Mason's first day of 2nd Grade!

Mason loves Fox Hollow; what a fun school! Last year for the first day of school they rolled out a red carpet and wore Formal Dresses and Tuxedos. This year they were all in red lined up, clapping and cheering each student on as they entered, with the school mascot greeting the kids, and others handing out pencils. He was so excited for school to be starting early this year. (Mommy on the other hand could have waited to be put back on a schedule. I love lazy summers.)

Ashton doesn't start Preschool until next week, so he cried several times today asking when he gets to go to school. We did a playgroup school last year and he loved that but it was only twice a week and a bit sporadic. This year we signed him up for 3 times a week at an official Preschool and he is thrilled! We are so grateful that our kids love school!

I have long believed that it's more important for a child to enjoy school than to be the head of their class. This is a philosophy I came to believe while watching 6 of my siblings drop out or get early GEDs and the 7th graduating early so she could move onto college. I was the only one to graduate at a normal time out of 8 kids?!?

Mason was so excited to sit by one of his favorite friends, Jackson, who looks concerned at Mason's mischievous look.

And the Award for Worst Mommy Ever Goes to...

Kamryn's mom! Her achievements in this award include letting Kamryn fall out of her parents bed in the middle of the night, and not recognizing for a whole day that her leg had a buckle fracture. Yes, yes I know you must be saying how did she accomplish this and the answers are she didn't know Kamryn was in bed with her, and Kamryn is not a fussy baby so...

Now I feel absolutely aweful! And don't most kids cry when they break bones?!? Kamryn was a little fussy for about 5 minutes after I picked her up, but then she went right to sleep. The next morning she cried once when I changed her diaper. Then the rest of the day she was just whiny and didn't want to be put down. It wasn't until the next day when she wouldn't put any weight on it that I knew something was wrong. I took her in and the doctor felt down her leg and hit the tender spot right above the ankle and she cried...for about 15 seconds. He said "Well just a bit tender, but we'll x-ray it anyway." Sure enough there was a "buckle break."

And the Sweetest Baby Ever Award goes to Kamryn for smiling through it all; falling, poking, X-raying, bracing, and casting all smiles and jabbering.

Rylyn is 3!

We made it past the terrible twos! I love three year olds...no more diapers, talking starts to replace screaming, and tempertantrums have an end in sight. Rylyn started potty training 3 days before her Birthday and she was already done on her big day! Oh how easy girls are to potty train. Rylyn had a big spoiled day with her cousins, Mommo & Papa, our new favorite neighbors and the Collards all coming to celebrate! We love being home in Utah and making each B-day an excuse for a big family gathering.

Gotta be doing something Right!

When your ten-month old baby folds her arms when you tell your kids to fold their arms for the prayer, you have to being doing something right! Or else she is saving up to balance out her sweetness with total monsterness when she turns two. Call me crazy but I think we will roll the dice and keep her.

Hellewellians Campout Reunion

Ryan's dad comes from a family of ten. Most of those ten kids had several children with his dad having the least at three. You may think you can imagine how big this reunion would be, but until you see the pictures you wouldn't know for sure. This is just a handful that were up for the dinner at Payson Lakes campout. Lucky for us it was only 30 minutes out of town and 90 minutes from home. This was a nice feature when we had to run Rylyn down Saturday night for 5 stitches above her left eyebrow. And then had to pack up at 7 am the next morning before she started running around and got it dirty. Don't pitty us though because her daddy is extatic; He feels very proud when his children take after him it was his favorite part of the campout. My favorite part was making tie dye shirts!

What would you do for a ....

Funny thing about kids and Sacrament is that 99.99% of the time while it is good to take a spiritual experience from the speakers, you actually are just trying your best to keep your kids looking somewhat "reverent." This actually translates to just quiet enough for those in the benches around you to ignore you, just clean enough that their church clothes remain as "church clothes", and just entertained enough to keep them within the general area of the bench or chairs your sitting on. So most of Sacrament consists of coloring, small quiet toys, and of course snacks.

We generally try to keep the snacks until last resort as they make the biggest mess and once your out of snacks your really in trouble. This particular Sunday, snacks came out early as daddy was herding the three older monsters, whilst mommy addressed baby issues, and while I was trying to get the boys to sit down, my cute little Coyfish was trying desperately to get some of my attention. Thank goodness for camera phones, cuz no one would believe me that she sat quiet for several minutes waiting for me to notice, so quiet and still I was actually listening to the talk, and suddenly wondered if she had snuck off while I wasn't looking, and when I looked down this is what I got.

Durango Project

M Y D U R A N G O R O C K S . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . ! . !

Katie ussually does all the blogging, but I wanted to get some pictures of my Durango project and super messing MAN GARAGE in so .... The garage is the only place where I get to wear the pants all the time for all decisions. It was a deal we made when building the house, I got to pick my favorite floor plan and to make all decisions concerning the garage and she had final say everywhere else. And a year later guess which room never seems to get cleaned up .... Yep the garage. I wonder why that is?