Jake's First Day

Jake has been so excited for kindergarten. He knew that he could go when he turned five and the day after his birthday in March he asked if he got to go to school. It has seemed like forever waiting. I have been so excited for him to start.

Kindergarten starts one week after everybody else. So for Jake school started on September 1.

Jake with his first day of school balloons

My mom bought Jake this entire outfit for the first day of school while he was in Arizona. It included underwear, socks and shoes. He was so happy to wear it all.

We decided to put Jake in the same school as Ethan. They both go to Orem Elementary.


On the first day of school while Jake was eating lunch he told me he was sick and that he felt bad that he was going to have miss school on his first day. I asked him if he was nervous and he said yes and that he was kind of shy. I told him it would be ok and that he would make lots of new friends.

self portrait by Jake on the way to school

Jake was a little disappointed that he didn't make any new friends on the first day and told me he didn't want to go back on Thursday. Thursday morning came and he was still nervous. I told him there were probably other boys at home who didn't want to go to school because they hadn't made a new either.

Jake at a table in his classroom

Jake came home the second day and told me that there was a boy crying and he went up to him and told him he would be his friend. (I know I have such a kind son)

Ryan thought he was going to school too.

Jake has recently told Mark that he doesn't like school because you have to do what the teacher says, everybody has too and you can't say no. (I thought those were the same rules at home...hmmm guess we need to work on that one)

Ethan's first day of school and other random pictures

Ethan had his first day of school last week. I am pretty excited because I think he actually likes school this year. The past few years he has hated it. I can't believe he is in second grade. WOW what a big little kid. This past weekend Shade had a warehouse sale. My sister-in-law Michele told us all about it. Becky went with Michele. Mark and I went for our date on Friday and we saw Noelle there. We all bought the same shirt. YEAH for Matching. We had a Western family reunion the next day so we decided to all wear them. It was pretty funny. Of course we had to get a picture.

I just took this picture this morning. We were working on Jake's homework, a book about himself. He has to put a book together of himself. When Jake grows up he want to be batman and a construction worker. Ryan really wanted to be in the picture. Sorry I couldn't turn it.

The Marathon 26.2

So I ran or you could say jogged and sometimes walked a marathon on Saturday. It was in Park City Utah. Here is my story. (mostly for my record keeping) Start line with Sarah Hall and Jullian Pexton. Jules is the one who I ran my first marathon with. I saw her in May and she had just signed up for the Park City Marathon. She told me was going to start her training the next day. I thought I sounded like a good idea and so I went home and within a 1/2 hour I was signed up too.
Half way through training I decided I didn't want to run the marathon anymore. They are so time consuming. I decided I would much rather be a mom who exercises in moderation than a person who runs marathons and has kids. Mark told me I had already trained for two months, paid for the registration, new shoes and the running rain jacket, so he wasn't going to let me back out. I was supposed to run 4 days a week but from them on out I typically ran 3 and sometimes 2. I wasn't very motivated.
I didn't get my hotel reservation until 2 or 3 weeks before. I kept thinking I could still back out. Once I payed for the hotel I knew that was when I felt locked into running (although Mark felt locked in way before then) Even on the morning of I woke up and wasn't really in the mood to run.
I stayed with Jules and Sarah for about 2 miles. I trained around an 11 min. mile. Jules had picked up her pace while training and was running about a 9 min. mile. So I was pretty sure I wasn't going to stay with her.

Around mile 3 I had the plan that when I saw Mark at mile 14 I would just drop out of the race. He surprised me and was cheering me on at mile 7. I decided to keep on going. Around mile 10 my left I.T. band started hurting. Around mile 14 I decided I was glad I was running the marathon and I was happy that Mark didn't let me back out. At mile 18 there was the biggest hill ever. I really thought it was some kind of joke on the marathoner. At mile 20 I thought I was going to throw up, if I never eat another shot block in my life I would be happy. By mile 24 I started feeling better. And at mile 25 I got just enough energy to finish.

Here I am finishing the Marathon. Since I trained at an 11 min. mile I planned on averaging a 12 min. mile during the marathon. I thought I would run it in about 5:30 and my official time was 5:35. I was pretty happy about it.

I would have to say my favorite part about running the marathon was that I didn't run with Jules or Sarah. I met so many great people. It was fun talking to them while running and cheering each other on.

Here is my fan club. I don't know why I never got a picture with Mark and my kids. I really appreciated everyone who came. Mark's parents came for the finish and they brought Ethan and Jake up. It was so great to have everyone there.

And after all that as I finished I thought maybe I could do another one just no hills, ugh! This marathon was more difficult than my last one. There were way more hills and most of the path was gravel. It was pretty tough to run on. I really looked forward to the breaks when I had pavement or even the wooden bridges. IF I do run another one it will be a long ways down the road. Thanks again to everyone for their support.

He's ONE!

Here's a picture to refresh your memory of what Andrew looked like, just a few minutes old. Now he's one. I can't believe its only been a year and I feel like he has been part of my family my entire life. We love him so much. He is such a joy to have around. We kept things pretty low key (as low key as you can get with 4 little boys!) Here's the cake I made for Andrew.

Here's the family picture. Andrew really wanted to grab the cake. He had to wait until after the picture.

Andrew loving his cake. We only have video of him grabbing the cake. Mark and I were joking that it wasn't a video of Andrew eating his cake more so one of us yelling at our other kids. They felt they could just dig in as well. I guess we didn't explain that to them very well.

Ryan giving Andrew his birthday hug :)

This is one of my most favorite pictures. It has a classic Andrew look. He is ALWAYS watching his brothers. I know deep down inside he can't wait until he can run around with them.

Almost over

I can't believe summer is almost over. I just about had a panic attack the other day thinking about it. I am so sad to send my kids back to school. I love having them home. I love having no real schedule and I LOVE HAVING NO HOMEWORK! So I took my kids to the children's museum up at the Gateway. We went the day before Andrew's birthday so I didn't have to pay for him. Here are a few pictures from the fun day.

AS always it is so fun to have Emily close. She came with me. I actually bought these little outfits for one of Max's baby showers. Here they are in their big debut. Jake and Ethan had so much fun dressing up at cowboys and construction workers.This is all Jake could talk about was working. He loves this area! He even brought his own work glasses.

what can I say?

I'm a sucker for give aways. And I love a chance at winning something and I would love to win tickets to the circus. My sister-in-law just posted about this and so I guess I will do the same in hopes that I win :) Hopefully my family will be going to the circus!

Saturday fun

Saturday morning I got up and ran. (only 1 1/2 weeks until the marathon YEAH!) Then we did a little weeding in the yard. I really wanted to do something fun with the kids. After lunch I decided we would head to a park to fly our kite. We first stopped by my aunt Shauna's home so Mark could help with the sprinklers. We visited for a while. Shauna had a garage sale that morning and was worn out. She asked us if we wanted to go bowling. Apparently last week was national bowling week. She had printed off a bunch of coupons so we could bowl for free. LOVE IT! We just had to pay for our shoes, except Mark, he has his own :) We offered to take Jaron my cousin with us. My boys LOVE Jaron. They are always asking to play with him. So here are some pictures of the crewMark and Ryan

I loved watching my boys watch their ball.

Jake did this pose almost every time he bowled.

Ryan with his pink ball ( I think I should have bowled with that thing, my hip was hurting from running and I was horrible that day, Ryan beat me)

Jaron