I spy...

I have a precious hour each day that I get to spend  alone with this little cupcake. Today we climbed under my warm covers and looked at the "I spy" book until I about fell asleep...so grateful for time well spent.

Sunday's...

Sunday's are my favorite day of the whole week. Especially Sunday's in September, when the air is warm but not hot and the leaves are starting to turn. We made a batch of lemon and peanut bars, the boys are playing soccer in the yard and the girls are collecting leaves. Doesn't get much better than this. Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he made a day of rest.

Sombreros...

We got some sombreros today at a yard sale. My dad owned a couple of these when we were kids. We played with them often. It brought back good memories of seeing these laying around my house as a child. I don't remember everything we owned but for some funny reason, the sombreros will always stand out...

Zoo...

Scarlett has the best teacher ever. All of our children have been blessed to have her as a kindergarten teacher. The class visits the zoo twice a year...and takes other field trips every Wednesday through sept. and part of oct. Chris took the day off from work last week and we both accompanied our sweet girl to the zoo. I can't believe my sweet girl is growing up so fast.

Cubscouts...

Cubscouts has begun once again. My best friend Tammy got called to lead these four little guys with me....and I am super excited. I could tell at our first mtg that the boys would love Tammy. (Everyone loves Tammy, so I wasn't surprised) and I'm most of all so happy to be in with Christian his last year of cubscouts. Gosh, I love that sweet smile of his.

Scarlett and dad...

Scarlett drew this picture tonight of herself and her dad. It truly touched my heart. It made me grateful that she is still young. Still so honest with her affections. 

Chris said "It's kinda disturbing to me that my kids draw me looking like Noah." But deep down I could see how much it touched his heart too...

Letters and the chickens...

Sometimes our little letty goes missing. I search everywhere yelling "letters...where are you???" (Letters is our favorite nickname for Scarlett.) almost always I find her out by the chicken coop feeding the chickens and having her own little discussion with them. It's positively adorable on every level.

Cross country...

So proud of our sweet halee. She's been doing cross country the last month. She has worked her little tail off to be prepared to run. Just yesterday I ran with her for the first time in several weeks, and it was like running with a different girl. No complaining, hardly any resting, and she ran strong. We love you halee. You're doing fantastic.

Refuge...

Headed to our beautiful temple with these three wonderful kids. I love going to the temple. It's a refuge from the world. Truly.

Lunch date...

Guess what I'm doing at 12:23 in the afternoon? Headed to pick my husband up for lunch. With no kids. With no noise.  With all my food to myself. Miracles do happen.

P.S I really DO love my kids but it just so happens that I love my husband too.

You can do hard things...

I threw my daughter to the wolves today. Or at least it felt that way when I dropped her off at highschool with 1500 other kids.

This is her first year at a big highschool. Her tiny private school only goes through 10th grade and halee is a junior this year. She came from a school of 50 kids total. FIFTY. Needles to say she was a bit of a nervous wreck this morning. But I'm so proud of her courage and tenacity. This has been her decision...and she is a girl that will persevere even if it's difficult. And seeing that in your own child is comforting in a way that's really hard to verbalize. It's a reassurance that she'll be okay no matter what she does. Love you halee bug.

P.S it was just yesterday that I dropped you off at kindergarten.

Forward March...

The first day of school. My house became silent at 8:30am. I could hear crickets chirping. Ok, not quite...but close. As usual, today was a little hard for me. I miss my babies, I won't lie. But the best part of the day was them all coming home happy. Happy with their classmates. Happy with their teachers. That's all we as moms really want, right? I just want to see them happy and I'm good to go.

A tradition we have on the first day of school is that I make several dozen chocolate chip cookies for them to come home to. 

Boy, do I love these kids. I would do anything for any one of them.

Candid camera...

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that there are very little pros to having your children sneak into your phone...but once in a while I have to make an exception. I found around 150 photos of randomness that Scarlett captured while at my parents this weekend. All of the victims (myself included) were completely unsuspecting. But due to the fact that I took zero pictures while I was there...I owe her. Big time.