First Day of Preschool!

Tuesday was Nick's first day of preschool! He was soooo excited!!! He is taking it from a lady that is in the neighborhood next to ours. My friend, Angie's cute twin boys, Caden and Carsen, are taking it there too and Nick thinks they are about the coolest kids on Earth. He calls it the "Caden Carsen preschool". He has been asking everyday for weeks when he was going to get to start. He had such a great day and really loved it! Wednesday was also Nick's first day of preschool! Confused? So were we! There is a preschool at our Elementary school that Nick was given the opportunity to be in. The great thing about it was that it was free!! The bad thing was that it is the same amount of time as kindergarten-everyday of the week for 3 hours!! While some may think that sounds great, I was not too excited about it. Nick is still just so little. I wasn't ready for him to be gone so long and I don't think he's ready for it either, especially since he still really needs a nap every afternoon. He was not at all happy about going to the school preschool. He wanted to be with his buddies and he kept saying, "But Mom, you'll miss me!!" So true!! Anyway, I decided to at least try it and so he went on Wednesday. He said it was okay but he wasn't nearly as excited about it as the other one.

We didn't do preschool with Skylar-just Joy School. Skylar was one of those kids that knew all her ABC's and 123's by 3 and was ready to read at 4. Nick is completely opposite! He is way more interested in the temperature on Pluto or the amazing abilities of each and every superhero. Just this morning he was looking at a Superhero book and Kade asked him who a guy was and he replied " That's Red Skull. He fights Captain America." What? I've never even heard of him. But ask Nick which letter is L is and he could care less. The only letters he really cares about are X for X-men and T for Teen Titans. Silly kid! Ben and I haven't been to concerned because we know he's a smart kid but his interests just lie in different places, which is fine. Anyway, we did decide to do an academic preschool so that he could have some more exposure before starting kindergarten next year. I want the whole academic thing to be positive for him and I want him to be happy about it from the beginning.

So, anyway, after me losing much sleep over the whole issue and stressing out half of this week, we have decided to stick with the first preschool. We are also doing Joy School again and I felt like I had an obligation to my friends that I do Joy School with, to stick with it. We couldn't possible do both Joy School and the school's preschool. That would beyond too much! Plus, I love Joy School and the time I get to spend with my kids learning about the joys of life! After finally deciding last night, already I feel so much better than I have all week and Nick is ecstatic that he gets to go to the Caden Carsen preschool! I hope he has a great year and above all, has fun! That's what a being a kid is all about!!!

Thank goodness the Olympics are over...I'm pooped!!!

Okay so have I ever expressed my love for DVRs? They are seriously the coolest things!! They put me in charge of when I want to and can watch TV. Plus, I love the fact that I don't have to watch commercials!!! I have completely decided that they are a necessity for watching the Olympics!!! Every night during the Olympics I was able to view all 4-5 hours of prime time in about 2 hours or so. Most of this was on fast forward, of course. But, needless to say, I became a little obsessed. If I didn't watch, everything would be spoiled the next morning when I opened the newspaper or got online so, as much as my poor pregnant body needed the sleep, I tried my best to watch every night! I have never before been this into the Olympics and I definitely have my DVR to thank-or curse!!

Here were the highlights for me:

