Back To School

Its that time of year again.  This year I have a Third Grader.  THIRD GRADER.  Its so old.

And a Kindergartener.  Yep, a KINDERGARTENER.

Wasn't it just yesterday I was taking Carson to Kindergarten? Why do the years fly by so fast?

I've had this debate going on in my mind of whether or not I should sent Jonas to school this year.  He, like Carson, has a summer birthday.  I can't tell you the struggles we've had with Carson starting school so young.  (In fact, if the problems continue, we are just going to pull him back into Second Grade.  I'm not dealing with nine more years of struggling.) So needless to say, I've been nervous about sending J. I don't want to go through the same problems again. After much thought we decided to send him.  I'm hoping we made the right choice.

We got to the school nice and early so he could find his teacher,

and play on the toys,

 and get in line.  Isn't he just the cutest little guy?  Even his teacher said, "Wow, aren't you a handsome little boy!" I'm sure it won't be long before he starts telling me that the girls won't leave him alone...that's how Carson is. (Disclaimer: I have no idea who these kids are next to Jonas, apparently new classmates.)

Since the boys started school on different days (Kindergarten starts a week later here), it called for two different Back To School Breakfasts.

I'm not sure if the boys appreciate a special Back To School Breakfast, but for me its a fun tradition. Hopefully they will look back one day and appreciate it. Here's to hoping for a wonderful school year.  We were prepared to Homeschool this year, and then at the last minute it felt like everything fell apart for us.  I guess life throws you curve balls sometimes.  My heart broke a little bit sending them off to someone else's care, but hopefully we will be in a lot better position to Homeschool next year.

Summer Part One

 Ugh, I've been so bad about blogging all summer. Its been busy and yet not so busy of a summer if that makes sense.  The truth is that I've just been lazy about it.  It seems like no one check blogs anymore or leave comments so it kind of takes the motivation out of blogging for me.

We started out the sumer getting some good use out of our fire pit.  The boys love having a fire and it seems like they are always begging for us to do one.  Every time we start a fire Carson wants us to tell stories.  In fact, the kid is always wanting someone to tell him a story.

Every year our town holds "Pony Express Days" and it culminates with a concert at the amphitheater in our subdivision and a fireworks show.  Our neighbors always put on a great BBQ for the neighborhood and its a great time to hang out with friends and let the kids run wild. 

The boys got to go with me to scouts all summer.  I think they liked it.

Jonas enjoyed dressing up as Obi Wan almost every day.

We had many backyard water days where we played on the trampoline with the sprinkler on, had water fights, and played in the wading pool.  Most of the time as soon as we stepped outside, we had neighbor kids over to play.

Carson loves to go shoot his BB gun.  On this day I had taken him down to the bottom of the subdivision and we shot at his targets.

In June we hosted a BBQ at our house with a bunch of friends.  We loved having everyone over.  We live in such a great neighborhood!

Baseball finished up and Jeff and I were a bit relieved.  I don't know how people do sports all of the time, especially competitive ones.  I don't think we have it in us as a family...we enjoy our free time too much.  The boys enjoyed playing in the city league, but we were all thankful to have our Saturdays back when it was over.

We went swimming quite a few times.

 We made forts and read stories.

 Daddy decided to ride in the back of the van and get cozy with the boys one day on the way home from church.

At the beginning of summer, I started taking Porter into nursery.  Even though he wasn't 18 months until July we had hit the point where we were just wandering the halls so I decided to find out which nursery he was being assigned to (we have 4 nurseries in our ward).  It worked out nice since one of my friends was called to be the leader of Porter's nursery so we got to sit and chat while I was in there with Porter.

We spent time at the Children's Gardens.

We got our Cinemark Summer Movie Club passes. It was a nice way to break up our days. Although taking Porter to the theater was rough to say the least.  Maybe he'll do better next summer...maybe...

We had playdates at the park with friends.

 Jeff spent a lot of hours helping his sister tear out her old patio and pour a new one. Isn't he a great guy?