So Much Energy!

Ah, winter. Thank you for bringing your fresh, clean loveliness to our neighborhood. We do appreciate you taking the time to cover up all the broken down vehicles and badly worn houses. It's such a nice neighborhood in the winter.

I do love winter, but I definitely do NOT love cooped up kids! After almost 2 weeks of being out of school and stuck at home (minus several fun holiday adventures), the kids were starting to climb the walls. Today, instead of rest time, I bundled them up and kicked them out the door. :-)

 

Except for this little beauty. She and I are having some quiet time together. :-) Happy New Year!

Christmas and Stuff

Holy moly, can you believe another Christmas has come and gone? I'm not at all ready for it to be over...I really love the anticipation of Christmas. But, I am enjoying the lack of stress for a couple more weeks before classes start again. ;-)

Our weeks leading up to Christmas were crazy and exciting as ever. I finished finals and actually managed to pass all of my classes, though I have to agree with a friend on Facebook who said, "Next time I decide it's a good idea to have a baby AND go to school, somebody shoot me." Or something like that.

A couple weeks before Christmas, our Kylee lost her first tooth! She's had both bottom teeth wiggling for awhile now, and this one managed to pop out when I was flossing her teeth. Unfortunately, it was a little overzealous in its popping, and we never did see the little bugger again. :-( But I wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy, and she still stopped by Ky's pillow that night to leave $2, just in time for Kylee to take it to school for the Candy Cane Shoppe.

The last day of school for Kylee included the annual Christmas program, which includes all Kindergartners, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. I didn't know Kylee would be wearing a hat, so I put a flower in her hair that day. I guess they didn't want to mess it up, cause the dang hat was in her eyes the whole time. :-)

 

This is Kylee's friend, Dajia, in the green.

 

Another friend, Andrea.

Ky's teacher, Mrs. Millet, is the second from the left, in glasses. All the teachers sang a re-written version of Winter Wonderland, all about teaching in an Elementary School. It was pretty cute.

Poor Brianna has gotten the short end of the stick for her first Christmas. I haven't taken hardly any photos of her, or of any of our Christmas festivities this year. But I did manage to get a few the day her brother and sister put the reindeer antlers on her. :-) Brianna also had her 6-month checkup a couple days before Christmas. She weighed in at 14 lbs 14.5 ounces!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Kylee's Dance Performances

We've been super busy lately (what else is new?). On top of school, work, and church callings, Kylee has had two dance performances. In November, she danced for the first time at the Festival of Trees, and it was a blast to see her up there showing her stuff! :-) She found us in the crowd and immediately started waving and (if you know her, you won't be surprised) sticking out her tongue. Yep, that's my girl. :-) The lighting was not great, so I didn't get very good pics at that one.

Kylee had another dance performance this week at the Hillcrest Performing Arts Center. When we signed her up for dance, I was really excited that she'd have so many performances. This week I wasn't so sure. But we managed to get her there almost on time, she danced her one dance, and we were out of there in an hour. :-) The photos from this performance are much better due to the stage lighting, so I wanted to share them really quick, even though I should be studying. :-)

Falling Behind...

Oi! I cannot even imagine what it will be like to be done with school, but I'm pretty sure it will be quite an improvement! This semester has been pretty much kicking my butt, and we're all so ready for it to be done. The two night classes each week are making things difficult for the whole family. In fact, Brett has reached burnout too, and took the entire week of Thanksgiving off with us. Now we're just counting down until we can have our break!

Along with school, we are still busy in church. I almost got a break from the RS...for about 30 seconds, before they called me to be the 1st counselor. Guess I didn't do a good enough job, and I'm getting a second chance. :-) Brett took his PE exam at the end of October, and while we don't yet know the results, we both feel that his preparation paid off and that he most likely passed. If this is the case, it will mark the end of a ten year journey for us and we look forward to starting the next!

Brianna is growing super fast and she's to the stage that is just a blast. She's loving the bumbo even more, and will probably soon be sitting up without it. The swing is no longer acceptable to her; she does her very best to throw herself out of it (as you can see in this pic!) and the only thing that will keep her in it is if the fish mobile is turned on. She loves her big brother and sister like crazy, and giggles nonstop at their antics, especially Aedan. When we would be pulling our hair out and getting ready to holler for him to settle down, Brianna starts in with a big old belly-buster laugh. 

Kylee is loving Kindergarten, and she is learning so fast! She is still in dance and we are getting ready for her first performance this week. They had a Halloween party in her class, for which she had nothing but her cheap dollar store hat, because her lame-o mom hadn't finished the costume yet. She says she forgives me. :-)

This is a terrible photo, but I was taking it through the one-way mirror that we use to watch her dance class.

She got to wear her costume to school the Friday before Halloween for a party, and then we got to watch her and her classmates sing a bunch of songs for their Halloween program.My mom came and took Aedan and Brianna to McDonald's for breakfast so I could go into Kylee's classroom and help out with the party. Then we all got to watch the program.

This is the quiet sign they are supposed to give when the teacher wants them to listen.

Can you see her? I forgot to bring in my telephoto lens and was kicking myself. She's in the back row with the mondo witch hat. :-)

After school, Kylee, Aedan, Brianna and I met Aunt Amy, Uncle Jake, Sayer and Sari for Trick or Treat Street at Snake River Landing. (Whoo! Mouthful!) Brett was in Boise taking his PE exam, but we decided to do something fun without him. We stood in line forever, but the kids thought it was great.

