I am getting worse and worse at keeping things updated! Oh well… on to another marathon post! I love these kids!

Jackson

Jackson’s having a great year of school. He has a teacher that understands his personality and how he learns. She has been great! Sometimes he gets a little nervous about little things and she knows exactly what to do to keep him calm. I’m so happy with her. Besides that, she also is just a great teacher. She has fun rhymes and songs to help the kids learn and she uses them also to help them know how to respond and what’s coming next. As I’ve been able to help in class here and there I’ve come to really appreciate her, and Jackson just thinks she is about the greatest teacher ever! He’s getting better at reading, although he’d rather have me read everything to him because he’s too impatient to sound things out 🙂 He has LOVED playing tether ball. Its pretty much the reason for going to school. He comes home and tells me, “Mom, I beat a 4th grader today!” and then gives me the play by play about ropies and ballies, etc, etc, etc.

Jackson has a little friend named Delia that sat by him both this year and in Kindergarten. She’s a nice little girl and has been a good friend to him. A while back he told me that he plays “pokies” with her. What the heck is pokies? I had to ask, but its kinda like a game of tag when they are standing in line, where they poke the other person on the shoulder or back. I think they played with other people too. About a month ago, he came home and told me she was moving in a few weeks and we talked about what a nice friend she’s been. Then a couple weeks ago or so he came home and said to me, “Mom, me and Delia don’t play pokies anymore.” When I asked why not he said, “I think we really like each other.” Hmmm, I didn’t expect that – I thought he was going to say they got in trouble for it or something. Then he proceeded to tell me that they hold hands in line instead of playing pokies. Ha! He said one of his friends tries to break it up the whole time. On her last day of school, her mom came to lunch and had a couple of Delia’s friends come sit outside the cafeteria at lunch. He has other friends to play with, so I’m sure its not too big of a deal for him, but just kinda made Micah and I laugh a little. (fyi – I think he’d get a little embarrassed if anyone mentioned this to him, I just wanted to have it in our family journal).

Jackson’s been playing flag football this season. Its been fun this year for him to be one of the oldest so he is a little faster and more coordinated – its amazing what a difference 1 year makes in speed and coordination. Price, Max, and Nash are on his team and it has been so fun having such great team mates! Price, Max, and Jackson are the big scorers this season. This saturday is the final tournament. Micah is coaching and Jackson was so happy that he got to be the Cardinals this year.

Jackson was Obi Wan Kenobi for Halloween this year.

Lacey

Lacey is doing so great in almost all aspects of life right now. She used to have a hard time doing her chores and she’s gotten so pleasant about it and is a great helper around the house and everywhere. She really wants to pick up Autumn and take her everywhere with her, but we’re trying to teach her that its just not safe for Autumn to be carried around by the neck 😀 She is loving school and keeps asking when its time for kindergarten. She’s made a few new friends – she loves making friends! Things have been going along pretty smoothly, except one day a couple weeks ago I didn’t have any snacks to send that day for preschool (I’m supposed to send her with a snack every day), so I looked around for anything and we had  some chocolate cheerios which she loves. So I popped them in a bag and sent a happy little girl on her way to preschool. Lacey absolutely loves cereal, so she was excited about it. Well, when it was snack time they all gathered around the little table to eat their snacks and a little girl looked at Lacey’s chocolate cheerios and said, “That looks like dog food! Eeewww, she’s eating dog food! She likes dog food!”  Lacey was feeling pretty badly about that, she told the girl it wasn’t dog food, but the girl just kept saying, “she’s eating dog food!!!” With tears in her eyes Lacey told me it made her feel really sad. How do you not just chuckle about this? But at the same time I was kinda  hurting for Lacey to see that it hurt her feelings so much. So I just tried to explain that the girl was just trying to be funny for the rest of her class and probably wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings. She still feels badly about this, but is able to laugh a little about it now.

Lacey was a star singer at the primary program 😉 She LOVES to sing out and be heard. She couldn’t wait for her turn at the microphone. Luckily there were about 4 other little sunbeams and CTR 4’s fighting for the limelight so she didn’t stand out too much. It was fun to watch. The primary music leader loves Lacey and recognizes when she’s trying hard to pay attention, which is nice.

We decided to do a little Netflix subscription where we can stream some children’s tv shows and she has become enamored with my little ponies lately. One day I thought it would be fun to come up with our own pony names. She didn’t like that idea at all. She already knew which of the ponies she wanted to be, and didn’t want her own name. She and Rachelle call me Granny smith all the time and they are Apple Jack and Apple Bloom. (If you don’t know who they are, go watch a few episodes, its actually not too annoying). We did however come up with “Apple Pie” for Autumn because there are just no more names in the pony apple family. Micah is Big Macintosh, and Lacey has yet to determine a good name for Jackson.

Lacey is getting really excited about Christmas. She told me that today and then I asked her why and what she is thinking about when she thinks about Christmas. She replied with an excited smile, ” I’m thinking about Rudolph the Reindeer Nose Wind!” Yep that’s what she calls Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer! And even though we’ve tried to fix it, she just can’t think of it any other way, it is always “Rudolph the Reindeer Nose Wind!”

