SAN TAN SATURDAY!

So with the weather being so overcast it is taunting to come outside and play so we did! Eli asked me if Emma was going to come (she is always gone at dance) and when I told him she was going to, he made a fist and pumped it and said, YES!! He was so excited, I hope that stays with him forever.

I took the kids to go hike San Tan Mountain on the Moonlight Trail. We only "hiked" for 2.2 miles and ya it took us an hour and 15 minutes. We did take some drink breaks, snack breaks, picture breaks, etc.

I asked the boys, "what does hiking do for our bodies?" Eli responded with makes them healthy and strong - Tyson on the other hand answered very annoyed with, "SWEATY!"

This was the first time we took the kids on a hike and we weren't pushing the jogging stroller. I am so glad I got to spend time with these kids outside walking and talking about anything and everything and perhaps even scaring the boys a bit about being attacked by a mountain lion! oops!

Since we finished at 6pm the kids were hungry for dinner so as we were driving we home we drove right passed San Tan Flats and we decided to check it out. Best thing we did. We ordered our food, ate outside in the beautiful weather, the kids scarfed down their food, played with wood blocks, roasted marshmallows in our fire pit, listened to the band play music and I even bribed Tyson with a dime to go dance with Emma! After being there for 3 hours I finally made the kids leave. We had the best day and the only bad thing about the day was that daddy was in Oregon. The kiddos have requested we do this again as soon as Jared comes home! They have a deal!

 

TYSON LOSES HIS FIRST TOOTH!

Tyson has been waiting all weekend to see Stacia (the Jensen official tooth puller) so he can have her pull his tooth. We went to dance today and she worked her magic and he was one happy boy with a bloody paper towel!

After his shower I asked him if he was excited his tooth came out and he said, "yes, but I am more excited for my dollar!"

LITTLE TALES FROM SCHOOL!

I have learned several interesting little tales from my kids at school that Jared thinks needed to be in the blog...

Today the first thing out of Emma's mouth in our car was, "I HAVE THE LONGEST HAIR IN 6TH GRADE!" apparently they measured today and she is quite pleased with herself!

Eli would like to be referred to from now on as Hershey Kiss! They made up soccer names today at school and Blake is Lizard, Eli is Hershey Kiss and Zach has a lot of hair so his name is Puffy Hair!

At Donuts for Dudes and Divas I learned that Tyson and Jade (a girl) licked tongues! So I had to put a kabosh on licking, kissing, hugging, etc.  Also, a girl on the bus has a crush on Tyson! 

Tyler's teacher has separated the boys from each other and Tyler is a leader in his class. 

Eli is the "captain" at his table which means the kids look to him to be an example and for him to keep quiet. He earned this spot by being such a responsible kid. We are in love with his teacher this year. After having such a bad teacher last year and always coming home with bad reports it is so nice to see the complete opposite this year. He is a leader, an example and he has earned the citizenship award twice already - suck on that Mrs. Mayer!! 

After Donuts on Friday, I walked the boys out to the playground before the bell rang and Eli pointed out all the big kids playing across the field - they have to be 5th and 6th graders - he says that is who he plays with - the big kids he says! He is brave enough to go and play football and soccer with them - he is awesome! 

The twins like to play ninjas at recess and Eli plays soccer, football or kick ball. 

Emma is doing great in CATS so far. Less homework this year than she had last year at this time - we hope it keeps up like this for her sake. 

Jared was home last week for work so we surprised the kids at school during lunch! (we did visit Emma too - just don't have a picture)

A BIG CHAPTER IN MY LIFE CLOSES!

This was a day that I was dreading for the last 2 years. I knew there was no stopping it - if there was, I would have. I have been dreading the day my babies start kindergarten. I know that once they go to school the time will fly by and my babies won't be my babies anymore, I wouldn't have any little ones running around the house, no more shopping buddies, etc. I knew that chapter of my life would be done and there was no getting that time back. That's depressing.

With Jared living in Oregon when school started I gave him a pretty serious threat - you be home for the first day of school or we are through! I knew I would need my best friend with me the day my babies left me.

I took the boys to their school to meet their teacher on Thursday. It was very tramatic for me. I cried. I was not looking forward to this and I was so worried they wouldn't have a good teacher. I knew from the moment I met her my precious babies would be in good hands! She loved them from the first time she met them, she even described them to me when she met them 6 months earlier, she really did remember them, she was the only kindergarten teacher willing to keep them together and she was the classroom closest to the bathroom which Tyson needed! Love her! Even knowing she would love them it was still hard to let them go and grow up!

Meet the Teacher night

That night I bought the boys their school shirts, they were very happy about it! 

The next day I took the boys school shopping for their new clothes while Emma was at dance...Eli and Tyson loved shopping...Tyler just wanted it to be over with so he could get some lunch...but funny enough, every time we went into a dressing room he happily put the clothes on and wanted me to buy him everything! 

Tyler did not want to participate in the picture - he just wanted FOOD!! 

Happy now you little piggy :) 

Friday night we got to go to the airport at 8:30pm and pick up Jared. The kids were so excited! Their dad was coming home! He was starving so we made a quick pit stop on the way home to Lucille's BBQ and I guess the kids were hungrier than we thought, they ate 2 baskets of fries and ice cream sundaes! 

Saturday morning the boys all stayed home together and did yard work while me, Emma and Grandma Rodgers did our traditional back to school shopping! Emma was asked to be a GAP model for a few minutes to get a discount so she gladly participated! 

Sunday night came and all the kids got their back to school blessings. I swear sometimes I think the blessings are for me because they are saying the things I need to hear that I am worried about for them. 

