OUR SUMMER STAY-CATION!

This year we weren't able to go on a summer vacation :( Our kids were super sad about missing the beach and so were we, but it is what it is. This summer was crazy, but we were able to go stay at the Arizona Grand Resort for 3 days for a little stay-cation.

The kids knew it wasn't the beach, but other than that, they loved it. They thought staying in the hotel was awesome and they wanted to move there.

The first day we got there and went swimming forever and finally at about 7pm we decided we were all hungry so we headed out to dinner - a good family picture at dinner wasn't happening, but everyone had fun and ate a ton of food so that's all that matters :)



After dinner we headed back to the room and the kids were on hyper-drive. They stayed up and watched tv and were silly till about 11pm. The next day, they slept in till 9am - which is really late for them. Jared and I left Emma in the room with the boys while we went to breakfast together at the resort. It was a fun little date for us.



We hit the water for the rest of the day again. The Murrietas ending up booking a reservation there at the same time so we met up with them and ended up ordering pizza and wings and eating it by the pool until bedtime. This time when we went back to the hotel room for the night, the boys crashed hard and there was no playing around!

The next day after the kids slept in again, Jared and I went to breakfast together and then like the day before, we hung out by the pool all day until it was time to head back home to get ready for meet the teacher night. It was a great little vacation and something was better than nothing :)

VARVEL POPLAR FLATS FARM!

Eli had a chance to spend a week in the summer going to the Varvel Poplar Flats Farm. He LOVED it! Every day he would learn something different; gardening, worms and worm composting, chickens and the incubator, goats, milk, how to make wheat into bread, hay rides, feeding horses, etc. He had so much fun and would come home every day and tell us everything he learned! Now the twins can't wait for their turn to go :)

 

NICK GONZALEZ MASTER CLASS!

When Emma went to NRG, one of the main teachers there was Nick Gonzalez. The girls all loved him. He was an amazing teacher, very uplifting and motivating, but also very funny.  SAS was able to have him come and teach a master class to the studio one night and then he stayed another 2 days and taught Emma's class a hip hop dance piece for the competition season this year.  It was a hard 2 days and the girls were sweaty!! She loved it all though and we can't wait to see them perform it on stage.

LONDON OLYMPICS 2012!

I love the Olympics. I love how everyone becomes so proud of their country (not to mention what a power house USA is, that helps too!) I love watching them and being so amazed at what great athletes they are and secretly pretending that I could be one, ha ha.

This year in honor of the Olympics I decided to have Emma's church class over to celebrate the opening ceremonies with us. We made some invitations and attached a different country flag to each invite and every girl had to bring something to eat to represent that country. We had a huge schmorgus borg of food, the girls ate all night (and so did Jared)!

 

We played a few games, like some Olympic fact questions, Olympic bingo and marked off the countries as each one marched into the stadium and guessed which country flag was which one. The girls had a lot of fun but about 10pm they got a little bored and went outside and played.

 Jaeden, Maddy, Hoku, Morgan and Emma

 Anni, Maddy, Haley, Hoku, Morgan, Emma

Such a fun group of little girlies and Emma is excited to do this again in 2 years for the winter games, looks like we started a new tradition!

LAST FIRST DAY OF LMNOPreschool!

Yesterday was my last first day of preschool. It was very bitter sweet. I was so excited for  my boys to start there, especially knowing how amazing Ms. Nikkii is and how much they will learn and grow - I mean I have had them on the waiting list since I was pregnant with them :) The twins were super excited to start, they had watched Eli go there for 2 years and they knew how much he loved it so they couldn't wait to be apart of that!

 In the morning I got them all ready and told them to line up for their picture, they were most excited about this because they had just watched Emma and Eli do this 3 weeks ago and they were sad it wasn't for them. They took a regular picture and then they asked for a silly face picture and then they wanted Emma and Eli to join in, my they had such a plan!

