Grade 2...

Holding still long enough for mom to snap a picture...

2 fingers up to show he's starting

grade 2!

Almost out the door!


"One more mom and that's it" smile in the not-good light of the entry!

The has come and gone that Zane started his grade 2 career. He was VIBRATING! We had free tickets to a the Rebels Black and White hockey game the night before (the undecided hopefuls all play each other to help the coaches make the final cuts) and he had been out LATE! We're good parents that way...ya know, making sure our grade schooler is in bed at a decent time before his first day of school...but I digress. He was so excited for the first day of school that he was up by 7:00 and had his morning all planned out. Hang out, have some breakfast, get dressed by 8:00...out the door by 8:20. We met his teacher and dropped off all his supplies the day before (that's how they do it here) so all the hard stuff was out of the way. I barely got a kiss after prayers before he was bounding out the door and on his way. And I'm not going to lie, I did tear up just a little bit. I think I always will on the first day of school. It's a start and end of many things. I'm always a little nervous for him - for lots of reasons. One of the big ones is being different - he is the ONLY LDS kid in his school. And me growing up in Raymond - that's a big deal to me. But he's a champ and has a great testimony, and so far a really good group of friends. He came home just as charged and of course starving! Rhett did pretty good with him being gone. He only asked a couple of times when Zane was going to be home. :) His teacher is Miss Warke and so far the only issue we've had is having no nuts in the class and not being able to send food that can be warmed up. We're working on it....and I'm trying not to throw a tantrum. His school does the nut ban by classroom, so if you don't have a kid with a nut allergy in your class you're fine to bring nut products. We didn't luck out so well this year. But I'm not going to get into it here. If you want to read a good blog on the issue you can read my sister Alisha's blog here. If you do, please remember that we are all entitled to our opinions - I'm not trying to start a blood bath over an issue here.

My grade 2 boy you amaze me!

Love mom!

Summer confessions....

I fell off the good-eating and exercise train. Hard. In fact I still have 10 lbs to show for it. It was one of those one-thing-led-to-another thing. Nothing big or horrible. Just little slips that kept adding up and now here I am a lot further AWAY from my goal than I had planned on being at the end of the summer. So what, may you ask am I doing about it?
Weeelllll, since you asked so nice I'll tell ya.
I joined a gym.
And I'm learning to love it. My stomach clenches a bit every morning when I get there hoping that my favorite tread mill is available (control freak remember), and I literally have to bribe my butt out of bed (5:30 is sooooooooo early) BUT I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE the hour I have all to myself. Sweat drips, I listen to some sweet tunes, I don't talk to anyone if I don't want to (except the head nod to friend Dave who gets there before me) and I ignore any and all barbie moms around me. I like that no one (well except Dave but he doesn't count right now) knows who I am, what my story is, or how horribly I failed at my summer goal. And if I'm really lucky, I get home and a blissfully long shower before any little feet are awake. Ahhh. Bliss. And the scale has moved slightly lower....still working on the eating thing.

Today is day #3 of no chocolate. I did this once before earlier in the year and decided to do it again. Pushing for past Halloween this time. Why chocolate you ask? Because if I eliminate that I take out a lot of tempting things. Day 3 is always the hardest. And I didn't time it well...not only do I have chocolate withdrawal today but I am also slightly PMSing. Yeah, not good.

Other summer confessions....I hate a really wet yucky summer. I'm not a huge fan of the extreme heat but I do like nice sunny skies, pleasant temps and lots of good long days to play outside with friends. I don't know what happened to the summer I ordered but it definitely did not come through. We made it to the beach one time people....and we live in Sylvan Lake....3 blocks away from a lake! That's how gross it was. Which may or may not have contributed to confession number one.

I did not enjoy my boys playing with the neighbor's grandson. Even though they would spend time outside with him....I just struggle with him. I try to remember that my kids are being examples to him, and possibly planting gospel seeds that will be remembered later in his life....but there is something that makes me want to grind my teeth every time I see him. I think that might put me on the bad person list.

I read....a lot....and neglected my house...a lot....and maybe let my kids watch a few too many movies. Seriously, I think I read 10 books in about 6 weeks. I recorded them all and when I read them - something I picked up from my friend Rebecca. I really enjoyed all the reading - I don't usually do a lot of it any more because I kinda get sucked into a book and put everything else off and off and off until I finish the book and look up to see the house destroyed and children and husband neglected. So it was guilty indulgence that I allowed myself.

I can't believe that summer is gone and that we are two weeks into school already!

August Pics

Grammie and the two big boys snuggling in the morning. They actually all slept here for awhile.

Cliff posing with waterfall during the hike at scout camp.

Brock roaming around Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house.

Cutie pie nephew Cohen!

Standing on Grandma's coffee table.

Mud wading!

Testing the water....

Pa coming to the rescue and waiting for shoes...

Cleaning off the shoes...

Jumping can be hard work! Papa and Rhett completely zonked out!

Auntie Kizzy and her boys before heading to Waterton

Brock coming down a ramp - he would have done this all day if we let him!

Me and the boys at the end of our first walk

Trying to keep Brock still for the picture

Auntie and the brave hikers!

At the end of our bike ride..trying to keep Brock from wacking his head...he was getting a little tired and starting to the head bob thing

Showing off the Waterton war wound - two days old. He got out of the stroller and walked 2 steps before his feet stopped and the rest of him didn't. Poor kid.

Still soooo cute, even scraped up!

One of the many reasons I don't accomplish what I want to during the day!

