Mallory starts Kindergarten!!!!!!!

I can't believe my little Mally started Kindergarten! I use the word little loosely being as how she is the tallest kinder known to man. No joke, were talking Amazon and Sasquatch all rolled into one! She could have started last year but with her late Sept. birthday, she falls under my "must be 5 by kindergarten rule", so she will be 6 very soon. Still she is sooo tall. She and Lex wear the same size, both an eight. (And yes, Alexa will be ten soon) And Mallory is almost as tall as Blake! Anyways, she is very ready for this. Her teacher this year is Mrs. Bomgardener and we call her Mrs. Bomb! She is the legend kinder teacher at Hickman, so it should be a fun year! This photo was taken 2 days before school started at our visit the class and teacher night. Mallory has owned this class room for 3 years now. She stared coming with me to help in Blake's kinder class and even when Blake was on to 1st, and 2nd grade, every time I turned around and she was gone, I would always find her in kindergarten classroom sitting as though she was one of them, and they always let her! So finally, it is really her room! This is the reading loft that they have to climb up in. Blake and Faith are reliving their glory days there and Mallory, Gracie and Brittan think it's the coolest place ever!

Mally looked just perfect for kindergarten! With her little school girl apple vest and her red salt water sandals she was too cute.
Mallory chose her backpack at Gap. She loved the hook on lunch bag and so do I cause it leaves so much space for all her projects that come home. I though the polka dots fit her fun personality!
A "Mom making you stand there moment".
This is Gracie Masellis, Mallory's best friend in kindergarten. It has to be said that Gracie is really tall for her age. Her birthday is 3 weeks after Mallory's. See what I mean about Mallory!?!
So we are officially done with the first 3 weeks. Mallory is for sure one of those kids that you really worry about what she might say out in the world. Not shy,or reserved, or calm in any way. Just one story after another for this chick. So, on day 3 of school, Mrs Bomb meets me with, "I have to tell you what Mallory told a parent helper today". Oh, no. I am seriously worried. Apparently she shared another mom that she has Short Term Memory Loss. Her teacher was laughing so hard asking where she could have gotten this from and I'm sure it is from Finding Nemo although, we haven't watched that in 5 or six months. A good laugh at least. Well there have been several more things like how her teacher says that she doesn't know Spanish at all and she has these 3 silly boys that she has learned "sientese" for. (meaning sit down) So her teacher tells these three boys this all day long and the other day she turns around to Mallory pointing to the floor saying "sientese, sientese, boys". Or,she now has the kids convinced that her and Gracie are real sisters. One little girl in class tried to test it out at lunch by getting Mallory to bite a chip and then give it to Gracie because a sister would be the only one to share like that and Mallory just said "That's gross, we don't do that in our family." And I think she has the start of a little crush. She tells me "Mom, do you know what Cole says? He holds the door open and says, ladies first", and then she cracks up. But this kid Cole is seriously cute and when he got chosen as special child last week and was asked if he could go anywhere, where would it be and with who and he said to the mountains with Mallory. So she has a fan too. This year will be super fun for her. Hickman Kindergarten is out of control and she is going to love every minute of it.

P.S. I may keep a running log of the crazy Mallory kindergarten quotes, stories, etc. There may be so many I will forget them if I don't write them down!!!!!!!

1st Day of School!

Blakie started 3rd grade this year. He always feels great on the first day of school. At our school, the younger sibs follow the older ones with the same teacher so there were no surprises for him, he knew he would be in Mrs. Belew's class because Lex had her last year. Mrs. Belew was such a great teacher for Lex and Blake heard Lex say nothing but good things about her so he was excited! Also, all of his best guy friends are in there and Faithy too! He chose to were a Quicksilver shirt and for some reason his choice all centered around wearing his new GAP undershirt. I choose is new shoes, Vans, and he loved them. So did I!

While in Utah, we do all our school shopping. Blake chose this Quicksilver backpack at the outlet in Provo. He was only bothered that it didn't have a matching lunch bag, so we just bought a black one at Target. He looked pretty cute his first day of 3rd grade!
Lex stared 4th grade!!!!! I hear this the beginning of "real school". She will now have homework everyday, and multiple tests every Friday. I know I am more scared than she is. Her teacher is Mrs. Thompson and she has all but two of her girlfriends in her class so she is so excited! She is so funny on the first day, wanting to pick out the perfect outfit. We had tons of fun shopping for everything so the possibilities were many. This is what she chose, very "school girl" with the plaid and all.
Her backpack hunt was quite the ordeal this year. Ragamuffin (a store I sell to) had this adorable Roxy one that we put on hold before we left for Utah. Luckily, they were fine with us doing 3 week search in Utah, and we did. We looked EVERYWHERE!!!! Many were almost the one for her but she kept coming back to the Roxy one at Ragamuffin because of the cute lunch bag that was like a purse, and the matching binder, which was on her list of things she needed. So that is really what made her finally choose the Roxy one. She was so happy to find that it even came with a matching wallet! I don't know why we make such a big deal of the backpack hunt each year, we just do!
Lex at her desk in Mrs. Thompson's class. Brittan in the background not realizing how sad and boring her life was about to get. This was Alexa's best start yet. She has a tendency to be timid in new situations. This year I really felt her confidence. She seemed ready for more responsibility and I know this is because she had such a great year with Mrs. Belew who prepared her well. We love the school our kids go to. We feel very fortunate to have accidentally landed at Hickman!

