Back to School Dinner. . . 2012

Back to School Dinner 2012 version...

Theme Book:  The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes

 

Here's to a great school year for my 4 favorite little mini's!

These Boys. . .

These cute boys headed back to school yesterday. 

I blinked and suddenly here they were, in 4th and 2nd grade.  

It feels like they are growing up faster than ever lately. 

They were excited for school to start.
It's always so bittersweet for me.
The end of summer is such a sad thing. . . no more lazy mornings, the end of no schedule, no more popsicles consumed under our cherry tree, no more unending afternoons full of friends, and no more relaxing afternoons at the pool.

But then again, it's nice to get back to a routine.
And I'm not going to argue about how quiet the last 2 days have been with just Stella at home!

Luckily I get to hang on to my little kindergarten buddy for another week.
Makes my transition a little less traumatic.  

 Here's to the start of another great school year!

Bear Lake Reunion

 

This weekend we all headed up to Bear Lake for a few days of fun with Nate's family.  It was such a great time being all together!

Some of our favorite things. . .

 -Going to the "Bandito" at Pickleville Playouse.  Eating yummy dutch oven food before and donning mustaches for the play.

-Sleepovers for the kids in the backyard tents.  

-grandpa and gram's famous pancake breakfasts 

-cruising around in the boat...the kids were all sleep deprived from afore-mentioned tent sleepover. . . there were many naps taken while on the boat!

-tubing all over the lake.  Even Stella loved the tube!  Jackson was a super tuber and couldn't be dumped.  Lola got dumped once and was traumatized. 

-having so much fun with cousins

  

-Golf for all the boys, a scavenger hunt for the girls and Sammy

-a late night trip for bear lake shakes

-The cutest ever matching reunion shirts from grandma

-A last minute photo shoot of the kids t-shirts.  Trying to get 8 of them to cooperate was super fun.  And not extrememly successful.  But definitely a funny memory!

So grateful for this fun, wonderful family that I was lucky enough to marry into!

Backyard Olympics

My kids have been obsessed with the London 2012 Olympic games.  So we decided to have our own Olympics in the backyard.  Each of my kids invited 3-4 friends and we had a party!

We started it off by splitting them up into 4 countries and then rotating them through different events: balance beam, shot put, standing long jump and discus.  We also did some pretty sweet Olympic rings visors.  Then we all joined up for relay races.  The relay races were definitely the biggest hit and we did about a million variations!

 

For the final event, Nate and I raced.  All was going well until Nate decided winning was way more important than character and pushed me into a tree.  Lame.  Some kids tried to DQ me for a false start.  We are definitely going to need a rematch. 

After the events, we ate lots of yummy treats.  Cupcakes, gold medal sugar cookies to decorate, watermelon stars, patriotic strawberries, gold candy, and popcorn torches.

  

The lovely dessert table looked like this in about 2 seconds.  A new Olympic record.

  

 

After all the food was consumed, we ended with the medal ceremony and a few photo ops with the torch.

Although a little chaotic at times, we had such a fun night!  The only major flop was this:  Lola and I worked for a ridiculously long period of time making these seemingly simple torches we found on pinterest.  We tried all sorts of things to try to get them to stand up.  We finally thought we had it and I walked them to the backyard just as a big gust of wind knocked every single one of them down.  Nate and I were laughing so hard.  They went in the garbage and a big bowl of popcorn was pulled out instead.

Asher-Man

 

 

There is no doubt about it, my kids love their Asher-man!

  

And really?  Look at that face!  How could they not?
They have waited many years for a cousin on my side of the family, and it has definitely been worth the wait. 

 

All 4 of my kids smother this little guy with their love when we get together.  Even Stella sits down and pats her lap, asking to hold her little cousin.  It is so cute to me. . . and I think Asher likes all the attention and chaos. . . most of the time!

We had so much fun at the park on Sunday night.  Swinging, sliding, and then Miles gave Asher a special lesson on how to build and destroy volcanoes in the sand.  The look on Asher's face makes me laugh so hard.  He was looking at his mama like, "What is going on?  Please help!"

I love seeing what a cute mama my sister is and being able to share this amazing journey with one of my sisters. 

Spudman

We went to Burley, Idaho last weekend to watch Nate compete in his 2nd Idaho Spudman Triathalon.  We went with the Holland family and the Billings. 

We ate dinner at Stevo-o's. . . the crowning jewel of Burley cuisine.  The kids had fun dancing to the live band while we ate. 

The next morning we rousted everyone up and were out of the house by 6:30 ready to cheer the boys on.  We watched them get in the water and then herded our crew of kids 1 mile downstream to see them get out and get going on their bikes.  Then it was back to the transition area so we'd be ready to see them get off their bikes and head out on the 6 mile run. After that, we headed over to see them cross the finish line. 

It takes a lot to keep the kiddos entertained and good for the looooong morning.  They colored, ate lots of food, and played plenty of iPad.

I was so proud of Nate for training hard and finishing this race.  He found out the night before that he had Strep and felt so crappy the morning of the race.  I think he was amazing to be able to swim almost a mile, bike 26, and run 6 miles while having strep throat!

 

After the race, we relaxed for a bit and then went to the bowling alley.  My kids think it's the coolest thing ever that the Holland's used to own the bowling alley and that we get to have the place to ourselves when we go to Burley.  It's their favorite thing about this weekend!

Stella was exhausted at this point since we woke her up at 6 am and she hadn't had a nap, but other than climbing up into the skee ball thing and throwing a small fit, she did great!

 

You better believe she was fast asleep before we even pulled out of the parking lot for our trek home!