Lacey is almost always smiling and giggling lately – she has matured a lot this year all ready. She is always saying something funny – I meant to write a few funny things down this week that she said, but didn’t have a paper close by and I’ve forgotten what they were. Dang it!  I can’t believe how fast these years are going by. It seems like they go from toddler to school age so darn fast!

Lacey was Fancy Nancy – her idea, it was pretty cute and she even let me do her hair a little fancy!

Rachelle

This little sweetie is starting to become a little demanding and impatient. She wants to do EVERYTHING by herself, but just isn’t quite there yet. She tells us WHO she wants to have do things for her and if I do it when Micah should be doing it, she totally flips out! Its getting old, but there are so many times when she is about the sweetest thing you’ll ever meet. She comes up and tells me she loves me all the time. She loves hugs, and loves to just be with me. She loves to be tickled, she loves to play with Autumn, and she loves to make Autumn laugh. She is very thoughtful of others and cares when someone else is upset. She always tries to give them a little sympathy and help them feel better. She will share her most precious possessions because she can tell how much someone else wants them. She really is one of the sweetest little girls most of the time. Since we’ve been back from the summer she WILL NOT let me take her to her room for a nap. For a while she would just go in by herself and lay down if she was tired (which I thought was awesome), but now she distracts herself too much and won’t do that. Sometimes she falls asleep on the couch if we watch a little show or movie for rest time. She is tired a lot, she is our earliest riser. She’s been getting out weights for me and her and she says, “Mom, come work out with me,” probably 3 times a week. I swear I’ve got a little Michelle on my hands 😉 It cracks me up! Her nursery leaders adore her and say she is a little angel in there and she really enjoys nursery.

Chelle speaks way too well. For a while I was trying to potty train her. One day she would have onlyone accident and the next she wouldn’t make it once, even with reminders (in fact the reminders just made issues worse usually). She could totally do it if she just decided she wanted to. She never had an accident when we were out somewhere. Well, one morning I had asked her two minutes before if she needed to go and she said no. Then she went on a chair…and told me in a cheerful voice, “I went pee-pee on the chair mom,” I let out a little sigh. She looked at me with a little smile and said, “Are you frustrated mom???” How do you answer a two year old that asks you that? All I could do is laugh and tell her that yes, I was really sad and frustrated for her. So we’re not potty training anymore, even though she hops on the toilet any time she decides she wants to stop what she’s doing and go to the bathroom. Silly little girl!!!

Rachelle was also Fancy Nancy or in her words, “Fancy Dancy.”  I made a little yarn wig for her to be a cabbage patch doll, but she wouldn’t wear it.

Autumn

So this little nut is coming up on a year old! She’s been standing and moving along the furniture for about as long as she could crawl (probably since about 7 or 8 months). A couple months ago she started being able to balance while she was standing, and then she started standing up all on her own and balance while standing. I thought walking would be right around the corner, but she hasn’t tried to walk at all! So the other day I thought, I’ll just take a picture of her standing on her own, post it, and write on my blog that she doesn’t really want to walk. Well as soon as I got the camera out she took her first step! I was totally surprised – she had never even attempted it before this! So we caught her 2nd step on video! She’s done one step several times and a couple of 2 steps, but she is hesitant to go any more than that. I think she’ll be walking soon, we’ll see if its before she turns one! She seems so little though. This is such a fun process to watch a baby learn all these hard things!

She is such a doll. She loves to cuddle and is very kind and loving. She loves to be held. When she does cry, she is a little dramatic with a high pitched scream included, and if its a fit about something she will through herself on the ground and kick her legs (I love it!) but for the most part she is very calm and easy going. She has four teeth on top and 2 teeth on bottom. They have grown in and there’s something so fun and cute about a baby with those silly few teeth. She east mostly what we eat. She loves getting into the silverware in the dishwasher. She goes straight for the sharp knives, so its a dangerous hobby. We LOVE this little baby – we are all enjoying her so much!

Autumn was a cute little lady bug for Halloween, but I can’t find a picture of her in her costume right now. So you’ll just have to accept the picture of her at the pumpkin patch we went to the weekend before Halloween 🙂

That’s it for now, That’s everything I can remember from the last two months!

This girl is growing in leaps and bounds! This summer she was busy growing while we were busy travelling. She started teething in June and her first two teeth came in on the bottom in the end of June, a day or two before we left. She started “moving” in the beginning of July, and then started crawling at the Coons family reunion the last week of July. She is a FAST crawler – she is in heaven.  It seems like since the time she started crawling, she figured out how to pull herself up to stand and in the beginning of August she’s been cruising along the furniture. in the last two weeks she started balancing while standing.  She’s growing up TOO fast!

So all those things are exciting, but the best part is her little giggle thing she does all the time. It cracks us up! It is such a funny and weird little sound – and it really happens all the time. She is such a happy little thing! Micah posted this video – she makes lots of funny noises but the little laugh/giggle type thing is at about 14 seconds. She really does it all the time.