Liberty Land

THis was a mini amuesment park that just opened right by Val's house. Again, bitter at all there is to do in Utah that is so fun for the kids! We bought $16 wrist bands and boom, a day of fun. There was alot to do so it was worth it.

Bummper boats with Andrew and Avery.

Watch out, Mally's driving!

I wish this picture was up close. Brittan was in between Lexa and Emily and loving the roller coaster! She wanted to do it over and over. Liberty Land sits right along the freeway and every time we went by it, Brittan went phsyco. "Inna go rollercoaster"

Airplane ride with Avery

Lexa is a champ at this. We hasd a blast at Liberty Land!

oopps!

As you can see, I posted in the wrong order. I'll get the hang of this sooner or later.

Just an impromptu cheer stunt while breaking for lunch!
After lunch, Blake hit the clocks again to build his own home in the construction zone.
At the fountains.
We ran into our friends/ward members here at the Gateway fountains. It was fun seeing Shawn and Mackenzie!
Brittan the recording artist.

Discovery Museum

The kids love this place! There is so much to do here for every age. We can spend hours here and the only thing that makes us leave is hungry kids. We always top it off with a trip to the fountains they built for the Winter Olympics in SLC.

These two created quite a stir at the museum! Everyone always thinks they are twins because we dress them alike whenever we can. But this time it was the dresses people dying over. They did look pretty cute.
Planting their very own garden.
Now using the produce they planted to build a sandwich. Brittan did this for so long. I love her version of an egg sandwich. Yum.
Mallory loves to deliver the mail. I am pretty grossed out that she put on the hat.
This might be the funnest job of all. To stand at a real cash register and ring everything up is heaven to them. They take the jobs so seriously.

The Farm

Next up, Thanksgiving Point Farm. Not jail. This is a kid size replica of a "country jail". Mallory does look pretty convinced that she's staying for a while though.

At the farm the kids can milk cows, feed all kinds of animals, ride a horse, go on a wagon ride, see bunnies, ducks, goats and lots more! The highlight is for sure the pony ride. They all want to do it over and over but each time you enter, you only get one ticket to ride.
Blakie gets mad that Lexa always demands the tallest horse cause she's the tallest of my kids. (Probably not for long though.)Maybe only a few short years left until pony rides are not magical. That will be sad!
Here is Mallory trying to be such a nice big sister to Brittan by helping her feed the cows. They love this corn you buy out of little gumball type machines and the kids go through tons of quarters each time we go. As Mallory was standing there, one of the cows attacked Mallory's shirt leaving her like this.......
She was all slobbered on. Poor thing, Valerie and I could not stop laughing at her description of the cow attacking her shirt. She really had to yank it out of the cows mouth and it left her shirt covered in cow juice. Her face really says it all. We still had tons of fun!

592 pictures later................

Wow, where to begin. Each summer we invade my sister Valerie's house for a really long time. She has yet to say "please don't come", so we just press our luck year after year by heading to Utah for our summer vacation. This is no small feat for her family to put up with. Adding five more people to one house is a lot, not to mention that we kind of stay forever. Last year it was four weeks and a day, this year a mere three weeks and three days! The kids look forward to this for months. We have tons of fun, doing all kinds of activities that to us, make Utah the place to be each summer. In years past we get Seven Peaks passes (a local water park), but this year we gave the kids the choice of that, or a Thanksgiving Point pass. It was no question for them. They love, love, love, Thanksgiving Point! We go every day to one of the venues and they never tire of it. It is right behind my sister's house, which make the amazing fireworks shows a backyard treat, and it is such a quick trip that I don't mind going so often. The first stop of our trip is usually the Dinosaur Museum. It is the largest in the world and we really do learn cool stuff every time we go! Here are some of the billion dino pics we took this year.

Addison , (Valerie's most hilarious daughter), is quite the tour guide. She knows the exact way to go and we must visit all her favorites. It took Brittan a few trips to even step foot in the cave. She finally got the hang of it and realized she wouldn't be lost forever if she went in.
The dino dig is every kids dream! They have tons of brushes and they must scrape away to uncover the dino fossils, or throw sand like Brittan does.
I wish I actually took a pic of the display here where they get to build their own dino with huge legs and heads and tails that just velcro on and off, but this was what I caught Brittan doing, pretending to be asleep all snuggled up to a dino leg.
After years of coming here, they actually run to this statue like he is their long lost friend. I guess he kinda is. We love the dinosaur museum!

Do I really have time for this?

Really, I already know the answer to this. It's for sure no. But, I do enjoy looking at all of yours, so maybe you will like sneaking a peak at mine every now and then. I can't promise that I will post often, or that I will even know how to do it, but I'll give it a try!