It's back to school time . . .

At least for the boys.  Emmy goes in for a few hours on Wednesday and then she'll start full-time next week.  So here are the pictures we got this morning:

 2nd grade!

 4th grade!

 Two brothers going back to school.  They are both excited and happy about it.  Though Miles was a little sad to not have his 3rd grade teacher any more.

 Jonas and Mrs. Cretti.  I think she'll be fantastic!  And Jonas' best school buddy is in his class, too.  Perfect.

Mrs. Friesmuth and Miles.  All the fourth grade teachers are brand new.  Not just new to Northside, but new to teaching - they just finished up their student-teaching last year.  She seems like she'll be good!

Here's to a great year!

Lucy's Fun 3rd Birthday

Well we all had a really fun day - especially Lucy!  It was super great, I think.

 She's finally THREE!

 Lucy got to open a few presents right away . . . this was her first one.

 Ooohhh, so exciting!  This was her lip-gloss (lip stick as she calls it) and she adores it!  It's definitely one of her favs!

 The kids put together a big box of "presents" for Lucy.  The items were stuff that already belonged to either one person or to everybody.  A sweet thought by them, at least!  Here Lucy is digging through the box - oh look, Emmy gave her her underwear.  Awesome.

 She loves it!  This is one of about a billion times of Lucy applying it to her lips.  :)

 I love this card from the kids.  Jonas wrote it out and had the kids sign their names.  I love it.

 Lucy at the table sitting in her birthday chair and with her birthday cereal.

 Lucy's flip-flop cake.

 So we went to the library in the morning to return our books.  While there we found out that Lucy had won the prize drawing for her age-group in the summer-reading program.  What a fun birthday surprise!  She got a puzzle, books, a stuffed animal, etc.  (Poor Miles, though, who read A TON and put all of his raffle tickets in for the magic-set drawing.  He didn't get it.  :(

 After the library we went to McDonalds and played for a bit and then got lunch.  Lucy was able to get a Happy Meal.  Yay!

After lunch we came home and watched some of the Angelina Ballerina movie that Lucy picked out at the library.  Ben was able to come home by 2:30 or something and so we got ready to go to the pool . . .

 It was a blast!  We had a really fun time.  At first Lucy just played in the water and didn't do the slide.  But for the second half of swimming, she went down the water-slide tons.  She loved it!  All the kids had a really great time - and the parents did, too.  Bonus.

 Our cute swimmies.

Since it was getting late Lucy agreed to not have her "rainbow noodles" that she had picked for her dinner but to instead pick up Little Caesar's pizza on the way home.  It worked out so much better since Lucy was getting soooooo tired by this time!  We ate dinner and then opened presents.

 All she wanted were "dollies" (but she did get a few more stuff anyways. . . ).  Here are her cute two dolls - and her super cute headband she got, too.

 "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you . . ."

 She tried to blow out the candles, but just couldn't or wouldn't!  Oh well.

Jonas ate so much of the cake that he wasn't feeling so good and couldn't even be in the room with it.  Miles teased him about having a strawberry cake for his birthday, to which Jonas replied, "No!  I just want a healthy cake!"  Awesome.

Good night big girl!  (Though it wasn't quite that easy, but not too bad either . . .)

We love you, you little 3-year old!  Mwah!

Dearest Lucy,

Oh Lucy, Happy 3rd Birthday!  You are something special, that's for sure.

You're cute.  Too cute, really.  Today (the day I started writing this, that is) a lady told us, "Lucy is so beautiful.  She's perfect.  She should be a Gerber baby."  See, it's not just your mom and dad that think you're ultra-adorable.  But another thing "cute" about ya is that you are totally in to telling people that they are "cute."  I am pretty sure it all started with Elder Koyle - your first crush.  You not only declared to him that he was "cute," but also that you love him.  You whisper to me at dinner time to tell the missionaries (new ones now) that you think they are cute.  You have told me that I am cute, that your dad is cute, and even that Miles is cute.  I think one of my favorites, however, was when you told Brother Randy Gerke that he is cute.  Randy is your dad's counselor in the bishopric and is in his upper 50s.  I think Randy thought it was pretty great, too!

