Moving up!

As we closed up the school year, we realized that three of our children will be making a big change for next year.

First up, Rory!

 She is saying goodbye to Kindergarten, and will be in school for a full day next year when she starts first grade!

 Her sweet teacher, Mrs. Elliot.

 Grandma (and grandpa!) played a HUGE roll for the last several months of school as they picked up Rory everyday from school so I could take on a full time teaching position.  I know Rory is going to miss being her grandparents everyday.

And then Morgan...

 ...she graduated from 6th grade and will be entering middle school next year!

And then last, but not least, Haley...

...she'll be entering HIGH SCHOOL!

So, next year, I'll have children at all three schools: elementary, middle and high school.

So weird.

My kids are growing up too fast!

Piper's Baptism!

 In April Piper turned 8, which means she can be baptized!

She was so excited!

Just as Haley and Morgan did, Piper wore the same dress that I was baptized in when I was 8 years old.  This dress is pretty special because my mom made it all those years ago!

 Since her baptism fell on Cinco de Mayo, we couldn't help ourselves...we just had to wear our Mexican dresses.

Happy Birthday to our Piper!

We sure do love you!

Easter 2018

I know Easter is far memory being that we're in JUNE currently, but I need to play catch up a bit so bear with me as I go back in time.

The girls after they hunted and found their baskets!

As you may already know, we have adopted a more plant based diet around these parts, which means my menus (especially traditional holiday meals) have changed some.  I'm still a lover of sweet breakfasts, so I found a recipe for blueberry muffins and then I made a tofu scramble with potatoes, which has quickly become one of our favorites around here!

After we had our fill of breakfast we loaded the car and headed south to St. George for a few days.

The weather could not have been better!

We spent our days hiking and swimming in the hotel pool...perfect!

A wonderful little getaway to kick off our Spring Break!

Our new everyday life.

Our family photo of 2018.

I love that Rory wanted her big leaf in the photo!

I kicked off the new year with a new job!!  This is probably why my updates haven't been happening lately as this new job has kinda rocked our world!  As you already know, I was working part time at my kids' elementary school last semester.  I was in charge of a reading intervention program and my hours matched up to Rory's part time Kindergarten schedule perfectly!  However, one of the fifth grade teachers had a baby in November and wasn't planning on coming back after her maternity leave.  The principal offered the position to me and I just couldn't refuse!!  I took the job right after the new year. Thankfully, my parents have taken on the roll of picking up Rory from half day Kindergarten (I will be forever indebted to them!!) to allow me this great opportunity!

I've taught fifth grade before (years ago) so I have a bit of background, but coming into a school year mid year is much harder than I thought!  The technology alone has been a huge learning curve for me!  And I don't want to be THAT teacher, (cue old lady voice) "Back in the day when I taught..."  Seriously, though...when I taught before we had to be creative!  Every lesson that we did we created ourselves...and you better not ever, ever lose the master copy!!  Now everything is just a click away on the computer.  Wild, how much has changed in 14 years!

But I think the hardest part of going back to work full time is trying to keep up with just our everyday life!  The shopping has to wait until...wait for it...the WEEKEND (gasp!).  Also, keeping up with the kids schedules: getting them to appointments, concerts, ski school, parties etc. And to make things extra complicated Ryan has taken on the roll of sales manager for one of the brands he reps for.  It's a temporary position while they find somebody to fill it, but it requires him to go into the office three days a week, which is quite a bit as he needs to do his regular rep job too.  So his schedule is pretty tight these days.  

But even with all the crazy, I have been loving my new gig!  And I love being at the same school as my children!

We'll figure things out sooner or later and find our new groove.

But for now, we'll just embrace the crazy!

Christmas 2017!

Oh, how I love Christmas!!

This year, as it's done for the past two, it snowed Christmas Eve!  We were so glad to wake up to at least a little snow...a little is better than none!  Hopefully mother nature will deliver soon because we are waaaay behind in our snow pack this year!

 This year, some exciting gifts were:

A record player for Haley.

iPad for Morgan.

Bed tent for Piper.

Mountain bike for Rory.

Another successful year in the books!

Rory turns SIX!

On December 1st we celebrated Rory's sixth birthday!

It was a simple affair, but full of fun.

Our neighbors and cousins joined us.

Her dinner of choice: chicken flautas (straight from the fridge aisle at Costco).  I decided to add a big Mexican salad, sweet rice and chips with salsa...but the girl would have been happy as a clam with just the flautas!  And, an oreo cake...also her request.

Funny story:

When Rory came down the stairs on the morning of her birthday that stuffed whale that she's holding in the picture was waiting for her...she had been wanting that stuffed whale forever!  She was so excited and it pretty much went with her EVERYWHERE.  (Sidenote:  Piper has a whale exactly like it that she got for her birthday earlier in the year.  They would joke and say their two whales were husband and wife).  

Well, about fours days after her birthday we were putting her to bed and she realized she couldn't find her whale anywhere!  We looked and looked for it!  Finally we decided she must have left it at church earlier in the day.  We texted some people (her teacher, the bishop) to see if they happened to fun across a whale there.  No luck.  Rory was so upset, and her sleep suffered because of it...as did Ryan and mine!  She would come into our room throughout the night and eventually ended up in our bed.  Well, after three nights of that, and still NO whale, we decided to just buy another one exactly like it.  She came home from school and there was her whale waiting for her...oh the joy!  Problem solved.

Well, a couple of days later I was picking up the living room and realized that Rory forgot to bring her whale upstairs with her to bed, so I bring it up and give it to her only to see that she has her whale tucked in with her already.  So, thinking it was Piper's I hand to her, but again, Piper has her whale also tucked in with her.  The girls are now super confused as to where did this mysterious third whale come from?!!  I didn't want to blow my cover, because Rory truly thought I gave her the original whale!  So, I told them, "Wow, your whales must have had a baby!"  (It was the first thing that popped in my head.)  I thought they would think it was super cool and just go to bed...wrong.  They were completely freaked out...and there was NO WAY these two kids were going to go to sleep after hearing that two stuffed whales just reproduced a baby. Piper even got scared and started crying.

So, I caved...I told them the entire REAL story of what had happened.

We all had a good laugh.  

And Rory is super happy to be the owner of TWO whales now.

The end.

Happy Birthday Rory!

We sure do love you!

Thanksgiving 2017

 Here it is, almost Christmas, and I'm just now posting about Thanksgiving!  Where has the time gone?!

As per tradition we made our way south to Sedona for the holiday, and we were welcomed with temperatures in the upper 70's/80's!!  It was amazing!

Some highlights include:

Hot tubbing at Grandparents' house.

Lots of mountain biking!

This marked the first time I had mountain biked since the last Thanksgiving!

Surprisingly, I felt pretty darn good!

Piper and Morgan joined us a few times too!

Hit up Talaquepaque.

The girls coloring on a quiet morning.

We enjoyed an outing to the V Bar V Heritage Site.

This included the largest and best preserved petroglyph site in the Verde Valley!

Absolutely fascinating!

Explored around the nearby creek.

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa.

Our last evening we sat around the fire pit and roasted s'mores!

And somewhere in there we had a feast...which I seemed to have neglected to take photos of.

Such a lovely visit!

Until next year!