Friday, January 22, 2016
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
Wednesday, October 07, 2015
crazy town
Boo. More than and month without a post.
Life is crazy right now and it's all our fault.
We have five kids and time consuming church callings and volunteer to help coach our kids' sports and have our kids in too many activities. We knowingly have 'over-scheduled' ourselves and it is just as bad as we thought it would be.
I'll give the rundown.
Pacen: He is in middleschool, does Piano, Kumon, Flag Football, Boy Scouts and Swimming. It's the swimming that puts us right over the edge. And we knew it would but we really wanted to try out this fall clinic at this other pool and it is really awesome and really great coaching but it's just too much and we know it and are just getting through until the middle of November since we've already paid our money.
But for instance, this was his day. It's Wednesday, so it's a late start day so he didn't have to be at school until 9:25. Which is awesome. I wish everyday started at 9:25. So I woke him up at 6:45 so that he can get dressed, eat breakfast, practice piano, and do Kumon. (Math worksheets basically). Then he got some screen time and watched his beloved Full House. Full House is still a pretty big deal in our house. Then he was off to school, got home at 3:45, had his piano lesson at 4:00, left the house at 4:45 for Claira's swim time, had his swim time, I grabbed dinner at Yalla which is super yummy, they ate in the car, we picked up Morgan and Connor for Boy Scouts and Activity Days, and drove to the church, where I am now as I type. I have no kids with me for an hour and I have my computer and I'm loving every second. :) Then he will get home, finish his homework and go to bed. Tomorrow he will wake up at 6:15, get ready and do Kumon and Piano, do school and then Flag Football and homework. It's just too busy but like I said, we did it to ourselves.
Camry: She's in 4th grade. She does piano, kumon, soccer, swimming and drama. She just got the part of the Pomeranian in her school play which she wanted and tried our for. She was voted into Student Council last week and had their first after school meeting this Monday where she is going to go for a lead student council position where she has to give a speech in front of the whole school....representative at large...and was also voted team captain of her soccer team. She is crushing it!
Claira: 2nd grade and loving it. She is in piano, kumon, swimming and drama. She got the part of the Mother in her Jackie and the Beanstalk play. She has a solo! It's going to be awesome. I feel bad for her because she didn't do soccer this year and really wants to be in a dance class but I can't find one that fits our schedule. I feel REALLY bad about it and need to fix it. The only one that I can find is on Saturday and our Saturdays have been really full and we've been gone some too. I need to do that for her soon. Claira is a reading fool. She just finished the 4th Harry Potter and is already onto the 5th. She loves school and is so good at it. Her class is kind of unruly this year and she keeps on saying how everyone is loud except for her. I hope she can stay obedient and a good learner even though her class is a little disruptive. I seriously find her reading EVERYWHERE. It's the cutest thing ever.
Gentry: She's loving TK. Like loving it more and more each day. She can write her name! It's so awesome that she is getting a love for learning! She loves to read books now, she colors, she is just growing and growing. I love it. And she is doing drama! She has the part of the shepherd and she is so dang excited to be in drama I can't even stand it. She knows all the songs and just has so much confidence and enthusiasm it is crazy. And she's doing soccer and killing it. She scores a bunch of goals each game and just has the best attitude and is smiling all the time. Everyone loves Gentry. She is really just a ball of happiness...that is, when she's not throwing a fit which is really far and few between these days.
Maren: She's just stuck hanging out in all this crazy. She is good about going with the flow, and good about the car since she can watch her Backyardigans DVD over an over again. Pacen picked up this DVD from school and Maren is obsessed. We all sing this corn song as loud as we can when it comes on. I'm trying to get to the park as often as I can with her and do some good one on one things. But I will tell you that it is difficult when you the kindergarten schedule. I do need to be better about meal planning so that I only have to go to the store once a week. That would help me a lot.
But it's been crazy with Claira's birthday, a Relief Society event (I'm in charge of all RS Activities with my calling right now), a Baby shower for a lady in my ward, RS visits, Gentry's birthday, and Than being gone a few weekends for BYU football games. OVER SCHEDULED! And we just threw in a quickie trip to Nevada this past weekend to visit our grandparents. We left Saturday at 1:00pm (after all the games), drove to Silver Springs (where we saw a pack of wild horses! It was amazing!), Than went to Priesthood Session with Herm, I hung out with Carolyn, the kids played, we ate pasties for dinner and enjoyed each other's company. In the morning, we had breakfast and then headed off to Wellington to visit my family. Grandpa Gentry wasn't feeling up for a visit so he stayed home. That was sad but I get it. He's going to be 90 and he's just in pain all the time. Growing old kind of stinks sometimes. But we had a great visit with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mike and the kids had fun and we loaded in the Motorhome and came home.