You've got a lot of personality in that little body of yours.  You remind me very much of your big brother Miles.  The other day you did something that totally reminded me of something Miles had done years ago - probably right around your age.  I didn't even mention this to your dad but he quickly said about the incident, "That totally reminds me of Miles when he. . ."  The incident?  Well, it wasn't your cutest moment, that's for sure.  I had just gotten you out of your bath and since it was evening time I thought it would be fun to put curlers in your hair for the next day.  You reluctantly agreed to it, but you agreed and so I put them in.  When I was all finished you started crying, "No, I don't want curlers!  I don't want them!"  And so on and so forth.  I tried reminding you that you had agreed to them, but you didn't seem to care.  Ugh, fine, so I took them all out.  Once they were all out you started crying about how you wanted the curlers in your hair.  Yes, seriously, you totally did!  (As I am well aware, seeing as you are my fourth child, the "Terrible-2s" never really start until closer to 3 . . .)

You continue to amaze people with your language/vocabulary ability.  We had our great friends over a couple of weeks ago and Jana, the mom, said something like, "Lucy sounds like a teenager."  Probably because you were talking about being "embarrassed" by something - a word you learned from our 9-year-old-going-on-teenager neighbor.  :)  But you use these "big" words in the correct contexts.  Good - not only are you cute, but you are smart, too!

Speaking of smarts . . . the other night we were doing our family scripture reading.  You are always wild, here and there, and never really paying attention.  I didn't think you were paying much attention that night either . . . Your dad was reading Alma, chapter 14.  He read verse 3, "And they were also angry with Alma and Amulek; and because they had testified so plainly against their wickedness, they sought to put them away privily."  To which you said, "They put them in jail?"  What?!  How on earth did you get that?

You continue to sleep in the laundry room.  In your porta-crib.  But we fancied it up and made it in to a "super-bed."  We, your whole family, all call it that:  "super-bed."  So do you.  In your prayers you'll say something like, "Please bless me to not get out of my super-bed."  You love it.  But tonight, your birthday night, you'll start sleeping on a real bed (one made by your father - originally Emmy's) in Emmy's room.  Your new room.  I think we'll have a difficult month ahead of us, but I'm excited for you girls to share a room.  I love how the boys share a room and Emmy really wants it (although I think she'll be a little bummed b/c no longer can she tell you to get out of her room, which she occasionally does . . .).  Let the fun nights begin . . .

Flip-flops.  I can't forget about you and your flip-flops.  You love them.  Almost as much as your mother, I would say!  But guess what!?  You actually wear them more than I do.  How is that possible?  Well. . . I don't sleep in my flip-flops.  And you do.  You totally do.  In fact, if you forget to get them on you when we put you to bed, you will wake up in the middle of the night and cry for your flip-flops to be on.  Your first pair (from Sea World), well the first pair you were attached to, broke and so Grandpa Max bought you a new pair when he was here watching you.  You transitioned with no problems and continue to sleep in your new ones every night.  It kind of makes your flip-flop-wearing-mama proud.  :)

You can be so stubborn!  You make up your mind and it's hard - nearly impossible - to make you change it.  Like wearing pants.  For some reason, you hate wearing pants.  No problem now, in the summer time.  But it made it rough for those winter mornings when I was trying to get four kids up and ready to head out the door by 7:45 - fed, lunches made, and dressed in coats, hats, and gloves.  You always wanted to wear a skirt or a dress - even when it was single-digits or even in the negatives.  I just couldn't let you do it.  You would scream and yell and cry when I made you wear pants.  There were times that I would let you have your way, but that's probably when it was at least in the teens or something.  Oh, and you also hated tights.  I wanted you to at least wear tights if you weren't wearing pants, but that was a struggle, too.  Oh Lucy!  Of course those times that you got to wear just a dress or a skirt, you got really cold.  Sometimes I held you and cuddled you up in my warm coat.  Other times, I didn't.  So you would "learn your lesson."  But you were just two and so you didn't learn your lesson.

I could go on and on about all that you've done and learned (and not learned) in this past year.  But this is probably enough - it should give you a little glimpse of your life as a two-year old.

I'm so glad that I got to be part of it and am excited for you being a 3-year old (and a little nervous. . . )!

I love you so much, Lucy.

Love,
mom

Emmy's best-friend

Three houses over from us we have a lovely neighbor, Lily.  She is Emmy's best friend.  The past few weeks we have had her over for hours and hours many of the days.  It's great because Emmy loves it.  Lily loves it, too.  She's a great girl and hopefully will teach Emmy a thing or two about being a good sport and a good friend.  I finally got around to getting a picture of the two:

Lucy on 2 wheels

No, Lucy's not quite riding a 2-wheeled bike, yet she is:

We got this dandy of a hand-me-down - think a Strider bike (the pedal-less bikes), but wooden and homemade.  It's pretty well used and I am not sure it will last past Lucy, but it's pretty much awesome.  Lucy's been riding it for almost 2 weeks now and she just loves it.  It's so much fun.