Rewind to August....

I've been awful at keeping my blog updated this year....

But here I am to attempt to catch up on the happenings of August.

Grammie S came to visit us while the Cardston Temple was closed. It was so fun to have her here! We had lots of plans but the weather didn't really cooperate all that well. We did sneak in a few bike rides and some back to school shopping. And there was a lot of Uno, Old Owl, and War and Go-Fish games going on! And Grammie and I did a lot of sorting of clothes and totes of material and stuff like that. Lots of organizing going on! Cliff had scout camp during the same week and I had an all day seminary training in Calgary one of the Saturdays she was here so it all worked out really great. We finally had a room for Grammie to sleep in (instead of the couch) and a fairly comfy sleeping situation (foamie with air mattress on top). Brock LOVED to walk all over Grammie's bed! (we now have a real bed in there so the next time will be even more comfy) Auntie Kristie and her friend also came to visit for a few days. They camped out in our back yard and tried not to get wet in the tsunami rains we got while they were here.

After Grammie had been here for the week we packed up and headed Raymond to spend the week there. We left right after church and made great time with the kids. It's the first time I've made that trip by myself in a year and it went waaaaay better. It's great now that Brock will watch the cartoon and be content!

Grammie had to go back to work the week we were there but Grandpa Dooley was home with us the whole week we were there! It was lots of fun to have Papa around. The boys always wanted him to jump on the tramp with them (oh the games they made up while they played out there) and Brock loved jumping with Papa because he jumps high! Apparently Grammie doesn't jump high enough for his tastes. We did the park, helped Papa put up a HUGE tent just to see how it goes up, chased Brock out of the mud-hole garden....his crocks that weighed a couple of ounces going into the garden came out weighing a couple of pounds! Chased Brock over to the puddles in the alley and watched him mud-wade. Papa put his shoes back on and he waded all the mud off and LOVED it. He had to try out each and every puddle just to see if it was any different. Experienced the Raymond pool again this year. Of course Zane couldn't get enough, and Rhett sat with me and the Aunties and Paxton on the side and whined the whole time. We left Brock at home with Papa because he still hates the water. Auntie Lishie and Paxton came and spent a couple of days in Raymond too so we had lots of time to play. The boys just love Paxton - Brock pets his hair! He has the same fly away and sticky up hair that Brock had until we started buzzing him and it started growing in a little thicker. We weren't sure how Brock would react to Paxton being mobile but it didn't really phase him all that much.

We also went to Taber for a day and night. We got to see everyone except uncle Jamie and Amber and had lots of fun playing there. Zane and Rhett were dying to play crash on Auntie's play station and Brock kept me busy exploring and loving Leo and being gently to Cohen. Even though it was short we had a great time visiting!

Auntie Kizzy and I took the boys to Waterton in her new Jetta the Friday we were there. We weren't sure if we could do it but we made it with a little trunk room to spare! We did some "hiking" in the Cameron Lake area. The first little path we went on Auntie Kizzy tells the boys we have to watch for bears and if we see one we're going to calmly turn around and walk away. Zane was a little worried and a little ways up the path pointed to something big and shadowy a ways up the path and asked if it was a bear. I assured him it wasn't and we carried on. On the way back Zane suddenly piped up and said "you know what bears hate?" "What do bears hate Zane?" "Singing." So Kinsey and I sang There's a hole in the bottom of the sea to keep the bears away. We did another path and Rhett decided to count all the culvert drains he could spot. Number 9 was the magic number he was out to find and he was blown away when he counted past 9!

We did lunch at Weiners of Wateron and then rented one of the bikes to take the kids around in. We decided to bike up to the falls. OH-MY-GOODNESS!!!!! I've been pulling my kids around all summer in the trailer but you add my 3 kids and me and Kinsey and it's like having 3 adults on the bike - one who is nothing but dead weight! But we made it....barely. I thought I'd never be able to walk again but was pleasantly surprised by my legs and their functionality the next day. We didn't stay long at the falls before heading to the lake to throw rocks. I was terrified that Brock was going to knock himself out because instead of picking up nice little Brock sized rocks and throwing them he went for the biggest ones he could find! I kid you not - he would look around until he found a rock he need 2 hands to lift up, get it up to his chest, shift it over to his right hand and then shot put it into the lake! If it didn't hit the water he would repeat the process. I was sure he was either going to hit himself in the back of the head (he's my kid after all) or end up in the lake face first. Thankfully neither occurred. The kids thought it was hilarious when Brock chucked his hat and we had to circle around and go back a couple of blocks to get it. Vehicles kept just missing it and by the time we got to it we were all laughing so hard I'm sure people thought we were crazy!

We can't visit Waterton without hitting up the ice cream store - yummy yum yum - and then we piled in the car and headed for Lethbridge to cousin Ashely's house for a Knibb family BBQ. We all had a great time. Rhett hit it off with cousin Mariah and they were inseparable for the whole time we were there. The boys did really great with no toys and a small back yard. We headed back to Raymond and bathed some grimy little boys and put them to bed. I think they were all asleep before their heads hit the pillow!

i spent Saturday baking and packing while grammie and papa were at the Temple and after supper loaded up my kidlets and headed home. I had to stop TWICE to wash my windshield off because the bugs were that bad. GROSS!

We were all glad to be home and spent the rest of August catching up with friends and trying to get things ready for school/piano to start again!

I've got lots of pictures to post but this post is long enough already so I'll try to get them up later today!