1st day of school

Ok I didn't cry!! I don't know what is wrong with me, it's probably that the kids were just so darn excited to go to school that I couldn't be sad or even happy teary! The boys were sitting on the stairs this morning like it was Christmas! Connor is a little concerned that people will think his backpack is girlish, it's blue. But I told him it doesn't matter what anyone thinks but I will always buy him a new one if he has problems with it. They had to be one of the first students there, they were just so impatient to go already!! The last picture was me totally embarressing them so the boys didn't look and Elle whipped her head around at the last secound so this is the best pict I got of them going into school! Maybe I should celebrate by going back to bed! HAH! Now I have to get Matt on the MS bus...

The start of another school year

OK it's 9:40pm Sunday night and it is not all quiet through my house! The kids, well the younger three kids are in bed practically jumping on them they are so excited for school tommorrow. Its funny, school starts way too early and yet they are still just as excited to go back as we were when school started at the end of the month. I know the excitment will fade but for now I am thrilled they have it! Elle has the kindergarden teacher that AJ had and she seems much more relaxed and happy then when AJ had her so i am excited. AJ has the 3rd grade teacher that MAtt had and she loves me and hugs me so whats not to love. When Matt had her, her husband was going through cancer treatment and she was still tough but fair. Connor has a grandpa teacher which can go either way. But the secound he meet Connor he said "Oh Connor I have been waiting to meet you! I hear you are quiet the fisherman and my grand daughter loves to fish so any pointers you can give me this year would be great!" I felt so good leaving that classroom and it was not just the loopy drugs i was on from leaving the hospital only 3 hours earlier! I am not allowed to walk Elle in, so I will drop her off with the boys and they will walk her down to class. I imagine I will cry tears driving home, of happy and sad I admit. I will post pictures in the morning. for now I have to go fill out 4 sets of forms, get three backpacks and lunch boexes ready and pack some tissues in the car!!

14 Years!! Happy Anniversary!

14 wonderful busy years

Twlight weekend

Forks weekend

I am not done with my girls weekend in WA but I had to at least start my post about it! Mostly because Celeste told me I had to, hi Celeste I will be home soon! This has been a riot! I have laughed soo hard I've cried on several occasions! The area is so beautiful we were at the very tip of the united states, I looked across the water toward Victoria, where I will have to go next time.  It is so green, the dirt is green, moss everywhere, slugs the size of my hand!  we ate at the Bella Italia restaurant where the characters from our book had their first date and the food was soo amazing! The best food I can remember having in a long time! We got three desserts and passed them around which finished off Port Angeles beautifully. Forks WA is as small as it is described in the book and you couldn't pay me enough to live there full time. The area was gorgeous but there was no mall and NO movie theatre!! The grocery store was also their hardware/ clothing store!! Eck. We went to the midnight party to get our copies of the Breaking Dawn book and then Becky and I read the first chapter in the car with the light from our cellphones as we drove to the bed and breakfast where we stayed. We all read until 2:30 am and then were up by 7 to read again. We stopped only to eat breakfast and then drive to the La Push Indian reservation and read on the beach and could imagine Jacob behind every tree!! It was fun but stressful to be reading with 4 other women! Mom would gasp or laugh out loud Bex would say DON"T SAY ANYTHING! So we tried to read as fast as we could so nobody could tell us anything too fast!! Once in awhile I would ask what page everyone was on and if someone was close to me we would smile or grimace knowingly to each other. I won't ruin it for anyone but I LOVED the book. I was happy, estactic, stressed, worried, every possible emotion was used in the book and I loved it! We were done with the book by about 4 pm on sat and we immediately started again. I've now been through it twice and it's about 750 or so pages. Good stuff!! We are leaving with lots of inside jokes about chasms, hamsters, little dam road, and the pictures we did not get!! The pictures I did get I will post as soon as i get home from this marvelous trip! I feel rested and ready to attack school starting next week!! But only because i have to, because it really is too soon!!

Sunday dinner

This is a small sampling of the dishes after the Sunday family dishes with the Johnstons. Every Sunday someone has dinner at their house after church. You have Bill and Susan, Kyle and Olivia, Ryan right now, Mike and Tiff with Porter, Lily, Cooper and Maddie, then our 5. It's fun and chaotic and I admit stressful to me. Tonight I did spaghetti which needed 3 packages of spicy Italian sausage, 3 jars of Paul Newman's marina sauce, 1 batch homemade rolls, 1/3 of which i made into Cinnamon rolls, stuffed mushrooms and salad. And I skimped out and only served milk or ice water, no strawberry lemonade for anyone!! Unfortunately Sunday dinner has become you cook it you clean it. This is partly our fault. When we eat dinner at Bill and Susan's we have to leave a short time after dinner because they have 2 dogs and Kirk can't breathe at their house. So we leave before the dishes are done, because everyone like to talk and hang out after dinner and not do dishes for an hour or more. SO I think since we always leave the dishes undone now everyone thinks they can leave with dishes undone. I try to be smart and have a totally empty dishwasher when the dinner starts so I can immediately load every ones plates and then run it. And I must say a big thank you to my mom who got me the Mormon cookbook for my birthday and because of I finally successfully made rolls in GA!!! That has not happened since moving here, i tried recipes from the Clarks, Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart and the JOy of Cooking. Nothing broke the curse of my homemade rolls until now!! So thank you!!! And it ended well everyone left except for Kyle and Olivia so we taught them Five Crowns and had a blast!! Although Kirk had to help AJ, Elle, Connor and Kyle!! Olivia ended the game with only 36 points! I've never seen anything like it! I had like 140!

ON a side note, I really think I need to cut another inch of my hair!! I like it better today then the first day where it was so straight. The funny thing is, because it hits at my shoulders it looks almost as if the hair is just behind me, so not one person noticed it at church or the family dinner tonight!! And may i note that I even lead the music in church, so EVERYONE saw me!! And not one person noticed!! IS that a good thing or bad?? I was kinda hoping for more dramatic then that!! Oh well guess I'll go clean the dishes!!