Fun Friday.

I really like that our school district uses the four day school week, because Friday is the day the kids have to unwind and relax after four, very full days. Today all the kids either had a friend over or went to a friend's house. Here's Sophie and her little friend playing princess, or something, after giving each other a "makeover".This is how I found Sam at around 4:30 this afternoon, after coming home from his friend's house. He never falls asleep in the middle of the day like that, he must have been wiped out!And, of course, Nicolas had to get in on the picture-taking action, cute little guy.Now, dinner is done, the kids are all watching a movie, Chris is at work for the night and I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) quiet evening.

A sunny day.

Today is Chris' day off from work, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a hike in the hills near our house. The ground is awash right now with wild sunflowers, making waves of yellow all around, it's so pretty!

Nick did a great job, but he got a little tired at the end! Good thing he has a nice, big daddy to carry him the rest of the way.

Little successes.

I was greeted at the school yesterday afternoon by three little faces with wide smiles and hugs ~ hooray! They all claimed it was "the best day of school ever!" Today I dropped them off, with no crying, clinging or whining from any of them. Thank goodness for small blessings. Now we'll see how they do the rest of the year...

Yesterday, as we were discussing all the great things they did on their first day, Sophie told me about an exercise her teachers did with them to explain why it's important to always speak kind words to others, and not be hurtful. The teachers each had a heart-shaped piece of paper, and they told the kids to say mean things to them, then for each thing they said, the teachers crumpled their "heart". Then, they told the kids to say nice things to them, and they tried to flatten and straighten the crumpled paper to make it pretty again, but no matter how many nice things the kids said, the damage was done. Very clever. Anyway, this morning I heard Sophie and Noah squabbling, with little shrieks coming from Sophie. When I got after them about fighting, Sophie said: "But Noah crumpled my heart, mom!!" She misses nothing.

First morning.

Here are my four beautiful children ready to leave for their first day of school! (I am mainly doing this post for the benefit of their father, who is still out of town and was sad about not being here to see them off on their first day.)
You may not be able to tell from this photo (then again, maybe you can) that Sam was crying right before I took it. He woke up crying and was, again, like last year, SUPER clingy as we went to the school. He was literally forcing his little body up against me as he held tightly to my hand. I'm not sure why he has such insecurity about going to school. We live in a small town, and he knows all the kids and teachers well, and they're all wonderful, I don't get why he gets so scared. I don't know which way I prefer, like Sam who needs me and depends on me, almost to a fault, or like Noah, who is much more independent and who always wants to fly solo. As you can see from this photo, he just wanted to get to school and get the photo-op over with! As for Sophie, she complained of feeling "a funny lump in her throat" all morning, but once I got her into her classroom where Mr. Lish greeted her with a big hug, she was fine. Just over 2 hours of school left for today, and still no phone calls home from anyone...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Last day of freedom.

Tomorrow the three older kids start back to school. I can't believe how fast the summer flew by, but here we are beginning another school year already. Today they've spent enjoying their last day of freedom. Noah will be in 4th grade this year, followed by Sam in 2nd grade, Sophie in 1st grade, and Nicolas will also be in pre-school twice a week. What a change for me; gosh, I sure hope I can find things to do to fill my time while the kids are gone everyday! ;)

Grandpa's Visit

We had a great time enjoying a visit over the weekend from my dad, "Grandpa Doug"! Thanks for making the trip from Michigan to spend some time with us. We kept very busy, and the kids were giddy the whole time. The weather was perfect and we also had Chris home for the weekend from his advanced training ~ it was really a good time.Time at the Zoo......followed by lunch at Space Burger.Flying kites at the park.Good times at Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, ID.
Feeding the bears.By the Duck Pond.

10 years of wedded bliss (or something like that)! ;)

I wanted to make this post yesterday, but last week our broadband modem broke and we've been without Internet access since then. The new modem came today and I am back online, hooray!
Anyway,...Happy anniversary, Chris! In some ways the time has flown by, yet sometimes I feel like we've been together forever (in a good way)!

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