My Big Kindergarten Girl

Well Marin started Kindergarten today. She was so excited last night she told me she was sure she would not be able to sleep. She did sleep, and today she had a blast. I did not think I was the type of mom to get emotional when I dropped her off, but I really surprised myself by shedding a few tears. I went to hug her good bye and had to sneak out really quickly before she saw me crying. I just couldn't believe my little girl was grown up enough for school! Then Kate saved the day by providing a good distraction since she had climbed out of the stroller and was tearing down the hallway full speed in the opposite direction. Here are a few pictures:

Marin and her cute teacher

Oh I love the little person Marin is becoming. She is sweet, kind, and she gets so excited over little things. The bazillion times I've made her "say it again nice" and say please and thank you are starting to pay off. She's a good little helper and I'm so excited for her to learn and grow this year in school!

Little Man Is Camera Shy

Andrew is the sweetest, smiliest {just had to insert here that auto-correct tried to change that word to "slimiest"} little guy and I try and try to get his adorable open-mouthed smile on camera and instead I get this:

And this:

Or this:


Doesn't he look a little horrified?

Oh, now this is more like it... 1 of 20 isn't too shabby little buddy!

Our Latest Happenings

This is going to be pretty random. I haven't blogged about much that we've been doing this summer and I'm so behind so I'm going to do what I always do when I have a lot to tackle... make a list. I love lists. I'm totally the type of person who adds things to my list just so I can cross them off (even if I've already done them sometimes). So here you are, our latest happenings:

1. Our Alaska cousins came to play! Mitch's brother's family lives in Alaska. They used to live quite close, but moved several years ago. Their little Olivia is Marin's age and they are best cousins. Their 2 older boys have grown up so much since we last saw them. They are like little adults these days. Mitch had fun with some non-wussy kids trying to throw them off the tube! We were so happy they came and stayed several days with us! Hopefully we'll get to visit them soon in Alaska!

(side note: these pics are actually from a week later during the baby blessing when our Alaska cousins came back and boated with us again. And upon further inspection, that is not in fact Ethan and Olivia from Alaska, but 2 cousins from Idaho. Oh well, I'm too lazy to re-upload more pictures, sorry Nicole!)

2. We celebrated the 4th of July! We went to Romney Stadium with my family and watched the Logan City's fireworks show. The main attraction was the band Diamond Rio, which is a total 80's, 90's old guy band now, but good old Mitch knew every single song word for word and so did my mom! I knew a bunch too. We're old and lame, ha ha!


3. We had a ton of family come for Andrew's baby blessing later that weekend. It was great! We had about 30 people staying at our house and it was crazy but so fun. Mitch took everyone boating (well except Alisa and I who stayed home with the babies) and then we blessed our sweet little Andrew.


4. My mom came to stay for the week and we had a blast! My brother Jaren took a ton of pictures of us boating, but I don't have any of them. My mom took Andrew in the night and I got 3 nights of sleep, hooray!

5. I turned 29! Oh I'm so close to 30 I can smell it, ha ha! This is Kate pounding some pink frosting off of the cupcakes Mitch brought home. She ate the frosting off 2 cupcakes, and let's just say it made for several unpleasant diaper changes the next day! My birthday present is a shopping trip with my sister Avree this Saturday and I cannot wait!


Well that's about it!

I Am In Love...

Seriously, could he be any cuter?!

The Many Confessions of Marin

So Marin has been on a bit of a confessing streak of late. I'm pretty sure it started a few weeks ago during a church lesson about the steps of repentance. Every day Mitch or I get around 10 confessions. I won't tell every confession we've heard (that would make this post too long), but I will give you the highlights:

1. "I peed in the shower twice."
2. "When you told me and Allie not to play in the garage, we ignored you and did anyway."
3. "When I was going potty I ran over to the closet to get some toilet paper, but don't worry, I didn't drip."
4. "I opened my eyes during the prayer 6 times, but not the whole time I swear."
5. "Last week I wiped jelly on the kitchen chair instead of a napkin."
6. "Mom, I just scratched my bum, but don't worry, it wasn't with the hand that is holding Andrew's binky."
7. "Me and girl-Jordan [that's her friend's title since there is also a boy-Jordan in our neighborhood] peed on the grass when I was 4."
8. "When I was 4 I was opening my otter pop and accidentally swallowed some plastic."
9. "Mom when I was 4 [everything seemed to have happened when she was 4] I colored crayon on the computer screen."
10. "I hit Kate for no reason but you can't get mad because she's not even crying."

I could go on and on. I really would not care to know about most of these, for obvious reasons. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. At least she's gotten over her Holy Ghost phase, where for weeks everything naughty she did was because "the Holy Ghost told her to." I may need to warn her Primary teacher that Marin really takes everything she says quite literally...

The Apostrophe

After reading an ad in today's newspaper I cannot hold my thoughts back. It read: "Huge Memorial Day blowout-- discount tree's..." Seriously? In your large newspaper ad? "Tree's"??!!! Now I'm not an English teacher or a grammar expert, but the misuse of the apostrophe in this way absolutely drives me crazy! Below are 2 rules explaining when it is okay to use an apostrophe:

Rule 1.	Use the apostrophe with contractions. The apostrophe is always placed at the spot where the letter(s) has been removed.
	Examples:	don't, isn't
		You're right.
		She's a great teacher.

Rule 2.	Use the apostrophe to show possession. Place the apostrophe before the s to show singular possession.
	Examples:	one boy's hat
		one woman's hat
		one actress's hat
		one child's hat
		Ms. Chang's house

Other than these 2 times, don't put an apostrophe before an "S"!!! Aahhh, it feels good to get that out of my system!

P.S. Stupid blogger format cut off the end of the rules, but you still get the picture.

Why I Could Never Be a Professional Photographer...

When I uploaded these to my computer I just sat there laughing. My kids' faces kind of make it seem like Darth Vader was standing behind me while I took them. Oh well, at least I get an "E" for effort!




"Sure I'll smile Darth, just please don't kill me with your light saber!"