New Beginnings

This feels like such a big year for us.  My kids are markedly growing up.  The boys had their first day of preschool at kids village last week.

They were so excited that it was finally their turn to hop out of the car and run in after all the years of watching Olivia do it.  In fact that's exactly what they did.  They jumped down ran in with their cute little red bags and didn't even look back to wave goodbye to me.  It made me tear up a little thinking that they weren't even the least bit sad to leave me.  That day I took Liv to work with me since she hadn't started school yet.  She was so good and just sat in my office sewing and then watching something on the Ipad.  After I was done with work, she requested that we go to sushi for lunch, so we did.  It makes me so happy that she loves sushi as much as me.

Then, after lunch we went to mall where I let her pick out one more new outfit for school.  She of course picked a dress and the way she finally decided on which to pick out of the many she had liked was whichever one was the longest (very practical for school playgrounds).  Then, it was off to Liv's first Let's Play Music class of this school year.  They are starting to play the piano this year, and she is so excited.  I haven't had any trouble getting her to practice every day.

Derek has been dressing the boys in matching clothes whenever he gets the chance just to really drive home the fact they are twins I guess.  The first week of school he sent them in their giants gear.  Ya know...gotta establish where our loyalties lie straight off.

Soccer has also begun again.  This year Liv moved up to the U8 division which means it's all the girls who will still be under 8 but older than 6 at the end of this calendar year.  She is the only kindergartener on her team, but she seems just as tall as all the other girls and seems to keep up with them just fine.  Liv did great in her first game and ran the whole time.  She was definitely pooped by the end, but who wouldn't be.

Today was Liv's big first day of kindergarten.  She was so excited and wore this other dress I had let her pick out with a cute belt.

She had two backpacks already and I told her she could pick which ever one she wanted to use instead of buying her a new one (I'm a mean Mom; however, she didn't seem to care).  She decided she wanted to sport her Princess Sophia back pack.

She was all ready to go 10 minutes before the bus was going to pick her up.  I probably should have just sent her walking around the block because her brothers and I were dragging and we literally almost missed the bus.  I pulled my car around the corner and saw the bus driving past.  Luckily it was on it's way to the stop.  So it stopped mid street and I pulled my car to a stop behind it.  She hopped out and ran up in time to be the last one boarding the bus.  I felt bad it was so rushed.  I didn't even get to see her excited face as she was getting on the bus.  I can't wait to hear about her first day.

Overall, I am holding it together pretty well with all these new changes.  But, I'm not gonna lie it has been way harder for me than I anticipated.  I do have this somewhat underlying anxious feeling most of the time just thinking about how big my kids are getting and them embarking on all these new things.  I haven't slept well for weeks probably because I am just stressed about it all.  Well that and I can't really exercise well with my bum knee.  I swear if I could just go for a good run I would feel much better about all of it.  I think I just feel like for the first time I'm not in control of my kids lives.  I mean up until this point I feel like I was in control of everything.  I choose where and when Liv when to school.  I choose all her extracurricular activities and I was highly involved in all of it.  But this kindergarten stuff is something else.  She's going to the school we are zoned for, with whatever teacher they tell me she will have, and has to go every day and do homework (it's not optional any more) and I'm struggling giving up my control over to this kindergarten teacher.  Hopefully as we settle into all these new changes and I get more familiar with everything and see how much the kids enjoy it over the next couple weeks my anxiousness will calm down.

Soaking Up the Last of Summer

I had another birthday.  I started the day out with a bike ride with Annie.  Then, I invited my friend Kassie over to bake the a Cooks Illustrated strawberry shortcake. Derek thought it crazy that I wanted to spend the day baking my own birthday cake, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed it.  Then, later that evening we invited a bunch of people over to celebrate and eat cake.

Had to put in a plug for just how awesome London is. 

 She is so patient with these torturous kids.  The boys try to ride her all the time, and Liv has been "training" her almost every day.  She has trained her to give hugs.

I can't believe Liv is going to be starting kindergarten and leaving us every morning.  I having a much more difficult time coping with it than I anticipated.  I have this constant feeling of anxiety about the whole thing that won't seem to go away.  The boys and I are gonna miss her intricate arranging of toys.

I steamed corn from the garden for the first time the other night with dinner.  The kids were excited.

The grape vine we planted this year is thriving.  

For some reason I think my kids enthusiasm for eating is cute.  Liv enjoying pesto pasta. 

 And Camden devouring some tacos.

Carter came out of our closet the other day in his Dad's ginormous boots.  

Liv finally took the leap and learned to ride a two wheel bike.  I don't have pictures.  Her friend Kenadie was out one night riding and offered her bike without training wheels for Liv to try.  So I kind chased after the best I could on my recovering knee and before long she had it all figured out.  She wanted his to take the training wheels off her princess bike immediately.  We did and once she got pretty comfortable on that we decided it was high time she had a slightly bigger bike.  The princess bike is ridiculously small, even smaller than the boys bikes with training wheels.  We had planned to get her a bike for her birthday, but decided to do it a bit early. Derek took her one night to pick one out.  This new bike if anything is a little big, but she is getting used to it.  And, she loved riding her bike.  It seems like almost every day I sit under a tree in the shade in the front of the house while the kids ride up and down our street.  I'm more grateful now than ever that our street is not very busy.

