A look back

As I posted Bella's first day of preschool photos yesterday I thought it would be fun to add the other girls first day photos as well. With MacKayla we hadn't started the tradition of photos in the kitchen in front of the door, but you can still see how little she was and how much she has grown up.

MacKayla - August 2006

Annika - August 2008

Arabella - August 2011

First Day of School

Yesterday we celebrated the first day of school for the older girls and today was Arabella's first day.  They had a lot of fun and each of them loved their first days. 

MacKayla is in third grade with Mrs. Anderson, she said that her teacher is very nice and that they had fun doing math yesterday.  She said they also learned about the Golden Rule - "something about being nice to people."  MacKayla is very excited for third grade and can't wait until the book writing project so she can write her own book.

Styling!

Showing off her awesome backpack.

Annika is in first grade this year with Mrs. Jensen, and Annika said she is the best teacher ever.  She said that Mrs. Jensen was so nice and never had to be mean to her, but she did have to be mean to others because they were not being good.  Annika is very excited to be going to school all day now and getting to eat lunch at school.

What a beautiful grin.

Showing off her Monster High backpack, her newest obsession.

 Arabella started preschool this week with Mrs. Terri, and she thinks Mrs. Terri is awesome.  Bella had fun learning about school rules, learning her friends names and the color red.  She is excited to go back to school on Thursday.

In all her cheesiness.

What a cutie!

Ready for the first day.

They do love each other.

Hanging out with E at the bus stop.

All set to head off to school.

Bye Mom!

Bella's first day and more love.

Family Fun Run

Our pediatrician's office sponsors a family run, and for the first time we decided to join in.  They broke the race into heats by age group, 0-3, 4-6, 7-9...The 0-6 group ran the short race, probable about 1/4 mile.  The older kids ran a mile. 

Annika was in the 4-6 group and she was the first to go.  I waited on the sidelines for her to pass and at the half way point she was in the lead for the girls, there were a few boys ahead of her.  She ended up crossing the finish line first for the girls and probably fifth overall.  She received a trophy for first place, she was beyond jazzed!  She has been excited for this for a while and was sure that she would win, I guess all that energy in her paid off. 

Annika receiving her trophy.

Bella and Johnny's race was next.  I skipped the first half as I was watching Annika, but Johnny and I joined Bella for the second half.  Bella was in the back of the pack, but was smiling and having fun.  When I joined her I asked if she wanted to run, she said no she wanted to skippy-jump the rest, so that is what she did, a bit of a sideways skip-jump.  She had fun and ended with big smiles.  Johnny just chilled in the stroller and was content.

MacKayla's race was last and was not the happy fun of the rest of them.  MacKayla had set her sights on a trophy as well.  Well I guess she got tired really fast and when I saw her at the 1/8 mile she was in tears and the very last kid.  She was mad, especially when Annika showed off her trophy.  She ended up walking the whole thing, she did finish and not last, but she said that she did not have any fun.  Oh well, I guess in life we have to learn to take disappointment as well as success. 

Summer fun

As friends are starting to post their kids back to school photos, I realize that I really need to get our summer photos up before we go back to school next week.  So here goes...

We started out the summer with T-ball for Annika and Softball for MacKayla.  They both had a lot of fun and are looking forward to playing again next year.  Annika was playing on a young team and was very good.  She is a fast runner and can hit the ball really hard.  MacKayla joined a team that was in its second year together, so she had a bit of work to do to catch up.  By the end of the season she had gotten pretty good at hitting the ball and running the bases.

MacKayla at bat.

Woohoo, I caught the ball.

Ready for action!

MacKayla's team photo.

Annika's team photo.

Ready to play, even before she hit the field.

Nice hit, run Annika!

On first and ready to make it all the way.

In June we also took a mini vacation, the kids and I went down to St. George and spent a long weekend with Grandma, Grandpa and Kelsey.  We had a lot of fun!  We rented a condo and had a lot of fun swimming, playing on the toys and justt hanging out there.  We also were able to take a trip to Zion's, it was our first time and we really liked it.  Johnny did cry for the entire bus ride down from Zion's, but we can pretend that didn't happen.  I also don't have any pictures from there, but I do have some of the kids having fun.

Annika zipping along the monkey bars.

MacKayla, the poser.

Bella having fun in the sandbox.

Johnny playing with Grandpa.

Camera is out, we all have to get into the photo.

Don't forget Bella.

I love Grandma!

