Angela's First Day of Preschool

Our "welcome" question of the day sometimes gets some funny responses!

Notice Angela doesn't even have her shoes on in this picture. (o: That is because she didn't need to wear them because preschool, this year, started at our house.

We start our preschool group a week after the big kids go so Angela was dying for her school to FINALLY begin! She was so excited to have preschool at our house first.

Kayelynn, very sweetly, agreed to teach the first week of school so I could focus on getting the house all ready. It was a very busy month teaching or helping with preschool two days a week for all of September. We had a lot of fun and have two new friends at preschool putting our total to eight kiddos. They are pretty cute, but I was excited for a break when we were finished with our turn!

Puddy Tat

We've had Twilight for almost a year now and she has really grown on me. I wasn't so sure for the first little bit. She was so darn cute, but kittens are a handful. Now she's mellowed out (for the most part) and she is part of the family. She is constantly making us laugh - have you ever played with a cat and a laser light! Hours of entertainment! (We don't do it that long though - I think she'd go batty.) She is a pretty sweet and very friendly cat and a pretty low maintenance pet to have. I can even honestly say I love having her now. I liked her before, but she drove me nuts sometimes. Now I am really glad we have her. She brings a lot of joy to our family.
This is so cute - we often find her like this in her little cat bed - all sprawled out. But if Angela or Natalie see her, she's too cute to resist. She is a very patient cat . . .

I don't think Twilight is enjoying this interaction as much as Angela, but who cares? She is so patient and how could you not smile at the joy Angela gets from her?

Angela is always close to Twilight. It drives Sarah crazy. If Sarah is having a "moment" with Twilight, Angela often comes and gets in the middle of it. So life is not always peachy - it's one more thing for the girls to fight about.

Like I said, a very patient cat. The girls (and Hal*) think up all kinds of games to "play" with the cat as you can see.

She puts up with a lot and I know she loves the girls too. In the morning or at night she is often trying to get into Sarah's room - she loves being on her bed with her. She is always where we are in the house, and if the girls are sad or crying about something she almost always comes and "checks" on them and snuggles with them. It takes away some of the punishment I want the girls to feel when they are in time out, but it is so darn sweet I never stop her from comforting the girls. She'll still have her moments every so often where she gets in her feisty, playful, hunting modes and she'll playfully "attack" one of the girls, leaving a scratch. She especially loves to hunt Angela - but can we blame her? (o: Angela hunts her all the time!

All in all, I have finally come around and embrace being a cat owner. I'm really glad we have our Twilight kitty.

Sneaky Girls

Here are my cute Laurels (the young women 16-18 years old). Twice a month we do class activities. This was a fairly spontaneous one to surprise one of the girls in our class who has had to work on Tuesday nights a lot. We really miss her, so we decided to go surprise her at her work. This was one of my favorite activities, I think because I just LOVE to be sneaky! It's so much fun. These are the sorts of things I've always loved to do with friends and it made me feel like I was a teenager again sneaking around the grocery store being silly with my girls.
He he.
Our plan was to find something embarrassing or weird in the store without being spotted by Whitney. Then we were going to non-chalant-ly get in her line and "surprise" her. The thing that took the longest was which item in the store would be funniest to pretend to buy. Tampax? Depends? Butt Paste? The girls settled on the Butt Paste (a baby bottom ointment of some sort).

Our sneaky plan worked - Whitney was completely surprised when she looked up to see who was buying Butt Paste. (o: What awesome girls. It's not easy to be sneaky when there's a group of 8 people! (o:

Proud of Myself

This is me. This is me rappelling.

This is not something I normally do.

This is not something I am very comfortable with.

This is because I am afraid of falling from heights.

These are my young women.

These are the reasons why I found myself hanging from a rock wall.

Here are Tana, Melanie, Kaitlin and Lizzy.
Here are some of my sweet girls that I am willing to go rappelling with because they wanted to do more outdoor adventurous activities.

This is Heidi.

This is a girl with no fear.