Here's a little video as well:

More Pioneer Pictures . . . in random order (sorry Ben)

We had a Pioneer Trek fireside on Sunday night.  There were some good talks by a few adults and half a dozen or so kids (3 came from our family.  so proud . . . :)  It was a fun evening - although a little long for our kids (real kids) perhaps. . . But we got to watch a slideshow of pictures (plus a few videos) and we each got a copy.  I went through the pictures and picked out a few of our family:

 Josie, Quinn, Brian, and Katie -trekkin' it.

 Remember the dancing and how I mentioned dancing with the tallest boy there?  Awesome.

 Our "look like pioneers" picture.  I think we (well at least myself) just look angry!  (Kyle couldn't make a serious face  :)

 

 A little happier . . . Jacob, Ben, Hayden, me, Brian, Kenny, Katie, Josie, Alyssa, Kellie, Quinn, Sarah, and Kyle.

 Kellie, Kyle, and Jacob crossing the Sweet-water river.

 All (at least most) of our stake group.  An impressive group - and not because of how many, but just because they are impressive people.

 Our family - always ready and willing to help Kyle.  Alyssa, Quinn, Kyle, Katie, and Kellie.

 The buses driving by Devil's Gate.

 Ma and Pa Maxwell.  This was our first stop on the way out - see how clean we are?

Ben, Josie, Katie, and me pushing our handcart in the Martin's Cove area.

Here I am with Brother Harris, another "Pa."  We were asked to come up to give the kids a visual of what Jens and Elsie Nielson would have been like.  Jens (a big, strapping man) and Elsie (a petite lady) were a couple that crossed with the Willie Handcart company.  Jens' feet were frozen and he could not go any further.  He told his wife Elsie to go on without him.  She told him no and made him get in their handcart.  She pulled him for I-don't-know-how-long, but they both made it to the Salt Lake Valley (though they lost their son and another girl in their care along the way).

Blue Lake Hike

I had really wanted to go hiking a couple of weeks ago, and so it was perfect when Jonas suggested we hike to Blue Lake.  Okay!  We did it last year and it was pretty awesome.  But my kids haven't been the best of hikers this summer so I was a little worried.  But they kept talking about it and so at least it wasn't something I was forcing them to do.  It turned out to be a great hike and the kids did awesome:

 I had decided on a "break-plan."  We'd break every 20-minutes - that way we just knew when we'd stop.  It worked out pretty good, I think.  We even got fancier and one break was just a water stop and the next was a snack.  We'd alternate between the two.  The above picture is our first snack break - wahoo.

 Fording a stream.  Which you can hardly even see!  This was the only time Emmy was carried.  She hiked the entire 6.6 miles on her own.  She was awesome!  The boys were great, too!

 Two cute hikers.

 Thank goodness for snack breaks and eating trail mix on the trail!

 We are almost there. . . here is the waterfall that is pretty close to the end.

 Since Lucy wasn't in the other picture, she wanted a picture of just her.  Okeedokee.

 This is the last 100 or so yards until the lake - yippeee.  It's so nice and flat - so Lucy was able to hike it.  :)

 But . . . before we even went to the lake (we were right there and could see it), the kids just wanted to play in the water.  So fun!  But so cold, too!

 Big Brother Jonas.  He was awesome.  He carried Lucy all over since it was so cold.  At one point, he even carried Emmy.  What a guy!

 My batteries had died, but then I did a little rearranging and got them to work for a few more shots.  At least I managed to get this one of our cool kids in the beautiful Blue Lake!  I just love the lake and am amazed at its color.  So neat.

 We found a great spot for lunch under some pine trees - to help protect us from the slight drizzle of rain.

Ants on a log.

We headed back down the trail - in our rain ponchos, though it never poured on us, just some slight drizzling.  The weather was pretty much perfect - overcast and cool.  The camera had taken one more picture of our "trash monster" kids (them wearing their trash-bag ponchos), but I guess it didn't have enough batteries to save/record it, because it's not here.  Total bummer.  But here was the song the trash-monsters sang:  "We are trash monsters and we don't care.  We make messes everywhere."  They chanted it quite frequently on our way down.