Yoda and the Toolman. :-)

Sari the Rockstar

Brianna was whatever costume was clean at the moment. :-) She was a BSU cheerleader, a pumpkin, and a ghost.

My "mean old" witch and Master Yoda!

"The force is strong with this one!"

Kylee and Aedan thought they were hilarious with this one. Apparently, so did Brianna.

Halloween was a ton of fun, but all in all I'm glad it's over! On top of school, church, kids, housework (what housework, have you seen my house??), Kindergarten, dance, and who knows what else, I've decided it's time to make my photography official. I've had so many people hire me to take their photos, I decided it was crazy not to jump on it and start a blog, etc. So, if you want to check it out, you can see what I've been doing at the new blog. :-) This is one of my recent favorites from a Senior session I did last week.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but for now this will have to do...time to get ready for another Monday!

Kindergarten, Dance and So Much More!!

**Disclaimer** I just realized how many exclamation points are in this blog post...Prepare yourself. In my defense, it's been incredibly overwhelming the last couple weeks...! :-)

Wow, it has been one heck of a couple weeks for us! I started school two weeks ago (after a frantic search for a sitter), Kylee started kindergarten on the 30th, and dance on the 2nd. Dance lessons were her birthday gift from us, so let's hope she continues to enjoy this extremely SPENDY birthday present!

Kylee and Aedan on her first day of school. She was so excited she could hardly stand it!

And of course, with her ginormous backpack. (By the way, I think I have the prettiest little kindergartner around!)

Can't leave Aedan out! He was going to "school" at the ELC in Pocatello for the first time too! The poor kid can't make up his mind about all this. He's always terribly sad when we leave Kylee at school. Then he gets excited to go to his school, until we have to drop Brianna off at the neighbor's before heading for Pocatello. Then he bawls for 20 minutes about wanting his baby back. He's usually okay once we get to the school, but by the time I pick him up, he's ready to get his sisters back! Look how grown up he looks...it could almost be him going to kindergarten!

After we all got home on the first day, Kylee and Aedan were inseparable! They literally sat on the couch like this, hugging and snuggling, through an entire movie! They're not used to being apart all day like that.

Now we are always hearing all sorts of stories from Kylee about what she did in school.

Kylee's new dance class started the same week as kindergarten. She has one class each week, and she's going to be learning Jazz, Ballet, and Tap. They're starting with Ballet, and it is SO stinkin' cute to watch them! The first day they had to try and skip, and it was perfectly sweet to see them running and hopping! Today, they tried to learn how to use a hula hoop...and I'm pretty sure we will soon own a hula hoop or two!

Kylee gets even more girly and posey when she's in her dance clothes. Grandma Kathy (and Grandpa Will, indirectly :}) bought her the dance clothes, and she gets to twirling and wiggling her hips as soon as she has them on!

With all the excitement about Kylee's new adventures, we've had to really try and spend some time talking to Aedan about his day as well. He and Mom are getting to spend a lot more time together than normal. After we drop Kylee off at school (if we don't have to go to Pocatello) we have almost 3 hours to run errands or go home and make breakfast. Today Aedan decided he wanted Pig Pancakes, and he got to make them! We also spend lots of time together on the days we go to Pocatello. His favorite thing to do in the car lately is to make me pretend that he's the dad and I'm the kid. :-)


Brianna is growing up so fast! It makes it terribly hard to leave her each time I go to class. I never had to leave Kylee or Aedan for this amount of time or this often when they were babies, and it's really been difficult for me. But it makes the time we are together that much more special, and I haven't even found myself getting frustrated when she's fussy. So maybe it's a good thing, I don't know.

Thanks to the Bumbo we borrowed from Grandma Kathy's house, she gets to sit up by herself several times a day. She absolutely loves doing it, but she can only last for maybe 20 minutes each time before she's pretty much wiped out.

We get lots of smiles out of her, especially considering that she has two willing entertainers!

One of the best things about the Bumbo is that Brianna can sit on the kitchen counter and help me cook (or clean)! This makes an incredible difference on the amount of work I can get done! Isn't she beautiful?

So, that's what the kids have been up to. We've been incredibly busy since school started. I've started my last year of school before I finish my bachelor's degree in Business Management (Thank Heavens!). Along with spending two days on campus in Pocatello, I have two night classes here in Idaho Falls that are 3 hours each. So between my classes, FHE, and Brett's Elder's Quorum meetings, we are completely booked each and every night of the week! No wonder I wake up on Fridays with a huge grin on my face! (Okay, maybe that's exaggerating, considering I still have to wake up at 7 to get Kylee to school on time.)

Brett has also had his nose to the grindstone the last few weeks. He's studying for his Professional Engineer's Exam at the end of October, which will finally complete his training and certification to become a licensed Professional Engineer. NINE years to get to this point is definitely not something to throw away, so he's studying as much as he can to make sure he passes the EIGHT HOUR exam!

On top of school, we are still busy at church. Brett continues to serve as the EQ President in our crazy ward, and I'm still in the RS Presidency. It certainly makes for some hectic Sundays, but I'm pretty sure our Bishopric and their families have to put in far more time, so I won't complain. We really do love our ward, even though it is one of the strangest wards we've ever been in! (Statistics, not people) :-)