Kindergarten Wolf Walk

Today was the Wolf Walk/Jog-a-thon fundraiser for the kinders. Aaron was happy to be there, but not happy to have his picture taken. I asked him if he would like me to come and walk with him and he told me that he wanted to walk with his teacher. He ended up running and walking alone and with friends and I respected his wish by not walking with him, but ended up handing out water to all of the runners. Isaac was my trusty side kick.

Aaron is just Aaron. I try not to force any affection on him, but he has finally gotten to the point that when I ask for a hug, he will give me one. Everyday when I drop him off I tell him, "I love you!" He always responds with an affectionate "Bye Mom!" and sometimes he will run back to the car to ask me a question or to tell me something random (like that he wants me to buy a Starwars costume that is blue with brown boots while he is away at school). A couple of days ago, I dropped him off and shouted my, "Bye Aaron, I love you!" He responded back with his, "Bye Mom!" I replied back with a "Bye Aaron, I love you!" He again hollered, "Bye Mom!" Repeat. Repeat. I could see this might be an endearing thing for him to do, maybe it was his way of saying, "I love you too Mom!" Then he turned to me with a furrowed brow and said, "Mom stop saying WUV!" Well there you have it! He's come along way by giving me a hug, but we're not quite ready for the mushy stuff. Obviously he does not follow in his father's footsteps. Joseph is overly affectionate in word and gesture. Aaron, I will tell you I love you everyday of my life, even if you don't say it back, because I never want you to forget it!

Buried Treasure!

Isn't that an amazing view!?! I will say this million times over, but we love where we live. I can't explain how much joy I feel when our kids are in the backyard running and playing and being kids, either with each other or with some of our neighbors. Just last night, the neighbor boys came over with their swimsuits on and invited the boys to come over. They ended up filling water balloons and had a water-fight with the girls. We feel like we hit the jack-pot as far as next door neighbors go and we are so grateful!

Aaron and our two boys next door were playing in our sandbox and decided to bury Isaac. I had to keep an eye on them to make sure they didn't get TOO carried away. Isaac is a great sport.

Cousins

We've had lots of fun with cousins since we've moved to Utah. It's been fun to watch the kids become familiar with each other and to have more interaction that just once, twice or a few times per year. I feel like I was happy wherever we've lived, but I think the only way to put it now is that my joy is full. I feel really happy to be where we are right now. I know that if we ever have to live somewhere far away again, we will and can do it, but I am so happy to be here for this season of our lives. The other day while Casey and Melissa were over, I went downstairs to put something away and I found Isaac and Annabelle sitting next to each other watching television. They told me they were the "King and Queen." I'm so happy that they are able to develop these friendships.


I think we may need to add to our boy dress-up collection, but I must admit Isaac made a pretty cute Care Bear. I promise we feed the kids, but it was cute to watch them fend for themselves and find a snack while they chatted in the pantry. :)

Cool Clouds

We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE where we live. I can't emphasize that enough. We literally feel like we found a little piece of heaven. It's work, as you can see with that mini orchard we have that is super weedy, along with a big garden that wasn't planted this year and is full of weeds. But even with all of that work we have felt so good about being here. We love it more than we even imagined we would. We knew that we were giving up some things on the house to get a bigger yard, but the house has become something that we love too. At least once a day Joseph and I smile at each other and say, "I LOVE our house." Sure there are many things that need a little work, but we're willing to overlook and work at so many of them because overall we've been so pleased.

One of our favorite things is to walk out our back door and see the beautiful mountains that surround us. The other day we had some awesome low clouds. It was such a beautiful night. Casey and Melissa were over for the evening and we all enjoyed yummy Papa Murphy's Pizza and then I made Chocolate Chip Zucchini bread while chatting with Melissa in the kitchen. It was a great night.

Aaron and the Rockstars

Aaron had a great time playing soccer this year. He had a coach that was so great with the little boys. We all had so much fun watching him. We were in stitches laughing at moments because little 5 year-old boys can be sooooo funny! We had to yell at him a few times to stop pushing people. He got this idea that pulling on shirts or pushing people helped to get them out of his way. Boys are so much different than girls. I loved seeing him after any contact with the ball. He had the biggest dimply grin every time. I love this boy!

September 11, 2011

Wow, so many thoughts and feelings went through our hearts and minds on the anniversary of September 11. We paused to reflect on that day by watching Tom Brokaw and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and listening to the different stories of those whose lives were so much affected by the tragedy that happened that day. Our ward placed flags around each home in our neighborhood and also around our church on that day. The sight caused our hearts to stir. We will always remember that day.