Swimming!! All around! I mentioned before the whole Michael Phelps thing! He was amazing!! But all of the USA swimmers blew my mind! Dara Torres was awesome! Ben and I loved how she was such the mother hen with the young swimmers less than half her age. Then, she went out and totally kicked their butts! I saw her on Jay Leno last night and she mentioned even possibly shooting for London. I'll totally be rooting her on if she does!!Volleyball!! Okay, I've got a confession. Back in junior high and high school, I was always the last one picked on a team for volleyball. I was horrible! I honestly could not hit the ball, especially serve the ball for the life of me. I have avidly avoided the sport since. I seriously don't know what is wrong with me but volleyball + me = disaster. So, I am in awe of the volleyball players at the Olympics. There were so many times I thought the ball was on the ground but it popped up again. All the teams were great and inspiring-the men's team overcoming the awful tragedy they faced and the men's beach actually having to play in the gold medal match against Jaws-scary!! I totally wish I was buddies with the girls on the women's beach volleyball team because they were just so much fun and having the time of their lives. But honestly, did they have to be dressed in those skimpy swimsuits and what's up with the crazy, dancing cheerleaders?!?Gymnastics, of course!!! Sweet Skylar loved the gymnastics so much and I promised her that I would always watch it with her. This meant that I often knew the results before watching since I wasn't about to let her stay up until 11 to watch. That was a little frustrating but worth it to watch with her. Anyway, what a show! The USA gymnasts this year were awesome!! Cute little Shawn Johnson just was so fun to watch and such a good sport, always having a giant smile on her face. I wanted to cry for poor Alicia Sacramone because she was such a good leader for her team and did so well, despite her mistakes. Nastia Liukin was the most graceful gymnast I've ever seen. Wow!! I wish that she smiled more but I guess I don't blame her since they were all being totally judged unfairly in comparison to the tiny little girls on China's team. Seriously, they looked Skylar's age!! I shouldn't even get started on this since I've already yelled at the TV enough for my kids to think I'm insane but I hope it all works out in the end and Nastia gets that extra gold she deserved!!!! Diving! Okay, so I admit, that this can get a little monotonous-that's where DVRs come in so handy. But I think it's soooo cool to see some of the dives that the divers do. That they are able to twist, turn, and flip and still make it straight into the water without making a big splash or hitting their noggins on the board on the way down is just fun to watch. I hated the lady who was commenting because I'd watch this awesome dive and she would just rip it apart with her negativity!! Since the USA kinda sucked in the whole diving thing I wasn't really rooting for anyone to win but it was fun to watch!!Track and Field! My biggest problem with track and field is all the prep time where they just talk as the athletes are taking their place. Thanks again DVR! I guess the races are so short that they have to have something to fill in the time. My absolute favorite thing about the running was my cute little Nicky!! Nick loves to run!! We tried to get him to watch some races but every time the runners took off, so did he!! He would run and run around the room as fast as he could go! I don't think he watched one race! Of course, this left us cracking up. Cute kid!! Usain Bolt of Jamaica was insane to watch-I mean, was that guy human?!? Truly amazing, but I seriously think he needs a lesson from Michael Phelps about humility!!!
BMX! Okay, so this was extremely short but so cool! After watching the X-games for years I've started really enjoying BMX. It was great that it's finally in the Olympics. The next event added needs to definitely be skateboarding!!!And my new favorite Olympic event-Slalom Kayaking! I mostly watched prime time but thanks to the flu I did catch the finals for women's kayaking. I loved it! It was so much fun to watch! I was totally rooting for the 40-year old lady from the Czech Republic but she turned over. However, it gave me faith that I can maybe be an Olympian someday-I've got a few good years in me left. It looks like so much fun!!!! Anyone know where I could find a trainer for slalom kayaking???

I think I know that guy

Okay, so the whole Michael Phelps thing is basically over and I have to admit I've been pretty obsessed with it. He is beyond amazing!! Watching all his races was well worth all the sleep that I missed. What an awesome athlete- truly awe-inspiring! The crazy thing is that he looks almost identical to my nephew, Mark!! Every time I'd see him after a race, I'd just be amazed at the resemblance. Then, last night, I watched an interview that he did and I could have sworn he was Mark. They are both great guys with awesome attitudes and the ability to achieve so much! Needless to say, I have become a huge Michael Phelps fan-I only wish there was more to watch!!!

First Day of First Grade!!

The first day of school went great! Skylar was up at the crack of dawn-the crack of dawn in our home is 7 since that's the earliest we roll! She was totally dressed and ready all by herself and practically jumping out of her seat with anticipation. This was great because I was highly hesitant about the whole early morning thing. Her school has two different times that they go so that the class is smaller for the whole three R's thing. One group, the Early Birds, goes an hour early and gets out an hour earlier and the other group, the Later Gators come an hour later and get out an hour later. She begged me to put her in the Early Birds since her buddies were in it and, knowing that we are not early birds, I was worried. However, the appeal of having her out of school early made my mind up and Early Birds we are! The first day of school was proof we could do it so I'm feeling good about that now.
Skylar loved the first day of school! She loves her teacher & loves that two of her best buddies are in her class with her. She said lunch was kind of challenging because she couldn't get her straw out of the package but other than that, she had a blast! The boys sure missed her and were so glad when she finally got home. I'm so glad she loves learning and has such a postive attitude about school. Skylar, you're awesome!

