Eight is Great!

Ryan Jane turned 8 on August 29th. We had a wonderful day celebrating as a family. She chose the menu for the day...breakfast was Captain Crunch Berries (then she got to have the rest of the cereal box all to herself), lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches, and for dinner we had chicken patties, asparagus, and lemonade! Definitely a menu of an 8 year old! :) And my children never want the traditional birthday cake for dessert, so Ryan chose ice cream sandwiches with homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were quite delicious if I do say so myself.


It's a tradition in our home to give our children their first set of scriptures for their 8th birthday. Ryan was so excited because she doesn't have to use my old set anymore!

Before her birthday she begged and begged for a bike, explaining that she had NEVER been given a brand new bike but was destined to ride hand-me-downs for the rest of her life. So....we bought her a bike, even though there are TWO perfectly good bikes of the perfect size for her sitting in our garage right now....

Ryan's darling Primary teacher and her daughter stopped by to wish Ryan a happy birthday and shower her with gifts... a card, a huge balloon, candy, and this adorable cookie Rachel made to represent Ryan on her Baptism day. So sweet!

First day of school 2010

The summer came and went much too quickly this year! Probably because I was NOT looking forward to starting the school year with ALL five of my children in school. I have been dreading this day and it came so fast! The kids were all ready and excited, though. Back to School shopping is always busy and stressful but a lot of fun.


My baby, Ethan, started Kindergarten! And he was READY! He was counting down the days and couldn't stop talking about riding the bus, showing off his new backpack, taking a lunch box, playing at the school playground and making friends. We took the kids a few days prior to the 1st day for Meet the Teacher night where he got to see his classroom and meet his teacher. When Monday morning came to start school he just plowed into his class, hung up his backpack by his name on the wall, found his desk and went to work coloring. It was nice to know that he would be fine without me, but come on! No hugs or tears for Mom? Guess not. Thankfully I had already released plenty of tears the night before during Father's Blessings. :)


It's hard to believe that Ryan is in 3rd grade, well on her way through Elementary School! She was excited to find out that she had the same teacher that Davis had for 3rd grade, but disappointed that she didn't have her close friend in her class. :( But, she quickly made friends and had a great first day!


Davis is our big 5th grader this year! One more year of Elementary School and he's off to Middle School?! How did this happen? He was excited to get to change rooms and teachers for classes this year. That definitely made him feel like a big kid. And he is the oldest in our family at their school now! He is such a great big brother and was more excited than Ethan to take him on the bus with him!


Ginger and Gillian, our Junior High kids! Ginger started 8th grade and Gillian is in 7th grade now. I am SO glad that they have each other to lean on at school and to ride the bus together. They are the best of friends and Gilli was so grateful that she had a big sister to show her all the ropes of this new adventure of Middle School.

And for me? After dropping the kids off, I went home to a very quiet house and realized that I could really get used to this. :)

We're official Texans now!

On a whim, Don bought us all tickets to the Rodeo in Mesquite. We were all a little skeptical about what it would be like, be we really loved it! It was very entertaining although quite intense at times. We loved the barrel racing and the 4 and 5 year old sheep riding! The bull riding and bucking was really exciting to watch! My girls were a bit concerned with the calf roping, but overall they enjoyed the competition. It was like nothing we had ever seen before. We were impressed when this public event started with an opening prayer asking for the safety of the riders and military, etc. It was very moving. We love this conservative state of Texas!

Six Flags over Texas

Picture it. The middle of August. In Texas. Outside. All day. HOT!! Why do our children insist on reading the required six hours to earn their free Six Flags tickets? This is our 2nd year in a row and about half way through the day, Don decided that from now on he was going to allow me to take the kids and he would happily stay home with those that didn't have the opportunity to earn a free ticket. So considerate of him. I think it was just under 100 degrees that day, but with 100% humidity. Perfect. We spent the day trying to find and get on any water ride possible. We actually had a lot of fun and enjoyed the adventure of escaping heat exhaustion. Favorite ride? Superman. It is exhilarating!





We stayed all the way til the 'Glow in the Park' Parade ended, which was around 10 pm. That's pretty late for my little 5 year old. Within 3 minutes of getting in the car I turned around to look at Ethan and saw this.....