This is the girl who kept hearing me yelp, "Heidi, stop doing that!", "Heidi, you aren't even tied to a rope yet.", "Heidi, where are you?", "Heidi, you're making me nervous!", "Heidi, I do not want to go to the E.R."

This sweet girl made it home in one piece.

This is because I kept a close eye on her and nagged her to safety. (o: he he

This is me wondering how I got myself into this situation.

This spot where I am sitting made me very nervous, it was very steep down to the left and I had several girls in this spot with me and none of us were tied up yet.

This made me very nervous.

This was a good test on my deodorant that day.

This is me.

This ended up being a fun activity.

This is something I would do again.

I think...

First Day of School 2009

Some days, but ESPECIALLY for the first day of school, the girls like to make their clothes "people" with everything they will be wearing the next day. Including underwear underneath the pants, skirt or tights. (o:
Natalie is not used to getting up early in the mornings!

But today, she didn't mind too much - she was excited. A little nervous, but excited.

Here's Sarah's clothes "person". (o:

Cute girls in their matchy hot pink animal striped jackets.

Two excited girls. We were running a bit late and took a jog in. (o:

Annaliese was happy to see Natalie in her class. (o:

Sarah at her desk. Poor thing. She was so nervous and anxious the days leading up to the "first day". She really had a hard time eating for a while. She was relieved to finally get the first day over with!

Angela doesn't start preschool just yet, but wants to wear her new backpack too!

Natalie and Jayda were happy to be in the same class too. (o:

Natalie was pretty nervous about the idea of eating lunch at school, so Angela and I joined her the first day.

We were so happy to have Natalie in Mrs. B's class! Natalie got to know her well last year when I helped in Sarah's class. Yeah for Mrs. B!

(I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Sarah with her teacher - better get on that!)

Cute Natalie

Sarah waiting for the bus with her buddies Taylor and Monica!

Angela and I waiting for the girls to get home. It's just me and "Loo" all day together now. She misses her buddies to play with!

They made it! First day - DONE!

Ready For School

We had one last girls' summer fling before school started. We used our last freebie from the summer reading and went to lunch at Applebees. We had fun talking about school and getting excited about the fact that Natalie had Mrs. "B" for her first grade teacher. (Sarah's wonderful teacher last year.) And Sarah had Mrs. E., whom she was hoping for.

We also had a great time talking about our upcoming trip to Disneyland!!

Mr. Ed* and I booked a trip to Disneyland just a couple days earlier after a LOOOONG, stressful few months of work for him. We all needed some long overdue family time. Notice that not a lot of the pictures or stories include our favorite man of the house for the last few months. I don't know who was more excited about the trip, the adults in our house or the kids. (o:

Anyway, Disneyland was a big topic on this afternoon!

Sitting in front of Applebee's - it was a beautiful day. We were sad to see our summer of carefree-ness coming to a close. Time for early mornings and homework again!
We went on a little walk around Jackson Bottom Wetlands to enjoy the sun a little longer.

This was our project on Labor Day. Out here, Labor Day is always the day before the first day of school. We found this cool project in the Family Fun magazine and thought it would be fun for the girls to have for homework time. The girls had fun picking out their paper and stickers to decorate their cubbies. We found all sorts of fun things to add to them.

Natalie's cubby.

Sarah's cubby.

Angela's cubby.

By Sarah

Sarah drew this picture of her and Natalie about 2 years ago - maybe more, her "S" in the signature is still backwards. I LOVE it. If it weren't so huge and on cheap paper, I would have had it framed. It finally bit the dust and was getting kind of shabby hanging in the girls' room. I took a picture of it so I can always remember it.

Daja Vous

One of my most favorite people used to live here, but it didn't look quite like this.

This is the driveway to the house now. Isn't it gorgeous?

The driveway I remember (just a little farther down the street) was hard to find off the main road. It was a dirt road and it wound around for a fair amount of time (maybe 1/8 mile?) leading up to a very old and worn down portable home. The road was skinny, so only one car could go on it at a time. If you were unfortunate enough to get halfway through the driveway and someone else happened to be coming or going, one of you would have to back up or find a spot in the ferns/bushes/trees to scoot over to.

