September

or mostly September

our end of summer/beginning of school year adventures

School is in full swing and life feels very busy.  

Here are Emma and I at elementary school pick up one afternoon.  Emma already has her sights set on Halloween.  She wants to be Batgirl (costume already secured) and she has also informed me she wants a Batgirl birthday party and birthday cake.  Her birthday is in the beginning of November.  So I guess we'll give unicorns a break this year.  I think she was sad about riding in the car on this day.  Sad Batgirl.

Here she is earlier in the day

John walked to school on his own for the first time this past week.  Grant walked with him - its about a mile each way.  I think its good exercise so glad he feels confident enough to walk now.  Way to go John!

Emma is in pre-k five hours each week (2.5 hours a day for two days)

She's excited about it, but it really isn't much time away from me.  The other kids are gone 33 hours each week at school and she is gone for 5 hours.  It feels like almost nothing.  But it is eerily quiet in the car and house for those 5 hours.  The other 28 hours while the kids are gone she likes to be RIGHT NEXT to me.  I think she misses her siblings.  Sometimes I feel exhausted by the togetherness.  She likes to sit on me a lot.  Here we are playing dress up with her magnet doll

Emma at the park during Grant's soccer practice one afternoon

Emma likes to do a lot of art projects when we're at home during the school days

I think I need to make an activity schedule for her and I

Still running regularly but also trying some other things to try and manage anxiety

Tried yoga/pilates on this day which was very hard but also anxiety reducing

Grant made this Lego shell for a little flashlight, so it looked like a Lego flashlight

He loves building with Legos

We had a Bubly taste test.  Bubly is a brand of lightly flavored carbonated water.  Scott hates it.  But some of us like it.  We got all the flavors we could find and had a blind taste test.  

Mango was the winner.

Anna painted this mermaid mug for her birthday and we got them fired.  She likes the ombre design and wanted to show it to Aunt Ruth.  So Ruth, if you see this.  Here it is!

Anna and I making S'mores Treats

Here are the kids picking some peaches from our tree

I think we didn't prune enough

We had a lot of small peaches and they weren't that sweet

We had a lot of fruit on our fruit trees.  Here are some of our peaches (left) and nectarines (right).  We made a rustic nectarine jam and a peach cobbler.  The jam was better than the cobbler.

Making the jam

Here's John ready for soccer

He's been having a fun time playing soccer

Here's Grant getting ready for his game.  He's sitting.

Soccer bros

My parents have come help us fix a few things around the house, including this sprinkler that doesn't spray right.

They also helped us fix this broken drawer in the kids bathroom, all the closet doors, a broken faucet in the bathroom and some door stops that were broken.

Here is the drawer after

It looks so nice and no longer has jagged staples sticking out

John draws a picture for his new teacher

We have flooding in our backyard whenever it rains a lot, so we had a pump system put in in the backyard.  Soon after the pump was installed it rained for several days.  And the pump appears to be working.  No flooding in the yard and water coming out of the pump line to the street.  Hopefully we'll have a less floody yard now.

The kids have lots of homework.  One afternoon John told me his legs would only work if I let him do his math facts on my computer (on starfall.com). He dragged himself into the kitchen, trying to win my sympathies.  He may be there still.

Here he is after school another day.  Last year he was in school for half the day and always got a ride.  So full day plus walking 2 extra miles a day is tiring.

Anna found a large grasshopper in the pumpkin patch and wanted to study him for a little while.  We let him go eventually.

Emma caught some sickness at preschool I think and had a bad tummy for a day.  Of course it was a day I had a meeting with a counselor at Matthew's school.  Here is sad Emma in the car just before going into the junior high.  Notice the batgirl outfit.

And resting later in the day

She felt a lot better the next day

Getting ready for fall

We got the fall decorations out.  Anna made the art man ride a little broom

The mountainside in Kaysville/Fruit Heights caught fire one afternoon.

Luckily it rained a lot the next day helping to get the fire contained

This was two days later

You can see the burn scar a little bit here

The kids all have different homework and things to do each day and its hard for me to keep track.  I made these charts so they can check off all their things each day - helpful to know if they are allowed to do screen time the next day or play with friends.

Grant is always building something interesting.  We've been working hard to get his room cleaner and more organized (which he shares with John).  Still working on it.

We moved this cube unit up to Grant's room from the laundry room.  I got it for kids to keep their backpacks in, but no one ever put their backpack there and it was just taking up space in the laundry room so I thought I would give it a new home.  Its still messy in there - we're gradually cleaning and getting organized in there, but I think its going to help hold his Lego things.

Grant and Emma being silly

Does this remind you of the Creation of Man painting

We got to hang out with some of the Guptill relatives this past weekend.  I didn't take many pictures!!    Here is Karlee with John - proof that they were here!

And Emma with Norah

I think Scott and Alycia should recreate this photo of their daughters - Scott in the pink dress, Alycia in the yellow.   Who's with me?

you can see Pa2 in the background wearing his Snow College shirt. :)

So we've been busy, and September isn't even over yet.  Matthew is involved in scouts and a school play and the school band.  Anna just started orchestra (playing the violin) has lots of sewing projects planned and the younger kids are all doing soccer.  Along with church activities and possibly starting cub scouts for the younger boys.  I feel busy.   And now its fall!  New fall adventures to come!!

First Day of Preschool

Emma started preschool this week.  She has been very excited to start school.  She has a November birthday so other kids from her primary class are going to kindergarten this year but she has to wait until next year.  She'll be more than ready for kindergarten when it comes.  She's going to one of the local public elementary schools but not our neighborhood school since they don't offer preschool.  So I drive about 5 minutes over to another school to take her.  It makes the morning drop offs a little crazy but she only goes two days a week for about 2 hours so we should be able to handle it.  Here she is ready to go on her first day.  Anna helped her pick out an outfit for the first day.

Emma has been eager to start school - I think she was impatient because the other kids had already started.  She's been a little bored at home without her siblings.  She starts asking at about 10am when we can pick them up from school.

She's getting very bored of going shopping with me too

Ready for school!

Here we are visiting Emma's pre-k class.

She was really excited because the school's mascot is the Husky Dog and Emma loves huskies.  She even found a big stuffed animal husky in her classroom.

She drew many pictures for her new teacher.

John and Emma like to draw pictures for their teacher a lot.

Emma is getting pretty good at cleaning her room on her own.

John and Grant could take a few tips from her.  Keeping it clean is another story.

And here we are at school on the first day.

Even though it says kindergarten behind her this is where her preschool class meets

She was only a little nervous but had no first day tears or anything.  I dropped her off and gave her a quick hug and then left.  My aunt asked me what I was going to do with myself while she was at school (only 2.5 hours twice a week) and I imagined I wouldn't do much since its not that much time, but it actually felt longer than I expected.  I had my first kid-free morning since having kids (minus three trips without kids I've gone on over the past 12 years).  I went on a run outside with no stroller.  And had time to get groceries and head home for a quick shower before going to pick her up.  It's been kind of a crazy summer with a lot of kid chaos and I felt kind of taken by surprise when I dropped her off and then had no kids with me for a few hours.  That's definitely out of the ordinary for me.  

But soon enough the first day of preschool was over and I headed back to pick her up.  She said she had a great time but had trouble remembering all the things they did.  Her teacher said she wasn't nervous and participated.  Here she is after the first day.  She was upset the next day when I told her she didn't have preschool that day.  :). So she's ready for preschool and next year kindergarten!!