The kids played the game where they go ahead of us parents and then hide - putting their hats on the trail so we know where they are hiding.  It keeps them motivated in hiking down the mountain.  We cruised down (well, it still took us about 2 hours), without any breaks.

Oh, we did get to eat a few wild raspberries on the trail.  They weren't quite ripe, but were still a tasty, tangy treat.  So fun.

Yay for hiking with the family!

Talent Show

The boys had their last day of their Summer Adventure Camp yesterday.  They had a talent show.  At first we were going to have the boys do a magic show - but they kept putting off practices and then when they finally did start practicing, it just wasn't good.  There was no way they were going to be able to pull it off in time.  So then we had to figure something else out - which was kind of hard.  I mean, our kids have talents (right!?), but not so much "performance" talent.  They can't sing nor dance and the such.  So I came up with the idea of showing their stop-action movies and the boys were really excited about that.  It turned out great - I was able to get a projector and so that was fun to see it nice and big.  The kids got positive feedback and so it turned out to be a success.  I know I've shown probably most of these movies, but here are some again anyways:

The Pioneer Trek

We survived!  And we loved it.  It was a great experience - and, as one of our "children," Kyle, said today, we're homesick for it.  :)

Now not all of it was fun of course - I mean, pushing a handcart on a sandy trail in the hot, hot sun is not fun exactly.  But worth it.  And overall the trek was definitely fun.  Just being around those kids was fun.  Just listening to them talk, tease each other, etc.  It was great.  Seeing their friendships develop was awesome.  Hearing their testimonies of the trek was neat.  Being with Ben was fantastic.  Trekking the same ground where the pioneers had been was special.  And so forth.

I'm going to write about each day for my "journal" and memory.

Monday:
We met at the church at 5am.  Which didn't seem so bad since it was originally to be 4am.  I felt lucky!  We left by 5:30 and then picked up more kids in Delta.  From there we began the long journey to Wyoming.  On a school bus.  No, I'm not kidding.  It was . . . miserable.  I got pretty sick and about twice thought I was going to throw up.  But I didn't.  At our lunch break the "families" were announced.  We found out who our children were - one came from our ward, the rest from the stake.  We knew a good handful of them.  We finally got to our destination by around 3:30 or so.  We had some orientation, gathered our supplies, got a handcart, and began our trekking.  It was about 3 miles to our camp - on a sandy, windy trail.  We got to camp, set up our tents (go girls in always being the first to set up their tent - yeah, it was totally easier than the boys'!), and had dinner.  We then had a contra-dancing activity and that ended up being totally fun.  I could have done it all night.  :)  It was especially cool when I was paired up with the tallest boy (and probably male) there - maybe 6'6 or more?  He was practically on his knees.  Awesome.  We then had a fireside by one of the senior missionaries serving there.  Then we went back to our campsite and had a little fireside for our own family.  Then bed.  Ben and I slept great that night!

Tuesday:
We got up and took down our camp and ate breakfast (our meals were all provided and made for us - we were totally spoiled, I know).  We trekked over to Martin's Cove and had to listen to another missionary share a pioneer story.  I was miserably bored.  But that's how I get when I'm bored:  miserable.  :)  But, seriously, it was just sooooooo long.  And most of us had done some research of the pioneers and had known most of these stories anyways.  And it was hot just sitting there (walking created a breeze).  As you might can tell, Tuesday was rough for me.  We'd trek, then have to listen to a story, trek, sit and story, trek, sit and story.  I think we all just wanted to go and DO.  Not sit.  We did the sweetwater river crossing - but had quite the opposite emotions of the Willie and Martin Pioneer company.  We were looking forward to getting wet and cooled off!  I joked that I might just "accidentally" trip and fall in to the water.  The water was also only inches deep.  We finally trekked back to our starting point on Monday, cleaned up the carts, loaded the buses, and were off to another part of the trail.  Again, I felt sick on the bus and when getting out in the hot, hot sun.  I got no relief from the heat.  We had an orientation to the "Rocky Ridge Trail" and then rode the bus to our campsite for the night.  We set up camp, had dinner, the kids hung out for a bit, then we went to bed.  Ben and I slept so-so that night.