She is pretty patient with her older siblings and LOVES them! She follows them and tries to play with them. It is so sweet. I love when Chelle plays with her – she loves to make her laugh. She loves to make sure she’s ok. Chelle loves to be the first one into Autumn’s room after a nap. She talks to her and plays with her and makes her happy, then I come in and get her out of the crib – its an awesome system!

We did celebrate Easter around here… I am just a lazy bum and haven’t posted anything from it yet! So lets play a little catch up! Jackson and Lacey have asked about coloring eggs since last Easter! They love it and it is a fun little tradition to make the holiday a little more festive for us. This is one of those holidays that I don’t really have decorations for. So we dyed our eggs and then Sunday morning we did a little Easter egg hunt. Each of them had a sandwich bag with a little candy and they each got a little Easter type rubber ducky. They were thrilled and still play with those silly little ducks! We talked a little about what Easter means to us with the kids, and then our primary president did a fantastic sharing time about Christ’s atonement and Resurrection with several little “feel” items, explanations, and video clips throughout. She sent home a bag to each family with the items and my kids came home and explained exactly what each item was and what it helped them remember about the atonement and Resurrection. It was a really great way to have a nice Sunday afternoon discussion. Each year Easter is more meaningful to me (I guess every holiday is) – I guess I’m finally growing up a little! I think having to teach my children about these things and bear testimony of it actually helps me more than it probably helps them! We made some sugar cookie sandwich cookies and gave them away to neighbors and friends for Easter – they were a big hit!

In the last month of school and right around mother’s day Jackson’s kindergarten class has a “Mommy Makeover.” It was darling. Each child escorted their mom to their chair as we arrived, served us cookies and juice, gave us adorable art and writing projects they had been working on for a while, sang songs to us, had a little slideshow, and did our hair and make up. It was so fun, and it was nice to be able to have a little time just for Jackson and I! I love my sweet Jackson – he was so great!

Before:

After:

The last day of school was a little bittersweet for us! I am so excited that Jackson is growing up and progressing, but he and I are both sad he will be gone “all day” this next year. I don’t want to believe he is getting this old already. I can hardly think about it. I love having him around. I also was aware that I really only had the month of June to plan ALL the fun things I wanted to do and teach my kids, because July is full of traveling and then school starts again in August! We’ve done tons of fun crafts and games and learned a few scripture stories in June and it was a really great month! Father’s day was so cute – all the kids had something fun for Micah. Jackson had saved something in his backpack from the last couple weeks of school, which was really sweet. They all had such a great time celebrating their Dad.

There isn’t anything more precious to me than my children! I love them. For all the frustration and impatience I feel with them at some moments, they have brought 100 times that in joy and happiness. They truly are my greatest blessings.

Jackson started school August 8th. He is a big 1st grader and is gone all day now and we miss having him home. He is doing well now but the first few days were so hard. He was grumpy at the end of school and after the first day he had a hard time going back. He has a great teacher this year though, and I’ve been so impressed with how kind and caring she is and how well she teaches! She really has taken the time to make sure he is happy and comfortable. For him, I really appreciate that. He is a good boy and a great helper around here. He is so sweet to our babies and little sisters. I love this little boy that’s growing up way too fast!

Of course we needed an extra delicious treat to help ease the transition of all-day school, so we had these awesome chocolate dipped brownie ice cream sandwiches. Yum, yum! They’ve made a couple of appearances through the past few weeks too due to many, many requests.

Lacey has her first day of school today (Tuesday, Sept.4). She is READY!!! and has been for months! Ever since she left her last preschool she’s been wondering when this preschool would start. She’s written notes to Miss Judy all summer! She can’t wait to go to school! Her little spunky character is cracking me up! Last night about 10:00 PM Rachelle fell out of bed and I went in to check on her and Lacey was wide awake – she said, “I tried mom, but I just can’t get to sleep!” She is so FUN and silly! I know she’s going to love Miss Judy’s preschool. She is a fast learner if she will set her mind to it. I love my little Lacey!!!

Rachelle and I are glad to have time together just me and her while Jacks, Lace are at school and Autumn naps, but we definitely miss the others! Chelley loves the one on one attention though. This girl is only 2 but she acts like she’s older in so many ways. She is so thoughtful and kind most of the time and really notices and takes care of people. When she gets tired (she’s not napping regularly anymore) she gets a little whiny and bossy though. She’s at the stage where she has to do everything herself – if you pick something up for her you have to set it down exactly where it was and let her come get it for herself. Its really fun ;o)  We play lots of  “Don’t break the ice,” paint nails, she LOVES to be pushed on the swings, and play ring around the Rosie. I really enjoy spending time with little Rachelle. She is a great big sister and loves babies. In the picture below, these were the ponies she was trying to earn by potty training. Well, after a few days of 1 success out of 6 or more, I’ve decided to let go of the frustration and we’ll try again in a few years… I mean months.  I’m a little frustrated because at any given time she used to tell me that she needs to go to the bathroom and she would run in and go on the toilet. So I’m sure she knows how, she just gets lazy about it – its way more convenient to go wherever you want. This sweet and adorable little girl is showing me who’s boss!