Girls' Trip Out West

Last Friday I went to Utah for my brother's wedding. He wasn't getting married until Tuesday, but I went out early to go to General Conference. My family goes every 6 months and ever since Kylie turned 8 I really wanted to take her and join them. I was thrilled that Brady decided to get married only a few days after General Conference so that I could fly out for both. Since both Kylie and Madalyn are over 8 and can go in to the conference center, I brought them. And Kaitlyn too of course. It was a wonderful trip!!! We got to do so much in only 5 short days. Madalyn on the flight out. Kylie was too sick to be in the picture. Poor girl. She couldn't read, draw, play hangman, or eat any of the snacks. And she had brought some fun stuff to do and eat. I was worried about how Kaitlyn would do, but she was great. Never even a squeal. She just ate, slept, and played. As soon as we got there we went swimming in the hotel pool. That evening my whole family went to the Bountiful temple with my sister and Brady's financee, who were going through for the first time. It was a great experience.

Kaitlyn meeting my dad for the first time. They were so cute together watching the afternoon session in the hotel. Saturday morning we went to the conference center but I don't have any pictures of it.

Kylie and Madalyn during what they call "the pizza night." They had so much fun staying up late eating pizza with all of us, but especially with their two little girl cousins. They were certainly silly!

On Sunday morning we headed down south. Our first stop was visiting Nathan's grandma in Sandy. It was fun hearing stories of her life including one where her classmates put the outhouse on top of the school.

Our next stop was in South Jordan. One thing the girls really wanted to do was stop and see the Jordan River Temple where our family began. Kylie kept telling people in an awed voice that "Mommy hasn't seen it in eleven years."

We spent Sunday watching conference with Nathan's brother and his family in Springville. The girls had a blast with their cousins, but the pictures didn't come out so great. On Monday we went to Provo. The girls were excited to see the Provo Temple where one of their aunts was married.

We walked around BYU, seeing buildings I had classes in and telling them stories of some of those buildings. We bought the rest of the family a souvenir from the BYU bookstore and then went to eat lunch at the Cannon Center. It's changed since I was there, but that's where Nathan worked when we dated, so I wanted them to see it and experience the thrill of being a freshman and also all-you- can- eat. It was super fun and the girls took so long I thought we'd never leave.:)

From Provo we drove up the canyon to Evanston, WY, where one of my sisters lives. We went to the middle school where she teaches and the girls had fun playing with these mechanical babies that the students take care of for a weekend. They really do cry when they need to eat, be changed, burped, or rocked. They were incredible.

Kylie rocking her baby.

Going for a walk with Aunt Rish. It was beautiful. I loved all the fallen leaves and crisp air.

Tuesday was the sealing of my brother Brady in the Logan temple. It was beautiful and I'm so glad I got to be there for it.

I suspect these pictures were taken by my 5 year old niece because they were right after ones taken of her making silly poses too. I remember Kylie asking for the camera, so I think they enjoyed it. :)

Wednesday we flew home and found all was well here. Nathan took time off work to take care of the 3 kids left at home. They had a good time together going to the park and Sonic and putting up Halloween decorations.

Boredom

Not much has been happenin here. We're loving school and things couldn't be better. We had some issues at first, but now that Nathan is back to work and we have our usual routine, things are good. All my hard work of lesson plans all summer is paying off. I absolutely love teaching and learning with the children and watching them learn.

Nathan's car broke down at the beginning of the week and he's been taking the van every day. Not that we go many places anyway, but for some reason we've seemed extra bored this week. Maybe because the weather is so hot. Where is fall?? We celebrated the first day of fall on Wednesday by making homemade bread and dancing to our favorite fall music (John McCutcheon's Autumnsongs.) The day before we made an enormous batch of granola. Maybe some of the good autumn smells will usher it in.

The other reason for making bread is because I haven't been to the store in several weeks so all the back up loaves were eaten up out of the freezer. The girls were happy and eager to help.

Snack time!

I've also been so bored that I decided to clean out the fridge. That and it was so empty that there wasn't anything to cover up all the spills and messes. I realized that a fridge can say a lot about a family. The fridge is bare because it is a one car family and the wife hasn't been able to go to the store. The top shelf is empty because it usually holds 6 gallons of milk on it and there are usually 2 more in the door. The middle shelf has large casserole pans serving a big family. The other middle shelf has leftovers in containers for the husband to take to work (although he forgot his lunch today, so why bother?:) What does your fridge say about you?

Back to the Grind

We started school a couple of weeks ago, so the lazy days of summer are over. We have a great schedule that I'm really excited about and has been working well so far. Due to planning all summer, I am more organized this year, which is wonderful! We seem to be fitting it all in: math, spelling, reading, history, science, writing, music, art, French, PE, and handwriting. In addition to our home music class, this year Kylie and Spencer are taking violin lessons and Madalyn is taking flute. They're super excited about it as they've waited a long time through medical school and residency for enough money in the budget to cover music lessons.
Here are a few pictures of our past few weeks in no particular order.

