First Day of School

I can't believe another summer has come and gone. But it has, and today was the first day back to school for my sweet girls. We had a little photo session before we headed out.



My sweet Sarah!



Seriously can't believe she's in third grade already.



Here she is with her new zebra backpack.



Since they wear uniforms, a fun backpack is one of the few ways they can let their personality shine through.



And the shoes too.



And Middle School?! Really?! How did this happen so fast?



I'm pretty sure I'm more nervous about it than she is.



What a cutie!



I asked her if I could hold her hand and walk her to her class.



She politely declined. :(



My sweet babies! John David got his little notebook and seriously wanted to go to school with the girls.



He was so excited to get to walk them to class!



This is where we parted ways with the middle schooler!



I didn't even cry, but I did hug her and tell her I love her. And John David stole a hug too!



This is where I may or may not have gotten a little teary eyed.



Then we walked Sarah to her class. She was really nervous because she wasn't sure if she was going to like her teacher.



She was getting frustrated with me taking pictures.



She said, "You don't have to take pictures of everything Mom!"



After leaving the school, we headed over to Cracker Barrel for the "Back to School" breakfast. Then we came home and while I was folding laundry, John David crawled up on the couch behind me and fell asleep. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it's hard getting back into the early morning routine.



When he woke up, we made cookies for the girls. He was so excited when it was time to go pick them up!



I loved hearing about their first day back. Katie said she likes Middle School because "we have so much more freedom." She is excited to have different teachers for each subject.



Sarah had a great day too, and has decided that she does like her teacher after all.



We're looking forward to a great year!

how we spent our summer

Since I've hardly posted anything we did all summer, I thought I would do a post of some of the things that kept us busy. Here goes.......

*We made our first road trip to North Carolina without Daddy. Our niece Jessica came along with us to help me with the kids and driving. It went surprisingly well. I was kinda nervous about going without Aaron because he usually drives the entire way. And on the rare occasion that he does ask me to help drive, I get so sleepy after just a couple of hours. But we made it there and back without any major problems. I give all the credit to the many prayers I know were offered by our awesome family.

*We made 543 friendship bracelets. Aunt Kristen taught the girls how to make friendship bracelets while we were in NC and they loved it. They taught me how when we got home and we made quite a few during the summer. I have to admit....it was very fun and quite addicting!



I love how this rainbow one turned out.



Katie really got into it and made Tors, Olympic, Threat, & Maplewood colored bracelets. And I made her the YW value colors bracelet.

*We spent way too many days to count at the waterpark. It was our bribe for getting the kids out of the house early to go exercise.

*We had tons of sleepovers with friends. Hardly a day went by this summer when we didn't have the girls' friends over or either they were invited to a sleepover.

*We had a blast watching the summer Olympics and cheering on Team USA.





We loved watching the swimming, volleyball, soccer, diving, and track & field, but our most favorite moment was without a doubt watching the women's gymnastic team win gold. They were amazing!



*We participated in and completed the summer reading program. The kids love doing this every summer, and they especially love getting the rewards after they're done.




*Katie and I had a reading contest. Since she is going into middle school, she moved up into the teen summer reading program. The good news about that--she only had to read 5 books to complete the program. The bad news--she had to write a short book review. She wasn't happy about that part at all. So in order to motivate her a little I challenged her to a contest to see who could read the "Skeleton Creek" series first. Yep....she beat me. But that's completely fine with me because it was just what she needed to get her motivated. It was so much fun reading the same series with her and talking about it afterwards. By the way, it's a really fun series!



















*Made a quilt for "Quilts for Kids". I read about this program on one of the craft blogs I read and thought it would be really cool if the girls and I could make one over the summer. They loved it and so did I! Such a fun way to teach them the basics and give service at the same time. LOVE it!



My amazing friend, Raeann showed me how to do the binding so now I know how to make a quilt from start to finish! Wahoo! It's so easy....and sooooo much fun!



*We made these to hang in the Katie and Sarah's room.



Katie even hung them herself. Not how I would have done it, but she wanted to do, so I let her do it like she wanted. LOVE this cute, fun girl!



*The kids (mostly Katie) learned to cook.....a little. So it was mostly macaroni and cheese and ramen, but you gotta start somewhere, right? Plus, it's helping them become less dependent, which is a good thing. They also made brownies and cookies.....from scratch.



It was a great summer with my sweet babies!

closing down the waterpark

We have made several attempts to get Aaron to go to the water park with us this summer, but it just hasn't worked out. So when we found out he didn't have anything on his schedule for tonight we decided to make it a family night at the water park.



It was so nice because it wasn't crowded at all.



The girls had a blast on the big slides.



Katie even talked Daddy into going down the green slide with her.



John David had a blast on the little slides.



And just hanging out with Daddy.



We love Daddy time!

hard work really does pay off

Katie decided back in April that she wanted an ipod touch. We don't normally just go and buy our kids new toys, gadgets, etc., other than birthdays or special occasions. Especially $200 toys, gadgets, etc.! So we told her if she wanted an ipod she would have to save up the money and buy it herself. So she began talking and planning how she was going to earn enough money for an ipod. I seriously thought she would give up after a few weeks and go blow all she had saved at Justice or something. But she didn't. She saved her report card money, and allowance, and babysitting money, and even the spending money Paw Paw gave her for our trip to North Carolina back in June. She saved every penny she could get her little fingers on. It was impressive. She kept her eyes on the prize and never looked back.

