Preschool!

 I don't know who was more excited for Luke to start preschool, him or me. Just kidding, it was definitely me. The big kids had been in school for a month already and Luke was making sure I knew that I was not filling his entertainment needs.

Last year Luke was in a class of all girls, so he was pleasantly surprised to discover that his class this year is all BOYS! Now I would say he's the more excited of the two of use when school time rolls around.

I can't believe this is my last year of preschool. A little corner of my heart broke when I realized I will never be the mom of a preschooler anymore. So here's to enjoying every last minute of it!

Good List/Bad List

On the Good List:

1.The pitter patter of little feet

 

Luke has 5 weeks of "mommy time" before he starts playgroup. He's a little bored of me, so we are both grateful for any chance we have to spend time with friends.

2. Doing things that make the big kids jealous

With no school to work around and it possibly being Luke's last year at home, we've been having fun. Lunch dates, swimming, water parks and movies, oh my!

3. Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Ellie won Class Rep! She failed to mention that she was going to run, so it was an even better surprise that I didn't have to worry all week to find out the results. She made this poster when she finished her work early in math class.

4.Fatty fat foods

We are huge Bosa donut fans in our house, so the grand opening of one less than a mile away (door to door) was a cause for much celebration. Dustin had to wait in line forever. And then they were out of pink donuts, but they were still delicious.  It's been opened 4 days and Sadie's already wondering why we've only gone once.

5. Go Tribe!

When we were in Williamsburg we hit up the William and Mary bookstore for some swag. Luke found this little foam basketball that he loved. There wasn't a price sticker on it, but it was small and Luke liked it, so we told him yes.  When we got up to the cash register we discovered it was $17 and change. For a foam basketball. Obviously W&M has a very upscale student base. We're used to those cheapy LDS prices.

But by now Luke was emotionally invested in the ball and we had invested a lot of time in waiting in that line and corralling 8 children, so we bought the dumb thing. He promptly lost it within the next 5 days.

It was a fun surprise that my parents went back to the store on the way home and re-purchased the ridiculously expensive play toy that will certainly be lost again. Grandparents are the best.

6. Goooooooo Cougars

Dustin and a friend are flying up with our boys for the BYU/Utah game. Nate doesn't know yet and it is KILLING me not to say anything, but I think the surprise will be worth it.

BAD LIST

1. Good bye flip flops

I hate socks. I hate shoes. I especially hate the shoes that come home from school. The backs are smashed from kids walking on their heels. The toes are scuffed up from dragging them in the dirt. Annnnnnnd. . . the shoes are filled with wood chips. Sadie came home with these beauties one day. How did she walk in them? Also, can we talk about socks? I hate socks with a passion. I hate how quickly they get holes. I hate how only one ever makes it to the wash. I hate pairing them up.

2. Being old

We had to chaperone a stake dance. I felt so old. The music was loud and I had to heard kids into a room and force them to ask girls to dance. They should have let me man the dessert table.

3. Spots and speckles

Luke has Fifths Disease. He is covered head to toe in this lovely rash. I feel like a terrible mother because I can barely stand to touch him and he just wants to cuddle all the time. Also, it's 110 degrees outside and I'm dressing Luke in long sleeves and long pants to avoid stares and questions when we go out.

Mad about Musicals

Not so secret fact -- I cannot sing. I don't have the world's worst voice, but no one's ever requested that I sing either. And yet I cannot help singing (usually the wrong words to add insult to injury). If it's a musical, help us all because I will not stop. My Grandmother owned a copy of every musical ever made into a movie and spent many happy summers holed up in her basement eating homemade cookies and fresh baked bread in front of Doris Day singing her heart out. When I was in High School I took the Fine Arts course every semester because we would study musicals and go watch them (there was also a yearly trip to Paris but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it).

And so I am telling you, dear readers (ie my sister who already knows this about me), that I have not met a musical I didn't like. This includes even high school versions of Disney made-for-TV musicals. I, along with two of my girlfriends, took our girls to see one of our favorite Seniors in High School Musical. Both Jill and Maren's oldest girls are Sadie's age, so I was slightly horrified to learn that they had never even seen the movie before. I'm not ashamed to say that I have most of the songs memorized (I will blame it on Ellie's kindergarten obsession).

There were a few rough patches for the leads, but all in all it was a fun night. I was blown away by some of the young talent.  Sadie, however, is quite the theater critic and was not impressed by the actor who played Troy Bolton.  She turned to me at one point and said, "That boy does not look like Troy Bolton and he certainly doesn't SING like Troy Bolton."

She was also extremely worried about the amount of making out. "I hope they're dating in real life because otherwise the kissing would be awkward."

 

All of the girls were obsessed with the actress who played Sharpay and they made me take them up to meet her after the play was over. The girl was super sweet and asked the Sadies what their names were. My Sadie replied, brilliantly, "We both have the same name!" We then reminded her to say what her name was. The entire was home we got to hear about how Sharpay said she loved their outfits.

And in true Disney fashion -- they've produced another tv musical that my kids love -- Teen Beach Movie. For two weeks straight I watched that movie every single day with Luke even though the big kids were at school.

 

Ellie may have a secret ambition to be a costume designer because she is always talking the kids into letting her dress them up and do their make up.

I'm just sad because my kids will probably have outgrown Disney by the time their next musicale debuts.

Back to School

By now it should surprise no one that my kids went back to school on July 22. Every year gets a little bit sadder.  I notice my kids getting older.  Our schedules are fuller and I can see the clock counting down until they're gone for good.

This year was REALLY hard to send them back.  We had just come home from a fun filled 2 week vacation and no one was sick of each other or our house yet.  But off they went. 