Nathan studying for ABIM board exam

Field trip to a state park. We're probably the only school who is taking field trips already. (Except other homeschoolers.)

Hearing about the composer we're learning about this week.

Playing a song the composer wrote on the chimes my father-in-law made for us.

Weights and stretching.

We do PE first thing after breakfast.

Nathan studying again. He took the board last Wednesday and felt great about it. Soon he'll be Internal Medicine board certified! His last hurdle to becoming a full-fledged doctor.

I constantly have to call Spencer away from the piano to come finish his school. It is his first love and he spends much of his free time at the piano.

Bad picture, but the kids were playing train. It seems like the kids were bored all summer, but now that we're back in school they are more creative and enjoy playing with each other. After school and all day Saturdays are spent playing doctor, train trips, house, etc.

Nathan's first day seeing patients as an attending physician.

After 7 weeks of getting his license, DEA license, credentialing, studying for boards, and going through new faculty orientation, he finally started his new job! He now works at a group practice doctor's office owned by the university. In addition he takes a two week shift every so often treating patients in the hospital. He also spends a lot of time teaching residents and overseeing their work. Lastly, he's working on research whenever he's not scheduled at the clinic or hospital. I still can't believe we're at this point. I think because we didn't move, it doesn't seem real. Our life pretty much seems the same as residency except he's home a lot more. Oh, and Nathan is a lot happier. He loves his new job so far. Less hours and stress.

Kaitlyn doing a cute yawn.

Play-doh after school.

The boys conked out after a hard day of work and play. Sleeping on the floor is a cool thing. Maybe because at 6 1/2 Spencer is too big for his toddler bed that is literally falling apart.

Thomas' Point of View

The other day I uploaded our pictures from our camera to the computer and I counted over half of them were taken by Thomas. Evidently he has been snagging the camera when it is left at a reachable level and snapping some photos. He says things like, "I'm taking pictures of my cars." Or "I want to take a picture of Kaitlyn's toys." There were a whole bunch of the doors, walls, floor, etc. And lots of his cars--I think over 20 pictures. This is probably the most boring post ever, but I feel compelled to post these pictures so that when I make my blog into a scrapbook I'll look back and remember how cute Thomas was when he had a camera fettish.

He even snatched the camera at the park.

I didn't realize he was so short. :)

This is a map I drew of our town and all of our favorite places we go on it. I had one when I grew up (well, it was my brother's) and the boys love it.

The bucket he keeps his cars in.

There are several pictures like this where his feet are in the picture, so it's a dead giveaway. :)

Apparently he wanted a picture of the kids doing chimes in our music class.

And pictures of the kids goofing off.

This one I took. We went swimming at a friend's house and he fell asleep at 5:00 on the way home. I put him on the couch during dinner and he was so out that I put him in his pajamas and put him to bed and he slept through the night until 7:00 the next morning! If only we'd gone swimming more this summer!

This is when he turned three a couple of weeks ago. He wanted Reese Pieces on his cake and a picture of a tractor, so that's what he got, even if it did turn out a little ugly. It was still tasty and he had a great time opening his presents and eating the cake and ice cream. He's our joy boy.

Shopping With Six

Yesterday I took the kids to do errands and had my camera, so I thought I'd snap a few pictures of how we go grocery shopping with six kids. It's actually been awhile since I've taken them all because Nathan's been off work since July 1. And the two weeks before that the kids were in Florida and at the pageant. Nathan's still home getting things ready for his new job and could have watched them, but we were going to the library and getting school supplies too, so everyone wanted to come.
We love shopping at Kroger. It's clean; not very crowded; has great manager's specials on bread, dairy, and meat; and most importantly, I love the people who work there. They know my kids by name and ask where they are when I don't bring them (or whoever is missing.) I really enjoy shopping there and so do the kids. Especially when I let them make a scene by pushing around these little carts:

They didn't really do it this time, but usually they all pick a category to put in their cart. They'll say, "I'm getting the cold food," (meaning milk, cheese, eggs) or "I'm getting cereal," or "My cart is frozen foods," or "I get produce" and the last category is "snacks" which is everything from chips to baking supplies. They're great shoppers and I actually do love bringing them along (most of the time.:))

I push Kaitlyn in the stroller.

Checking out.

I let all the kids go through first, putting their items on the belt and any coupons they may have.

Spencer loves to help bag the groceries, so he has to go first. The bagger gets a kick out of watching Spencer help. He's so enthusiastic and fast. I'm in the rear to pay for it all.

Out to the car we go!

Spencer is also the cart boy and is so good to push the mini carts back.