Back To School.....Again

It's back to school time agian!

This year Brayden is in 4th Grade.

And Conner is in 2nd Grade.

 They were both pretty excited about new backpacks this year. Brayden was very specific and wanted one with just one strap. Thank goodness I found one. He was so excited for it. He added his new BYU keychain to it that he got on our recent trip to Utah and Wyoming.

Conner thinks his backpack is awesome too. It has a place to hold an ipod and a slit for the headphones to go though the top, so now he thinks he needs an ipod.....yeah right! Good luck with that one kid! Maybe in another 5 years or so.

Conner also thinks his backpack is cool because it has lots and lots of pockets. It really does, I'm pretty sure he will loose lots of things in all those pockets.

They had a great first day of school!

They both came home and told me all about their day. Conner started talking about it the second he was in the door. He really likes his teacher and has a few friends in his class too. Even Brayden told me all about his day, and that is huge for him. When I ask him how his day at school was he usually replies with just "good" or "I don't really wanna talk about it".  I hardly ever know what is going on with him at school. 

This year their school is starting really early at 7:25 am. It's a big adjustment for all of us. Conner is my early bird kid, and he is usually up before that anyway, but the rest of us are not. So I think we are all going to value our weekends a little more. But those are about to become very busy too. We signed both the boys up for sports this year. Since school gets out so early because they are starting much earlier, they are done with school at 1:36 so it opens up the afternoon to have plenty of time for homework and activities. Conner is going to play Soccer on a city league this year. He has been playing on the church Primary team for the past 3 years, but he wants to move on and try something new. Brayden is going to play Flag Football. If he likes it and does well (meaning he actually sticks with it) we may look into putting him in regular football. He really likes football, just like his dad. Both boys are very excited about the new school year and their new adventures in sports. 

Landon is also enjoying being back to our good old routine of having the boys in school. The very first day the boys went back, he was asking to watch Elmo as soon as we got home, which is what he always does after the boys leave for school while I eat and clean up the kitchen from breakfast. He has loved being able to play or watch whatever he wants and have mom all to himself again while his brothers are gone. But he is still just as excited to see them when they come home and he is ready to play with them. 

I think it's going to be a good year for the kids in school. I really like both their teachers and think that they are going to have fun! I am on the PTO this year at their school and I'm looking forward to that. Because of various reasons over the past few years, I haven't been able to be as involved at their school as I was when Brayden first started school. So I'm excited to get back to helping out and doing things at the school. 

Here's to a great year!

It's the Simple Things.....

Landon just loves doing anything and everything his big brothers do. The problems come when the things the older boys are doing aren't really things a 2 year old can do. Playing on the computer is one of those things. We have already had to replace our keyboard once as a result of Landon trying to play on the computer, so we try to limit his access to it. However, one thing we have found is a good thing for him to do on the computer and makes him feel like he's doing something like his brothers is watch videos of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Sesame Street. He loves it, and will just sit there, not touching things, and watch. He likes to use Daddy's headphones to listen while he does it. He's super cute with them on, they are almost as big as his head!

He's such a funny kid! He makes me smile and laugh all the time!

Just Dance!

For Conner's birthday last month, he asked for Just Dance 2. He had played it at friends houses and in PE at school and loved it! So he got is for his birthday and it's been pretty entertaining for all of us! We have had a few family dance parties and its tons of fun for all of us. 

It's absolutely hilarious when Landon is trying to dance. He just does his own thing and is so proud of himself for it!

Conner is pretty intense when he dances and is completely focused on watching the screen and following the dance moves. He's getting pretty good at it.

I love watching this video. It just makes me laugh. I love watching Landon trying to dance, he's just more swaying back and forth and clapping. And I think it's so funny and cute that Conner hangs his tongue out because he's concentrating so hard on his sweet moves! It just makes my day! :)

Conner's 7th Birthday

I can't believe Conner is already 7! He has been looking forward to his birthday for months and had a huge list of presents he wanted, things he wanted to do, and food he wanted to eat. We did our best to accommodate all his requests.

