Firsts and Lasts

Arthur's Last Softball game for the season:

Dallin is a big help with Sydney

Arthur up to bat:

Yahoo!  Go Daddy!

Last excursion to the Botanical Gardens before school starts:

We went with lots of our friends.

The butterfly pavillion was awesome--so many butterflies, though by this time in the season, some of them were looking a little worse for the wear--I saw a couple with damaged wings.

Sydney was a very good girl.  She slept for most of the time, and when she was awake, she just  enjoyed the fresh air.

We also saw lots of frogs.  Here's photographic evidence that they really do sit on lillypads.  

First day of School:

Dallin & Daphne are in 2nd and 3rd grade this year.

Here they are on Meet the Teacher Day.  Dallin has Ms. Fromme, and Daphne has Ms. Baca.  So far, they just both love their teachers, which makes me so glad!

There they go on the bus.

Can you imagine-that bus driver had the nerve to leave without Hayden? 

It must have taken a lot to close the doors on that little guy in his Lightning McQueen jammies.

Don't worry, Hayden-only three more years.

Sydney's First Camp-out:

Our ward campout was last weekend, and the kids loved it!  Sydney did great!  I figure, I don't sleep well when I'm camping anyway, so midnight feedings just gave me something to do while I was waiting for the sun to rise.

They had a pioneer theme for the fireside that night, and we got to portray a handcart family whose father fell ill.  We dressed up in our pioneer clothes, and had a real handcart to pull.  Daphne held Sydney while Dallin and I pulled the handcart holding Hayden and Arthur.  Sean's line (that he came up with by himself,) was, "I'll push as hard as I can, Mommy!"  So he got behind the cart and pushed.  It was really hard--We barely made it 10 feet, I think.  It made me think about how much those pioneers went through, and how much faith it must have taken to get to Zion.  After we were done, Sean told me at least 7 times, "I loved being in that show, Mom!"

Dallin enjoyed playing baseball the next day with a bunch of the kids.  Thanks to Bro. Esplin for pitching the whole time!!!  They loved it.

And finally . . . . drumroll please . . .

Sydney's FIRST SMILE!

(the first one caught on camera, anyway.)
Oh how we love this little one.

Summer in a Nutshell

A big nutshell.  Like maybe a coconut shell.

We went to school to meet the kids teachers last week, which made the reality of going back to school much more evident.  Where did the summer go?  It just went REALLY fast this year!  Here are some of the highlights from the past several weeks:

1. CMT--Welcome to the Jungle

I know I already posted about this, but since then, I got more great CMT pictures from Erin.  So enjoy a reprise of Welcome to the Jungle.

Here are the kids greeting the audience at the Retirement Center we performed at.

I laughed when I saw this picture.  There is my "Cindy belly."

Silly cast picture after the final dress rehearsal at the church. 

I think we had 47 kids in it this year.

Me and my friend Sarah.  I'm so glad we worked on this together this year.

It wouldn't have happened without her!

Final performance with all their face paint.  This is one of my favorite parts of the show.

"Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey!"

2. The arrival of our sweet 
Sydney Hazel

3. History Class

My friend Kellie did her History class again this year, and I sure was glad because Dallin had been talking about it ever since last summer.  Kellie was such a trooper to work it into her schedule, along with selling her house and moving!  Here are a couple pictures of the fun things the kids came home with.  They still talk about Ancient Greece, and correct my misconceptions about Zeus and Hercules.

4. Swimming Lessons

All four of these guys did swim lessons with Cami this year.  They LOVED, LOVED, LOVED IT!  Especially Hayden.  Everyday he would tell me with his little lisp, 

"Mom, thwimming ith AWTHOME!"  

I think he looks so darling in his goggles.  

They all made a lot of progress this year.  

5. Northstar

I know I already posted about this, but I just found these pictures taken by Jen's camera, which is far superior to ours.  Most of these were taken by the fabulous Melanie.  Here she is below with her boyfriend Jade.  (We give Jade 2 thumbs up.) 

Darling Aunt Emma

We just had so much fun being together up there!

6. Garden

We've gotten a lot more produce this year since we replaced a couple of trees with these grow boxes. We've had lots of green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes!  It's so fun to have fresh garden produce.

7. Pop-pops and popsicles

What is summer without some cold treats to cool ya down?

Here we are at Pop-Pop's after Daddy's softball game. Dallin & Daphne both like Watermelon, Sean likes Mango, and Hayden always gets Cotton Candy.  I try to get a different flavor every time.  That night it was a tasty Pina Colada.  mmmm.

8. Just being home

For the most part, the kids really enjoyed each other this summer.  Of course we had our share of nit-picking and fighting over the past couple of months.  In fact, this summer we've been memorizing the beginning of Doctrine and Covenants 88:124 which says, "Cease to be idle, cease to be unclean, cease to find fault one with another. . ."  (which sums up a lot of things we were working on this summer.) But all in all, they played together pretty well.  I treasure those times when I hear them laughing and having a good time together.  I hope that's what they'll remember when they grow up.

9. Blog Published

I finally got my 2007 blog published into a book!  I'd been working on the layouts at the beginning of the year, a few pages at a time, and I finished it in April.  I just barely got around to actually uploading it to Blurb this month and recently got the finished copy back.

Hayden loves being in a published work.  He's super excited that he and Daddy made the back cover.  :)  And now I'm working on the 2008 layouts.  It's nice to have something tangible to show for all this blogging, and my kids LOVE looking at all their pictures.