Yes, my kids are still in school! With the year-round school and the track that my kids were on this year, their last day of school this year is this Thursday! And then they will be off for only 3 weeks of summer and then move on to the next grade! 
These last 2 weeks of school have been filled with lots of class activities for the kids and lots of awards ceremonies. Luke's class put on a play last week for the parents and then his teacher gave out her end-of-the-year awards. Luke received the gold reading award and he was awarded the "Good Manners Award" by his teacher.
The 5th grade awards ceremony was today and M&M was the only kid in all of the 5th grade that had perfect attendance for the year! Fortunately we were pretty blessed this year with not too many sicknesses in the family. M&M also received the gold reading award for her grade and finished all the goals she needed for the 5th grade Paws for Success Award.
Blondie received the gold reading award and paws for success award from her teacher a couple of weeks ago when she went in for her kindergarten testing. I can't believe that in less than a month Blondie will be moving on to first grade and will be in school all day! I think I will look into putting Kitty in some type of dance class so she has something to look forward to during the week while the older kids are in school. I also can't believe that M&M will be in 6th grade - her last year in elementary school!
The kids have also been having field day at school and I was able to help out with the 2nd grade field day for Luke's class last week. I was also able to help out with his class for a bike safety day where a police officer taught some bike safety to the 2nd graders and then they had to ride around an obstacle course following the rules.
M&M's class had to do science projects last week and they had them on display for the parents last Friday. M&M's project was on the topic: "Does smell affect taste?"
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
School year coming to an end
End of Tumbling
M&M had her last tumbling class last week and the end of the year performance the Saturday before that. Unfortunately the group she was with this year really went downhill and I don't think she learned much of anything this year. She is at the age and skill level that she really could have learned a lot, but it just didn't happen with this group and teachers. So, she will either not take tumbling next year or we will need to find a different group if she wants to continue. Unfortunately with 4 other kids and 2 of them in soccer, we really don't have a lot of free time for more activities. So we will see what happens in another month or so. The one plus to M&M's class was that she had two friends from our neighborhood in the group and so we were able to carpool and they had a lot of fun together.
M&M is the second girl from the front.
One reason
Here is one of the reasons why I wish that Baby K was walking on her own:
And, if she is wearing shorts & no socks or shoes she ends up with red knees and feet!
When she is not wearing pants she does a funny bear crawl to keep her knees off of the ground (it was hard to get a good picture of it). She also does this when she is wearing a dress so that her knees don't catch on it. Poor girls and the things they have to put up with - even at a young age!!
Baby K is VERY close to walking, she just has to get her confidence up. She takes little steps here and there and can get herself to the standing position without using anything to pull herself up. It is really funny to walk into a room and see her just standing there in the middle of it with nothing around her.
And she loves to pick my flowers!! Here she is trying to hand one to me that she has picked!
Mini roses
Not too long after we moved into this house I planted a large rose bush and then 3 mini rose bushes. This is the mini rose bush that has done the best and, if you notice the red roses in the middle, it has taken over another rose bush that didn't do too well.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Rainy spring
We have had about three weeks straight where we have had rain almost every day. That is an amazing streak for Utah! My husband and I have been loving it and the grass is greener than it's been since we've lived here (and our water bill is going to love it)!! It's been great not having to water the garden and the grass! Unfortunately this week is scheduled to be HOT and DRY!! :( I want the rain back!
FHE
Last week for Family Home Evening my husband gave a lesson about temples and then afterwards the kids made crowns for an activity. They had tons of fun helping cut out and then decorating their individual crowns. DH enjoyed watching them use their creativity as they each come up with their own design. I found some foam stickers at the store on clearance some time ago and they ended up being perfect for this activity.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Principal's Pride
Then to end the week M&M and Luke got the Principal's Pride award on Friday. Luke's was for a story he wrote and M&M's was for an essay she wrote.
Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House
Thursday, June
We made reservations to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house on Thursday evening. We got enough tickets for my parents and sister and brother-in-law to come with us as well as our non-member neighbors across the street. We met up with our neighbors at the temple and walked through with them. They had a lot of good questions about what goes on in the temple and it was neat to be able to tell them a little more about our church and our beliefs. I think we might try to go through again as a family on another day so that we can spend more time looking at the features and art work in the temple - I felt like I spent so much time talking and answering questions that I didn't get to enjoy some of the beauty of the temple while we were walking through. The design is different than other temples I have been through. The temple is 4 floors with the baptistry on the lowest level; entrance, locker rooms and a large open area with a grand staircase and huge chandelier on the main level; chapel, endowment rooms and Celestial room on the third level; and then the sealing rooms and marriage waiting room on the highest level. The temple is done in earth tones - mostly browns and greens. Afterwards we took some family pictures out front.
Apparently the temple was struck by lightning on Saturday in a thunderstorm we had here. The angel Moroni was struck and part of it was blackened by the lightning strike.
Kindergarten field trip to the zoo
Wednesday, June 10
Kitty, Baby K, my mom and I met Blondie and her class up at the zoo on Wednesday morning. It ended up being a crazy day for a zoo trip! We started out by first seeing an elephant training show and then we went over to watch the bird show. Just as the bird show was starting it began to rain. At first it was just a light rain but by the time it ended it was pouring (and the show was outdoors). They ended up cutting the show short and we went out to get our stroller out by the entrance to the show and it was of course soaking wet! So we hurried over to the carousel which had a roof around it and then headed over to the small animal house. We spent some time in there and luckily the rain had stopped when we ready to come out. Since it was lunchtime we headed back to the car to dry off a little and to eat lunch on some dry seats. As soon as we got out to the car it started pouring again! Baby K had a lot of fun playing in the car while we ate lunch and we waited in there until the rain let up again. 
After we finished eating we headed back to the zoo got rained on a few more times but nothing too hard until we were on the road headed back home. Luckily I had brought a couple of umbrellas and blankets so we were able to manage despite the rain. Baby K was a little difficult because after lunch is her naptime and she really wanted to go to sleep but didn't fall asleep until we were getting ready to leave. She kept wanting to get out of the stroller and crawl around or have me carry her.
It was an unusually wet and cool day in late spring for here in Utah. We were all wearing long pants and jackets to keep warm! 
Baby K loved that I put her on this tiger statue by herself. She felt like one of the big kids and threw a fit when I took her off!
Riding on the new carousel. The train was closed for the day because of the rain. The carousel has lots of cool different types of animals to ride on. Blondie rode on an elephant and Kitty was on a cheetah. 
Baby K was riding on some type of monkey - I think it was a baboon. I had a hard time getting a picture of her on the carousel because she was not sturdy enough on the seat to leave there alone and my mom was helping out Blondie and Kitty.
At first Baby K had a death grip on the pole for her carousel animal. Then they started up the carousel and she started turning around to watch her sisters that were seated behind her. At first she thought it was a lot of fun until she realized that she was also going up and down and then she wasn't sure what to think about it.Sunday, June 14, 2009
Princess Festival
Monday, June 8
My brother-in-law Roger painted this mural for a Princess Festival charity event in Lindon recently and asked for a couple of tickets to the Princess Festival as payment. Kitty and Blondie were the lucky princesses that got to go to it and they had a lot of fun. It is a family that puts the event on each year (I think this was the second year) to raise money for a charity group that helps out a village in Kenya. They have volunteer actors and worker and various booths set up to sell things. They take "princesses" (ages 4-10) in groups and they go through a little story where they help out different princesses that are in trouble. They have to help figure out how to "rescue" the princesses and then at the end they had a "ball" where you could get your picture taken with the various princesses and princes. The girls loved it and were excited to write (color) thank yous for Roger and to tell him all about it. The girls were also able to make magic wands and tiaras and got a free beaded necklace. They loved getting dressed up in costumes that I had made for previous Halloweens (except Blondie's costume was a little too big so I made her wear something under it).
Sitting in the royal coach with Baby K.
Very concerned about what was going on. The beast had just changed into the prince.
Blondie posing with Snow White and the prince. Kitty was in one of her moods and only wanted her picture taken with a few specific princesses.
The blue fairy from Pinocchio.
Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip
Cinderella and Prince Charming - It felt like we were back in Disneyland again with all the princess pictures I ended up taking!
Hugging Sleeping Beauty (Aurora)
Blondie with ArielShe can finally do it!!