A few days ago, Aaron came home from work and asked her how much money she needed for an ipod. She told him, and he told her she could earn the rest of the money she needed if she would go help him on a job. So, she went and worked with him and earned the rest of her ipod money. She was so excited to say the least, and insisted that we immediately go to Best Buy and get her ipod. So we did.



She's pretty proud of herself. And I'm proud of her too!



So this is what she's been doing ever since we got home.



I have to admit....it is pretty cool. So now I'm trying to think of a reason to ground her so I can play with her new toy! :)

Christmas in July!

Our refrigerator has been dying a slow death the past few weeks. Sometimes things were cold, and sometimes they were just cool. We called and talked to a repair man and he suggested we try unplugging it for a few hours to allow it to "reset". That didn't work. So we debated about whether to have a repairman come to check it out or just go and get a new one. We finally decided that we would just save the money for a repairman to come and just put it towards a new refrigerator. We looked online, and at two Lowe's stores. We were just about to buy one at Lowe's when we decided to go to Sears to check out their selection.....maybe because of this or this commercial. ( haha! That guy cracks me up!) Anyway, we get to Sears and it seems at first that they don't even have anything in the price range we were trying to stay in. We did see a returned one that was close to our price that we liked, but when we walked back over to it (seriously like less than a minute later) it was SOLD. Dang it! So we looked around a little more. We found a really nice Kenmore (Elite, actually) that we really liked. The sales lady told us it was the last one and it was 50% off the original price! Except that even at half price it was a good bit more than we wanted to spend. However, we decided that this deal was too good to pass up. So we got it. We came home and told the kids and you would have thought we'd told them we won the lottery. They were so excited! It was quite amusing to see kids get so excited about an appliance! You see, we have never had an ice maker, much less and ice and water dispenser. So they think we are big time now. And I have to admit....I never knew what I was missing. It's so nice to have ice all the time and not have to worry about filling up those stupid trays! And the kids can get their own water, which is a huge bonus! LOVE it! I told Aaron that it's too bad it's only July....cuz if it had been December we could have just put a bow on the frig and called it good! ;)

hard workin' boys

We went to the beach today with the Coffmans.



John David needed some male bonding time, since it seems like he's surrounded by girls most of the time.



It was fun watching them play together.



It must be hard work being so cute!

Arise and Shine Forth

I was released from primary last Sunday and called to be the Laurel advisor in the Young Women's program. It was a welcome change, since I have been bounced back and forth between primary and Relief Society for almost the last decade. I am really excited to be working with the wonderful young women of our ward....especially since Katie will be moving into the program in less than a year. Tonight we had the opportunity to go see what the youth of our entire stake have been working on for months now. They did a pageant that was written by an amazing lady in our stake. It was about how the church began, and how the gospel eventually made it into our area. It was amazing, and the spirit was so strong. I was so impressed with the costumes, the props, and the talent that the youth in our stake displayed tonight. And especially the youth in our ward. I really wanted to take some pictures during the performance, but I was trying to remember my "theatre etiquette", so I didn't. But after the show, I took this picture of Aaron's cousin Bobby, with his son Andrew, who completely surprised me with his talent too.



Our nephew Jacob was "Brigham Young". He sang a solo and did a great job!



I'm so grateful that Katie has such great kids in our ward and stake to look up to.



What a blessing!

getting crafty with my favorite 3rd graders

Sarah's friends Madison and Carolyn came over for a play/craft date today. They are all going to be in 3rd grade and a clipboard is on their supply list. But they couldn't go to school with a plain, wood clipboard. So we cutified their clipboards today, in between play time. Now they're all set for 3rd grade. Great job girls!

Livin' the Dream

I'm not sure exactly what brought this on, but Sarah was seriously bothered by something this evening. She came into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner and started a little rant. "Mom, it's so unfair. Daddy just comes home from work and sits on the couch and watches TV while you have to do everything. You have to cook, do the laundry, clean the house, etc. It's just not fair!" I listened to her go on and on for a few minutes and then finally stopped her and told her that it is okay. I told Daddy works outside in the heat and comes home exhausted, but if I asked him to help me with something, he would help me. I then explained that when I was younger all I wanted to do when I grew up was get married and have a family of my own. I couldn't wait to be a mother and have sweet babies of my own to love and take care of and teach all of the most important things in life. I told her about how when I was pregnant with Katie how I wondered how we were going to make it financially because I wanted to be a stay at home mom, but I made more money than Daddy. That is when Paw Paw asked Daddy to come to Louisiana and work with him. So we prayed about it, and decided that we needed to move here in order for Daddy to make enough money to be able to support us so that I could stay at home with our children. I was so happy to finally be able to be a stay at home mom. And so grateful for a wonderful husband that works so hard so that I can be livin' the dream.

Celebrating the 4th of July

We are so grateful to be American and for this great country we live in. And we love getting ready to celebrate Independence Day! We did our usual patriotic pedicures.



We made some red, white, and blue chocolate dipped strawberries and a flag fruit pizza.



And the girls made these cute stars on their jean shorts with the Gibsons.



I love how cute they turned out! Gotta love pinterest!



And cute little boys in flag shirts.



I wanted a picture of all three of them together in their red, white, and blue outfits. I love how it turned out. Cracks me up!



We went to the ward activity and enjoyed some yummy burgers, and hanging out with our friends.



After the dinner, the kids played water kickball in the field behind the church. They had so much fun!



The highlight was definitely getting to slip-n-slide into home.



I think John David did this about 3, 721 times.





I have to admit.....it did look fun.



After the ward activity we went downtown to watch the fireworks. They were awesome!



We love you America!