Megan's First Day of Preschool

Megan started her first day of preschool today.  Her last year of preschool before Kindergarten.  I can't believe that in one short year she will be a kindergartner.  That's nuts.
She went right in with her friend Bobbie and they washed their hands and sat down ready to eat their breakfast.  She didn't even come to me for a hug, I had to ask her for one.  She gave me a quick side hug and Allie and I were off.

No tears, like last year, just one happy girl.  I am so proud of her.  She is super excited to be the big kid in the class.
Now it's just Allie and I four days a week for three hours a day.  What a treat for us to have quality time together.  Then Megan and I get that time together while Allie naps.  Just me and my girls during the day.  Such a difference from when it was just me and my boys...wow, that feels like so long ago.  I love my family!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Allie!

Our baby Allie is no longer a baby.  She is 2 years old!  WOW!  Two, my baby is two!  Her birthday was on Sunday.  We gave her some books to start off her birthday but we will celebrate in a few weeks with Josh.  

Allie is such a fun little girl.  She is really good at playing with toys and entertaining herself but also loves to play with kids too.  She is a super good eater and isn't super picky most of the time.  

She thinks that she is big like her siblings and so she wants to do big things like them.  It becomes a problems sometimes.  She is a good climber, lucky for us.  

She loves to go on outings and cries when she doesn't get to go.  She loves nursery and goes there happily.  She is talking more and more everyday.  She doesn't always speak super clearly, but she is trying hard.  

We all love our Allie so much and are so thankful she is in our family.

Weight: 28.5 lbs (83%)

Height: 34 3/4 inches (72%)

Head: 19.25 inches (89%)

BMI: 78%

Josh's First Day of 1st Grade

Josh started 1st grade today.  He was really excited to go back to school.  Tyler is so positive about school that it really rubs off on Josh.
He said that he was happy for school and was ready to go.  He didn't really say too much though.  I think he was a littler nervous and didn't really know how to communicate it or he just didn't want to.
We took our normal first day of school pictures and of course the girls wanted to join.  Josh is so sweet with Allie and said that he wanted her in his pictures and didn't want me to take one of him by himself.
We all walked to school and after we dropped of Tyler in his line I showed Josh where to meet Tyler at the end of the day so they cold walk home together.
After that he was walking really fast to go get into his line.  He didn't want to play, he just wanted to line up.  Once we got there he seemed to look around at the kids and didn't seem to recognize many of them.  He left the line to stand by me for a minute acting a littler nervous.  But then he got back in the line and went happily into his classroom.
After school he said that he liked it.  He was hungry because he didn't eat all his lunch.  He did say his teacher yelled a lot, but that he liked her and school.  I am so glad that his first day went great and I look forward to a great school year!

Tyler's First Day of 4th Grade

Tyler is now in 4th grade!  Wow!  To say Tyler was excited for school would be a huge understatement.  He LOVES school and was so so excited.
He got his annual pictures taken by the door and was not too happy that the girls (mainly Megan) wanted to join his picture.  Megan loves him so much and lately Tyler just tolerates her.  She does a good job of driving him crazy and bugging him often.
We walked around the school and decided to have the boys meet at the painted map on the ground after school so they could walk home together.  After that we walked behind Tyler (because he was walking so fast and acting like he knew where he was going and didn't need any help) to his line.  The boys let  me take a picture and then off we went with Josh leaving Tyler to be big by himself.
It's kind of sad to think that he doesn't really need me to help him to school anymore.  He hasn't really needed my help for a few years now.  Luckily I still have three others that need me, for now.
Tyler said that he had a great first day and knows most of the kids in his class.  He even volunteered to get up and do times tables and read a paragraph he wrote.  He said he did cry both times, but just a little and he was very brave.  His teacher even gave him a prize for being brave.  Look like Tyler is going to have a great year!

Oregon - Day 10: Ice Cream Craziness

The ice cream place was a little further then Tony made it out to be, but we had a good little walk around downtown Boise.  We were totally the only ones with little kids walking around.  It wasn't too hot and kind of fun to see their little downtown area.

We all picked out our ice cream and then sat outside to eat it.  Allie and Megan shared and made a big mess.  They seemed to like it though.

