First day of School

Katie is in 1st grade! Her first day was Aug 21. She's so happy and cute! Her teacher is Ms. Dooley. The first day of all day school, and Katie came home so tired. I think a large part of it was that she didn't eat a very big breakfast.
She had to wait in line for lunch "for like an hour or something! It was so long!" She was happy about having a small carton of milk. She loved having so many recesses. She says Ms. Dooley is fun. They have specialty classes (Art, Computers, PE, and Library, with none on Wednesday because it is early out day.)
I didn't talk to Katie about where I would pick her up after school, so we both kinda wandered around for a while, until she saw me and called "Mom!" (amazing I even heard her over all the kids). I think she will start riding her bike to school with Junior and Abby.

Elayna's in Preschool with Mrs. Lacee DeGraffenried. She's my cousin's wife, and she does a great job. Lacee is so proffessional and cheery. Elayna started on Sept. 6.
Elayna rode and I walked (Anna in the stroller) to Preschool. It took kind of a long time, but I think we can make it faster next time. Elayna seemed to have fun learning new things and meeting new kids. She'll love it.

Elayna in her new bike helmet, and off to school.

 Anna and I walked with her, and this is how Annalisa sat most of the way there. Her feet are up on the handrail thing, and she would turn her head around to look at me. It looks so uncomfortable!

Hanging up her backpack.

Sitting at her desk.

August 2012

 I love clouds. Sometimes. This is one of those times. It is so beautiful! This is right above our roof.

I took one afternoon to make these. I pulled apart a lot of flowers, glued some jewels on top, clips on the bottom, and Voila! Lots of cute hair flowers. 

This is Elayna, Gracie, Abby, Katie and Ethan. All the girls are dressed in princess stuff, and Ethan is being such a good sport and playing along with them. You should be able to click on the picture and see it closer.

Katie likes to come get in my bed while Ryan and I are downstairs watching movies. I guess she fell asleep before she made it all the way onto the bed. 

A cute picture of Jerry with his 3 grand daughters. 

Annalisa loved the idea of putting olives on your fingers to eat them. 

Elayna and Katie had a sleep over at Bowman's house. The girls were worried they would miss us, so Ryan got a picture of us for them to take with them.  Elayna and Annalisa carried this picture around for days. They still have it in their room somewhere.

A close up of the picture. Wow, we look so young! Neither one of us remembers what this was from. It looks like a BYU staircase, but I have no idea what year it is or anything.  I think it might have been after his mission, because I think I got that dress up at Logan, but I really don't know.

Elayna, being onery. 

Katie was loving these daisies. She was putting them everywhere. 

Irma had this bandage thing on her arm, and Katie got 3 daisies to fit in.  

Elayna loved them too. Anna and Ryan are in the background. 

We decided to have a "beauty day". I don't remember why, or where that came from. The only things I could think of to do were our nails, and oatmeal masks. They didn't like how the oatmeal felt on their faces, but we were having fun. 

 Anna loves this big bunny. It is very soft.

It is also as big as she is. 

Annalisa loves, loves being on a trampoline.  She will play on it for as long as we let her. She loves to jump, crawl, bounce, roll, run away from us, etc. She has figured out that if she stays away from the edges, we can't grab her and take her off.

Anna wants to be just like the big girls and draw. 

Katie did her hair all by herself this day. She was very proud of it. I thought she did a really good job. I love her expression! 

Annalisa and Elayna love this little bench that is just the right size for them. 

Cute little cocoons.  They had fun waddling around in these towels.

Irma and Jerry reading a story to my girls. So sweet. 

Annalisa, while we were kneeling to pray, intonated "Heavenly Father".
Aug 26,2012

I was talking to Annalisa and teaching her about Jesus. She was trying to say Jesus. She was trying to sound it out and she repeated it a couple of times just to see if she could do it. 8-29-12

Elayna's 4th birthday

Elayna got a table with 2 chairs for her birthday. She really liked it.

They had to eat breakfast at it, of course. After this, it went downstairs with the rest of the toys. 
Elayna wanted eggs and toast for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner!! That was all she wanted.

Katie gave Elayna one of Katie's toys. This is Elayna thanking her for it.

Opening a Barbie Ariel. Elayna looks very concerned, but she was really happy about it. 

I took a cake decorating class earlier this summer. This is my attempt at a fancy cake. I like the basket weaving stuff, but the frosting was too soft by the time I tried to make flowers. So they are just blobs. 

Almost every picture I have of Elayna is blurry. She just moves so much and so fast. 

Irma brought over a cute Cookie Monster cake for Elayna.

Irma and Jerry got Elayna a Purpalicious (based around a girl that loves purple) art book. 

Jerry, Irma. and Elayna. See? Always blurry. 

The cute dress they gave her. 

Elayna's look of joy when she pulled the outfit out of the bag.

Paula, Elayna, and Craig, with the outfit they gave her. They also took her to DQ for lunch. 

We love Elayna so much! She is such a joy. She has so much enthusiasm and energy. She loves to be with her sisters. She is affectionate, happy, loves to sing, and plays well by herself. It is hilarious to watch her play by herself. She is so involved and does different voices, and can't ever keep her voice down. It just makes you laugh. She dances and sings around the house. We are so grateful she is in our family!!

Young Women Camp July 2012

I am the Second Counselor in the Young Women's group in my ward.  One of the leaders had this great idea to have cute pictures of each girl. For my own records, I wanted to put their names with their pictures.

Aubrie Marsh

Megan Strong

Jesseca Owens

McKenna Stewart

Emily Urban

Jessica Dickie

Kat (Kathryn) Coughanour

Me

Chris Judd (camp leader)

Crysania Pickering

Emilee Thompson

Ali Taylor

Stori Hopper

Miranda Urban (she came up to help her mom do crafts)

Juliet Preston (Laurel Advisor)

Marianne Parsons

Summer Hopper

Heidi DeGraffenried (YW president)

Rachael West (YW secretary)

Julie West (my Beehive advisor)

The outside of our cabin. Yes, we are spoiled. Our idea of  "camping" was mattresses on bunk beds, in dorms. That is about as "roughing it" as I want. Our theme was "Arise and Shine Forth that thy light may be a standard for the nations" for the year. They based camp around the Olympic idea of reaching for the gold.
Our country was Tahiti.

Marianne and Kat designed and drew our flag. (I can't get it to rotate)

( Karlee Romero wasn't here for the close-ups. She is next to Marianne)

What a silly bunch! 

 I had such a great time at Camp! I didn't spend much time at camp last year because Anna was so young. This year I was blessed to have Irma, my Mom, and Ryan take care of my children while I was gone from Tues-Friday.  I felt so close to each of the Young Women and also to the leaders after those few days!  I'm grateful I was able to go.