Ready or Not School Begins

First day of School

School has begun. And not just school--gymnastics, soccer, and clogging decided to begin the same week.  I was anticipating a transition, so other than a few bouts of insomnia oh say every night this past week, I have taken the changes in stride.  One thing I was not anticipating was more conflict with Sav.  (Which is very odd because Savanna has struggled with transitions since she was two years old so one would think I would have braced myself for it.) Savanna is a textbook "tweener."  She is very happy to be in sixth grade, loves her teachers, has a definite crush on a certain boy at school and is not embarrassed to talk about him in loving tones, and HATES most everything about her appearance.  Her clothes never fit right, her hair never looks good enough, her mom is always getting on her case about the dress code, she refuses to wear her glasses anymore, and her braces lost a band so everyone will notice!  Her self-conscious anxieties even spill over into her soccer clothes (too big, too baggy, too long)!  The excitement of the first day of school was doused with arguments about her outfit, and can't I PLEASE allow her to wear makeup to school?? The morning of the second day of school there were fights about borrowing leggings. The morning of the third day of school her jeans didn't fit right.  On Friday morning we spend 30 minutes trying to fix her hair. After wetting, drying, combing, pulling, and even cutting she finally settled on a do, and even then as she was walking out the door she wasn't satisfied with her bangs. She did thank me about 3 times though for helping her with her hair.

Not convinced she looks pretty enough

Finally a smile. What a beautiful girl

Fiora's not sure what the fuss is about!

Weston's excited for school

This is the last year I will have 3 kids in the same school.  The school fees just for elementary school alone this year seemed exorbitant, but I've been warned it only gets worse in Jr. High. And then hundreds of dollars worse in High school.  So I'm grateful we only had to spend circa 100 on clothes, 100 on supplies, 60 on class donations, 30 for orchestra, 305 for lunches, and a small $5 to join the PTA. 

The week prior to school starting I turned this

Into this

I love Utah peaches in August!  They are Heavenly. I can't wait til my peach trees yield fruit!

Since we have had so many fires in Utah this summer the sun always looks red and hazy in the evening. It makes for some beautiful sunsets and you can almost look directly at the flaming red ball.  Pictures don't do it a bit of justice but here is one anyway.

Jared took me to his lot in Timberlakes to do some four wheeling last Saturday. We went with Justin and Shawna and stopped for mexican on the way there. It was a good time!

Justin got the biggest taco I've ever seen

Super nachos with jalapenos, yum!

Justin and Shawna

Heather

Jared and Weston enjoyed a Father's son camp out this weekend, yep that was squeezed into this week as well. Weston had a great time, and I was a little worried about him because he has had 90 minute gymnastics classes Mon and Wed, and soccer practice Tues and Thurs, and school besides, and hasn't slept that well all week, but he is a trooper and loved the outing. Jared said they went out to eat, caught fish and grilled them at the camp site, shared treats, slept pretty well, and the next morning went on a fun bike ride.  They were 30 minutes late to his first soccer game but hey, soccer is every week and father son camp outs only happen once a year if that.  Jared said he had a really good time, love those memories!  

In the tent

One more thing. Here are some more fun pictures I didn't post from the Daddy Daughter activity last month.

Weston does flips

I couldn't suppress the feeling that I needed to put Weston back in gymnastics. He was in gym from age 3 to age 6, and was a level 2 when I pulled him out in 2010 because I couldn't juggle graduate school, his soccer schedule, and the girls' lessons/soccer on my own anymore. Gymnastics was always sort of my "thing," Jared was never really interested in having the kids in there but just let me enroll them because I wanted to. About age 8 both Fiora and Savanna begged me to let them quit, they didn't like it and were not progressing (and were incidentally still in level 2 at age 8). I don't make my kids do what I want them to, I want to be careful to not live vicariously through my children. The past two years Weston has done soccer, and on the side--he jumps on the trampoline. And boy does he ever jump. He flips and flips and flips again, every way you can think of. This last summer he has started trying to do his trampoline tumbling on the ground.  One evening Jared encouraged him to do a back handspring one evening so he did, just like that. Jared said, "Maybe we should put him back in gymnastics." It was painfully obvious that Weston has some natural talent at tumbling, and with Jared on board I had the courage to try to add one more thing to our schedule this fall. I went to the All American Gymnastics with some trepidation that it wouldn't work out, what if he had digressed to level 1 and we had to start over? What if I was just being a proud mommy that couldn't see he was just "average"? What if the class times were right when Savanna had violin, Fiora had clogging, and Weston had soccer, and I had appointments??? So when we had an evaluation done and the instructor said, "He's definitely a level 3 and should enroll in a pre-teen team-prep class every Wednesday and Monday at 6"... I just about fainted!  Not only did he progress a whole level without even being in gymnastics, the class he needs to be in is on the only two free nights at exactly the right time for me to take him!  There has to be a reason this is important for Weston to enhance his gymnastics skills, because I fought the desire to put him in hard, and was very careful not to make it an extension of my own ego, and was trying to simplify not multiply tasks when I felt urged to enroll him, but it all worked out too beautifully to not be meant-to-be.

