First Day of School

Aug 2012

 

Trent 4th grade; Logan and Laycee Kindergarten; Haylee 5th grade

 These two attend the neighborhood public school

 These two attend a local charter school who requires uniforms.

 Dave's attempt at making the kids laugh

 More hair from Laycee

Schools are always such a hot topic of debate around here.  Arizona has an open enrollment policy so you can attend whatever school you wish.  In addition, they have a plethora of charter schools.  I am not a huge fan of charter schools, but I did send Laycee and Logan to one this year.  It has been awesome for Laycee actually.  She struggled so much in preschool socially.  The school is a new charter in this area (but not a new charter) and so they had very low enrollment.  Laycee and Logan were reading by December.  It has been so good for them.  I have chosen to keep them there next year.  It was a hard choice and it is so hard to make sure you are doing what is best for your child, but I have been impressed and they both like it.  

Random

Aug 2012

Here are some random photos from the month.  Laycee's hair actually looking good!

 They boys napping

 Laycee trying on her new school dress

 We had a sleepover with the cousins and they were busily doing P90X with us.

 The big girls at Loni's house set up a seat?

 7 months old!!!

 Organic free range eggs.  Laycee loved that they all have different colors.

 Barely 7 months and standing and walking along furniture!

Home Improvement

After vacation, Dave had a long honey do list.  I worked on some curtains for our room.

 I am not 100% in love with them but they are better than nothing.

 We are building shade screens for the windows... still 8 months later lol.

 We painted the living room and dining/kitchen!

 I love love it.  I love the colors and I love how we rearranged to open the room up more. 

 And all of the hard work has to be topped by Rita's.  We didn't make a special trip to phoenix for it, but Dave had a CPR class up there so we went along for dessert after.

Between vacations and house work, we were trying to decide what to do with life.  Dave came home and started school shortly after but we weren't sure what to do.  We had formed our own personal training company HigFit, LLC but it has been slow going.  We are still waiting it out to see what to do next but we are making it.  Regardless, we are so happy to have Dave home.  He went from never being around to being home all of the time and we LOVE it.

First Green Smoothie

Dave's first attempt making a green smoothie.

 So fun to have him home with William

Epic Meal Time

Can we say Epic Meal Time?  So the children wanted to try out an epic meal time meal, and by children I mean Dave and Scott.  So here are the ingredients... Arbys roast beef sandwiches, fries and onion rings; McDonalds Spicy Chicken and Mc Double; cheese, sausage, olives and of course BACON

 Mix up the sausage and black olives

 I took a nap but Dave thought it was funny to see the baby wth Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce

 Oh the Bacon

 McDoubles

 Sausage and BBQ sauce mixture

 Cheese and Bacon

 Spicy Chicken

 Put the wrong picture in, but then went the roast beef, fries, onion rings and arbys sauce

 End result.  Surprisingly, it wasn't aweful but certainly not good.  It was WAY salty and gave everyone a stomach ache, but it was super fun.

 And to make everyone feel better, here is a sweet boy to top it off.

This was the end of our trip at Amy's.  The next morning, we got up, packed up, laid a sidewalk for her and headed home.  It was so fun to get away but it was time to get back to real life.  The kids would be starting school soon and we needed to figure out where to go next in life.

Birthday Party

Contessa requested a birthday party while we were there.  She never gets to celebrate with her cousins and even though it wasn't her birthday, we put together a birthday party for everyone.  They got in their swimming suits and played with bubbles.

 They had a water balloon fight.  That was quite a task to fill enough balloons for everyone.

 As the storm rolled in, they worked on a pinata.

 Then we had birthday cake

 And the kids each got a small trinket type of present!

It was the best party.  It was great to celebrate for all of them and it was fun they all got something!

Pioneer Day Parade

One of the days we were at Amy's, we travelled one town over for their yearly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Pioneer Day Parade.  Haylee, Trent and I went to the parade in 2005 while Dave was in basic training and it was awesome to go again.  This is the epitome of a small town parade.  It was awesome and the kids got a grocery bag of candy EACH.  So here is cute William, almost 7 months.

 All of the kids gathered before the parade.

 I would hate to bore you all, so here are a few highlights.

This is one of my favorite things to do at Amy's.  I was so glad that our trip overlapped with the parade.