Are we seeing why life is so crazy?!?!?! Than plans trips to UCLA and Michigan (not his fault! Adam had free tickets! How could he not go?!?!) for BYU football. I'm heading to Washington for William's baptism this weekend with Claira. It just goes on and on.
Oh! And Than and Kaylee did their triathlon in Monterey! That was one weekend where we all headed to a beach house in Sea Cliff and Than dominated the Olympic distance tri and Kaylee kicked the crud out of her first triathlon ever! The cousins got to play and it was just a fun weekend. WE fit in a trip to the aquarium and ate lots of yummy food and it was awesome.
Oh! And we finished the Book of Mormon! It's taken us like 4 years to read it as a family but we did it! And now we get to start it again!
Oh! And Than is starting a new job. It's been an interesting few months trying to figure this decision out but it's happening. He's leaving Degreed and starting with a new company out of Utah. I 100% feel like it is the right decision for him. This job really seems like the perfect fit where degreed was something that he really wanted to be a perfect fit but it just wasn't. So, the next few months will be very interesting and telling.
But life is good. The kids are doing good. They are happy and still love spending time with us and still love church and want to spend time with each other. It's a good life. But this past month has been crazy town for sure.
Life is crazy right now and it's all our fault.
We have five kids and time consuming church callings and volunteer to help coach our kids' sports and have our kids in too many activities. We knowingly have 'over-scheduled' ourselves and it is just as bad as we thought it would be.
I'll give the rundown.
Pacen: He is in middleschool, does Piano, Kumon, Flag Football, Boy Scouts and Swimming. It's the swimming that puts us right over the edge. And we knew it would but we really wanted to try out this fall clinic at this other pool and it is really awesome and really great coaching but it's just too much and we know it and are just getting through until the middle of November since we've already paid our money.
But for instance, this was his day. It's Wednesday, so it's a late start day so he didn't have to be at school until 9:25. Which is awesome. I wish everyday started at 9:25. So I woke him up at 6:45 so that he can get dressed, eat breakfast, practice piano, and do Kumon. (Math worksheets basically). Then he got some screen time and watched his beloved Full House. Full House is still a pretty big deal in our house. Then he was off to school, got home at 3:45, had his piano lesson at 4:00, left the house at 4:45 for Claira's swim time, had his swim time, I grabbed dinner at Yalla which is super yummy, they ate in the car, we picked up Morgan and Connor for Boy Scouts and Activity Days, and drove to the church, where I am now as I type. I have no kids with me for an hour and I have my computer and I'm loving every second. :) Then he will get home, finish his homework and go to bed. Tomorrow he will wake up at 6:15, get ready and do Kumon and Piano, do school and then Flag Football and homework. It's just too busy but like I said, we did it to ourselves.
Camry: She's in 4th grade. She does piano, kumon, soccer, swimming and drama. She just got the part of the Pomeranian in her school play which she wanted and tried our for. She was voted into Student Council last week and had their first after school meeting this Monday where she is going to go for a lead student council position where she has to give a speech in front of the whole school....representative at large...and was also voted team captain of her soccer team. She is crushing it!
Claira: 2nd grade and loving it. She is in piano, kumon, swimming and drama. She got the part of the Mother in her Jackie and the Beanstalk play. She has a solo! It's going to be awesome. I feel bad for her because she didn't do soccer this year and really wants to be in a dance class but I can't find one that fits our schedule. I feel REALLY bad about it and need to fix it. The only one that I can find is on Saturday and our Saturdays have been really full and we've been gone some too. I need to do that for her soon. Claira is a reading fool. She just finished the 4th Harry Potter and is already onto the 5th. She loves school and is so good at it. Her class is kind of unruly this year and she keeps on saying how everyone is loud except for her. I hope she can stay obedient and a good learner even though her class is a little disruptive. I seriously find her reading EVERYWHERE. It's the cutest thing ever.
Gentry: She's loving TK. Like loving it more and more each day. She can write her name! It's so awesome that she is getting a love for learning! She loves to read books now, she colors, she is just growing and growing. I love it. And she is doing drama! She has the part of the shepherd and she is so dang excited to be in drama I can't even stand it. She knows all the songs and just has so much confidence and enthusiasm it is crazy. And she's doing soccer and killing it. She scores a bunch of goals each game and just has the best attitude and is smiling all the time. Everyone loves Gentry. She is really just a ball of happiness...that is, when she's not throwing a fit which is really far and few between these days.
Maren: She's just stuck hanging out in all this crazy. She is good about going with the flow, and good about the car since she can watch her Backyardigans DVD over an over again. Pacen picked up this DVD from school and Maren is obsessed. We all sing this corn song as loud as we can when it comes on. I'm trying to get to the park as often as I can with her and do some good one on one things. But I will tell you that it is difficult when you the kindergarten schedule. I do need to be better about meal planning so that I only have to go to the store once a week. That would help me a lot.
