2010 Fall Soccer

Sunday Morning

Little Chasie was napping, but I had to take some pictures because I thought Parker and Phil looked so handsome in their white shirts and green ties and of course Gracie looked beautiful too. :)

Chase - 1 Year Old

First Day of School 2010

Gracie is in 2nd grade this year and has Mrs. Anderson.  I can't even believe that!  She's in "Tiger Reserve," a combined 2nd and 3rd grade class for advanced students.  They move at an accelerated rate and have many more opportunities to do some really neat things, projects, and field trips than a regular 2nd grade class.  

Parker is in ALL day Kindergarten and has Mrs. Mills.  This was a hard jump for me!  I'm just so used to my little pal hanging out with me all day.  The night before the first day of school Phil gave the kids a father's blessing.  I bawled the whole way through them!  It is such a helpless feeling to send your kids to school and "feed them to the sharks" so to speak.  These blessings are a comfort to them and to us.  I've been so worried about Parker going to school because I was worried that he'd get too tired, that he get too hungry, or that kids would hurt his feelings and head cry, but I am blown away at how great he is doing!  He is such a big boy now and is doing great in school!  

The week before school (at their open houses) I showed Parker and Gracie how to get to their classrooms from the drop off point in front of the building.  So on the first day of school Parker was excited to get to his classroom all on his own.  But I wanted to take them to their classes the first day!  So as Gracie, Parker, Chase and I were walking into the school Gracie and Parker held hands.  Oh my heck, it's like one of the best things a mother could see!  We dropped Gracie off to her class first and her and Parker hugged before we left her!  So cute!  When we got to Parker's classroom, he just wanted to walk right in and I was like, "Wait!  I need a hug and kiss!"  I had to try hard to hold back the tears until I got to the car.  I made it to the parking lot and the tears started flowing.  When I got home, Chase and I walked in and it felt so empty and lonely. :(  I started crying again!

I started last year having Gracie ride the bus home because the parking situation over at the school is horrible and such a pain to find parking (especially in the winter with piles of snow everywhere) and our stop is the first one after they leave the school.  So as anti-bus as I am, I felt like it was a good thing to do.  So this year Parker wanted to ride the bus home on the first day of school.  It was so hard for me to let them on the first day, but I did it.  It was so weird to watch my little Parky get off this big bus!  Gracie made sure Parker sat by her because she wanted to take care of him and show him where to get off. :)  They both had an awesome first day of school and really loved it!  The second day Parker cried a little while at school because he missed me, but he's been good ever since.  While Gracie has been giving me great detail on her day (something she hasn't done in the past), Parker can only tell me about lunch, recess, and the movies they watch during rest time!  Haha!  

I realize more and more each year as the kids go to school and are exposed to so many evil things, that we are so blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives.  But even more so, the fact that we can't really be blessed by it if we don't teach it to our children.  There is a lot of pressure on us as parents to really establish the teachings of the gospel and our kids' testimonies in the home.  We're a work in progress and always will be, but I find a lot of comfort in knowing that Heavenly Father will watch over and protect our children because of our diligence to teach them what is right and to follow the promptings of the spirit.  

Good luck my little babies on this year of school!  I'm so proud of you both for the great little people that you are and for your sweet and tender hearts!

Summer Stuff

Here are just a few random pictures of our summer here in SD. 

I just love how kids want to do lemonade stands in the summer time!  We had an unbelievably wet summer this year (and last actually).  We haven't had to water our lawn once.  For about a month solid, or more, we had flash flood warnings and tornado warnings 3-4 days each week.  At times our street literally looked like a river because the water was high and rushing down it.  In Sioux Falls and Harrisburg tons of houses had flooding in their basements.  It was so sad really how much damage all this rain caused families and homes.  We even had a road near us that was completely wiped out in one section from a flash flood. The kids had a great time playing in the rain until the city had sewage issues from all the flooding and I decided the gutters probably weren't the most sanitary place to be playing. Yikes!

Oh my goodness, this was a funny story.  I was on the phone with Apple care talking to a technician when Chase decided to take his diaper off and then help himself to some pretzels in the cupboard.  Next thing I know Chase has dumped the whole bag onto the floor and is sitting in them.  Soon he started screaming and crying and it then hit me that he had a really bad rash on his poor little bum and the salt from the pretzels was hurting him!  Poor little guy!  The technician could hear Chase screaming and was kind enough to hold for me so I could take care of him. :)  But you have to admit that it does make for a funny story!  Gracie and Parker were kind enough to pick them all up and put them back into the bag.  And yes, we still ate them!  Haha!   In the next picture you see that Chase also helped himself to some raw corn on the cob as well. :)

The Cubs

I signed both Gracie and Parker up for baseball this summer assuming that the league separates the girls and boys into their own leagues of which they play against the same gender.  (This is how the soccer league works here anyway.)  So we get to the first practice and realize that Gracie is the only girl on her team AND in the league.  Apparently girls play softball and boys play baseball!  Haha!  Who knew?!  I don't know why that didn't click for me in the first place.  The bad thing is that all the softball leagues were earlier in the summer when we were in Utah.  So we gave Gracie the choice of whether she wanted to go ahead and play with the boys or not.  She was too nervous and embarrassed and chose not to play.  I felt SO bad!  But like always Gracie didn't dwell on it and was fine with waiting and getting to play next summer.

Parker is in the age group that plays T-ball.  He loved it!  He had so much fun, especially having his dad out there with him helping coach.  He was on the "Cubs" team which is awesome because the Chicago Cubs is Phil's favorite baseball team and has been since he was little.  I was amazed at how much Parker improved on his skills from the beginning to the end.  He went from not catching great to making some really great catches, running slow to running fast, and not having much confidence to feeling pretty confident.  It was so much fun to watch as all the boys would run to the ball after it was hit no matter where the ball was or where they were on the field.  

Gracie hung out with me and helped with Chase, as well as making friends with a few of the baseball players her own age and hanging out with them.  Each game I'd have Gracie take Chase for a walk in his car to entertain him for a bit and every time I turned around to check on them, some boy would be pushing Chase and Gracie would be walking next to them.  I don't know how she did it, but she'd get these boys to do her "dirty work" for her!  :)  I kept watching and thinking, "Oh my, I'm going to have my hands full when she's a teenager!"

Uncle De and Uncle John's Visit

Dennis and John (Uncle De and Uncle John) came to stay with us in July.  Dennis is my mom's cousin and John is his wonderful partner of 39 years now!  (A big shout out to their anniversary yesterday--congratulations!)  We had the privilege and blessing of getting to know them and form such a close bond with them while we were living in Mesa.  They live in Chandler and so we'd get to see them and do things with them often while we lived there.  We've missed them SO MUCH and so it was like Christmas having them come!  While they were here we went to the Washington Pavilion, the Zoo, Texas Road House, Falls Park, and just plain played hard.

Gracie, being the creative little gal that she is, decided it would be fun to throw a parade in our driveway.  So this is her production and her guinea pigs Dennis and Parker.  What good sports they were!  :)  I'm sure this had the neighbors talking!  Gracie and John had a blast playing "Queen Gracie and Evil King John!"  Chase was the "tornado."  What imaginations! 

In this picture this tiger is literally staring at Dennis and did for several minutes!  There were tons of people standing in front of the tiger, but for some reason it "hunted" Dennis down and wouldn't take his eyes off him.  Dennis kept walking up and down the side walk along the tiger's fence to see if it would stop looking at him, but the tiger stared at him and followed him wherever he moved to.  Kinda scary!  I know Dennis was relieved there was a fence between the two of them because that tiger definitely had his sight set on Dennis!