The driveway was completely surrounded by tall trees, ferns, bushes the whole way. When you left the main road and headed into the "forest" as my girls called it - it was like you were going through a portal to another world. I might be weird, no wait, I AM weird. . . but I always LOVED it. There were a few times when a deer ran right in front of or next to our car. Other creatures would scurry by. Sometimes I would look for big foot. (o:

Driving through after dark was creepy.

It had lots of pot holes, especially in the winter.

I got pretty good at maneuvering around the potholes as to avoid the biggest ones.

It was a driveway with character.

But most of all, we had best friends at the end of that driveway and maybe that's what I liked best about it.

This is where my friend Kim used to live. It is just a couple miles down the street from our house. I loved having Kim so close and my heart aches when I remember those times when we were just minutes away from each other. The "good old days". They were the best of times. (O:

I KNOW I remember her old house much more fondly than she does. That is because it was a pretty run down place. Her family lived in a portable home on this property and got a great deal from the owners for rent. It was a sacrifice she and her family made while her husband went to dental school. But you know what? When we went there, I thought it was a nice home because Kim did amazing things with that place. She made the best of it, she made it work. She had so many homey touches that she added that made it feel warm and cozy. Her neat and tidy entryway with a desk for the kids a place to put your shoes and coat and an art easel always ready for someone to paint on. (My girls LOVED this.) Cute pictures of the kids eating hung up in small frames around the kitchen walls, a cool IKEA lamp, a bulletin board for the kids school papers and artwork, fun Disney street signs on the wall in the kids' room, etc. It was a happy place to me - mostly because Kim was there and Allie and Luke and baby Kate and every once in a blue moon Michael too. (o:

So it was really strange to hear the new residents there describe the home as a dump and unlivable when they first came.

About two years ago, the owners started building a huge horse arena and stables on the property. When it was finished it was time for Kim and her family to leave. The owners hired a family to be the caretakers of the land and the animals that would eventually come. After Kim's family left, the caretakers came to look at the house and pronounced it unlivable. I guess it was pretty bad - it was falling apart, but I never noticed. Kim did her magic with that place.

Anyway, they brought in a nice, brand new portable home and also knocked down and replaced the huge, old barn. They stand in the exact same place as the previous home and barn and are approx. the same dimensions. Just shinier and newer.

It just so happens that these new caretakers are in my friend Tina's ward (the owners are LDS thus all the Mormon connections). Rose, I think, is the name of the mom. She is so sweet and welcomes visitors to see the horses and people practicing in the arena. Tina invited us to tag along and check out the fun place. We went to watch this sport where kids do gymnastics on top of a horse running around in circles! I don't remember what the sport is called, but it amazed me! That requires a LOT of balance.

After visiting with one of the horses in the arena, we got to visit some of the other animals. My girls are such huge animal lovers - they were in heaven! We saw cows, more horses, kittens, bunnies, chickens, lamas - am I forgetting anything?

There were new kitties in the stables. I had to pry the kittens away from all the girls.

We brought Monica for this fun adventure! She is an animal lover too and has several of her own horses and kittens at home. So I guess this was just an average day for her! (o:

That is the beautiful, new home and gorgeous manicured lawns and an amazing garden. It was one of the most extreme makeovers I've ever seen in real life. This area used to be full of huge overgrown blackberry bushes, twisted trees and bushes. I wish Kim could have lived in the place like this!

The kids running to see the bunnies.

The end of that old, dirt road driveway I was describing with the beautiful, new structures and all the blackberry bushes cleared out. That must have been a TON of work! Pretty amazing.

Natalie loved playing with this sweet dog. They were so cute together.

The yard was just amazing. The night we went was a beautiful September night and watching the kids run around and play with the animals made me really wish we could have land like this. However, I know I had a very "romantic" picture of the place - not the realistic view of how much work it is to care for - all the land and the animals. Still, a girl can dream. And in that dream, Kim and I would be sitting on a blanket over there on the lawn. We'd be laughing our heads off as the kids run around goofing off and having fun.

I miss you Kim.