shauna,where we met up with my best friends form High School (it's been over 10 years, and it felt like no time had passed at all!!!)
I also got to see one of my bestest friends from church(it too has been over 10 years, and was so much fun!!!)
I got to see my Dad and Marte, Uncle Joseph with his girlfriend Dimple. We went to San Fran, had a wonderful meal, shared a bucket of donuts, and froze our butts off walking around :)

And Haley and Skyler got to be reunited! (This was our makeover picture session!)

One day after we got back, Nels went to Idaho to visit his family, and then two weeks after that we left for Canada! It has been very eventful, but thus far, one of the best summers ever!

End of school owie

Sadly, being the amazing mother that I am, the school year went great, until we got to the end. Up to now we have had only one broken bone and no stitches between all six kids, but I decided we just needed more. So I took it into my own hands and threw Kaden into the street attatched to his wheelchair. Wow, I am a good mom. Okay, so here's how it went down. We were outside waiting for the school bus, so he was all ready to go in his wheelchair, and he put on the brakes. Then for some reason, he thought I was still holding on, and he un-did the brakes, sending his wheelchair down the rest of the driveway, and right onto his chin, with his wheelchair still attatched to his waist. Poor kid! All his weight, and the weight of the wheelchair were on his chin right into the cement (thankfully not asfault). As soon as I picked him up I knew he needed stiches, so he got to go to the doctor, then (because I fet so bad) his choice of lunch. He picked Red Lobster (what a good choice, mmm, I'm hungry now!) Anyway, so we have now added stitches to our list. Here are a few pictures, that you may or may not want to see. :)

We had to put antibiotic ointment on his chin and he touched it one day, making it look like a goatee. He was pretty proud!

After!

Before

Updates

Okay, so I haven't been doing a very good job at updating things, so I will add something today since I have a few moments. We just got back from our vacation in Canada, but considering the fact that I don't yet have Haley's or the boys birthdays posted that's where I'll begin! These pictures are Haley's birthday party back in March that we invited her entire school class to. Thankfully only 14 came, even that was a bit crazy, but fun none-the-less. We did a sports themed party (she chose it, not me),so we had relay races, and lots of fun games. I hope they liked it, because I had blast!

A gift of "chicken poop" chapstick!

The whole gang

The football cake she requested (very fun to make!)

Presents from Mom and Dad werea hit this year (last year we got the coment, "Is this it?")