back to school!!

I knew that summer was going to fly and it did crazy fast and I feel like august was just a blur it came and went so fast i loved everyday and went to bed every night both happy and exhausted I kept telling myself that once school started and we got into a routine things would slow down but not so far... I am loving this year it's been super hard but I think that it has really made me live in the moment and appreciate even the small things!


                                                      Well here she is my kindergartener!

                                               and hello he is so ready for preschool....

this is his best friend Jonah thy are perfect little buddies they love to get into trouble (I did warn their teacher)

she is so proud of him, she was a little confused and thought that he would go to her school so that she could help him it was so sweet, I think that she and I are more worried about him then he is!

 

 

I love fall I love the back to school feel of things and the change in the weather where there is just a hint of chill in the mornings and the evenings and the colors changing and oh I love the smells the homey smells pumpkin smells I love decorating my house, but this year I had a really hard time saying goodbye to summer so to help ease those growing pains we had a blow out neighborhood party I don't know if I say this enough but I love where we are right now I love our neighbors and location I love the ward it is honestly amazing group of people and a beautiful location I feel very lucky to be here I feel like this is the feeling of home I have dreamed of all my life!

 

 

add an awesome trip to sand hallow and we really did have an amazing summer!

 

 

i feel like we really did have an amazing year this will be one I won't ever forget!

My Kids have 3 very favorite things to do....

1. swim, we have done this almost everyday day this summer and they are getting amazing at it and they are sleeping so much better I love exhausted kids....
2. riding their bikes, we tried to teach Gracie how to ride her bike without her training wheels at the start of summer and she got really mad at us it was definitely a no go, then a few days ago she came to me and wanted me to go out with her and teach her it took about 5 minutes and now she goes standing up or no hands or no feet, not to mention that she cruises around super fast all over the place.... 
3. playing in the mud they play in the mud constantly it drives me insane I cannot come close to counting how many times I have cleaned up muddy footprints across my kitchen floor and muddy handprints all over the glass door sometimes it gets so frustrating and then I just have to look at their cute faces and how much fun they are having and I melt.....

Am I the only one who is not ready for summer to end? seriously only a few more weeks and I want to cry this has been the best summer ever we have made a serious effort to appreciate and enjoy every single day and wow it's been amazing!

When Ryan and I got married we always talked about when we had kids we wanted their friends to like to hang out at our house, we wanted them to feel comfortable and have fun there are so many reasons why we wanted our house to be the hang out place and it really is just that we have groups of kids here everyday............... 

 We are so grateful for our kids wonderful friends we love being in an area with so many wonderful people we feel very lucky!

 One thing that we are trying this summer that is new for us is camping out in the backyard I cannot believe how much our kids love this we have done it a few times now and plan on doing it a few more times this summer plus we are calling it practice for our big camping trip and the end of the summer I am not a camper at all so I figure I need all the practice I can get....
   Also in the spirit of practicing the other day our family did something I've never done we went up American Fork canyon just for the fun of it for the day we played games roasted marshmellows ate hot dogs *funny little note Fin will only eat hot dogs and marhmellows cold?

                                     

  Finley is going through a crazy destructive phase I love this child but this phase better end soon everything from digging up the front yard to "fix" my sprinklers to climbing on top of the car with a saw and trying to saw down the garage door...the other day we went to my mom's house and before we left he went into the bathroom turned on the water closed the drain and left it flooded to bedrooms and their walk in closets ruined cabinets and built in bookshelves like I said I love this boy but wow.....

  I loved our 1 rainy day this summer please please can we have a few more we had a blast I originally thought it would be the perfect inside day to let my kids recover from being outside all day everyday for weeks now but no they spent the whole day out in the rain....

So far this has been the best summer ever and things just keep getting better I cannot believe how much fun life is right now with these crazy kids and my wonderful husband!!!

I wish I were better at posting on this little blog there are so many things that I don't want to forget and I keep thinking we are going to slow down but we just haven't.  Evacuating taught me a couple of things 1) everything in life can just be an adventure for kids had a lot of fun staying at grandpa and grandma's house and 2) Family really is all that matters I'm not trying to say that it's no big deal to lose your house and all of the things I have spent almost 3 decades collecting but seriously family is what matters.
Other then that we have been doing what we do best playing...

 I was trying desperately to come up with inside activities to have my kids do while Gracie was still still recovering they were starting to get so ansy we we decided to make 2 different kinds of slime and an exploding green experiment we had a lot of fun I love doing hands on science stuff with my kids!

 then Gracie's sweet friends came to visit her and brought her these cards the best part is that they brought her a "basket" of treats (probably stuff the grabbed out of the kitchen when moms weren't looking) things like apples bananas oranges the best part was that they brought it to her in a garbage can I love having a neighborhood full of little boys, it's awesome...

 I love how worn out this boy is he plays so hard and so steady he literally plays until he drops

 She is such a little model she loves posing and taking pictures of herself she even got my camera and taught herself how to set the timer and take pictures of herself.

 I figured I might as well include a picture of our fire this is after it had moved away from us originally then it swept around the mountain and headed back towards us.