Grand Teton and Bear World Trip

A few weeks before school was about to start for the kids Derek all the sudden felt the urgency to go on a STAT family vacation.  He argued that our kids were starting real school where we couldn't just take off whenever we wanted any more and that we hadn't gone a single family vacation all summer.  That was true mostly because every option he presented involved hiking or walking on uneven ground which was not such a great idea with my knee.  But my knee seems to be getting better and better and I had been given the clearance to hike with a big ol' brace so I agreed to his last minute idea for a trip to Grand Teton National Park and Bear World (actually Bear World was my idea because it didn't involve hiking just sitting in a car).

We took off on a Wednesday after work and drove to Rexburg, Idaho to stay in a Marriot where we had free points.  The kids were so excited when we got there that they were excitedly running and jumping all over the room.  Just minutes after we had arrived we got a call from the front desk saying that the people below us had complained about the noise (WHOOPS!).  Finally, we settled everyone down and got them to bed despite the excitement of staying in a hotel.  There were two queen sized beds and a pull out couch bed.  Camden slept with me, Liv slept with Dad, and Carter was content to have the pull out couch bed all to himself.

Thursday morning we got up, had breakfast at the hotel, then swam in the pool.  (We were the only crazies swimming at 9am).  Then, we got ready and drove to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  It was a 2-2.5 hour drive there from Rexburg so not exactly convenient, but forth it for the free hotel.  When we arrived in Jackson Hole, we stopped at their central park and had a little picnic lunch.  The boys pretended that the rounded wooden fence was a horse/train they were riding.
 Actually, at one point we had the whole family straddling the fence I'm sure that was quite the sight, but we were having fun.  We got the classic picture in front of the antler arches.

Then we headed to Grand Teton National Park where we hiked around Jenny Lake which was a 2.8 miles trek.

 I was amazed at how well my knee held up and how well the kids hiked.  Liv actually loved to hike fast, so for a good portion of the hike Derek sprinted ahead with her and I stayed back at a more leisurely pace with the boys.

 Then, we rode the boat one way back to the trail head instead of hiking back.  Kids thought that was fun.

 Then, we went to Teton Village to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain.  It was free after 4 pm.  I didn't factor into the equation that both Derek and Camden are quite afraid of heights.  Derek sat straight backed and unmoving for the entire ride without once even taking in the view.  Camden freaked out and screamed for the first little until he sorta got used to idea and realized it was safe and then he relaxed a little.  Liv sorta played off Camden and Dad.  Carter was the only one who calming sat in the gondola enjoying the gorgeous view.  You can see the hesitancy in Camden's face in this picture.
Then, we let the kids walk in the river at the bottom and play at a little playground.  We had dinner down then and then headed back to the hotel for the second round of swimming for the day.

Friday morning same routine: breakfast, swimming, and then we checked out and headed to Grand Teton again.   We started out at the visitors center where we got all the kids their own national parks passport and they each stamped it with a Grand Teton stamp.  We had another picnic lunch.  Then, we went to Taggart Lake.  The kids were slightly less excited about this hike I think still tired from the the previous days hike plus it was early afternoon when we started which is generally our rest time at home.  But nonetheless, I was impressed with how well they did.  This hike was longer 3.2 miles round trip.  Camden at one point took a break to play in the dirt.

 I had to make up a story about fairies while we were hiking to keep them entertained.  This is a picture of the "fairy forest" as we termed it along the hike.

When we finally got to the lake, the kids were thrilled to play in the lake.   The lake is at the base of the Teton Mountain range and very picturesque. 
  And of course none of them headed our warning to just go in up to their knees.
After finishing the hike, we drove back to Jackson Hole and I got to ride with each of the kids down their alpine slide because Derek had no real desire to ride the chair lift up with his feet dangling so high up.  It was fun and we all enjoyed it.  Then, we drove to Idaho Falls to stay with our good friends Chris and Ashley Dixon.

Saturday morning Chris and Derek went golfing and Ashley and I stayed back at the house with the kids and just let them play.  I think by this point my kids were tuckered out from all the hiking and adventure and were thrilled to just stay somewhere and play with toys.  When the boys got back, we hit up Bear World.

Boy that was a neat experience.  You drive you car through this area where there are loads of bear walking right up to and in front of your car.  I loved watching the bears wrestling with each other, or swimming in the lake, the kids all got a kick out of a bear scratching it bum on a log.  There were also Elk, bison, moose, deer.  Then, they have a little petting area.
Camden was in love with this baby deer.

You could also see all the baby bears and watch people bottle feeding them.  They had a few fun kids rides.
 After the rides we all actually drove through the bear park again just because it was so cool.  Then, we went back to Chris and Ashley's and ordered pizza.  After that we took all the kids to see the Falls and stroll along the river.  They have these neat themed benches scattered all along the way.  This one was a rattlesnake and the kids were all pretending they were scared.
 I tried to get the kids to take a family picture by the falls.  None of them were too into that.

 Then, Ashley and Chris took us to Reed's Dairy which not only had awesome ice cream but a bunch of free farm animals out back behind the store that you could pet.  Baby cows, pigs, sheep, donkeys, miniature horses, chickens.  The kids loved this place.

Sunday morning, we went to sacrament meeting with Chris and Ashley and then we were on our way home.  We stopped in Brigham City on the way and let the kids play at a park while we ate lunch.
 I hit up the dollar store and target before the trip began and packed a bunch of "surprises" that I could dole out throughout the trip as our kids grew tired of driving (we did a lot of driving).  The kids loved this.  Our next trip we have planned is down to Arizona to visit Grandma Nadine.  Camden asked the other night if when we go to Grandma Nadine's I'm going to have surprises again--I hope they remember more from these trips than just the car surprises.