K holding her flowers for the teacher. The older kids take them to school the first day, so she wanted to also.
K with her new teacher "Miss Wendy" and her best friend Ali. We are so happy to have such a great teacher this year!!
K with her name tag, already to play.
K & A, sweet friends!
K waving goodbye, she is so excited!! I'm glad she loves it!
K playing in the sand. She loves it!!
B has sand on her hands and totally wet!
R running from the waves. He had a blast!
R & B were running from the waves all afternoon. Their clothes were so wet and sandy.
Todd paragliding over the sand. He had a good time. The winds weren't the best.
The kids in the seashell. "Little Mermaid"
Cute Otter
Beautiful Jelly Fish
The kids with the penguins.
"Dori" from Nemo
Sting Ray
The kids under the water gush. They loved it!
We went to Monterey this weekend and it was so nice. The weather was perfect. We went to the Aquarium on Saturday after we arrived. The kids really enjoyed it. The sea creatures were amazing. We got some great pictures! Todd meet up with some flying friends and they paraglided off the beach. The kids picked souvenirs at the gift shops. We had sand everywhere.
We have had a very busy week. School is in full swing and soccer has started. Most days we are busy with something after school(gymnastics, scouts, Brownies, piano). The kids love their classes and teachers. K can't wait for Monday, when preschool starts. The weather has been warm, but not like last week. I had Back to School night and am very happy with the teachers this year. B's teacher is expecting triplets, so we got to meet the long time sub. She seems very nice. She's starting Monday, doing half days, so the teacher can rest and hopefully teach longer. She's due in November. We are going to the beach this weekend, so I'll post pictures later. Have a great week!!
Ryan looked so handsome today at church, that I had to take his picture when we got home. Blue looks so good on him. He is growing up so fast and getting tall. I can't believe it. He'll be 10 before we know it. My big 4th grader.
My cute Cricut rolling tote
Cricut tools
Cricut Indie Art cartridge
Cricut Celebrations cartridge
Disney's Happily Ever After Cricut cartridge
Disney's Dreams Come True Cricut cartridge
My birthday gifts arrived! I'm so excited to start using them. Todd wanted to get me something for my birthday, so I said some tools for my Cricut machine. I went online just to see what they had and I stumbled upon EBay sales. This one online store had tons of stuff. Todd said I could get a few things. I got the tools and a couple cartridges and then I saw the cute green tote. I was excited when I won that. Thanks honey for my wonderful gifts!! Anyone want to come scrapbook?
I never thought I'd be so excited to see this truck. Our A/C has been out all week and it's been a very HOT week. The worst day was 108 degrees! Todd was out of town and I called Beutler to have them come out. They finally came on Friday morning. The capacitor went out and he replaced it. I'm so glad he had the part and that it wasn't that much. Hearing the fan come on was music to my ears. He was a very nice guy and knew his stuff. Thanks Joe!!!
B made an "All About Me" poster for school. She had a lot of fun making it. She put pictures of our family, playing soccer, Rusty our dog, her with her teacher, her skiing, doing gymnastics, us on our Alaskan cruise and she drew some pictures. Some time during the year, she will be VIP for the week and she'll share it. She didn't want me to help at all. So independent and very creative!
An elderly woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole that she carried across her neck.
One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.'
The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? '
'That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.'
'For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.
Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.'
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.
You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
R on the first day of school with his flower for his teacher. (sorry it's blurry)
R with his new clothes, shoes and backpack. (notice all the camouflage, even on his shoes)
B with her flower for her teacher. She wanted to get a white one, but that's the best we could find.
B with her new dress(blue-favorite color), backpack(camp rock) and shoes. Such a pose.
K wanted a picture too with her Dora lunch pail. She can't wait for preschool to start in 2 weeks. By 1pm she wanted the kids to be home to play.
B in front of her classroom. The sun was very bright!
B with her 2nd grade teacher. She is very nice and pregnant with triplets!
B coloring at her desk.
R wanted to walk to his classroom by himself, while we took B to hers. So, I didn't get a picture with his teacher. He got to pick his own desk, next to one of his friends. He is excited for 4th grade! He's in the GATE class, so hopefully not too much homework.
WHITE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY TRUFFLE
BROWNIE SUNDAE CHEESECAKE
Todd took me out for my birthday to The Cheesecake Factory. I've never been and it was really nice. We had a little wait, so we walked the mail for a while. I even tried out a sleep number bed. We were too full from dinner, so we took the dessert home. So the pictures aren't as yummy as they could be. I really liked the raspberry truffle, it was soo good. Todd's parents watched the kids for us. It was nice to get out(just us), we haven't done that in a long while. It was a great ending to wonderful day. Thanks for a nice evening, honey!
My VT came over to bring some beautiful flowers and a balloon. It was so nice, I have them on my front porch.
I had this cute gift waiting for me when I got home tonight.
A beautiful card and gift card.
Also, some scrapbooking kits. A beach layout and a dog layout. Can't wait to make them. Thanks Raimi!!
This has been such a great birthday! I'm still in shock, it's been a long time since I felt remembered. I have great friends!!
I had a wonderful friend drop by today with an early birthday surprise! She brought some yummy Peach crisp. It was so thoughtful. Thank you so much Lisa.
This is the last book, #6
R started reading this series at the end of last school year. It's called "On the Run". There are 6 books in the series. He really liked the book and wanted to read the rest of them during the summer. I looked at our library and they didn't have it. So I went online and found them at The Scholastic store.com. I wanted to read a little to make sure it was ok, well I got hooked. These 2 young kids were trying to find evidence to prove their parents innocent and free them from prison. I even cried at the end. It was fun to read a book with Ryan and talk about it. We finished book #6 today, just in time for school. Now, I need to borrow Twilight and read before the movie comes out.
B has wanted to learn to ride a bike for a long time. She just never got it. She would look all around her, but not were she was riding. I decide to buy her a new "BIG girls bike", hoping the bigger size would help. She loves the color of her bike, her favorite color"Blue". The best part, it was on clearance at ToysRUs, for $20.
As you can see she's doing it! She didn't want us to take our hand off of her, she was still afraid. It probably took about 20 minutes of crying and getting frustrated and then she did it. So I don't know if it's the new bike or her getting older. Todd was riding my bike around with her.
She fell a couple times, so we put knee pads on her. She is so happy and excited she can ride now. I'm so proud of her. 
Rusty was watching her and barking because he wanted to run after her. He had a great time out front with us.
R was even watching and cheering her on. He was riding for a little bit, but she kept crashing into him. It was like a magnet.
Our Primary did a Talent Show today. We were not going to make it because we were camping this week, but we came back early. Here is K drawing for display.
K received a certificate because we was going to do some gymnastics, but got too scared when we arrived.
Here's B drawing of a princess on display.
B with her balloon.
R's Lego's on display. He went rafting with some friends, so I brought it for him.
