I Know the Scriptures are True

Once a year at church the children have the opportunity to put on the Sacrament Meeting program. In all the moving around these past few months we also moved wards (congregations) twice, and weren't sure if the kids were going to get a chance to be in the program this year. But we lucked out and arrived in our new ward just in time for the kids to be able to participate.

The biggest part of the program consists of the all the kids singing the songs they have been learning all year. Since grandparents were not able to attend the program this year I had the kids sing some of their songs to send to them.

First Day of School-the baby's story

Harrison's Mouse ears from our trip to Disneyland. Has nothing to do with the story about the first day of school, I just haven't posted any of our Disneyland pictures yet.

I forgot to mention the BEST part of the first day of school.

Harrison's ears being embroidered. Sadly, many of our Disneyland pictures are blurry, because I still didn't quite get the correlation between aperture and depth of field. 

Once we had dropped the kids off and had arrived back home Harrison jumped out of the car and ran full tilt into the house screaming "I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

First Day of School

School is back in session!

In Utah most of the elementary schools were Year-Round, which meant the operated on a track system and depending on what track you were on you started and ended school in July and had your "summer" breaks during other months of the year. 

I actually kind of hated the year-round schedule and was looking forward to being on a traditional school schedule once we got to Arizona. But the school district we are in does a modified track schedule in which we start end of July and have long breaks in October, for Christmas, and in March. The explanation we were given was that it's too hot in July and August to do anything so you may as well be in school during the hot months and be out of school to enjoy the wonderful weather months. I guess it makes sense, but I'll be honest that I wasn't thrilled about returning to school so soon. Especially since I have to drive the kids to and from school everyday until our home is completed. With traffic and the waiting to drop off and pick up it ends up being a good solid hour each way. That is 2 hours everyday spent commuting to and from the school. I cannot wait for the day our house is done and they can walk 3 minutes down the street. It will feel like I have found an amazing extra 2 hours in my day!

Today was a BIG day for Zoey, as it was her first day of Kindergarten. First day of big school!!!!! And she COULD NOT have been MORE excited. She started counting down the days weeks ago. She is my little social butterfly and she has been dying to spread her wings and fly! Being the only girl sandwiched between two boys I think she was excited about having some girls to play with.

I'd like to point out that this would be an ideal time to link back to Adam's first day of Kindergarten. But I can't. It was a great day. Harrison, barely walking at the time, wanted to wear a back pack just his big brother. The pictures of them walking side by side together were priceless. I also snapped a picture of his teacher putting his name tag on him. The only problem......I got home and realized there was no memory card in my camera. I didn't get a single picture of my oldest child's first day of kindergarten. 

Her chosen ensemble for this all important first day of school was a Hello Kitty shirt and, of course, a princess backpack. 

Adam was a tad bit less excited. This was his first time back at public school after a year of home school and I think he was a little nervous, even though he didn't want to admit it. He barely tolerated the obligatory first day of school pictures.

Heading towards the school.

We dropped Zoey off first. She didn't show even the slightest amount of trepidation. In fact she seemed annoyed that It took me so long to get out of her classroom.

He is starting 2nd grade, and still he looks so little in comparison to his backpack.

I was thinking like a mom and not like a photographer so my aperture is open WAAAY too wide and all these pictures turned out blurry. But blurry pictures is better then no pictures, which is what he got his first day of kindergarten. 

Being greeted by his teacher, Mrs. Hunter. We are closing in on the second week of school here and I can honestly say I LOVE LOVE LOVE this teacher!!!! I like Zoey's teacher, but I LOVE Mrs. Hunter!!!! She is such a PERFECT fit for Adam and I feel so blessed that he is in her class!

The after school line-up. 

Zoey making her way to the car.

Here comes Adam!

The consensus: it was a GREAT first day of school!

Happy Birthday Harrison!

My baby has turned 4, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

For weeks now I have been telling him that I want him to stay 3 forever. He would always respond with a sad face and say "I WANT to stay 3, mom. But I just can't. I don't know how."

His siblings were VERY intense about what he was opening.

To celebrate we went to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, which I DO NOT recommend.

The kids had a blast.

But it was OVERPRICED and the food was terrible! I couldn't even force myself to finish mine. The chicken tasted like it came out of a can. Yuck!

Luckily we lucked out with our next activity. We visited the Sea Life Aquarium which cost us 1/4 of what it did to eat, and was 400% more fun.

In my next life I want to come back as a seahorse.

On thing you may not know about Harrison is that he is freakishly good at Angry Birds. Here is something else you may not know, my mom has always helped me do my kids' birthday cakes in the past. (She has been decorating cakes for more years then I've been alive.) And by "help" me I mean I bake the cake, take it to her house and then watch her decorate.

Since we have moved to AZ now I was on my own. Thank goodness for the internet. I thought Angry Birds would be easy enough even for a cake novice like myself. So I Googled it and found these super cute Angry Bird cupcakes. And I thought, I could do that.

So I did.

He LOVED them!

And just like that, without my permission, my baby is really 4 years old. Maybe with any luck He'll stay 4 for at least another year, or so.