Back to school

The kids had their back to school open house night in August.  They were looking forward to meeting their teachers.  They had this great photo op for the students.

The kids all started school on August 22nd.  Mckenna leaves for school when it is still dark outside. She has an early morning PE class that starts at 6:45.  She did this so she could have more electives.  She is in 9th grade this year and is enjoying taking seminary for the first time.

Parker is in 6th grade this year! He has Mr. Larson as a teacher.  Parker is involved with recess duty this year.  He has a whistle and goes around helping kids on the playground.  He recently got voted to be on the school Hope Squad.  His goal is to help be a friend to kids who are lonely at school.  They filmed a fun video all about it to show at a school assembly.  I am proud of Parker and what a great leader and example he is to everyone.

Halle is in 4th grade and has Mrs. Rogers as a teacher.  Parker also had Mrs. Rogers as a teacher.  She is also in what is called a STEM class.  They focus on Science and Math everyday in their classroom.  She had a fun activity where they launched raw eggs with a rocket launcher.  The goal of the experiment was not to break the egg.

Hayden is in second grade and has Mrs. Parchman as his teacher.  She has been a great teacher so far and a good fit for Hayden.  He was not happy when he came home with homework on the first day and no one else had any.  It is good for him though and I hope he improves a lot academically this year.

Addy started her second year of preschool.  It is her last year before she goes to Kindergarten.

She has class three times a week.  She is really loving her teacher Mrs. Salvania.  Her teacher lives in our neighborhood and I requested her for this year.  So far this school year is off to a good start.  I am also enjoying my solo hours to go shopping and get things done around the house!

Summer highlights!

Mckenna and I made a spontaneous stop to get some Waffle Love.  It was a fun night out together.

Brekke and Phillip invited us to a Bees baseball game with them.  It was a good time hanging out and watching the game.

I took Dad to see the Music Man up at Sundance.  It was our birthday gift to him this year.

We went to Seven Peaks several times.  This time we let the kids bring friends with them.

The kids had fun with their cousins.  Mike, Amy, and the kids moved back in June.  

We went up to Midway to celebrate Blakes 6th birthday.  We were able to take a balloon up to Lisa at the cemetery.

Mckenna and Tessa set up their snow cone business in our driveway.  They made a good amount of money in one day.

We celebrated Grandpa Ken's birthday at the end of July.  Halle made him this piano card.  I love her creativity!

We spent several weekends up at the cabin.  Emily Frost came with us and took this family picture for us.

Halle had a daddy daughter date for activity days.  They played minute to win it games and had a great time.

Mike and Amy invited us over one Sunday to see their new house.  I helped Mike get the dessert ready.  We had cinnamon sugar bites dipped in cream cheese frosting.  We are so glad Mike's family is living close by again!

Harry Potter YW activity

The Laurels were in charge of our combined activity in August.  They planned a Harry Potter activity.  I was looking forward to it for weeks since I am a huge Harry Potter fan!  They had the sorting hat to divide the girls into their different houses.  It was a cell phone ap that one of the leaders talked into.

My best friend Brekke dressed up as Dumbledore.  Some people thought she looked more like Moses.  I thought it was awesome.  Lacey dressed up as Severus Snape.  Her facial expressions all night were the best.

I dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange.  I had fun doing my make up and going all out.  I only wish that my hair was a little longer like hers.  I did find these awesome gloves in my basement that were my part of my sister's old dance company costume.

The Mia Maids were a part of Slytherin house and got to wear these awesome green ties that Kalee made.

The beehives and Emily were team Gryffindor.  The girls brought brooms from home to play Quidditch with.

There were two hoops on each side which you had to get the volleyball through to score points.  The seekers had to catch a small bouncy ball (the snitch) that we were tossing back and forth through the gym.  The bishopric even came and played with us.