Joseph's Speech

Joseph was asked to speak at the Sandy Senior Fair. He did such a great job! I only saw the last few minutes of his presentation, but I could tell by the response of all of the people at the fair that they LOVED him. He connects so well with people. He even had a women come and ask him if she should divorce her husband. Everywhere he goes people solicit advice. It has become comical. (Not that divorce is ever comical.) Whether it's to get a haircut, to the store, he's even had people he's met at the hospital for work (case managers), call him and ask advice. I think people can just tell that he is a caring person and they feel comfortable talking to him. Anyway, I digress, he did a great job. The boys and I were excited and surprised to see his name on the marquee when we pulled up. We then enjoyed a yummy lunch at Cafe Rio, well the boys and I did, but Joe waited for the yummy filet mignon at the conference. It was fun to see him in action. :)

Creative Art

I was out pulling weeds and talking to our neighbor when the kids ran in our house to get a snack. When I came back in I found this treasure. I was so MAD at Aaron. He thought it was so funny and I did NOT. It was a pain to clean up, but he's back in the will. Ugghhh! Joseph reminded me of all the dumb things I did when I was a child, just because. Apparently he never did anything of that sort, angel child that he was....

Neighborhood Play

Wow, what a difference a few days makes. For the first couple of days, the boys wouldn't go outside for fear of the cat and creepy crawly worms. Now we have just the opposite taking place. We've never lived in a place where we've felt safe for the kids to just wander over to the neighbors to play. My sweet neighbor brought Aaron back home about 9:00 on the second night we were here and I had no idea he was even gone. I was busy unpacking. This happened a couple of times and I felt like the worst mom. She wasn't even phased by it. It was totally normal for her to have kids over playing back and forth. I am so used to a scheduled playdate arranged with a mom. I apologized over and over. Now I call every time he's gone and ask if he's over there. She laughs and tells me that he is. She's so natural about it because it's so normal for the neighborhood kids to go back and forth to each other's homes. I think I'm getting better with it and Aaron is getting better and telling me when and where he's going. :) The challenge now is that Isaac wants to run with the big guys. Time to set some ground rules for this new phase of life. We are so happy to be here.

Aaron's First Day of Kindergarten

Well, we did it. We sent Aaron to kindergarten. This is a decision we labored about for about a year. I won't go into all of the details, but simply put, we just weren't sure if he was emotionally ready for school. His birthday is near the end of the school year, so we went back and forth about what to do. Have him be the oldest in his class or on the younger end? He is on the taller side for his age so I was worried about him towering over everyone next year (if we didn't send him), but I really wanted him to be mature enough emotionally to enter school. He's grown up alot in the last few months, even with this whole transition we've been through. Ultimately, we decided that the structure that everyday school would provide might be really good for him. We'll see how this year goes. Decisions that affect our children are so hard to make.

One thing that I didn't mention is that he was so excited to go to school! So excited in fact that he wanted to ride the bus to school on the first day. Luckily there wasn't a bus that came to our area yet, so I told him I had to take him, but that he could ride the bus home. I went to make sure he got on the correct bus and he had a perma-grin across his face the whole time. He was so excited! I'm so glad Brynn and Abby are there to help him get home. They take the job of looking out for their younger brother so seriously! I love it!

First Days of School

Brynn and Abby started a new year at their new school! Both girls gave it a thumbs up! We live pretty close to the border of Alpine, so their elementary school is in Alpine. I think it's about a mile away. When they found out there was a bus that came through the neighborhood, they were all about riding the bus. I wasn't so sure about it because we've always driven them to school, but it has proven to be very convenient and the kids love the independence of getting themselves to and from school without mom. The helicopter-mom in me came out for the first few days. I drove to the school to make sure they got off the bus okay and then drove to the school after school to make sure they got on the correct bus. There were also lots of PTA moms who were there each day during the first week, so I'm sure they would have been just fine without me, but I felt better knowing. :)

For the first couple of days I had to drive them from Spanish Fork (40-45 minutes away) because we hadn't moved into our house yet. Luckily we only had 2 short days of that commute. We're excited for a great school year and we're thankful to have landed in such a great spot. We love our house and feel really good about where we are. Soon I need to write about the process of finding out house, because we came upon it thinking that it wasn't what we wanted, but ultimately were drawn back to it. I'll have to write more later.

Dinner

Here is how we ate dinner for about the first week at our new house. Either standing up to the island, sitting on the island or on stepping stools, or up to the picnic table in the backyard. We felt a major sense of urgency to get to the furniture store. We had a counter height table and and chairs before, but they were really hard with the our little people, so we left those in Oceanside and had to look for new ones. My parents took the kids for our anniversary weekend and we went furniture shopping. It was so nice to get everything taken care of and great to know our children were safe. I hope our kids remember this funny memory of our first week in our house. We were feeling like we would never have furniture because it took so much time to break away to choose it with everything else that we had to do. We're still moving in, but definitely more livable now.