Lynette's first day of Preschool!

My how the time flies. My baby girl's first day of preschool (in September). She still has two more years before she goes into Kindergarten but I felt like she needed a little more scheduled interaction with kids her age, and get used to taking direction from someone other than me. She loves it. Its two days a week, for only a couple hours but she gets to do art, singing time, play time, practice letters and writing. Its been a great experience for her.

She's in the purple bird class and adores her teacher. At her first parent-teacher conference I was told Lynette was doing great. She follows direction, plays well with others and meets all the milestones for her age. If there was any criticism to give, its that sometimes she takes a bit longer to get things done because she's so detailed oriented. Her teacher showed me Lynette's personal portrait and exclaimed "I mean look at this, she drew in holes in the ear and eyebrows. What 4-year-old draws eyebrows?!" She also told me "Lynette is the kind of kid that teachers go into teaching for." I couldn't help but feel proud at that. I'm also glad that she seems to behave well in class since she doesn't always do so at home...

She was super, super excited.

Trev kinda had a hard time without his pal at first, but he's adjusted well. Especially since he also gets to go to his own joyschool once a week at the same time....meaning 2 kid free hours for me!!!! Everybody wins.

Apple Picking at Eckert's Farm

The upside to being stuck in doors for a week because of torrential rains is that it pushes you to get things done indoors that you normally would procrastinate. I have been blogging a whopping once a month for a while now and I am woefully behind. So, here's even more catching up.

At the end of September Lynette's preschool had a field trip to Eckert's farm to go apple picking. It was a day of excitement and adventure.
It began with Lynette's first ever bus ride. Lynette has been looking forward to this for years.

I didn't realize until I took this picture that my family all matched, except me. That was SO not planned. Funny.

Lynette got to share a seat with her good friend Katie.



We got to ride in a wagon pulled by an honest-to-goodness tractor. We had to wait quite a while for the tractor, but it was well worth it.

Apples, apples everywhere! We were each given a small bag to fill up and were allowed to eat all the apples we wanted along the way.

Trevor took that as a personal challenge. He ate and ate and ate.

It took a while for us to convince him that it was more fun to eat apples that were picked off the tree, than say the rotten ones that were on the ground. Once he got the hang of it, he was hooked.

Lynette also enjoyed this.

Family picture!

Take two- could not get the kids' attention, there was just too much to see and do.

And Trev ate more apples.

Daddy and Lynette going high for the good ones.

I always used to fantasize about apple picking. Thinking about Robert Frost's poem "After Apple Picking" and going out with a wicker basket with a sweater on, picking in the crisp, cool fall air. This was not quite that experience. It was 80 degrees and humid. Lovely day, but hauling around a bag of apples gets HEAVY and I was sweating! It was fun, but I sure needed a shower afterward.

Oh yeah, Trev ate some more, too.

The farm didn't just have apple picking. We also got to see pig races.

Introducing our racing pigs: Kevin Bacon, Hamgelina Jolie, Brad Pig...

We also got to feed goats, which is easier said than done. The food dispenser was right by the goat fence and as soon as I put in the quarter and turned the nozzle the goats swarmed. I never even got to touch the food, they nudged their noses in and ate it right out of the dispenser.

Their were games to place, a "maize" to go through, tricycles to ride, miniature golf. It really was one of those picture perfect days.

Trip to Idaho

The second half of our winter trip was spent in Idaho. It was a whrilwind with lots of activities and LOTS of family. Baby shower, family pictures (the first in 4 years), homecoming...Just the way we like it.


But before I get into that, it must be noted that I worked out everyday with my sidekick Lynette. It was fun working with her, and she did a great job- but we squabbled a bit of the use of the transfirmer (the box step). Its a little difficult to share those.



The primary reason for this whole trip? To see this kid. Kyle came home to find everyone there waiting for him...eventually. As tradition, when everyone was present we all sat down one night as Kyle pulled out all of his souveniers, told stories of his mission and even gave us a demonstration of his yodeling techniques. Here he is singing "Eidleweiss" in his liederhosen. Classic.

We always love this part. We laugh a lot and cry a bit as he testified of the reality of The Savior and how his mission helped him get closer to Him. We laughed a bit more than usual with Kyle because of the interesting choice of souveniers. A wooden pipe. A collection of his alcoholic-free beer bottlecaps. A coffee pot. A beer mug. No wonder he had such a good time.

Along with everyone else going on that weekend, we had a baby shower for Melissa, who was due in just a month. Shot of all the preggos. As of today, Nicole, pictured above, is 2 days overdue. Poor thing.

Hot Mamas!

After many of my siblings left, the kids and I were left to a much quieter house. To keep them busy we took them to Monkey Buisness. Lots of thing to climb and on jump and not break (unlike Grandma's house!)

Michael got in on the action.

Brennan joined us too. Good times had by all.

Day in Salt Lake

During our visit to Idaho and Utah in January we decided to take a day to introduce our kids to Salt Lake. It was a mushy, snowy day- so it was chilly, but pretty. The kids really liked looking at the temple, the visitor's center, the temple grounds. It was a nice time.

We got to have a tour at the conference center, which the kids tolerated pretty well. They liked looking at the paintings and talking about the scripture stories each painting depicted. The couple missionaries were really sweet and accomodating for the kids. It was amazing being in the conference center again and the kids loved running up and down the isles. I'd say the highlight of the whole thing, though was probably the escalators. Kids can be so easy to please sometimes.

Visiting the spot where Michael proposed.

Happy face.

The real highlight of the day was visiting the children's section of the Art Museum. What a fun new addition! There were a lot of things to play and interact with. Lynette was fascinated with the kid computers should could play memory on.

Trev enjoyed stacking foam blocks to build a structure- with just a bit of help from dad.

There was a storyline of an LDS family in Mexico with a lot of little things to play with along the way- like this car. It had something to do with the father picking up neighbors and taking them to church.

And dress-up! There was a video demonstrating how to dance with large skirts and Lynette and I got a kick out of.

And Pose!