Emily and I made butterbeer before the activity started.  Neither of us had made it before but we had fun together.  I thought it turned out great.  I even liked it better than the butterbeer I had tried at Universal Studios.  Kalee is also a huge Harry Potter fan and was behind a lot of the great ideas in this activity.  She was dressed up as Luna Lovegood for the night.  Her glasses were perfect and she even had an illumanati necklace she was wearing.

It was such a fun activity for all of us!  You can tell from the pictures that us leaders had just as much fun as the girls.

Mckenna's pool party!

We finally got around to having Mckenna's friends birthday party in August.  We had it at my Dad's pool.

I bought them deep dish and stuffed crust pizza from Little Caesers.  Mckenna is always begging us to get stuffed crust.  We also had some of her favorite junk food; peanut butter M&M's, Oreos, potato chips, and pop.

They had fun playing water volleyball for awhile.

Abby kept pushing everyone into the pool.  It looked like Mckenna was running mid air but Abby really pushed her in.

Then my Dad pushed Abby in when she wasn't looking.  It was actually really funny.  A big thanks to my Dad for letting us take over his pool for the night.  He even stayed and talked with me while the girls swam.

They also had some fun chicken fights.

We had my famous ice cream mountain for dessert.  It is something I first learned up at college.  It is hard to tell from the picture but it is a huge tub of Oreo Ice cream turned upside down.  Then the girls got to add what toppings they wanted.  In the picture it looks like it is all whipped cream.

Mckenna smiling before she blew out the candles.

The girls also had to use various kitchen utensils to eat it with.  There were spatulas, rubber scrapers, etc.

It was fun having Kayley also join us at the party.  She even had school the next morning.

Mckenna was thrilled with all the junk food she got from her friends.  I think three of them all gave her Nutella.  She would open them up and then proceed to rub her cheek with them.  It was hilarious!

Mckenna was glad that her friend Chloe from school was able to come to her party.

When it got dark we threw some glowsticks in the pool.  It was cooler than it looked in this picture.  The girls were having so much fun that they didn't want to get out of the pool at the end of the night.

Trial Lake!

We had our annual camp out at Trial Lake August 11-13th.  After we had camp set up Parker was excited for Kev to get his fishing pole ready.  We gave Parker his own fishing pole and tackle box for his birthday back in December.  He was really looking forward to catching some fish with it.

Hayden kept busy building this cool tepee out of sticks.  I love seeing what his mind thinks up.

We always eat good at camp.  The first night we had dutch oven pasta, Texas toast, and Caesar salad.  It was nice to have warm food in our tummies on such a cold night.

We went fishing after dinner.  It is always the prettiest time  on the lake and the catching is good.  Parker and I were being silly in the back of the boat together.

Addy was happy to catch a fish. She caught many during the time we were there.

The next morning we went out to do some more fishing.  Kev brought his selfie stick.  It was nice to be able to get a picture of the whole family.

The kids found a dead fish on shore and decided that he needed to have a proper funeral.  There was singing, a  few words were said, and they put dandelions on top of the grave.  They are hoping to find it next year and dig up the bones.

Kev did some fishing from shore and caught a graylene.  He doesn't usually get a chance to fish in the boat because he is always steering the motor and helping all of us.

I spent plenty of time reading my new "Harry Potter and the cursed child" book.

Halle caught several fish that afternoon.

Parker caught one and it came of the line so Kev held it up for a picture.

The kids helped me make dinner that night and it was so nice.  Kenna helped with the corn, Halle peeled potatoes, and Parker helped cook the chicken.  With all of us working we got dinner done in record time!

We went fishing after dinner again.  I caught several fish but they kept getting away before I got a picture.  I was really happy to keep this rainbow trout on the line for a picture.

A lot of trees have been chopped down because the beetle bug got to them.  It does provide a lot of stumps for sitting on.  I took this picture of the kids playing on them.

We also spotted this Bald Eagle flying around the next morning.  It was fun to watch it swoop down to the lake to catch some fish.

Mckenna kept track and we caught 39 fish while we were at Trial.

Kev brought up Oreo's so we could play this fun game together.  It was hilarious watching everyone get a cookie from their forhead to their mouth.