The Way I View - Back To School

I can't believe another month has passed already.  I swear, the older I get, the faster time passes.

Well, this month's theme is "Back to School."  Even though Addison's my first in school, September has always felt like Back to school to me because Bart is a teacher.  But this year, the big difference in our house has been Addison reading for class.  Technically her homework is us reading 15 minutes every day with her, but we do that at bed time already, so I've been having her read books on her own, and she's doing great, and really enjoying it to boot!  :)








And um....is anyone as excited as me about Halloween?  Every time I go into a store I have to seriously restrain myself to keep from purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of Halloween decorations.  I suspect the next "Way I View" post is going to be fun.  :)

Check back and I'll include a link to the other Back to School posts in the blog chain.

Cornbelly's

Well, going to Cornbelly's has become quite a fun little tradition in our family.  And this year not only was my mom up, but my dad was able to come up and go with us too!





You wouldn't believe it by Lilly's face, but she absolutely LOVED the slide.  As soon as she got to the bottom, she'd turn around and run to the stairs to go again.  I took about a million pictures of her trying to get one of her smiling because I knew how much she loved it, but instead I got this face every. single. time!  Maya on the other hand was all dimples!  :)


Watching the animated...animal band?  I think the twins were disturbed.

Little puzzle maze.

According to Addison, we spent way too long here, but the bigger kids seemed to like it quite a bit.  :)


There were these huge pillow trampoline things that were AWESOME!


Dad and Stacy even got in on the action.  I really want to send that first picture to my dad with a speech bubble that says, "Daddy daughter dates are great!!!


 Every other year I've gotten an awesome picture of my mom at Cornbelly's.  But this year, this is all I got.  :(  Next year mom, no cell phones allowed!  :)


According to Maya & Lilly, we didn't spend enough time here.


Apparently I'm not giving Bart enough affection.


And according to Bart, we didn't spend enough time here.  Boy loves his carnie food.  He's a bad influence on my dietetics-studying sister.




Toy duck races...always a favorite.

Right before we left we went to the kiddie corn maze.  There was a giant spinner every so often that had different directions for what you were supposed to do as you went through the maze searching for the next spinner. Bart got very into the "Pretend to ride a horse and chant 'clippity clop, clippity clop'" one.



Can't wait to do it again next year!

The Way I View - Playtime

Well, it appears my little blog circle has dwindled down to me.  :)  But I'm still going at it, and if someone posts, I'll add a link at the bottom later.  In the mean time, I'll give you a link to another blog circle doing the same theme.  They're pretty incredible, so be prepared to be amazed.  I'll link you in at Leah's blog.  I'm not sure where their blog circle officially starts, but hey, It's a circle, so you'll be able to see them all.  :)

Update: Candace, who just had an ADORABLE baby, posted her take on Playtime.  You can see it here.

Anyway, the theme this month is The Way I View - Playtime.  And really, with the move and Addison starting kindergarten, and soccer, and EVERYTHING.  I completely forgot.  Fortunately, playtime is something I regularly try to photograph, so I actually had a plethra of photos to choose from.  These are some from about a week before our move.  I was out packing the POD and Addison and Hannah had gotten ready for bed and were waiting for me to go in and read them a story.  They asked if they could play on the neighbor's swing set and I said sure (they had given us permission to use it any time.)  Addison absolutely LOVES these pictures.  She keeps asking me to show them to her again. I'm glad they bring her as much joy as me.  So here's a little view into a spontaneous before bed play time.

Soccer!

Yesterday, Addison had her first soccer game.  She still doesn't have her uniform, but she had a blast anyway.  Her team was great.  They won, and Addison even kicked a goal!  I don't have a lot of time, but I figured I'd post a few pictures from the game.  :)









And what the rest of us were doing.  (Sorry for the size, but I don't have time to change them for now, so you get bigger pictures).  :)

First Day of Kindergarten

Well, today was a big day.  Addison had her first day of kindergarten.  Last year was a big let down when I realized that Utah makes NO exceptions to their cutoff date of September 1st.  Addison was reading, adding, subtracting, and doing just about everything else I could ever imagine a kindergartner doing, but she had to wait another whole year.  Well, the wait was worth it.  She had a great first day and absolutely LOVES her teacher.

We got some pictures at our house before we left.

I think her going to kindergarten was a lot harder on Hannah than any of the rest of us.  When we finally left the classroom, Hannah started crying and saying, "Addison, Addison!" I cheered her up with a cookie when we got home, but she's sure going to miss having her big sister around all the time.

We got to school early and got some pictures there too.

Addison is SOOOO excited to have Miss Robinson.  Miss Robinson's the one who did Addison's assessment, and ever since then Addison had been asking if she was going to be her teacher.  I was so relieved when I found out she was in her class.  YAY!

Overall it went really well.  The only tears were Hannah's tears, although when the lady at the PTA table told me what the tissues were for I must admit, my eyes did start to sting a little. :)  My baby's going to Kindergarten!

Addison had another big first today.  It was her first soccer practice. We don't have a uniform yet, but when she gets it I'll get another picture!

Kindergarten and soccer!  My baby's growing up!