But it's been crazy with Claira's birthday, a Relief Society event (I'm in charge of all RS Activities with my calling right now), a Baby shower for a lady in my ward, RS visits, Gentry's birthday, and Than being gone a few weekends for BYU football games. OVER SCHEDULED! And we just threw in a quickie trip to Nevada this past weekend to visit our grandparents. We left Saturday at 1:00pm (after all the games), drove to Silver Springs (where we saw a pack of wild horses! It was amazing!), Than went to Priesthood Session with Herm, I hung out with Carolyn, the kids played, we ate pasties for dinner and enjoyed each other's company. In the morning, we had breakfast and then headed off to Wellington to visit my family. Grandpa Gentry wasn't feeling up for a visit so he stayed home. That was sad but I get it. He's going to be 90 and he's just in pain all the time. Growing old kind of stinks sometimes. But we had a great visit with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mike and the kids had fun and we loaded in the Motorhome and came home.
Are we seeing why life is so crazy?!?!?! Than plans trips to UCLA and Michigan (not his fault! Adam had free tickets! How could he not go?!?!) for BYU football. I'm heading to Washington for William's baptism this weekend with Claira. It just goes on and on.
Oh! And Than and Kaylee did their triathlon in Monterey! That was one weekend where we all headed to a beach house in Sea Cliff and Than dominated the Olympic distance tri and Kaylee kicked the crud out of her first triathlon ever! The cousins got to play and it was just a fun weekend. WE fit in a trip to the aquarium and ate lots of yummy food and it was awesome.
Oh! And we finished the Book of Mormon! It's taken us like 4 years to read it as a family but we did it! And now we get to start it again!
Oh! And Than is starting a new job. It's been an interesting few months trying to figure this decision out but it's happening. He's leaving Degreed and starting with a new company out of Utah. I 100% feel like it is the right decision for him. This job really seems like the perfect fit where degreed was something that he really wanted to be a perfect fit but it just wasn't. So, the next few months will be very interesting and telling.
But life is good. The kids are doing good. They are happy and still love spending time with us and still love church and want to spend time with each other. It's a good life. But this past month has been crazy town for sure.
Thursday, September 03, 2015
Having a moment.
I was having a moment when I was walking back to my car from Pacen's Back to School Night at WCI. I don't want him being old enough to switch classes and have grades that are 30% homework 30% projects and 40% tests. I don't want him to grow up basically and it makes me sad that he's already so big. I know that you want to raise children that will be capable adults but I know why so many kids grow up to be incapable adults because it's just so much fun to be a kid and I (sometimes, like right now) just want my kids to have fun and play like a kid all day. I don't always feel like this but today I'm just feeling like I want my little baby Pacen boy back. Just for like a few days where we can snuggle and take naps together and.....oh wait...we still do that so I guess it's not so bad.
Pacen told me a funny "growing up" story where Lucy told her friend Lucy about Pacen and then Lucy and her friends were all looking and Pacen and pointing at him and smiling and giggling. HOLY CRAP! HOW DOES LIFE TURN INTO THIS!?!? I get it because Pacen is freaking adorable but still.
On a side note today, Camry was playing a knock knock game on the front door and running away, and the first time she got away but the second time I caught her and she ended up tripping on the stairs. It was sad but then I got to cheer her up with the knowledge that she had a playdate tomorrow that she wasn't expecting. She FREAKS out when she gets hurt and she immediately starts yelling at me like I was the one that pushed her down and hurt her knee. We need to work on that with her. But unfortunately, like most things with my kids when they have a bad habit, it's totally from me so I get it.
And camry still likes to snuggle with me. And sometimes she begs me to climb up on her top bunk with her and rarely I do it but when I do, I know it makes her super happy.
I shouldn't have taken a picture of Than giving Maren a blessing but I couldn't help it. She took listening to everyone's blessing so seriously and then took her blessing even more seriously. She is so cute.
And just a few more pictures from the first day of school. These are all my school kids that I miss all day!
Walking to school! It only happens on the first day. :)
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
School's Back in!
It's your first day now, your very first day. The first day of school yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! That's a song I know, courtesy of Jana and Michael dating all the way back to 1990-something. But it's true...the first day happened! And it all went really well and so we can all breath a big sigh of relief.
The day before the first day of school was a day for Gentry to meet her teacher. And I was SO EMOTIONAL about it. Like, I had to seriously hold back the tears. I don't know if I worry about her more because she's my fourth and I'm running out of babies or if I worry about her speech and hearing, but I was just so sad that she was going to be in school. But her teacher is amazing and I think will be a big help for her and it is the right place for her to be. She found a place to sit and got to work right away and was just happy the whole time.
