We love school!

Claire was so happy to be chosen as the first star student in her 2nd grade class. One of her classmates told me, "I like Claire. She's like an angel." Couldn't be closer to the truth. All the kids are doing so well in school. Scott even admitted in his prayer the other day, "Thank thee that I like school now," which is a huge step for him, seeing as he cried through the first couple weeks and the teacher had to pry him off me in the mornings. He comes home singing all the color and abc songs he's learning, and he's learning a lot! At the open house, Tyler's teachers told me what a wonderful and smart student he is. I love their school--the principal, assistant principal, all his MAP teachers, everyone seems to know and care about Scott, and everyone is just so friendly and nice. I also started volunteering in Claire's class by tutoring students, which is one of my favorite things to do, and Lily and I enjoy eating lunch with each of the kids regularly. We're having a great school year so far!

The morning school bus!

Happy birthday to me!

I really got spoiled this year! Tim made a nice breakfast for me, Jana threw a birthday luncheon for me and Mary Jane, Jana made me a birthday brownie cake and we got to celebrate with all the kids, and Tim and I watched a fun chick flick for date night. I wish my birthday was on Saturday every year! I'm so grateful for my family and friends.

Good ol' Tim

We celebrated Tim's 67th and 68th birthdays with that many birthday spankings :) He likes to think he has two birthdays since his birth certificate has a different birthday than what his family members say his birthday is. Anyway, I made him a nice dinner and cinnamon rolls, since he doesn't like cake, and he was happy to finally have a wide-brimmed hat for all the work he does outdoors.

What a blessing Tim is in our lives! The things I love most about Tim: incredibly selfless and giving, strong testimony of the gospel, worthy priesthood holder, dedicated to being a caring husband and father, cute sense of humor, always the optimist, fixer and builder of all things, my best friend and my psychiatrist :) I love you, Tim!

Today our stake reorganized the wards in our area, and now we're in a new ward. We will miss our friends who are in the other ward now, but we know this change was the Lord's will and is a good sign that the church is growing. So many good memories serving with and enjoying our time with these good friends. I will miss the sweet kids in my Primary class. Because it's a new ward, we were released from our callings. Our dear Bishop Rodriguez was released, and Tim as his second counselor. Bishop Billings was called as the bishop of our new ward, and Tim as his first counselor. We love and sustain Bishop Billings and know he will do a great job. With Tim's new calling I am again reminded how blessed I am to have a husband who honors his priesthood and serves and sacrifices so willingly. We have been so richly blessed because of Tim's righteousness and service in the church. I don't know if anyone is reading this who isn't a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but if by chance there is, please watch this video about the blessings of the priesthood: http://old.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/videos?channelId=ad1fcf6cdfeac110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&sourceId=4008747631f92210VgnVCM100000176f620a____ (click on "Blessings of the Priesthood")

Summer pics

Scott, Ally, & Katie went to Mrs. Beth's Owl School for summer preschool.  Mrs. Beth is so amazing!  Scott had a blast, and it helped prepare him a little for Kindergarten.  He started Kindergarten a few weeks ago, and at the last minute (on the first day of school) I registered Tyler and Claire.  So now all three are in school, and it's just me and Lily at home!  I felt like it was the right thing to do for our family this semester.  I wish I knew what our plans are after this semester, but I guess we just have to take one step at a time and trust the Lord to guide us in our decisions.

Lily loved Daisy the pig at the library show!  Talk about a spoiled pig-he sleeps with the farmer every night, can you imagine?!

Of course we had to attend the snake show

Not incredibly fancy (I still need to hang up the curtains), but this is our master bedroom.  We finally got "new" bedroom furniture, after sleeping on the free mattress we had gotten in Provo when we got married (11 years ago, and when we got the mattress, it was probably already 20 years old...).  It was nice to upgrade from our college furniture!

The kids enjoyed making a solar oven and roasting marshmallows with it!

Tim's big project this summer was tearing down the side fence with Phil and rebuilding our playground in our joint back/sideyard.  It went surprisingly smoothly, and the kids are out there every morning before school playing out there--they LOVE it!

Lily and I are having such a fun time together!  It's so nice to spend one-on-one time with her and not feel like I'm neglecting her all the time, like I felt when we were homeschooling.  We've been going to library storytime--this is where she got the monkey mask from.

We enjoy having Matty over for sleepovers on Friday nights, and this particular time the kids got ambitious after they woke up and made everyone pancakes and eggs!  I think Scott made smoothies too.  I'm reminded about the time at BYU when I thought I'd do something nice for Tim and his roommates and make them breakfast.  This was the first time I had even made pancakes, and they completely burned and were inedible.  The things I wish I had learned before I left home...

Lily and Ally are such good buddies.  Ally enjoys being in charge and Lily doesn't mind it (yet).  Ally always tells Lily, "Lily, say ____" like "Lily, say okay" if she's trying to get Lily to do something, and Lily will almost always copy what Ally says.  Then later Ally will get all upset when Lily copies her and say, "Lily!  Stop copying me!"  How we love Ally!

The finished product!  Everything's pretty much the same as before except Tim completely replaced the monkey bars and swing beam to make it longer and a little taller.  Now we don't have to worry about the older kids hitting their noggins every time they swing.

This is the view from our back porch-you can see the playground is in the side yard, and the Cherrys' trampoline is next to the playground.  This place is our little bit of heaven on earth!  What a blessing it is to live next door to our best friends.  I'm still amazed every day and that it's actually real.  Heavenly Father is incredibly generous with His blessings and gives way more than we deserve!

Our crazy kids who never stay still!