After everyone finished we walked back to our hotel for bath time.  After bath we put them all to bed.  It took Tyler and Josh a while to fall asleep, but they finally got there.  They were still sleeping the next morning when the girls woke up.  So we got everyone else ready to go and then they woke up and we got them dressed to go to breakfast.

After breakfast we packed up the car and checked out of our hotel.  Our room was right by the elevator and Tony could hear it all night long and it really bothered him.  He let the front desk know and they said they would credit back our points for the nights stay.  So that was really nice of them. 

The kids did really good on the drive home until we were about 30 minutes from our house.  Megan was being noisy and it woke up Allie and then Allie woke up just hysterical and could not stop crying.  She started hyperventilating and that's when I asked Tyler to move over so I could climb back and sit by her.  I got her calmed down and we all made it back home happy.

It was such a fun trip!  We were all very glad to be back home!

Oregon - Day 10: Dinner & Hotel Time

We got up and got dressed and headed out from Nate and Amy's house.  We weren't in a hurry but we didn't want to just hang out there without them there.
So we went to get some breakfast at McDonald's and decided to let the kids play on their fun playground.  They were the only kids and we had the play area to ourselves for most of our visit.
After Tony and I had enough hanging around time, we all packed into the car and started our drive towards Boise.

We stopped and grabbed some lunch to go in Burns and continued driving.  We made pretty good time into Boise and the kids did pretty good in the car.  Allie took a good nap after lunch. Since our hotel was in downtown Boise I didn't want to go there and then have to drive back for gas and dinner so we made a few stops before checking in.  We started at Costco to gas up and walk around.  After that we stopped at Walmart for a few things and then went to dinner at Black Bear Diner.

Dinner was good and we all ate well.  The kids liked that they could kind of wander around a little since they had lots of room and little people there.
After diner we went to our hotel.  The kids were so happy to just be able to play in the room.  It was a nice big room so we had plenty of room for all of us to relax.  We had to try and keep the noise down, but the kids weren't too bad.  They liked looking out our 10 story window.

After a while Tony said he found an ice cream place close by so we all headed out to find us some yummy ice cream.

Oregon - Day 9: Wildlife Safari

Wendy's family had to leave first on Saturday morning to get to the airport.  They were already gone when we woke up.  Boyd and Julie were the next to leave soon after we woke up.  Kevin and Betsy left after us because they wanted to stay and go the Seafood Festival.
I hadn't done much packing before Saturday because I knew we were not in much of a hurry to check out.

So we let the kids watch some shows while eating breakfast and Tony and I started packing up our stuff.  Once I had the bag packed then Tony and the kids would take it out to the car.  After we were all packed up we said good-bye to my mom and Teagan and then started our journey towards the drive threw animal park.

Tony had read about it on-line and my dad had always wondered how it was so we decided to go.  Tony found a good deal on-line and we were glad to be able to go for cheaper then expected.
It took us a couple hours to drive there, but it was a pretty drive.  Once we got there their was a big long line of cars.  You pay to get into the park from your car and it was a long process.

Once we finally got in we decided to go into their little walk around area and have us all go potty before driving through the park.  Since we didn't know how long it would take we didn't want to chance needing a potty break.

They had a pretty neat little area to walk around.  It had a few animals to look at, like a couple cheetahs.  They also had a playground, restaurant, and camels that you could pay to ride.
We decided that we could come back in a few years when the kids are older and pay to let them ride a camel.  It did look pretty fun.  We figured we would just eat lunch at their restaurant before going to the animal park.

Tony took the kids to play at the playground while I ordered the food.  It wasn't too expensive and the ordering process was fast.  It was the getting of the food that was slow.  It took at least 45 minutes for us to get our food.  Luckily the kids were pretty good while we waited.  They came back and forth from the playground a few times and it all worked out, but man it took a long time.

The food was pretty good and we all ate every last bite.  After we were done we all went potty one last time before getting back in the car to drive around the animal park.
They only have a few rules to go into the park.  You have to drive 10 mph and if an animal is walking past your open window you need to put it up, for your safety.  Seemed easy enough.

Since the speed limit is 10 mph we let Megan and Josh sit up with Tyler and Allie in the middle seats.  We wanted them to be able to see all the animals.
Megan loved this.  She loved standing up and moving around the car being silly.  Josh did really good just sitting and looking out for all the different animals.