This week Baby K has finally figured out how to go down the steps by herself! It is nice to not have to always run upstairs to bring her down. The downside though is that she can pretty much roam the whole house now!!
Reading
Over the last two weeks I have seen Luke at least four times sitting down to read to one or more of his sisters. It has been really cute to watch and I was able to get a few pictures of it, in addition to a few other reading moments. Luke has really started to show an interest in reading this year and it's been fun watching him show a passion for books. Right now he is trying to read through the Harry Potter series - he's currently on book 4.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
End of soccer season
Last Saturday was the last day of soccer games for the season. It was absolutely beautiful soccer weather to end the season with - not too hot and a slight breeze. Luke's team won more games than they lost this spring and we saw a lot of improvement from the beginning of the season to the last game. Luke has improved a lot because I was usually able to work with him some during M&M's soccer practices. The coach for Luke's team decided that he wasn't going to coach again next year (I guess he has been coaching this team for the last 5 seasons) so DH and I decided to pick up the team and coach next year. I will probably be doing most of the coaching but I will definitely need DH's help. We ended up only having 6 of the players sign up for next year so we will see in the fall who else gets put on our team. The other half of the team were still deciding whether they were going to play next year or pick up different sports.
M&M's team was a little more frustrating to watch this year. They had another girl join the team in the spring and her dad ended up doing a lot of the coaching at the practices. The practices were hard to watch because just about the only thing they ever worked on were passing drills - and they would usually do the same drill for the whole practice. At one point M&M asked if they could work on dribbling and he responded with the question, "What do you think is the quicker way to get the ball down the field? By passing or by dribbling?" And after discussing the question we decided the response should have been, "Well, what if there is no one to pass to?" The team started out the season great with a couple of wins but then they went downhill from there. There was quite a bit of improvement during the season, but there were so many basic skills that they needed to work on but didn't get the chance to. 
M&M started to play really aggressively this season and was a lot of fun to watch. By the first game or two everyone on the sidelines knew her name and were cheering her on. She was one of the smallest girls on the team but definitely one of the better and more aggressive players. Because of this we decided to sign her up for a coed team next year so she can get some better coaching and play against some better players. One of our neighbors is going to be coaching the team that we signed up with and there is a girl from M&M's school class on the team. It will be nice having some people on the team that we know and the coach is a super nice guy - and he's in our ward bishopric.
Catchup
Time to play catchup again. Last week soccer and school band ended so I thought that this week I would have a lot more free time - WRONG! This seemed to be one of my busier weeks and included a field trip to the zoo, the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house, a princess festival and of course cub scouts - which is a weekly event now. So bear with me while I try to catch up on everything that has been going on these last couple of weeks...
Wednesday, June 3
This was supposed to M&M's last soccer practice of the season, but the school scheduled the band concert on the same day so we had to skip the practice. I think the band has improved a lot during this school year and the band teacher is planning on coming back next year and having an advanced band in addition to the beginning band. We will have to see how the scheduling goes in the fall before we decide if M&M will continue next year.
Thursday, June 4
The school had their big end of the year kindergarten program for the parents in the morning. I don't really care for how the school does this program because it is such a mad house! There are about 6-7 kindergarten classes each year and they have all of the students perform in the program together so there are TONS of people there. And unfortunately the kindergartners are all short so if your child is sitting on one of the first two rows, good luck seeing them unless you're lucky enough to get a front row seat. I really wish they would break it up a little more so that the parents could enjoy watching their own child... Having said that, it was a cute, fun program and they do a good job with it. Blondie was very excited for it and made sure that her dad was invited as well as my parents. I can't believe her kindergarten year is almost over!
After the kindergarten program my husband and I helped out with the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. I was assigned to help with the physical facilities (which is a fancy name for the clean up crew - trash, bathrooms, etc - and we had to dress up for it too). DH got the job of usher so he got to stand in the baptistry area and show people where to go next - and no talking allowed for the ushers. I was able to walk through the temple because it wasn't very busy while I was there. It is beautiful and we are excited for it to open in a few months.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
My roses
I absolutely love the rose bush that I planted shortly after we moved to this house. The roses are some of the most beautiful and fragrant I have ever seen. The flowers are huge and right now the rose bush is huge! I probably need to cut it back a lot after it's finished blooming.
