First Day of School

Today was the first day of school, and it was a big first for most of my kids.  Emily started High School Today at FHS.  She also started early morning seminary this morning at 6:30.  Tyson started Jr. High at FMS, and Ryan started Kindergarten at Bennett.  Justin started 3rd grade, but is still at the same school.  I think I get more nervous than my kids, but they all had a great first day, and no one got lost trying to find their classes. 

Emily didn't want to get out at the high school and pose, and because of traffic at the elementary I wasn't able to take  a picture of her before school.

Tyson

Justin

Ryan

 We have a few traditions on the first day of school.  One thing I always try to do is have fresh home made cookies waiting.  I love to have them waiting for them with the house all clean. 

 The other tradition that we got from a friend is a "no Manners" dinner.  Jeff lets me know every year that he hates this tradition, but the kids love it so we do it anyways.  This year we played twister with colored pudding as the dots at the end.  It was a lot of fun.  I think this would be really fun for a group of friends to do.

The kids playing twister, the pudding was almost gone by now.

Everyone after it was over

Ryan

Emily

Justin

Abigail

As you notice there are none of Jeff.  He was a party pooper and did not participate.  He did take the pictures though.  He did eat his spaghetti with his fingers since there were no forks!

Abigail Turns 4

Abigail turned four on August 20.  She was so excited to finally be four.  She had been waiting all summer (Looking back it probably would have been better to tell her her birthday was when school starts instead of  saying her birthday was in the summer!).  Abigail got the Fisher Price loving family and doll house from us.  She also got a few more dress up clothes, and she got some dress up clothes from her Grandpa and Grandma Cluff.  She loved every minute of her birthday.  She is going to have a friend party after her preschool starts back up so she can invite her friends from school.  Here are a few pictures from her big day.

Opening some of her Doll house furniture

Showing the gift Tyson and Justin gave her

Modeling the dress from Grandpa and Annabell

Showing off the nightgown she got from Emily

Showing off her cake

Her new Bell dress

We love Abigail.  She is very full of life.  I love her enthusiasm for everything, she is definitely passionate about the things she likes.

Tyson Turns 12

Tyson turned 12 on August 10.  This was a big birthday for him because he can now hold the Priesthood.  It took a while for me to post because I wanted to show pictures of everything from his birthday and he just had his friend party yesterday.  He also passed the sacrament for the first time today.  I was so proud of him.  When I took him school shopping he had me buy him a new suit to wear since he has outgrown his other ones.  He had a fun birthday.  His big gift was an i-touch.  He has really enjoyed playing on it.  I don't think he uses it a whole lot for the music, but he enjoys the apps.  He had a combined party with his best friend Miller.  They both wanted to have their parties at the same place, and since they are only 8 days apart we decided they mine as well have it at the same time.  They went to a new gym here in town where they played laser tag, soccer, basketball, and they climbed a ropes course.  This stuff was all wonderful, but the best part of his birthday in my opinion was last week when he was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood.  We love Tyson.  How blessed we are to have him as a part of our family!  Here are a few pictures.

Tyson with his new i-touch

Tyson with his cake and his new soccer jersey

he blew out all the candles in one blow!

Tyson's new BYU shirt

The party goers waiting for Laser tag

Tyson eating pizza

Getting ready to blow out the candle on his cupcake

The boy I was so proud of at church.  He took his suit off before I got a picture of him, when I asked him to put it back on he wasn't happy about it.  This is what I got from him.  He really did look nice at church!

Disney World

Jeff and I took the kids to Disney World for our family vacation this year.  We were planning on going earlier and doing some things in Orlando, but we had to change our plan when Jeff was called to be Bishop and needed to be ordained that Sunday, so we did Disney World only.  We got there Monday and stayed at Old Key West (a resort on site) until Saturday.  We had a wonderful time, and we got to do everything we wanted to do.  Justin enjoyed the trip the most because he was tall enough to ride all of the rides with his older siblings, and he didn't have to stay with the younger kids.  We really enjoyed the water parks that were there.  Ryan got to go on some of the bigger slides there which was a first for him.  We started to refer to Ryan as the safety patrol man while we were there.  He really worries about the safety of rides, and he made sure everyone was doing everything right while on the rides.  I also had to help in understand the "Magic Kingdom" is not real, and everything you go on is just pretend.  When we were on the Jungle Cruise they told everyone to hit the deck when some "pretend" Indians were attacking.  I noticed everyone laughing and looking my way when this happened, I looked at Ryan and he was flat on the ground taking cover.  He was relieved when I told him they were just fake.  We thought Abigail would love the princesses, and she did from a far, but she didn't want to look at them or talk to them.  This put us all in an akward situation when we were eating at Cinderella's Castle and all of the Princesses came to visit our table.  It isn't as fun talking with a princess when you are older we all decided.  We love being together as a family.  It is so fun to see everyone enjoy each others company.  Our only big complaint was the heat with the humidity.  I never thought I would miss the wind, but it would have felt so nice there.  Here are some pictures from our trip.

Our first night we ate in Canada, had they had a small part that was suppose to look like Victoria Island in Canada, I was impressed how well they copied it.

Abigail was excited to meat Rapunzell until she came out then we had to be with her.

Ryan got a spray bottle fan and Abigail got Princess Mickey ears

Animal Kingdom

A picture in front of Mt. Everest, I just forgot to include the mountain in it.

Abigail insisted on bringing these into the parks every day (note to self, don't let them buy something like this until the last day).

The lion we got to see on the jungle Safari in Animal Kingdom

The snake Justin won while waiting for a ride

Our visit to Cinderella's Castle

Abigail dancing in the rain (it only rained hard one time)

waiting in line for the Toy Story ride

Almost time to get on the Toy Story ride

The back lot at Hollywood Studios

Changes

This coming school year we are going to have a lot of "firsts"  Emily is starting High School, Tyson is starting Middle School, Ryan is starting Kindergarten, and Justin is starting TAKS tests (he thought I should mention that).  New things always make me nervous, and I have been a little sick to my stomach all summer thinking about it.  I've been planning on these changes occurring, but we got a new change thrown at us two weeks ago; Jeff got called to be the Bishop.  I am thankful he is worthy of having the calling, and I know he will do a wonderful job, but it makes me nervous.  I hope he can balance it all, and I hope I can balance it all at home without him here.   I remember last year when I sat down to write our Christmas letter and I really couldn't think of anything to put because there really wasn't anything new going on.  I knew then changes were coming to us.  It seems whenever we get comfortable in life change comes.  I am grateful for change and the things I learn from it, but I sure don't like going through it.