I couldn't resist a picture of all these brand new crayons. So first day of school.
Claira is in second grade and has Mr. Winhall's class. No one in our family has had him before so that's new and exciting. Claira is just a great student and will do well wherever she is. This is her first man teacher so that will be a change but so far so good.
And she is killing me with her new haircut. She is so adorable.
Maren was feeling a little left out with everyone getting their picture taken. Who is cuter than that?!?! I dare say there is no one.
First day of Transitional Kindergarten! She gets to be in TK since she has an october birthday and is just a few months away from "real" kindergarten. She was all ready to go even though she did wake up with a stomach ache. Luckily that went away with some hugs and snuggles and reassurance that TK was going to be awesome.
And it was! She came home and said, "Mom, TK is so great. I'm not scared anymore!"
4th grade. 4th grade. It seems so old to me. She has Mrs. Clar and Mrs. Wampler just like Pacen had for 5th grade. She is a little smarty pants and will have a fabulous year. This is the first year that you can run for student council and I think she will. She's already been talking about it. She cut about 5 inches of hair off the other day and has been so happy about it. She almost always knows what she wants and does it. Except for getting dressed. She takes forever and always asks me what she should wear. :)
6th grade! That is middle school people!!!! He is at WCI and I've been worrying about it all summer and it's finally here. And he's had a really great transition! The homework hasn't really started yet, but even so far he seems so much more responsible than he was last year. I'm excited to see how he does!
And Than was very happy with his choice for first day of school outfit. Go cougars! And he really is the sweetest boy ever. When he came home from school, we talked all about everything and he gave me all the details and then he said, "Mom, where'e Maren? Can I wake her up because with all the stuff I have going on I will never see her." He is the best big brother. And how did she repay him when she got up from her nap? By ignoring him and not letting him hug her. Geez, Maren. The guy loves you for crying out loud, give him a break. :)
The picture show continues. I just love these kids. The summer has been awesome but it can't be summer forever. School will be good to get back on a schedule and have more of a routine.
These two better stick together. They have a good relationship and I hope it stays that way.
Only two more years and you get to go to school little girl!
She was pretty put out that she didn't get to stay at school. That is, until I turned on a show for her and then she was good again.
The whole crew! 11, 9, 6, 4, 2.
The girls + Morgan.
The girls + Morgan + Emma + Maddie. We have a great little neighborhood.
Da Boys. They gotta stick together.
Going to school was kind of a mess. One me and three kids in three different classrooms. We went to camay's class first and she is lucky to be in her class because there are so many good girls in it. She is going to thrive this year for sure.
Next, I dropped off Gentry. She was totally ready to do this thing. I, on the other hand, was not. I did hold back the tears since I had already cried the day before and it helps because I think her teacher is going to be so awesome. I know Gentry is going to grow, grow, grow this year. And isn't she cute with those bangs?!?!?! Melt my heart.
Last but not least, Claira dear. Her classroom just happened to be the furthest away. She was sitting right next to Dalia (who broke her leg like all he way up her leg and has a full leg cast!) and was very happy despite the picture. I think she is just more nervous and reserved in these types of situations but now she feels just fine about it. She is a great student and really loves learning on her own too. I'm so lucky to be a mom to such great kids for reals.
One last look at Claira's classroom before we were off....
And one more swing by Gentry's room. It practically had more parents than students in there! They were singing a song and Gentry was doing the arm motions and I had to turn and walk away. They are in a good place.
And now for Pacen Boy. The big middle schooler. They have late days on Wednesdays and so we got to hang around a little and wait for drop off time. And seriously, he left my car and didn't even look back! What's up with that?!!?!? See ya later dude!
And I have to say that he has been fine. More responsible even. I'm so happy that he's taking school seriously and really trying to stay on top of things. I'm so proud of him!
And then it was time for some of this! I don't know what it was....okay, I do. I put too many things in my schedule and we play play play play....but I was so tired! The whole week I was going to bed at like 8:30. You would think that I was the one that started school. I love my Maren and Me time. I wish it wasn't so full of grocery shopping and errand running but that is the life we have right now. We'll get in a good rhythm and get more fun things in there. The first few days, she was down right grumpy and I think it was adjusting to the kids being gone all day. And she's addicted to my phone. So if I wasn't giving her all the attention, or if she didn't have my phone she would be having a meltdown. This week is better and as the weeks go on I'll get her less and less addicted. At least that's my goal. And to get her potty trained but she's totally not into it.
When she came home she was just like, "TK is so awesome!" I love her smiling face! Yesterday, she was like, "Why do you keep asking me about TK?" :) I get it, you love it and are totally happy there. Which is the greatest news ever.
And luckily, Maren still gets some Gentry time.
Happy School Year!
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