Summer 2011

I wish I could say that we had a super fun, exciting summer this year. . .but I just can't. There were a few highlights. . .but mainly it was pretty lame. I will take you through our summer with whatever pictures I have. If I don't have pictures of it. . .it couldn't have been very important!

Father's day was lovely. We tried to let Ben relax and enjoy his day.

Do you remember the breakfast that Simon made me for Mother's Day? (oatmeal, rice crispy treat, string cheese, an apple and ice milk) Lucky Ben, he got breakfast in bed too! This time, Simon made oatmeal (once again he probably made that first, as it was nice and cold. . .ha ha!) and then put some cars marshmallows and some animal crackers on the plate as well. Such a good boy. :)

My mom came to visit us in July. That was so great! I love having my mom around. I miss her a ton. I would post lots of pictures, but we took them on her camera, and I haven't gotten them from her yet. I did take a few from our 4th of July firework show.

I love this random picture of Malia. She is getting so big. She starts nursery in two weeks! SO excited. . .and NO it's not time for another baby for crying out loud!
Bella turned four! Can you believe it?! She wanted a pink and purple cake. . .and this was the best I could muster that day. It has kind of a cool marbled look. . .that you can't really see in the picture too well.

I just realized that I never took any four year pictures of Bella. Yikes! I need to get on that. We sure do love our Mae Mae (that's what she likes to be called now. . .and she reminds us all the time. . ."Don't you mean 'go to your room, Mae Mae'" that one's my favorite. It makes me very happy when she says it or this one. . ."Daddy, it's Mae Mae, remember?" or "Don't you mean,'I love you Mae Mae?'" Those are a little more tolerable) She has TONS of energy and is so funny. She's our little tomboy princess. Love her. . .HATE that she's already four!

Malia and I went to Utah for a few days! That was awesome! My best friend, Leona flew us out for her daughter Addi's birthday luau. I loved spending time with Leona and family and our family loved spending time with Sweet Malia. . .and me. . .but mostly Malia. :) All of those pictures are also on other cameras, which are currently in Utah. These are the few that I have. . .

Simon started second grade, and Nolan started kindergarten! Here are a few pictures of their first day.

Nolan doesn't like waking up in the morning. . .at all. If I have to wake him up before he's ready, he will literally roll over and go back to sleep. I have never heard of an almost six year old doing that. What can I say? Nolan marches to the beat of his own drum. When I went in to get him up for school (at 6:00 in the stinking morning) he popped right up and asked me what took me so long. I don't know how long he was waiting for me to come get him, but he was up and ready to go that morning. Oh, P.S. He has gone back to his old ways. . .it takes me ten minutes to get him up and going now. Grr.

This is the girls walking down the hall after taking Nolan to his class. I think it's a cute picture. Malia loves to hold hands with her siblings. And they all love that she loves it. :)

They do a staggered entry for kindergartners, so I took Nolan on his official first day. . .which was really only part of a day. Then, on what I call his first day, he got to ride the bus. He told me when he got home that it "was my best day ever!" I asked him why and he said "Because I got to ride the bus to school, and then it brought me home too!" Nolan is loving school. He is reading really well. We read Bob Books every day. He's pretty excited to learn to read like Simon does. Two weeks into school, he has had three notes come home for talking. I am not even a little bit surprised. I think we will get many, many notes from his teachers until he graduates. Here are the pictures of him on his first day taking the bus to school. . .

Simon continues to love and do well at school. Ben asked him a few weeks ago how many hours are in two weeks. In his head, he multiplied 7 by 24. Then multiplied that answer (no, I don't know what it is. . .I can't even do that in my head) by two. We were at the dinner table at the time and Benasked him if he learned multiplication at school. Simon said that his teacher told him they might start learning it at the end of this year. Then Ben asked him where he learned it and Simon said that I taught him. HA! Ben and I looked at each other and laughed. . .out loud. We all know I didn't teach him anything to do with math. Simon insists on it though. I guess I'm a better mom than I thought! :) Here's my cute boys at the bus stop.

Bella Mae started preschool. . .sigh. That sigh was half sigh of relief, half sigh of sadness. Relief because that girl wears me out. She has WAY too much energy and she is WAY too much of a drama queen. Sadness because I will miss my little girl. She has been my buddy. We chat all the time and play games. She's my little ball of sunshine! I love her to death and I'm going to miss her craziness. :( Malia even misses her. Every day when she wakes up from her nap she walks around the house saying "B-la. . .B-la." When I ask her if she wants to go get Bella from school she gets a big smile on her face and nods her head. Love it!

On Bella's first day, we took pictures and went up to her classroom. There is a little boy in her class who is in our ward. His mom didn't have her camera, so I was taking some pictures of him. Bella looked up from her table, saw me, and said "MOM! Get out of here!" I laughed with everyone else. . .then cried and cried when I got to the car. At least she is comfortable and happy there. That's a good thing. She is still loving it too. I asked her teacher how she was doing one day. She told me that Bella had a hard time following directions. No kidding. I'm hoping she learns how to do that at school because I was certainly not able to teach her that trick. She has made some improvement in the last two weeks. . .there's hope!

I'm including this next picture just because I think it's cute. :) And really, who wouldn't?

And this one because it's funny. This is how I find Simon playing his NintendoDS. . .frequently. He just can't sit still and play it. Who knows why he wants to be upside down. Silly kid.

So. That is our Summer in a nutshell. I was looking back at my first posts and was realizing how much I love to see things that I have forgotten about. I plan to post more often. I want to remember the little things that happen while all of the kids are growing up. . .not just the first few. We'll see how it goes. :)