I actually got home from the gym around 6:40 to find all of them completely dressed and fed. That excitement lasted all of two days.

Ellie is in 6th grade this year and rotates for all of her classes.  It's her last year at CTA, so she's the big girl on campus. I cannot possibly imagine not having all of my kids at the same school next year.  She's suppose to go off all by herself to Junior High next year?  To quote my niece, Olivia, "NEVER!"

 

 I've noticed her wearing mascara, she spends forever on her hair and nails and she apparently started shaving her legs last year without telling me.

 

She has a great group of friends, but I've noticed they're all over instagram and KIK (??) which seems way too grown up for me. Who knew Facebook would be for the old ladies?

Nate is in 3rd grade. He wants black Nike socks and I dropped more on sneakers for him than I ever have for the other kids because he is *really* into having awesome running shoes. And I get that.

His best friend, Travis, is in his class again along with a lot of great kids from Kindergarten. He is going to have a great year.

Sadie is in 1st grade.  At Meet the Teacher, her teacher came over to meet her and Sadie exclaimed, "Oh Mom, Tanvi is back from India," and ran off to give her friend a hug.  Her teacher turned to me, "I can see she's social."  At least she knows what she is getting into.

 

Her teacher is just who I would have wanted her to have if I could have picked anyone and Sadie just loves school.

 

Our next door neighbors just moved to our school and Sadie is over the moon because Lindsay is in her class.  They even planned on wearing matching first day of school outfits (this actually happens frequently NOT on purpose when you attend a uniform school).

All of the kids got to school, plopped down their bags, ran off and totally ignored me.  Well, Ellie actually hung out with me a little bit which makes her my favorite.

 

 Or at least explains why she has more pictures than the other kids. Not a tear was shed, even by me. Just wait until next year, though.  I will be a sobbing mess. 

Luke and I picked up a friend and headed off to our annual Back to School Brunch with all of our friends and then got home in time to put together our "Back to Hogwarts" dinner. Usually I have also sorts of great ideas for our first day of school dinner, mostly provided by Pinterest, but this year I hadn't given it a second thought so I let the kids pick what kind of dinner they wanted. It wasn't my best year since I threw everything together at the last minute but the kids said it was their favorite so far.

Ellie wanted a feast like Hogwarts complete with a roasted turkey. A Costco chicken was more in my culinary skill range.

 I pulled out the nice table settings, ate by candle light and drank our butter beer out of goblets. Side note -- only one of my kids actually likes butter beer.

I spent $50 at Sweeties buying candy wands and gummy creatures (the rat and spider were hidden under Nate and Ellie's napkins just to freak them out).

There was pudding, gummy frogs and the biggest hit was the Bertie Bott jelly beans.  Those things have nasty flavors and we tried them all. I had some quotes from Dumbledore about choosing the right and being a good example. The night was perfect.

I did insist we have a *real* dessert instead of just candy and made carmelitas. I had been craving them since my girlfriend Brenna brought them to a party we were at and needed an excuse to make them.  We ate almost the entire pan and what we didn't eat, I finished off for breakfast the next day.

I just love my kids and how much fun they are. Even though they grow up more each year and I have to say good bye to fat feet and chubby fingers, there's a lot of things I gain. I love playing games with them and sitting around the table discussing school, friends, life, the Gospel. . . Plus I hear that grandparent gig is pretty sweet.

Coming Home

Coming home from vacation was hard.  We had had two glorious weeks of cousins, sun, dessert every night and Dustin all day, every day. It didn't help that everything seemed to fall apart when we got home.

We landed about 11 am, hopped off our flight, dropped off our bags at home and turned down our AC before we headed out for lunch (complete with a pizookie), Despicable Me 2 and school shopping.  When we returned home about 5 pm I noticed our room was still freakishly hot.  And then we realized our back AC unit wasn't working.

The whole way home I had been telling myself it would be OK to fly back to the crazy heat and school because I would be home.  I had a picture in my head of putting the kids to bed, snuggling up into my bed with Dustin and watching all the shows we had DVRed while we were gone and waited 2 weeks to see.

Well, I spent that first night sleeping on a pull out couch (thankfully we have one of those aerobed ones, so it was actually really comfortable) in the living room while all the kids piled into Ellie's room for a mondo sleepover (all the kids' rooms share our AC unit except for Ellie's).

On top of that, I didn't get to watch any shows because out DVR had gone on the fritz while we were gone.  So I had a grand total of 3 shows that actually recorded. That meant the next few days were full of phone calls and repair men.  We also had Meet the Teacher, overdue library books, trips to Costco to fill the house with food, activities for the kids, dinner with friends, a YW lesson to prepare (but in the mess of fixing the cable they switched off our internet), planning our back to school family dinner. . . oh, and we weren't getting any mail. 

When I got into the Post Office it turned out we were getting so many packages that they had called the Police to do a quick search of the house perimeter and make sure no one was dead. Lesson learned -- hold our mail when we go on vacation from now on.

We also needed to squeeze in some school shopping since school was starting in 4 days.  Everyone needed new back packs, lunch bags, water bottles and first day of school clothes. . .

 I took the girls to the mall and we ended up purchasing stuff at H&M, Carter's, GAP, Justice, Children's Place, Tilly's, Dillard's, Macy's, and Nordstrom's and then hit Target on the way home.

I wish I had just stayed on vacation!

Luke, however, was ready to come home and get some sleep after all of his non-stop energy.

Every night after dinner I would finish cleaning up the kitchen to find Luke asleep some random place in the house. We've only been home for 2 weeks and I already feel like I'm ready for another vacation.