Summer Recital

After only 8 lessons I think Kaylee got a pretty good start with her new violin.
This girl has fun trying out everything! She has the hardest time picking and choosing what activities to do. She sure looked beautiful at her recital and did amazing! This post has TONS of great video! My blog book will only have the 2 pictures of Kaylee, but isn't she gorgeous?!

Kaylee's teacher will be having a baby soon! We are SOOO excited for them, but sad to have to find a new teacher...at least for a little while. Click here to get to Sharon's website which should usually get you to their Eclectic website. Everyone HAS to check it out. Matt bought me some of her sheet music for Christmas and I LOVE to sit and play her stuff. I've also seen her firesides and they are wonderful and SO inspiring! If you are in this area you HAVE to have her come do a fireside!! She and her husband are both extremely talented and you just know they love it and have so much fun together! I'm having fun going through their website again...I haven't been on forever. THIS song is one of my favorites. I'm dying to have the sheet music to it!! I think it's all in her head still :) Amazing isn't it?! It's called Peace Be Still. It's an amazing interpretation of Master the Tempest is Raging (hymn no. 105). My other favorite of hers is this youtube video below of If You Could Hie to Kolob (hymn no. 284). In finding this video and looking at her other videos I saw that she did an entire Spanish fireside!! Sharon, really?! Is there anything you can't do?! :) Love ya! You are beautiful!

Sharon and Trevor had some fun at the recital.
This video is for my mom and brother who are already HUGE fans!

First Day of School!!

K aylee Elaine--3rd grade
A . L. L. program (I think we'll LOVE this program we've heard so much about)
Y awns getting up and leaving an hour and a half earlier than her sisters
L oves her new school and her new carpool (I need a picture of her with the boys) :)
E xcited about her new teacher and TONS of new friends
E xtra loved and missed at home!

T aylor Marie--2nd grade
A sks, what is a 2nd/3rd grade split anyway?
Y ields to ALL cars as she rides her bike to and from school!
L OVES her new teacher that wears high heels every day! (Taylor's exact quote) :)
O bjects to home lunches and wishes she could always have pizza
R emembers her family loves her and misses her every day!

E mily Lynne--Kindergarten
M akes her mommy so proud as she aces the kindergarten assessment!
I s so excited to meet new friends and her teacher (but not until next week!)
L OVES being in school like her big sisters and with her neighborhood friends
Y et, she is VERY loved and missed at home!!

K ierra Ann
I s
E xtra
R eady for some
R eally good mom
A nd Thomas time!

T homas Jay
H as no idea what's going
O n! He just knows that
M om and Kierra are here
A nd his big and VERY helpful
S isters aren't!

M om cried a little bit
O n the first day. She
M isses her big girls all the time!

D ad is just
A wesome to go with the flow! We
D on't ever forget how much he does for us!!

G reat! That is done. Once I started this
A cronym thing I got kinda trapped into finishing it.
R eally I just wanted to say how much I love my girls!
D aily routine will be really nice but
N othing is better than having our family all together. We really
E njoyed a summer of fun!
R emember girls, we at home love you and miss you every day!!

BOOK CLUB!!

Today is the first day of school which means many many pictures are sure to come, but for now we are going to celebrate how excited I am for book club tonight!! We had a picnic 2 weeks ago for our dear college graduate Stephanie. Heather and Kelly (click on their names to see) did much better blogs of the night. Our family was a little late because of a soccer game, but we still had a blast with everyone!! 7 best friends, nearly 8 years, 76 books and 24 kids (ages 6 months to 21 years)! Pretty amazing! I LOVE these girls...and their beautiful families! See you all (well, not ALL--just the moms this time!!) tonight!! :)


Heather, I stole your color coded tag. I'll need it for my blog book! :)
Christine, Danielle, Miles, Joshua, Caleb, Ben, Cassidy, Garrett, Samuel, Libby, Abby, Kaylee, Taylor, Emily, Kierra, Thomas, Tait, Logan, Devin, Ellie H.
Not pictured are Everett, Reese, Camden, and Ellie S.

Summer is winding down

I'm trying to get all caught up on the last few summer blogs before school starts. I have them all scheduled out to post every day this week!

Taylor always seems to get a hold of the camera. I actually don't mind as much as I thought because she gets some pretty cute videos like the one above. Just a nice summer evening in the neighborhood. I LOVE it!

And here is another of my MANY shout outs to the literacy center! USE THEM!! They are awesome! I especially love them for my pre-kindergartners. I have never done preschool. I just do this program that is a free, 45 minutes, twice a week, and my kids know how to read before kindergarten, and I mean really read! It is awesome! Once they are in school we only do the summer program, but I have heard, and definitely assume that the reading and math tutoring during the school year is fantastic! So especially you moms of 4 year olds, you have to do it! These ladies are amazing!

K...that was a bigger shout out than I thought it was gonna be...I definitely need to call and write to the city about how wonderful it is! Anyway, here is their end of the year picnic. It was a blast!!







We LOVE ALL the tutors at the literacy center, but some of them have had all 3 of the girls and we really appreciate and love them! :)

Kierra missed out on the face painting at the picnic so Kaylee did her own creation on Kierra!
It was pretty cute!


The last few days we have had some pretty fun rain storms...and what is the best thing to do on a rainy day? Go out and get struck by lightening!! No...there was no lightening this day, but check out those rain clouds. The girls had a blast in the warm rain!




Homemade playdough on a rainy Sunday is always fun too!



And we had to do one last trip to the zoo before school starts. Which of course means we had to take all of the exact same pictures that we do every time. I should go back and link you through all of my zoo pictures. In fact all of us zoo goers should go through and link together ALL of these poses that I'm sure are exactly the same! :) Really I wasn't going to worry about pictures too much, but they just knew the routine this time. :)






And I guess that is the end of summer! My kids are very very excited for the new school year, so I do get excited for them, but I have to say this year I'm kinda sad to see them go! We have had a lot of fun together and although I'm excited for routine and to have my house back to myself a little bit, I am really really gonna miss my 3 girls! Kierra and Thomas are really gonna miss them. I'll miss the friends coming and going too! At least we'll have nice weather for a little while still so they can all play together a little bit more before the hibernating begins! :) Happy school year everyone! Work hard, read a lot, have fun!!