Our Family

Our Family

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Evolution of Pregnancy

Proof that you really do get bigger with each pregnancy...

Right before Avrianna was born...(I was so proud of my HUGE tummy. haha!)

Right before Talmage was born...
Right before Mercedes was born...
Before Rigdon is born...That is a belly measuring at 44 cm!! Lots of fluid and a big boy = very uncomfortable and large mommy. Good thing I already love this little guy!!

First Day of Kindergarten

Tuesday was Avri's first day of kindergarten!! I can't believe she is getting so big.

All ready to head to the bus stop.
Waiting for the bus. You can kind of see her nice black eye that she got almost a week ago! Of course our little "Bonky" would have a black eye for the first day of school. She and Talmage collided heads and Avri was the only one to show any signs of the collision.
She was SOOO excited to go to school. Not a bit nervous. I spent half the morning crying.
And there's the bus.
Yes, I followed the bus to school and we got some pictures at the school as well. I think I was in the majority of parents though. There were as many parents at the kindergarten line-up as there were kindergartners!

Getting off the bus at school for the first time.
And she knew right where to go, too. Didn't even notice my mom standing there taking pictures of her!
She is so grown up. *sniff, sniff*
She went and got in the front of the line. Nobody minded, but we'll have to work on that.

She has been doing great! She brings home and "conduct report" every day and the teacher has only had shining things to say about her. She already has a new best friend that she eats lunch with and plays with on the playground and she is absolutely loving everything about kindergarten. And I'm not crying anymore when she leaves. :)

Friday, August 20, 2010

Bedroom Redecorating

We have been working (somewhat slowly) on redecorating the kids' bedrooms. Here is the before picture of the blah tan walls. The ceiling fan is new though. Avri was SOOO excited about the addition. We actually painted it Mother's Day weekend while Avri was in Michigan with my parents. She was so excited to come home to the new room!
Ready to see Pepto Bismol pink? As we started painting, Kendall called it the Death By Pink room. It left a pink glow down the hall. But as we've added a few things to the walls and put the furniture in, I actually really like it now.

I bought matching bedspreads for the girls and they just love them! They love the butterflies that they have on their decorative pillows.
Then we got a few flowers to dress up the dresser. Now, I just need to make the curtains. I've had the material for a couple of months now and I'm just waiting for either time or a burst of energy.
The boys' room is a bit further from being done. But Talmage is in a destructive mode, so we won't be painting until he stops ruining things. This is the general color scheme that we will be using.
We bought a loft bunk bed for them, and we are just leaving the bottom bunk out until the Big Rig is ready for it. Until then he has a little place to play. :) So with the bunk bed and the crib it's a bit of a tight fit, so we had to put the dresser in the closet. However, the one that we had was too tall. But on my way home one night I saw a dresser on the side of the road with all of the garbage. It was painted all off-white and looked like it had been sitting in a garage for quite a while. So we cleaned her up, and painted her. I went bold...
I'm really happy with the results. It's bright, but matches great and I'm proud of myself for not being boring. :)
There is still a lot to come, but it's coming along.

Enjoying summer

We've been enjoying summer, and trying to stay cool. We've spent many days outside playing in the water. This is a good place to eat messy foods like Popsicles and cupcakes.
We continue to play with yogurt cups when it is too hot or too rainy outside.
We also take a lot of baths since we seem to be constantly sweaty. But bath time is never so fun as when Daddy is in charge.
Nap time is hard. We just look out the window and wish we were playing. (One day during nap time I heard some little feet getting their shoes on and getting ready to go outside. I asked Sadie what she was doing and she informed me that she was going outside to catch birds. I guess she wasn't closing her eyes like she had been told.)
As I get bigger and less comfortable I've been letting the kids do a lot of things on their own. One of those things is getting dressed in whatever they choose. Avri was particularly proud of this concoction. We called it her "Fancy Nancy" outfit. Luckily we weren't going anywhere that day.
We have been trying to eat the food from our garden, but it puts out way more food than we can keep up with. Here is Kendall grilling up some delicious zuccini from the garden.
While we were in Utah we got the kids each their own Book of Mormon. They were more than thrilled!!
We seem to stay way too busy and the kids just keep getting so big! But we're having lots of fun being so busy. And now we are really looking forward to the cooler fall weather!

Trip to Utah (Part 2)

One of the other reasons that we went to Utah was for a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. We stayed up in Heber in some cabins and had a lot of fun. I need to gather pictures from my parents...they have some great ones of Kendall and the kids doing a big swing. (I wasn't allowed to swing since Rigdon didn't fit into the harness.)

At night it cooled way down (which I totally enjoyed!) and we had a nice fire and made s'mores. We had bought these marshmallows that were the size of my fist! One marshmallow filled the entire large graham cracker. They were crazy! But made for delicious gooey-ness.
Grandpa decided to read the kids a story before we tucked them into their bunk beds.
The highlight for Kendall was the new skill that he picked up. My Uncle Bill is about as scout master as they come. He brought some materials and taught those who wanted to learn, how to carve spoons. Kendall was very determined and picked it up rather quickly! This was his first finished spoon! I think he did awesome!!
It was so fun to see all of the family again and see everyone's kids getting so grown up! Avri just loved having so many girls that were close to her age. And they even started a "girl's club" which Kendall was informed that he couldn't join. We left from camping to come straight home. It was a long and tiring trip and definitely not any of our favorite car ride, but for a fifth of the cost of flying we will endure. ;)