He woke up on his birthday morning and I surprised him by taking him to Krispie Kreme to get some doughnuts for breakfast. He loved it! He also wanted to go swimming for his big day and lucky for us, his birthday was the first day of swim lessons for the older boys. After swimming, we came home for a quick lunch and then were off to Flippin' Out with his big brother and his friend Jacob. They had a blast jumping and running and bouncing all over the place. It made me tired just watching them. It was super hot that day, so I bought them all a soda, and I may have won some major "cool mom" points for that one. You would've thought those kids had never had soda before, they were so excited about it!

For dinner that night, he chose to go to Red Robin because he wanted them to sing to him and give him a chocolate sundae.....

 .... And he wanted to get a balloon. 

Check. Check!

He got lots of great presents. One of the things he really wanted was a new soccer ball and goal.

He is really loving soccer and this year I think we are going to sign him up for a city team. He is super excited for it. This kid has no reservations to run after that ball and take down anyone in his way of doing so.

Soccer was kind of the theme to his birthday this year. He asked for a soccer ball cake. This was the best I could do. It was suppose to be a full 3-D ball, but when I put the 2 pieces together to make a nice round ball, it looked more like a squished, oval, UFO kinda shape. So we settled for just half of a ball. I made it late into the night the night before his birthday, so when he woke up in the morning, he told me it was "the most awesome-est cake in the world". So I guess it didn't matter that it didn't turn out like I had planned. 

The effects of lots of black frosting. Gross!

I think he had a very successful birthday. It was definitely not a boring day, I know I was exhausted by the time it was all over.

I just love my little Conner. He is such a fun, active, silly little guy. He still is my little cuddle bug and gives me hugs and kisses all day long. He is so fun to have in our family!

Hope you had a great 7th birthday Conner!!!

A Summer Cool Down

The week after school got out, the Griggs came for a visit. They are one of our most favorite families ever, and we always have fun with them when they come. One of the fun things we did this time they came to visit was go have a picnic up on Mt. Charleston. Not only is it like 25 degrees cooler up there, but it's nice to let the kids get out and run around and play. They loved it!

Landon decided he wanted to climb as many trees as he could find. With a little help from Daddy he was climbing like a little monkey.

I just love that little boy!

The older kids all ran off and played while Landon and Daddy tried to play a little Frisbee. Landon loved watching the Frisbee fly around, but wasn't a huge fan of it getting too close to him!

 5 of the 7 kids. They were very put out that I made them stop playing to get a picture. They had so much fun!

 Melis is one of my fav people in the world. I love it when she comes to visit with her family. We used to be neighbors in Utah, and I so miss her living down the street from me. It's such a blessing to have a great friend like her!

Moe was such a good sport and played baseball with the kids.....

 .... and football. They were all amazed at how fast he could throw the ball. 

The kids also loved exploring. Landon found as many sticks as he could. I'm not sure what it is with little boys and stick's, but he had quite a collection and was not happy with me that I wouldn't let him keep all of them.

We love a good time with our little family and great friends.... it's what makes life awesome!

Brayden's Egyptian Funeral

The last week of school Brayden's class had an Egyptian Funeral. They had been studying Ancient Egypt and their teacher had them make all their stuff for the funeral. Brayden really enjoyed this unit and loved learning all about the pyramids and ancient Kings. He had a lot of fun marching in the funeral precession. 

He makes a cute Egyptian! 

 The Funeral Precession went to several different classrooms. The kids were all quiet and carrying different tombs, offerings, food for the afterlife, and my favorite part was the girls at the end pretending to cry! It was hilarious and awesome! Once they got back to their classroom, they got to lay their things inside this giant tomb that they also go to help decorate.

Landon and I had fun watching Brayden and seeing what he's learned about Egypt. I love it when my kids get to do fun things that help them learn!

Only A Mother Could Love

This year for Mother's Day, Conner made me this at school. It is one of those things that a Mom just loves. It made my day and made me laugh! 

