John's First Day of School

That's right loyal blog followers and Family. Yesterday was John's FIRST OFFICIAL DAY OF SCHOOL!!

The story of John's school registration is a bit longer than you would expect. Where we live there are many wonderful schools available. We originally applied to get John into Freedom Academy. Which is a local public Charter school only a few minutes from our home. Unfortunetly, due to the high demand for enrolment, we were unable to get John in to kindergarden as we didn't make the lottery.

So we quickly moved to Plan B. Linda registered John at Westridge Elementry. Another great school only a few minutes away from our home up on Grandview hill.

With School quickly approaching we set ourselves to organizing our affairs. We put all the school dates on the family calendar, bought John some school clothes, and generally prepared for the day John would enter school at Westridge.

I'll be honest in that I was having to prepare myself for the inevitable fact that my John John Man was going to be a big boy in a big school. So I set myself to be prepared for his first day on September 1.

As in all things, plans change. Late Thursday night Linda received a call that John was next on the list to enter Freedom Academy. WHOA!

That's right. A butterfly left a branch somewhere in china effecting the wind patterns and effectively changing the world as we know it.

So instead of John's first day of school being two weeks away his first day was Friday the 21st.

We have been in a constant rush to get him all his supplies and uniformed school gear. But he loves his new school and teacher. We are absolutely excited for him and all the things he'll learn. I think our family will fit in nicely with Freedom Academy.

Edit: Ok, Shawn is still a big baby and is not ready for John to go to School.

Jack Jack's obsession with Shells N' Cheese

Shawn has recently discovered Jack's love for Velveeta Shells n' Cheese. Wow! It was such a messy ordeal that Jack got a bath after the entire incident. But there was one happy boy! I think Shawn said he ate more than John at the meal. Good thing you cooked two boxes of shells n' cheese!

Bridal Veil Falls

The kids and I decided to go for a little outing and a picnic. We took along Macher (who thought to bring an extra pair of sandals!) and what a big help she was! We were all hungry before we started out on our hike to the falls so we ate our meat and cheese sandwiches first. The wind was blowing just a bit and the kids were cold by the time they had finished their food. Ah well. Who knew it could be chilly in August? It wasn't, really.

Anyway, we took a leisurely stroll up to the base of the falls and the kids were eager to get in the water and start playing--until they discovered how cold mountain water really is! Kelsey froze up in the water and wouldn't move until someone came to rescue her. Yea, Macher!

The kids thought it was great fun to pose together on rocks in the water. Too bad we couldn't get them all looking at the camera at the same time. There was just too much to look at. Jack was fascinated by all the rushing water over the rocks. He wanted to splash in the water too.

This was the best we could do. Enjoy!

Pioneer Day Parade

Our neighborhood has done a Primary Pioneer Day parade for the past two years. The kids have enjoyed walking the streets on their bikes, decorated wagons, or scooters. At the end of the parade route (the church building), they get to play games. The favorite with the boys (young and old) is the giant sling shots. If you park on the opposite side of the street, you can bet your car may become a target for those water balloons launched at a high speed. The kids love it!

The girls had fun walking the "trek" route with their stick horses and eating watermelon at the end. I don't know what John did all morning but I assume he stuck pretty close to the water balloons and sling shots with Daddy.

My pretty girls!

Enjoy the girls and their ring toss game! They both won a prize for their ability to get the ring on the stick!

Happy Birthday, Jack Jack!

It's really been one year since Jack was born? Time really does fly nowadays. We have really enjoyed having another boy in the family (John has recently started wrestling with his little brother). Jack's been making life more interesting these days since he's started to walk more unassisted and learned some good words like "no" and "ball." He's learning fast!

Well, we decided to make his birthday a themed one of a beach party, complete with a sand castle birthday cake! John was planning on "tricking" everyone into thinking they were eating sand and then telling them later that it was just graham crackers. Silly boy. But he did help me decorate it.

We had some great friends and family come to help celebrate! Thanks, everyone! We love you!

Birthday present monster! Roar!!!