What a great sport Grandpa is!

 

The condo had this awesome garden tub and the kids thought it was great, they had to go "swimming" in it.

 July found us taking the traditional swimming lessons.  You might remember that last year we skipped them as a certain child decided to break her arm.  Well this year went great and all the girls went swimming.  I was going to take a Mommy and Me class with Johnny, but while we were in St. George I found out that he hated swimming.  Every time we took him to the pool he would just cry, so instead we sat and watched the girls swim.

Ring around the roses.

MacKayla the fish.

Annika's great star float.

Bella having fun.

Isn't she cute.

July also found us at Aspen Grove this year.  We had so much fun and loved spending time with family.  The vacation was marred with another bout of the stomach flu, 7 out of 9 of us got it, Dad and I were the only ones not to.  Some of the highlights of the week were: Saturday - we went to the dinosaur museum and the kids had a blast. Monday - air rifles, James and I went shooting and both did really well.  I would love to get a gun and do more shooting.  Tuesday - Arts and crafts for James and I.  James painted some dinosaurs and they look really good.  I was able to make some wooden pens and I had a blast making them.  Wednesday - we went down to Provo and spent time at BYU and did some shopping in the bookstore.  That night we also had a small birthday party for Jonathan.  Thursday - I can't think of any fun on this day, I think it was mostly spent with puking kids.  Friday - we loaded up and headed home.  All in all a great vacation, I love going to Aspen Grove and really hope that next time no one gets sick!

James' dinosaurs that he painted.

The before of my pens.  They start as simple wood blocks.

The after, aren't they cool.  The light one is Bethlehem olive wood and the red one is Paduak.

The traditional photo in front of the shark.

Hiding in a cave, what fun.

Bella finding a dinosaur bone.

MacKayla the paleontologist.

Annika the digger.

Johnny is such a cutie, he had a great time.

MacKayla ready to climb the wall.

Poor Johnny, not feeling good here.

On the wall and making good progress.

Annika's turn on the wall.

Look how far she is.

Way to go Annika.

Ready to dig in to his cake.  We bought a candle, but forgot the matches.

Excited for his cake.

Made a little mess.

Loving my grandma.

Trying to be a good trooper, but feeling really awful.

The Wammack Men!  Poor James was feeling sick here.

Annika feeling sick, Bella being a stinker, Johnny indifferent, and Kayla always ready to smile.

August we celebrated Johnny's first birthday.  The last year went by so quickly with him and he is such a great kid.  He is so much fun and we all love him to bits.  He is crawling up a storm and getting into all kinds of trouble.  He likes to tempt fate and then look at you as though to say "what are you going to do about it."  He had his one year check up last week and he is 21 lbs 4 oz and 29 3/4 in.  He is about average in height and weight.

Johnny's first birthday cake, he had a dinosaur themed party.

I'm done with dinner give me the cake.

This is interesting.

Getting messier.

The kids were calling him a Smurf, he had a lot of fun playing with the frosting.

He looks like he is about to attack someone.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

He had so much blue frosting on him that he turned the bath water blue.

The girls are ready for him to open his presents.

I don't wanna do what you want me to.

Oooohhhh, so I can really rip this and you wont care?

My own smart phone, woohoo!  He ended up getting a phone and several trains to go with his new train table.  He loved the phone although he still likes whatever phone mommy has more.

He stole a tomato from the box and decided it would make a great afternoon snack.

The poor boy is surrounded by girls and so he has learned to brush his hair and he loves to do it. 

 Last but not least for August, I had knee surgery about two weeks ago.  I started having problems with my knee about ten years ago.  The doctors back then told me nothing was wrong and that if I was their daughter they would tell me I was fine.  After ten years of pain and taking lots of meds for it I decided to go to another doctor.  This one said that I had Plica Band Syndrome.  In utero before the knee is formed it has these bands in place they typically dissolve but not always.  In cases where they don't dissolve they can become inflamed if you ever do repetitive motion or injure the knee (ten years ago I had a job going up and down stairs all night.)  So I had arthroscopic surgery done to remove the Plica.  I have most of my range of motion back in the knee now, but it still has spots that hurt.  Going up stairs is easy, down causes a bit of pain.  I am really hoping that in a few weeks I will be better than before and pain free.

It doesn't look like much, but those are the two incision spots.

 So that brings us to now and the end of summer.  If you made it all the way through this, wow!  Until next week and the back to school issue...