I drove them to school and Tyler started getting a litte nervous. I assured them it would be fun and I would be by to pick them up as soon as school was over. We went inside and they learned where to put their folders, where to put their " pack packs" and then they were off, they weren't sad or scared, they didn't even want to look at me for one last picture and they didn't really want to give me a good-bye kiss either :(

After I left I got in the car and I shed a couple of tears. I called Jared and I am pretty sure he laughed at me and thought I was a dork, whatever. My mom called to check on the boys and Stephanie called to check on the boys. I hurried home and picked up Emma, Eli and Maddy and took them to school so they wouldn't have to walk to the bus stop. I got them off to school came home and discovered that Emma had cleaned up the breakfast mess (what a sweet girl) and then I finished picking up the rest of the house and I was off on my cleaning adventure. I totally cleaned my bathroom and bedroom, went through 2 magic erasers, dusted everything, cleaned baseboards, the works and then sadly my 2 hours to myself was gone and I was off to pick up the kiddos at preschool.

They were very excited and told me how they got treasure box, got to see Ms. Mickey's house, sang the goodbye song and that Tyler hugged Tyson and Ms. Mickey hugged Tyson and that "striaght line down"! We got home ate lunch and took quick naps because the fun day didn't stop there, Uncle RJ wanted to take the twins to Sunsplash.

I dropped the boys off and they were excited to go with him. They were a little small to ride the good slides and came home a couple of hours later and told daddy how much fun they had. It was a great day for them (and mine wasn't too shabby either, I ended up going to lunch with Stacia and getting a pedicure, that cheered me up, ha ha!)

When you are a young mom all the old moms say, enjoy this time while they are little, it will be gone before you know it. They aren't lying. I wish I could freeze time for a few years and soak this all up.

SLEEPY HEADS!

The twins have bunk beds. Tyler on top, Tyson on bottom. When they go to bed at night they each go to their own beds. Lately the majority of the time, we find they have wandered to the other person's bed to sleep together...

 

The other morning they woke up super early and came into our room and I made them lay back down in my bed and go back to sleep. Um.....look at them.....they love each other! 

 

Yes, that is Tyson's leg on top on Tyler's under the blanket...

 

THE REST OF THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL...

Here is the random things that happened the rest of the first week of school....

Eli my little every day napper didn't crash on the first day of school like I envisioned when he came home. I even kept my camera out and ready to snap a picture of it...well finally on the 4th day of school, little buddy couldn't take it any longer and crashed :)

On the second day of school, Emma forgot her folder at school and we went back for it, on the third day of school each kid forgot their lunch box at school and we went back, on the fourth day of school Emma forgot their water bottle and we went back for that and then on the 6th day of school Eli forgot his lunchbox and we went back for that (although that one was his teacher's fault and she even admitted it and I was warned to go with the flow in her class because things like that will be a regular occurrence - she might just cause me to have a small heart attack)!

I went to help out this week on Monday at lunch time with Eli's class, mostly because I sent him to school with different things in his lunch and I wanted to make sure he could open it himself. While there a cute little girl asked me, "are you his mom?" "Yes! is he good in class or naughty?" she giggled and told me he was good. Then a few seconds later she says, "he always makes me cut his papers for him!" What?! How is Eli old enough to work the cute girls to get them to do his stuff for him?! We had a little chat with that boy...bless his heart...he is left handed and really needs left handed scissors...its to hard for him to cut with his right hand. I am glad the little girl ratted him out, I went out the next day and bought him left handed scissors for his classroom :) When I told Jared the story of the little girl he was cracking up and informed Eli that she would cut all of his stuff forever for him until he put a ring on her finger and then she would stop cutting for him - hmmmm, I wonder who he is referring to ;)

Here is Eli in his first week of kindergarten new school clothes, sadly, he didn't have the month of new school clothes that Emma had but now with 4 kids, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit ;) (plus, boy clothes are boring, sorry buddies!)

 Every ime I took a picture of Eli, I think Emma felt left out and so did the twins so we always did one with them afterwards.

 Second day of school, waiting for the bus...what cute kiddos!

 I did not even tell her to grab his hand but she did, like a great big sister and the twins are always there shouting goodby a gazillion times to Emma, Eli and Maddy

We see you Tyler....

 What are you doing Tyler? Yep, I am going to point that out and embarrass you later :)

Eli and Emma had a great first week of school. Emma always came home and told me the random good things that happened to her, compliments on her outfits, earning good rewards, etc. Eli always came home and told me how he made another new friend but couldn't quite ever remember their names and he also learned that you don't put things in your mouth because they have germs, he told that to his brothers and told them to quit putting stuff in their mouth or they would get germs too!
(this is Eli's best friend..."his name sounds like jensen, mom!" JACKSON!)