So what about baby #4?

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Yad Vashem research - Free genealogy search

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

The Week That Kicked My Butt

Okay, so every time I talk to my mom she reminds me that I am pregnant and that I must slow down. My response? I am not disabled, just pregnant, I'm fine. Yes, I am stubborn. I like to be busy and have a hard time with slowing down. So, this week was definitely not any different. Being the last week of "summer" (before school starts), I had to squeeze in as much fun as possible, right?
Last Sunday night I spoke to Adrianne and Sara about planning out a week of fun, including squeezing in another trip to the zoo. We decided to go the next morning. So on Monday we headed to the zoo-we even brought along Skylar's buddy, Camille. Having passes this year and having seen it all, we figured we'd get there early, stay a couple of hours, even skip a few things, and be out of there before it got hot. Of course, things don't always go as planned so we really didn't get there until 11, and then we took in some of the shows, went on both the carousel and the train, and ending up staying at the zoo a whopping 4 1/2 hours! Afterwards I was basically beat! We had a fun time though. You always see something interesting at the zoo. This time it was me being attacked by flying birds of prey during the bird show! I don't know what it was, but I was hit a total of three times by the birds flying overhead! One time was a basic slap across the face that really hurt!! I think I may avoid the bird show next time we go!
On Tuesday we decided to take advantage of Thanksgiving Point's Dinosaur Museum $2 August Tuesdays deal, along with a thousand other people! It was so crowded!! We waited in line for about a half hour just to get in and once we were in it was hard to even move around because it was so crowded. We did our best to see it all and we did have fun but it so much better without the crowd!
To top of Tuesday we went to the Owlz game. The guy next to us caught a home run ball which was definitely cool for the kids to see!
Wednesday, Adrianne & I and the kiddos headed up to SLC to the Children's Museum at the Gateway. Adrianne has a membership there so was able to get all my kids in free-thanks Adrianne! We'd never been there before and the kids loved it! You seriously could stay there all day long (which we almost did) and the kids would not get bored. There was just so much to play with and so many hands-on things. The kids especially loved pretending they were on the news and playing in the helicopter. After we had some lunch, we headed over to the water fountains there at the Gateway. I've seen this on TV but never been there. The water was cold but the kids had a blast!
So, now it's time for Thursday and I had planned on this day being a pretty mellow day. The kids and I have been going to the Scera movies all summer which are basically kids movies that have been released in the last year or so back on screen. Thursday was our last movie and so I figured we'd do that, run a couple of errands, maybe hit the park, nothing huge. Good thing I did. Thursday morning I woke up feeling basically lousy. So I got a couple of errands done, suffered through the strangest take on the 10 Commandments I'd ever seen, and came home and basically collapsed. By the time Ben got home I had a fever and was sick as a dog with I'm guessing the same flu the boys had a week ago! I guess the busyness of the week and staying up until midnight every night watching the Olympics on top of being pregnant kicked my butt. Needless to say, any plans on Friday were knocked out and replaced with lots of TV for the chillins and sleeping all day for me. What a great way to spend the last day of summer!!

Saturday I did feel a bit better-I at least was able to finally get some food down. After getting some stuff done around the house we went to see the Clone Wars. I don't think Kade knew we were actually seeing a Star Wars movie and he was extremely excited when Yoda came on screen. He yelled out "I love that guy! I love Yoda!!" Cute kid. I'd have to say the movie wasn't that great but it was good. It totally is geared towards kids and the upcoming series on Cartoon Network so I think it accomplished what it was meant to do. My kids were stoked about it. I do have to admit that I actually dozed off in the middle of it and Ben had to wake me up. I've never done that in a Star Wars movie before! But then again, I've never gone to see a Star Wars movie while I was pregnant and recovering from the flu.

So here it is, Sunday night, and the night before school starts. I am not as apprehensive as I was last year about Skylar heading off to school. But this year is still a bit hard. She's going to be gone all day!! We are all definitely going to miss her! She is soooo excited about it all-the all day thing, eating lunch at school, just being in school, period. I'm just thinking about how quickly time is passing. My little girl is almost 7 (crazy!) and is now considered a big kid. It's fun to see the person she's turning into and get to watch her grow up but if only they could just stay little!! I love you Skylar and I hope you have a great year being a big first grader!!!!