 
 I don't know why but I couldn't get a good picture of this..this is Finleys first black eye this kids is so stinking tough and this one was a doosey it got super swollen and very dark black before starting to get better and the side of his eye is cut and he will have a scar there for the rest of the summer at least..sorry Fin I should have got you a better picture I have a feeling this won't be the last one..

One of the many things that I look forward to every summer is doing a slip and slide in my parents backyard I love it the kids love it the add some dish soap and it's pretty exciting.

 My favorite thing Finley said to me this week was "hey mom, I have an idea, let's pretend like you are my mom and I'm your boy" I thought I was your mom everyday am I missing something?

okay so this is just a tiny bit of our summer so far Will have to keep working on updating more regularly so that it's not so long I just really have loved this summer with all the craziness it's been a blast!

....Life's curve ball this week.....we've offically been evacuated! 

What crappy week I have had, poor little Gracie has had a bad UTI which we were treating but it got into her kidneys anyway!! then to top it off she got a really bad flu bug she already had a  temperature of 103 add throwing up every few minutes we ended up in the hospital when we got there they were all ready for us and got her right back and hooked up on IV antibiotics, zofran, pain medicine, fluids and a bunch of other stuff that i don't understand.  When the put the IV in she was so tough she didn't even wince and after when the nurse asked if it hurt she said" it hurt a lot but it's ok I am really tough" yes you are Gracie you are the toughest girl I know!
to make it even harder they left the IV in for over 24 hours and it hurt the whole time, I feel so bad for her!

I got a fortune cookie that said..."you have great luck this week...take a chance"  it lied!

Today things actually got worse, go figure I honestly didn't think I could take one more thing but apparently I am going to have to.  Today we took Gracie to the doctor for a fever that won't go away, it might be a little more serious then we thought, the doctors said that we need to get insurance asap she needs some very expensive (and very invasive tests) very soon.... more details to follow, we are going to have to take things one day at a time!
*if everything goes right we should have insurance the end of next month!!!! (keep your fingers crossed for us)

 This post is going to be a little bit of catching up a little bit of complaining and a lot of stuff that i don't want to forget.  Ryan and I have always joked about our terrible luck I have always had really bad luck and Ryan has terrible luck so pretty much since we've been married it is just one thing after another and 90% of the time we can just laugh about it, I have learned that several phrases apply to our lives...take things one day at a time, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good, location location location, and that in every situation you can choose to either laugh or cry and very most important thing i've learned is that nothing matters like family.
 

•   The bad in the past 6 weeks.....
• broken the back window of Ryan's truck
• 2 flat tires
• ruptured  1 eardrum
• had 2 root canals
• had 1 child throw up all over me at the gas station that is 2 miles away that we had walked to
• accumulated $6,000.00 in medical debt with no end in sight but another doctors appointment this week
• switched jobs (good or bad is yet to be determained but right now definately on my bad list)  

and worse of all is that because of our terrible bad luck the addoption application we had filled out and ready to turn in is going to have to wait.

 There have definately been some tears and some heartache however in some ways the past 6 weeks have been amazing one of my very favorite things about Ryan is the way he makes the best of every situation and that he can always make me laugh so tonight as we were driving and our tire popped Ryan just started laughing hysterically I LOVE YOU RYAN!!!!

  So like I said there is always good to help you survive the bad some of the most memorable things about the past 6 weeks are....

Preschool graduation, I survived my first year teaching preschool and it was amazing I got to have both my kids in my preschool and it was a year I will treasure for the rest of my life

 Gracie turned 5!!! Ryan made her a really cool barbie house that she loves and she got to have 8 of her friends over for her party and her cousin sleepover she loved every minute of it all she wanted to do for her party is play dress ups and watch a barbie movie

We went on our annual summer kick off family bike ride to get ice cream this is our 2nd year going and I am amazed at how good my kids do it is roughly 3 miles and this year we added going to lunch at a local Mexican restaurant 

The kids have a new favorite park I have lost track of how many times we have been in the last few weeks but a ton!! If it were up to the kids we would go everyday!

We have had so many beautiful days that we've been able to have the kids pool up and going I love that my kids are such swimmers it's one of our favorite things about summer and it never gets old plus this year they have added a pool at the country club so grandma has been able to take us to the big pool and they love it but I don't have pictures I will do better this week

then we had Eagle mountain days which is like 10 days we didn't get to do as much this year as we would have liked but we did do the carnival, and then we sat outside and listened to the concert then sat on the roof to watch the fireworks I love living here I love our neighbors and our ward and just the whole area it's a really fun place to be!

We decided to help kick off the summer we would do a campout in the backyard

I underestumated how much my kids would love this we will definately need to do this again soon

some other highlights would be Fin driving his jeep into a sherriff's SUV and the kids begging everyday to run through the sprinklers and washing the car going to the splash pad and inviting all the neighbors over for a movie in the backyard it's no wonder that Fin has started falling asleep in the strangest places, so far this has been both the worst and the greatest sunner ever how is that possible?