Madylin & Morgan Start Kindergarten!

On August 15th the day had arrived for Madylin and Morgan to start school.  They were extremely excited, as was I, to reach this milestone.  I have to admit, though it made me feel kind of old.  I mean when did I get old enough to have school-aged children?!?!  It snuck up on me.

We got up and got ready and did hair and pictures and were ready in plenty of time to get to school for the 8:15 start time.  The girls will be in the same class this year at Sundance Elementary.

FAVORITE!

Being silly...

At school they saw their cousin Riley who is in another kindergarten class at Sundance.

There were no tears shed by me or the girls... we were all just too excited.  I think all of us are comforted by the fact that Morgan and Madylin have each other at school.  We met their teacher, Mrs. Conn who I hear great things about and I like a lot so far. The girls found their seats and started to play with their play-doh left at their spots by their teacher.

Nathan, Lydia and I left without a tear even from Nathan!  I was pleasantly surprised by that!
Now my life has changed drastically and will never go back!  Crazy, but wonderful because they really LOVE school so far!

Slip 'n Slidin' with Cousins

On August 13th we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Kinser's to hang out with Russell's side of the family.  They were all out here for Russell's little brother, Travis' wedding. For the first time in a couple of years we got to see Russell's brother Aaron and his family who live in Minnesota.  Grandpa got out a slip 'n slide and we brought ours over and all the kids had a ball.   Truth be told, my kids were really bad and the whole sliding thing.  They would just run and then jump on their knees at the end.  Russell tried to help show them how to slide a couple of times, but they just were too nervous to do it the right way by themselves.  Oh well, they still had a ton of fun.

Finally, Nathan!

I detest potty training.  I wish it was one of those things I could hire out for or send the kid to boot camp for a week. Nathan had been potty training for like EVER!!  Okay like 5 months, maybe.  He did great for about a week a couple months before he turned 3 and went potty all the time and then decided he didn't want to do it anymore and he was SO frustrating.  For about 2 months he did fine, but never stayed dry for a whole day and always did horrible things in his underwear if I ever dared to have him wear them.  Finally after he turned 3 I got the idea from my cousin, Jessica to try a potty chart.  He got a sticker on a chart every time he TRIED to go potty and a candy anytime he did go.  He also would get 2 potty treats if he was still dry when he went the next time.  Well guess what... this worked!   Nathan was told that when he filled up his whole chart with stickers, he would get this light-up sword that we had bought for him.  He talked about it all the time and the day finally came.  He was beyond excited to get his hands on this sword.

Watch out, he's pretty scary with this thing!

Playing Together

The kids have been doing really well playing lately.  They all are soooo good with Lydia, too.  It amazes me.  They all like to take turns pushing Lydia in her swing in the back yard.  Sometimes in the evenings she just sits in her exersaucer on the back porch and watches the older 3 play around her.  I love those times.
One day we got out the kids' favorite tent and Lydia had fun crawling around inside with the kids while they read books and played house.  Times like these I'm grateful to have a lot of kids close in age!

Wonderbaby

This little one is SO strong she's kinda scaring me.

2 nights ago she pulled herself up to standing on the play kitchen!!

She's 6 months old and only about 15 pounds and she is very strong for her age.  Very petite and lean.

And I don't know that she'll be chunking out any time soon because she just started crawling last week.  Oh boy.... we're in for it now!

She's a lil' freak I tell ya!