Some things I love about this, besides that my sweet Conner made it for me....

-"Cooking Time- 24 Years" Good to know that's how long it takes to make a good mom. Lucky for me, that's how old I was when Conner was born!

-If you look close, you can see he first marked the recipe as "easy" but then after some reconsideration decided the degree of difficulty of being a good mom is just "average". That's good to know, I was thinking this mom thing was pretty hard, but I guess it's not! :)

-His cute handwriting. 

-His adorable "cheesy" smile in the picture!

Conner has always been my sweet little boy. I love him to pieces and his handmade gift made my day.

Brayden's Pinewood Derby

A few months ago, Brayden has his 2nd Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. Since last years car and race wasn't so hot for him (since I had to help him make his car and I know NOTHING about how to make pinewood derby cars!) he had high hopes for his car this year. Thankfully Patrick was able to help him with is car this year and you can for sure tell the difference. This year it was much better!

Lubricating the wheels before the race.... apparently that is an important step that I didn't know about last year!

His car did AWESOME! He ended up winning 2nd place in his division. He was so happy! His good friend Simon won third. The difference of their times was only .001 seconds! It really doesn't get much closer then that. He was so excited to get a trophy!

Since he was in the top 3 of his division, he got to come back later in the day for the Finals. He did really well in that race too! He came in 4th overall in the entire Stake. He was pretty happy with that. He had so much fun making his car with his dad and it was awesome for BOTH Brayden and Patrick that his car did so well. They are already planning the car for next year!

Soaked!

The other day I had found some water guns in the dollar bins at Target. Landon really wanted them, so I gave in and let him get them. 

He was very excited when his brothers got home from school and wanted to go outside to play with them. So I helped them all fill up their water guns and sent them out in the backyard to play with them. Less then a minute later they were back in to fill up their guns again! We filled them up and they went back outside again. Less then ANOTHER minute later they were back in for another refill. 

Seeing that this was going to be a recurring thing and it would drive me insane, I got the genius idea of giving them a bucket of water and told them to just keep dunking their guns in that to fill them up. I came back inside content with my genius idea and got to doing some chores in the kitchen. (which by the way looks out to my whole backyard.)

After a few minutes of listening to their joyous laughter outside, I look out to check on them and see them completely soaked.... each one of them! Apparently I was too trusting to think that 3 little boys would just use the bucket full of water to fill up those little water guns. They quickly moved onto bigger and better things and started using the bucket to pour on each other.  It was kind of a hot day, so it probably felt good.

I just laughed and let them keep on drenching one another with the bucket while I finished up my cleaning. Then I got them all towels and told them to lay on the patio to dry off for a few minutes.

They thought they'd be cool and try to get a tan as well. 

Thanks to a hot sun and dry desert heat, they were mostly dry in no time and came in to change and get to home work. 

They had tons of fun!

I foresee many more water fights in their future over the hot hot summer!

The Price is Right LIVE!

A few weeks ago, my friend got some free tickets from a radio station to go to The Price is Right LIVE show down at Bally's. It isn't the show on TV, but it is based off of it, and has all the same games and they call contestants up from the audience to come and play. 

We got the classic price tag name tags, pretty awesome!!

  

It's kinda hard to tell in the picture, but that is a pic of Jerry Springer. He was the host of the show the week we went. They have different celebs as the host every few weeks. We were a little bummed we missed Joey Fatone as the celeb host just the week before! He would have been MUCH better to see then Jerry Springer. Although Jerry was kind of entertaining, he was also kind of lame.

Our overall review of the show was it was just ok. Although we had fun hanging out and chatting and being kid free for a few hours, we were glad the tickets were free. It would've really been annoying to pay $60 per ticket.... I mean, if I'm going to spend $60 on a show around here, it would not be this one. But free tickets are always fun, and it's always an adventure taking a journey down to the Strip, I still get lost every time I drive down there. We took quite the detour to get home, but it was a fun afternoon with my a great friend!