Wednesday:
This was our big trek day along the Rocky Ridge Trail.  It was about 15 miles or so.  Prayers were answered as we had a cloudy day - we even got a big rainstorm on the trail!  It was a fantastic day.  I loved it and I think the kids did, too.  Our family just stuck together and had some really great times.  We did the women's pull - where the men all leave and go up the trail and thus leave the women to pull/push the handcarts on our own.  It was a neat experience, yet, for me, I couldn't get over the fact that we had 6 women pulling/pushing and we only did it for like 1/4 of a mile.  Next time I would suggest doing it for longer to make us suffer.  :)  But it was pretty sweet to see all the men as we got to the top of the hill.  It was a really special experience for the kids, as most of them mentioned it in their thoughts and testimonies that night.  The rain storm was pretty big - the rain pelted us.  We got a better glimpse of how cold it could be up there.  A glimpse, a very small glimpse.  After 10 hours on the trail, we made it to camp.  It was a beautiful spot and we had a beautiful sunset there.

We were so impressed with our "kids."  They were just great.  We didn't need to direct them or anything - they took care of it themselves.  They really banded together and usually they were all either pushing or pulling.  We had Kyle, a young man with cerebral palsy, in our group and so we had one handcart and one rickshaw where Kyle sat.  So all of our family was needed pretty much at all times.  These kids, and not only just ours, are just neat.  I am impressed with their goodness - they had good, clean fun.  They were goofy, made up the silliest nicknames for each other, teased each other - but it was all good, clean fun.  I loved it and they seemed to, too.  Most of them didn't really know each other - but they became really good friends.  They were super helpful with Kyle, too.  Two girls in particular, Kellie and Alyssa, really befriended him and took him everywhere in his rickshaw.  They were awesome like that.

Anyways, after our trek we went to camp and set up our tents.  We had dinner, another fireside by some missionary couples, then we went back to camp and the kids got letters from home delivered to them.  After they read them we went with another family and had a testimony meeting with them.  It was great hearing the kids share their thoughts.  They all really spoke about the many "spiritual" experiences they had had and how they loved it and all that good stuff.  Quite a few of the kids mentioned Kyle and the impact he had on them.  It was great.  Then we had s'mores and the kids just hung around and chatted.  By 11 we rounded up our kids and had them get to bed.  The girls' and boys' tents were pretty close to each other and it caused for some funny stuff.  Alyssa started saying, "Brian,"  wait maybe 10 seconds, "Brian,"  wait 10 seconds, . . . until Brian finally replied, "What?!"  "Tickle Quinn."  "No, he's asleep!"  "Brian,"  wait 10 seconds, "Brian," wait 10 seconds, . . . "What?!"  "Have Hayden tickle Quinn."  "No, he's asleep!"  This went on for a bit.  It's probably one of those "you had to be there" things, but it was so funny.  Ben and I were just laughing in our tent.  But finally I had to say, "Alyssa, keep your talking inside your tent, please."  To which the boys yelled, "Thank you!"  Fun stuff.  But Alyssa is super cool and mature and so when I told her sorry in the morning, she was cool with it.  :)  Ben slept really great that night; I slept pretty good.

Thursday:
We got up early.  Starting packing up, eating breakfast, etc.  We then had another missionary thing (I'll try and hold my comments) and then another stake testimony meeting.  Truthfully, I didn't think we needed another testimony less than 12 hours after the one from the night before. . . but kids got up and so, of course, it was a good thing.  But I must be a little anal and take after my dad somewhat because I was all anxious that we were late.  And we did end up leaving over an hour late.  Which was fine, but I had also had hopes of getting home a little early and maybe seeing some of our kids.  But the trip home was a long 11-hours.  Though I had fun, played some games with the kids, and didn't get sick.  Wahoo.  We got back to the church around 10:30 or so.

Then we came home and visited with Jim for a bit.  Then showered.  Then bed.  Luckily Ben didn't have to leave for work until 9:30 so he got to see the kids - which was good because he had a late day at work and didn't come home until close to 7pm.

As for things here at home, all was well.  Or at least that is what Jim and Diana said.  :)

I definitely missed my kids and being around them and just talking to them.  But it was also definitely okay and was even nice to get away.  I think it was a nice break for Ben and me, as well as for our kids.  I'm not so sure it was a nice break for Jim and Diana - but we sure appreciated it!

Here are a few pictures I took of the trek:

 Our family from left to right:  Hayden, Katie, Jacob, Ben, Brian, Alyssa, Kellie, Quinn, Kyle, Josie, and Sara.  A pretty fantastic bunch.

 A cool full or almost-full? moon.

 On Tuesday we took turns riding with Kyle.  My turn.  It was nice, but I also felt bad having them pull me. But Kyle enjoyed having buddies, I think.

Some of our might trekkers.

Yes, I think it's something I would do again in 4 years.  We'll see!