They have many different areas that you drive threw.  You can pull over at anytime and sit and watch the animals or you can keep driving.  Some of the animals were really active and others were hiding in the shade.
It was a really hot day and we were driving through in the early afternoon, so it was hot out their.

Some of the areas had a big pavilion area and feeding stations.  We got a really good look at the giraffes in their pavilion area.
Our favorite was the bears.  We were able to watch two bears play with each other in the water.  One was already in the water and he was trying to get the other one to come in.  It was so cute to watch.
With our coupon we got feeding cups to feed the deer in a designated area.  We just put it in our hands and then put our arms out the window and they came and ate out of our hands.  Megan tried a little and got scared then Josh tried it and loved it.  He wasn't scared at all.  Tyler didn't want to feed them.
After we drove through the whole park we stopped to go potty again before the long drive to Bend.
We all enjoyed driving around the park and seeing all the animals and hope to do it again in a few years. 

Oregon - Day 8: Fire at the Cabins

My mom really wanted to have a fire or two while we were at the cabins, but we hadn't had one yet.  So on our last night in the cabins we had a fire.
We used the pit that was in between Kevin and Julie's cabins.  The older kids mostly played in the open grass area on the other side of Kevin's cabin.  They loved playing over there and had lots of different adventures in the "forest."

I had brought some bubbles for the kids to play with and I hadn't gotten them out yet.  So I decided to give one to the little kids that were playing by us to keep them entertained and away from the fire.
They loved the bubbles.  They had so much fun until they all dumped out all of their bubble solution and couldn't blow bubbles anymore.  I figured that would happen with the little ones, but at least they enjoyed them for a little while.

Julie and Boyd had the ingredients to make S'mores.  They even had roasting sticks.  So once the fire was ready the older kids all came over and roasted marshmallows and made them and us s'mores.  I am not really a huge fan of s'mores so I just watched others enjoy and get all messy and sticky.
It was nice hanging out chatting in the cool foggy evening by the beach.  I sure do love my family!

Me, Mom, and Wendy

Boyd took this lovely picture of himself on my camera.  Julie is a lucky lady.

All of us lazy people hanging out and loving the jacket weather.

Me, Julie, Kevin, Mom, and Wendy - looking hot!

Oregon - Day 8: Lavern Park

This morning after we ate breakfast we all packed up some lunches and headed towards Lavern Park.
It was about an hour or so away from where we were.  This is a park that we used to go to as kids.  It has a nice picnic area and a fun river to play in.

After we got there the kids wanted to play on the playground first thing.  They love playing with their cousins and couldn't get enough cousin time.  We set up our chairs and chatted for a while before we decided to eat some lunch.  Of course most the kids didn't want to eat because who wants to stop having so much fun to eat?  Not them.

After some of us ate then we changed the kids into their swimsuits.  Tony also got into his suit and played in the water mostly with Allie.
Luckily the water wasn't very deep so we didn't need to worry too much, but their were some deep spots.  Megan and Josh felt more comfortable with their floaties so I got them out of the car.  Tyler did great with nothing helping him get around.

Their was a rope swing that the kids wanted to try and use.  It was pretty hard and they couldn't get it to work for them.  Uncle Gabe stepped up and figured out how to get it to the tree and then he was able to swing down from the tree using the rope.  It was pretty fun to watch.  Go Gabe.

Megan and Allie didn't last too long in the water.  Megan lost one of her water shoes in the water and started freaking out.  You would have thought she was bitten.  They looked all over for it and couldn't find it.  She came out of the water and sat down on a towel waiting to see if they could find it.  After about ten minutes an unknown boy found it for us.  He was there when it happened and was determined to find it.  So nice of him.  We were glad to have it back.
Allie really liked throwing the rocks into the water.  I had brought my swimsuit, but really didn't want to get into the water.  I watched form the "beach" and enjoyed seeing everyone else getting wet and dirty.

The boys wanted to stay and play in the water so we let them while Tony changed and I changed the girls.  We then sat in our chairs and chatted with my family.  It was so nice to sit around the picnic area hanging out with no one being in a hurry to go off to the next thing.

After we had enough park time and it was way past Allie's nap time we called in the boys from the water and got them changed before heading back to the cabins.  They wanted to stay and play some more, so I would say that was a good sign that this trip to Lavern Park was a success.