Have we learned anything this summer?

We've managed to get to the library 4 or 5 times this summer, and Fiora still takes the lead in reading her books of choice. She even re-reads some of them. Savanna struggles to read anything, she'd rather be baking, straightening her hair, calling friends, emailing, even cleaning. She did find a book that she has really gotten into, and even though some literature experts might be fundamentally and morally appalled that I even allowed such a thing, Savanna loves and is almost through "Twilight." Hey, I'm just glad she's reading.  Weston has read a few "Magic Treehouse" books, but that's about all I could get out of him this summer. They know they need to gear up for some major reading time, because once school starts its at least 30 minutes every day. 

One thing Fiora likes to do is write stories, and they are all clever and funny and wonderful.  She got Weston to write a story this week that I thought was pretty good--descriptive, informative, and short and sweet. 

 

The kids are brushing up on their math and art skills too. We pulled out the flash cards at dinner and everyone was competing to answer the math facts. Savanna and her friend Ella spread the butcher paper all over the kitchen and created a mural and Fiora and Weston thought that looked fun and jumped in and helped. It was quite the creation, and we were cleaning up spattered paint off the floor late into the night. Yep lots of learning going on. :) All in addition to their daily practicing, I get about 5 to 20 minutes out of each kid depending on the day, I hope they have improved on their instruments this summer. 

Plays, pools, and parties

At the Scera Shell

We took advantage of our Pass of all Passes that got us tickets to Scera's outdoor production of Fiddler on the Roof. There were a lot of people there! The play was well done and the weather was perfect. In all honesty the kids were really bored, but they need to get out and experience a late night play once in a while!

Having a lesson

Tossing water balloons, Sarah and I won

Savanna is becoming quite the baker!

Our friends/neighbors the Allreds came over for a barbecue and while Jared Schauers was slaving over the fire pit cooking all the meat, Jared Allred was directing the kids in a water balloon game and object lesson. Savanna loves babysitting/playing with the Allred girls, and Weston loves playing video games with Tanner, and I love watching little Spencer! They are great neighbors. Savanna helped Laynie make cookies after dinner. It was a fun party!

Side note: Since I have sworn off all forms of refined sugars, Savanna has taken it upon herself to be the baker in the family.  She makes cookies, zucchini bread, and more cookies.  She wants to branch out and make a cake now.  She's a natural, and if the mess afterwards is any indication of the degree of intensity she puts into cooking, then she is super focused and talented!

Diving for Dimes

 "Lindon Days" were in progress last week. We took advantage of "Free family swim day" at the Lindon aquatics center, they had a sponsor throwing dimes in the lap pool and everyone got to dive for them. Weston got 1 dime. We had a ward party the same week and we were able to go to the Lindon pool as part of that ward party, so we went back again. Two pool trips in one week!  For some reason none of the kids wanted to go to the Lindon parade Saturday, so we spent the morning working in the yard, ha ha.

The rest of the pictures are just random shots from the past week. The fishing shots of Weston were actually a couple weeks ago.

Fiora made her doll a house

Dinner at the Barretts

Bill made ratatouille

Weston is Jared's fishing buddy

Kim's Visit

Savanna was a HUGE help!

 My friend Kim Brimhall and her three kids Kapri (3), Libby (2), and Emerson (2 months) came to stay with us last week for a night and two days (transitioning before a move). Kim is a kindred spirit and it was nice to have so much time to talk catch up with her. I really loved bonding with her kids! And my kids were so helpful.  After they left I really missed them, especially that little baby boy!  We missed them so much that the day after they left we invited the girls to go with us to Chuck-e-Cheese for Fun Friday. 

Fist bump with Chuckee

This is as close as Fiora would get

Libby

Doing makeup with Kapri

Holding little Emer