Cute Kid Quote

"I really don't see why we have summer break. We have school off on Saturdays and Sundays and that's plenty of time off."

~Skylar

Can you tell that she's ready to go back to school? She can't wait!! I figured I'd keep this quote and show it to her in a year or so. She may have changed her mind by then.

Free Kittens to a Good Home!!

Okay, so as cute as these little buggers are I'm ready for them to go! I don't know if it's that I'm pregnant or that there's so many of them this time around, but I am definitely ready to be done with kittens for awhile. It just seems as though they are taking over the house at this point! They are all eating mostly cat food now and pretty much litter trained-at least one culprit hasn't perfected it yet! They are 7 weeks old today and I told Skylar I'd keep them until school started-so one more week-and give her a chance to show them off (and hopefully find some homes). Anyway, they really are cute and fun but it's time to go back to just one cat (or two if Skylar talks Ben into replacing poor Q-tip-as if he could be replaced!) Any takers??!??

Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

So the last few weeks they have had free (although not completely healthy) breakfast and lunch Monday through Thursday at our school. You would've thought I was taking my kids to some 5 star restaurant for how excited they were about heading across the street to school to eat!! We didn't go every day but we went often! It was sooo fun for the kids to get to eat with all the kids from the neighborhood. It was super nice for me to not have to worry about preparation or cleanup-I felt a little lazy! But, hey, I'm seven months pregnant, I guess I deserve to be a little bit lazy!!

Their skills won't pay the bills...yet!!

It's been all about sports the last week. Last Saturday (after finding about poor Q-tip) Skylar & Nick had a little something to cheer them up. They went to the Orem Owlz Baseball Clinic for the Jr. Knight Owlz, the kid's fan club they are in. They have been looking forward to this all summer and were so excited. They got to go learn some skills from the players and then got to get their autographs. They thought this was the coolest thing ever. Ben went with them and I stayed home with a very distraught McKade who just has the hardest time being "too little" for things like this. They had a great time though. Later that night we also got to go to a game. It was such a beautiful night. We had a nice time.
Unfortunately, the next day both of our boys were totally sick. The yucky, throw-up, poopin everywhere sick. The kind of sick you get in the dead of winter, not summer. So not fun. Needless to say, Sunday and Monday were basically veggin in front of the TV days. I'm glad it hasn't been passed onto the rest of us because it was not pleasant for anyone!
This week Nick was signed up for a Sports Skills at the Rec. Center. He had to miss Monday since he was sick and was so disappointed. The rest of the week he was loving his class. They learned a few soccer, t-ball, and basketball skills. It was fun to watch Nick in a class like this. He is quite the talker, which I had never realized. Around our house, he is the quiet one so I really haven't seen him like that. Unfortunately, his chatting meant he didn't pay too much attention to the teachers so when it came to the actual playing of the games, he was more often doing this:
That picture is not that great but it's Nick laying down inside the goal during the soccer game. Crazy kid! The whole class was a little entertaining since the kids are all 4 and have no clue how to play a team sport. They all huddle together and the whole concept of taking the ball away from someone else is probably pretty confusing considering that they have been taught taking away something is not nice. At this age it's all about having fun though. It was fun to watch and Nick had such a great time!!

We'll Miss You, Q!

Our sweet little Q-tip died yesterday. The hardest part is that we don't know how or why. Our neighbor found him in his yard and it didn't look as though he had any major trauma so we don't know what happened. Our family was all pretty upset, especially Skylar. He was one of Soffee's kittens from her first batch and wasn't even a year old yet, so it wasn't expected and very sad. Our kids had a lot of tears and a lot of questions. It was nice to see their sweet little testimonies surface as they talked about how he was with Heavenly Father now and how we'd see him again someday. I'm so glad that we have the gospel so that even in the case of a death of a pet, my family can be comforted with the knowledge that this life is not final. The kids wanted to have a little funeral for him and Nick was very insistent that we say a prayer. It was very sweet. We loved Q. Just the other day I was thinking how he was such a perfect fit for our family from the very beginning. He was such a beautiful cat with a big heart. He was so affectionate and loving to us all. He was also very tolerant with our kids. He'd never known any different so he took their (sometimes rough) playing as a sign of affection. He was always in the mood to cuddle and brought great comfort to our family. He was really a great pet and we will miss him.