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) :-)

Kylee's Birthday

Kylee is 5! I can't hardly believe that she's getting so big, but at the same time, it just fits. :-) Kylee turned 5 on August 10, and we were able to celebrate that day with a bunch of her friends. She was so excited about her birthday, and now that it's done, all she can do is tell everyone she sees that she's 5!

Here are some pics of her party. Thanks to all our great friends who came to celebrate with us!

Ice cream is a hit! This is Kylee with her friends Kiera and Zion.

Kylee, Kiera, Zion and Caleb (hangin' with the girls) :-)

Kylee doesn't just make friends with kids her age...she makes friends with the whole family! ;-)

We celebrated briefly that evening after Brett got home. Kylee was so excited for more presents, it took her about 1.3 seconds to open them all...thus the crappy pics! Aedan bought some watercolors and an art pad for Kylee. Brianna gave her a Littlest Pet Shop...Mom and Dad gave her a boring shirt for school...but her BIG birthday gift is that we're enrolling her in dance for the year! Yep, it's a pretty stinkin' expensive birthday gift! She's going to be learning Jazz, Ballet, and Tap, and she should have 3-4 performances throughout the year, so we'll let you know. She was super excited when she got to pick out her dance clothes with Grandma Kathy (with Hallie's expert opinion as well!) and try on her ballet slippers and tap shoes...so CUTE!

Can you see all the makeup on her face here?

I Need Your Help!!!

It's that time of year again...time to decide what to enter into the fair! I LOVE the fair, so this is one of my favorite times of the year. But now that I've started entering photos, it always creeps up on me!

So, here's where you come in, because I need your help! I have a few photos I definitely plan to enter, but there are several more that have been suggested, but I'm not sure of. So I'm going to post them here, and I want to hear your opinion whether any of them are worthy of enlarging, matting, and entering in the fair!

Don't hold back...I can take it. Even if that means you have to tell me I stink and to keep my day job (which would be a problem, since I don't have one). :-) Just let me know if any of them scream "Pick me, pick me!" and you'll save me a lot of anguish and self-doubt! ;-)

Brianna's Blessing

Yesterday was a special day for our sweet Brianna. We had many of our family and even some friends join us at church for her blessing. Brett's a busy guy on Sundays. He gave Brianna a beautiful blessing, then hurried and brought her back to mom before blessing the sacrament. :-)

Brianna was so beautiful in her gown that Grandma McDermott bought for her. Grandma found the dress at a little store in Blackfoot, and called to ask me to come down and help her pick one out. When I got there, she had a stack of dresses set aside that she liked and wanted me to see. I went through those, then probably every other dress in the room. Finally, I settled on one of the original dresses Grandma had picked out. :-) Now, every time someone would compliment Brianna's dress, Grandma "Dermott" would tell me how I did good picking out the dress. But she forgets, she picked it first! Thanks, Grandma, for buying Brianna such a beautiful dress!

Along with the dress came the most beautiful bonnet. I've never been a huge fan of bonnets on my babies. In fact, I didn't even use the bonnet that came with Kylee's blessing dress, and opted instead for a small white bow. I didn't think I would use a bonnet this time either, especially because Amy and I have been having so much fun making bows! I thought for sure we could come up with a beautiful headband for the blessing, and even made a flower out of the lace on my old blankie! When we found the dress, however, I decided to use the bonnet, partly because the dress I chose was an antique white and it just seemed to fit, but also because it was too pretty not to use!

After the meeting we invited all the family back to our house for a lunch, and it turned out great. It seemed like everyone had a good time, and I KNOW everyone got full, because there was SO much food!

As I was doing the dishes last night and thinking about the day, I realized I had learned a few things, and I thought I'd share them.

Family pictures don't have to be formal.

Even crying babies are beautiful.

Moments like this are worth all the shouting, time-outs, and frustration.

Sometimes old-school is so much more beautiful than what's "cool".

And a few more things I learned, without photos:

• You don't have to have a camera stuck to your face at every party.
• When entertaining, everything does not have to be prepared before the guests arrive. It's okay if they have to wait a few minutes for dinner.
• The house does not have to be sparkling to have a good time. If the floors don't get swept, the laundry not quite finished, or the junk mail not quite sorted, the party will still be a success.
• If you don't have the perfect shady yard to offer guests, they'll find a patch of shade and be perfectly comfortable without your help!
• Accept offers of help...whether it's handing someone a knife and a cutting board, or letting them go in your daughter's messy room to get some clothes for the kids to play in, it's okay to say "Yes, Thanks!" Even if that means your son will be playing all day in a t-shirt, shorts, and a cummerbund. ;-)
  
• Life is too short. Some things are better enjoyed than stressed over.

Well, that's enough from me! We had a wonderful day and thoroughly enjoyed the company of our family and the friends who came over after church. Brianna is a very special little girl to have so much family who love her, and great friends who will be a good example to her as she grows! Thanks to all who were here with us on her special day!

4th of July Fun!

Somehow we ended up not having any plans at all for the 4th of July weekend (I don't know, it could have something to do with the fact that we had a 2 week old baby? Mmm...maybe not.) which left us deciding last minute what to do with our free time. We decided to take the kids to the parade in Idaho Falls for the first time.

Brett really doesn't enjoy parades, so usually I end up taking the kids with my family to the Blackfoot parade on opening day of the fair. It's fun for the kids, but kinda boring after so many years because the floats are all pretty much the same. So it was surprising how much fun we had going to the parade in Idaho Falls. While a parade is always a parade, it was fun to see the different schools, different businesses, and what they all came up with. (Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so maybe next year!)

This year we were invited to have a BBQ with our friends, the Thurmans, to celebrate the 4th (which was, of course, celebrated on the 3rd). We don't get to see them very often since they moved out of our ward, so it's always a blast to make plans and hang out. After dinner we all loaded up and found a good spot to watch the fireworks.

The kids had fun in the back of the Tahoe. (Yes, I know, I forgot to blog about my new car!) We loaded it up with blankets and pillows, and they, of course, had to be lifted in and out about a million times each. :-)

Left to right: Aedan, Ben, Allyssa, Kylee, Spencer (or half of him)

Ben...he's such a ham!

Spencer

Aedan and Ben, chilling in the Tahoe...