The dreaded day finally came. We were up in the morning to get all ready. The kids were pumped! We did our morning prayers and then headed outside for our first day of school picture! 

 Then we headed over to Chiara and Payton's house so the twins could all take one together - they do a lot of firsts together and this was going to be one of them!

 Bus Stop here come!

 Bye my babies!

 
 Goodbye my beautiful - all by herself for the first time. I was not able to go to school with her, she does not need me, but it has just been tradition. With the boys being a different school then Emma, we had to stay with them since it was a new school for all of them.

After the kids all loaded up on to their buses, Jared and I quickly hauled buns over to the boys school to make sure they got off the bus ok and made it to their playgrounds and what not ok....

 Tyler waiting for Tyson

 Eli found his desk and is all good to go!

After the bell rang and we know all was well, Jared and I headed over to the Parrys house and we picked up Blake and Stephanie and we went to Kneaders for breakfast and talked about how proud we were that we didn't break down into big 'ol belly sobs like we thought we would. After breakfast we headed to the movies to go see The Lone Ranger. It was fun double dating with our men while the kids were all gone at school. Finally it was time to go and pick them all up  from the bus stop. They came off the bus just as I had hoped they would (red faces from being so hot) smiling! 

 Eli was found right after school outside his classroom door crying because he couldn't find his brothers and he had taken on the responsibility of making sure his brothers had gotten on the bus ok and knew what to do and where to go. He did not know that they were already on the bus so he was panicking. The teachers had to assure him they were fine and he would end up on the right bus and with his brothers. He is such a good buddy!

Emma had a quick tumbling class right after school so as soon as she was done with that we took all the kids to Gecko Grill to celebrate the first day of school! 

The next day went just as good as the first! 

 Of course we still spyed on them to make sure they were ok. I actually secretly watched them at school for the first 6 days - yep - crazy mom!

Jared and I went back to Kneaders for one last breakfast since he went back to Oregon that day. It was sad on Wednesday to not have anyone to go with me to breakfast. Here is the 3rd and 4th day outfits, but I forgot the last day, dang it. 

I kept waiting every day for the twins to hit their kindergarten crash after school and it never happened. They came home full of energy every day - I was shocked! Especially since they were used to taking naps still every afternoon. Oh, I spoke too soon - the next week the boys were exhausted in the morning and after school - grumpy grumpy! I giggled, I was waiting for this to happen. 

Thursday while the kids were at school, Stephanie and I took our Summer Movie Fun tickets and went and saw a different movie instead, we thought we were awesome for having all the kids in school, our husbands at work and we were sitting there watching a movie, drinking sodas and eating popcorn! 

Everyone was doing good. The only one we worried about was Eli. He was never quite the same. He lost some of his carefree happiness he had. We were grateful that the teacher sent out this class picture because Eli looked happy in it so that was a little relief. 

We are now on our 5th week of school and things are getting much better for Eli and the other 3 have been doing great. Eli is back to himself - happy go lucky! All in the world is good! 

A FAST BLONDE BOY!

Since Eli is older, he typically gets the sports compliments over his brothers...but the other day at baseball practice I was talking to a new dad on the team for a while and we got to talking about flag football....long story short, we realized we played each other in the winter campionship game - we won though (yes, the competitive part of me has to include that tid bit) - but the point of this story is the dad went on to ask me who the really fast blonde boy was on our team..."Oh that was my son," I stated proudly! "No, this kid was blonde hair" He was looking at Eli and clearly Eli does not have blonde hair, I then showed him the twins and pointed to Tyler, he couldn't believe that was the fast kid, but sorry buddy - that little one is CRAZY FAST when he wants to turn it on and he will turn it on for a trophy! I was proud and excited Tyler got some recognition!

BOYS!

What do the poor brothers of dancing sisters do when they are stuck at a dance studio while their sisters rehearse - play electronics of course!

4 AM TEARS!

Early Sunday morning - 4am to be exact, I was woken up by a little one standing at my bed side. My kids don't get out of bed unless they are sick or something legit so being the exhausted mom that I was, I asked him if he was ok and then told him to hop in my bed with me because I knew then we could all go right back to sleep.

That plan didn't pan out so well for me. Tyler kept tossing and turning so I would ask him if he needed to go potty, was he having a bad dream and none of these things were the problem. Then I started to get worried he was going to throw up because when he tosses and turns like that usually it is followed up by him tossing his cookies! He shook his head no and assured me that wasn't it, so I finally I asked the big question, Do you miss daddy? The explosion of belly sobs and uncontrollable crying after that was crazy. I couldn't get him to stop.

Jared does NOT like to be woken up from his sleep, but I threw caution to the wind and told Tyler we could call daddy and he could talk to him (and really at this point, I could careless how annoyed Jared made have gotten - but as a side note, he didn't get mad at all and it only made him sad and he wanted to come home and hold Tyler and snuggle him while scratching his back - which is Tyler's favorite thing).

We got Jared on the phone and Tyler kept crying so I put Jared on speaker and just let him talk to Tyler and slowly the crying stopped and the tears faded away. He never answered Jared out loud, he only shook his head. We said good night and goodbye and Tyler curled up into a little ball and I scratched his back until he fell asleep.

That day at church, Tyler was doing just fine. When it was time to go to class after 2nd hour, Tyler came over to me at the piano and had tears in his eyes again and was missing Jared. So I let him sit with me and we took a picture of his sad face and sent it to Jared. Look at the little tear coming out of his eye, poor buddy.

After church the kids video chatted with Jared and so far - things seem to be better!