Family Picture Time

It's been almost two whole years since we had our family pictures taken! I loved our last ones so much that I didn't want to take them down and put up knew ones. These turned out great and were taken by an old "village friend" from our U days in student housing. Thank Sarah for trekking down to Saratoga Springs to take these pictures! (If you want to check her out click here) She took them right in our own neighborhood which I love! Tell me what you think.

My two favorite people in the whole wide world!!

Jon's not a fan of this picture but I love that they are all together and looking nice...that doesn't happen very often!

Doesn't he have the BEST eyes!

There's another new post below so keep scrolling...

And Now, To DANCE

My little pip-squeak is the cutest thing on the planet if you ask me. But I was beside myself with giddiness with her all dressed up and ready to go to her first dance class!
Who knew ballet buns and dance shoes could be so much fun!

She absolutely loved it and the best part is she has two little friends in the same class. We have a great neighbor in our ward who has a studio in her house. She was so cute with the kids and my shy little pip-squeak was flitting around like a butterfly, a leaf and whatever else she was supposed to be in no time at all.
I have to admit I'm a little sad that she is getting so big, but it's exciting to get all this fun stuff started! Today while she was at preschool I was getting pretty lonely in such a quiet house. I think that pre-school two days a week is all I can handle for now without going through withdrawals.

The First for the Last

Off to the first day of pre-school! A little shy, as usual, but excited to go to the same school her big brother went to a couple of years ago. Doesn't she look big!?
I've been telling her all week that pre-school will be like nursery at church: She'll go and have fun for a couple of hours and then I'll be right there to pick her up and bring her home. This morning she was ADAMANT that she wear a dress to school today just like she wears one to nursery. We'll see how long this dressing-up-for-school thing lasts.
p.s. the pictures are bad because, being the awesome mother that I am, I let the camera battery die and forgot to charge it before the big day! Thus, the phone pics.

BACK TO SCHOOOOOL!

First day of Second grade! Can you believe it? My little guy (I feel like I need to come up with a new name for him) is at a new school, yet again. He'll now be a Lakeview Lion. I've been trying to get him into this charter school since Kindergarten and was really excited when I got the call late last week to tell me there was a spot for him if we still wanted it. The only problem...school started in less then a week. It took some extraordinary shopping skills to hunt down all the uniform pieces (did I mention he has a uniform) in his size before the start of school. Several stores later I did it. When I dropped him off at school this morning I asked him if I could take his picture. He agreed but ONLY if I stayed in the car to take it...Heaven forbid I cramp his style on the first day! I LOVE this guy and can't wait to pick him up!

On a side note, only relating by the events of the pictures, check out our yard one year later!

First day of First grade....................First day of Second grade

Summer Fun

The last week of summer vacation is here. My little guy will be a second-grader at a new school (yet again). I've been trying to get him into the charter school since Kindergarten. Pretty much I had given up. I signed up to help with student of the month with the PTA at the public school and everything. But Wednesday I got a call saying there was a space for him. So goodbye Saratoga Shores and hello Lake View Academy. As if that's not enough, my sweet little baby girl is off to her first day of Preschool in two weeks. I can't believe it! She is so excited! New shoes are waiting in her closet and she already knows what she wants to wear on her first day. Is she totally a girly-girl or what?

Over the summer I tried to bring the kids to do something educational every week. We went to the library and checked out books about the things we were going to be doing over the next month. Then, after we read about them, we would go and do something fun with what we learned. OK, we slipped in a few non-educational fun things too, but they had a lot of fun and hopefully the little guy kept his brain thinking over the holiday.

I've been super horrible at bringing my camera everywhere we went but we had a lot of fun. Aviary, Zoo, Aquarium, This Is The Place Heritage Park, Seven Peaks Water Park, Hike to Stewart Falls, Hike to Donut Falls, Natural History Museum, Wheeler Farm, Thanksgiving Point Gardens, movies, and other stuff I'm forgetting. Not to mention the, at least, 25 times we been to the swimming pool. This list is mostly so I can use it as reference when the little guy says something like, "We didn't do anything cool this summer."

Here are a few pictures from the cell phone that couldn't command their own blogpost.

The kids had a ton of fun at seen peaks. I haven't been there probably 12 years and was frankly a little sicked out and scared of athlete's foot and pools full of pee. Just kept telling myself, look how much fun the kids are having, look how much fun the kids are having

Is this a chicken or a rooster? I don't know but it didn't like the kids all up in its space!

Did you know that feeding ducks/geese gives Jon the creeps? Good thing he wasn't here.

"Farmers have the coolest cars."