The first full week down!

We made it through the first full week of school!  I can't say that it's been all roses and sunshine, but it's going pretty well!  I'm slowly getting a hang on the whole school, different school, family, cleaning, food, homework thing.  I've let my kiddos stay up a little later, so that I can have more time with them.  They loved Tuesdays at the Castle, so now we're a chapter into Fablehaven.  I love reading to them!

Josh is awake a lot more, so I get to talk to him and see him smile.  I love it!

Cecilia has been quite the messmaker.  She's super cute though and will help clean it up!  She will pick things up one at a time, but she cleans!  She dances incredibly cute and even does the hand movements with "Popcorn Popping!"  She is starting to say more, which is exciting!  I love naptime when she gets so snuggly!

Leah is so sweet!  If she does something wrong, after you tell her, she cries and says sorry.  She loves to pose for pictures with her hands on her hips and turning sideways.  I love watching her dance! She shakes her tiny hips.

Emma is building up quite the vocabulary and has little problem saying big words.  She loves to play on our bannister and doesn't like being told no!  She toes the line, but when she gets hurt after doing something I tell her not to do, she always says she's not hurt.  She cries when someone hurts her feelings and has a seriously loud voice at home.  Outside she is super shy and you can hardly hear her talk!

Now we have my oldest girl and tallest kiddo.  She loves being in charge and is very manipulative, hopefully only in a good way.  She loves to learn and is awesome at going to bed!  She brings Ben into play, so he doesn't hang out by himself and LOVES helping Josh!
And my firstborn son Ben.  He is so very sensitive to what is going on around him.  He knows we don't have much money, and so he asks if things are expensive and never asks for something that is expensive!  He loves his little brother and worries about him after Cecilia has tried to sit on him or something.  He doesn't like him crying at all!  He's a super sweet brother!

Ode to Watermelon

I love watermelon
I would gladly eat it everyday
My kids love watermelon too
The end

We all made it through the craziness of this past week.  I had a ton of classes at the school to learn from (they were fantastic)!  I got to do Sneak-a-Peek at "my" school and then at my kids' school the next night.  It was INCREDIBLY different!  I love the shirts that I got from my school!  I do not love that Kira's name is spelled wrong on everything (Kia).  I was very proud of her for not crying!  She is so emotional lately, poor kiddo!  Ben was thrilled about going back to school, but not about that heavy backpack full of supplies!  I gave him a haircut the night before school started.  I really should have done it sooner.  Oh well!  I was sad that I couldn't take pictures of my kiddos at school for their first day!  I was running late, so I didn't take pictures of them at all and I doubt Scott could!  I did take pictures at the Back-to-School night the day before though.  Does that count?  Emma is very attached to me at home when I come.  She's having a hard time with the changes.  Leah was thrilled when I was still here in the morning yesterday!  "You don't have school?"  No, Leah, I'm home for two days.  "Yay!"  I love my kiddos lots and lots and I'm sad to be leaving them, but it's for a very good reason!  They are very excited for me to get a real job (where they pay me), so we can buy a house and a dog.  The important things in life!  We were working on getting an 8-passenger van, but it costs too much, our vans aren't worth enough and we can't get a loan (which is fine).  So, we'll continue driving our two minivans around.  It works and we're getting used to it!  I love being at the school!  When I was helping teach 4square to every student in the school (there were four of us teaching it), I had two first graders come up and hug me and tell me they loved me.  They don't even know me, but they were in my group.  So sweet!  One of "my" third graders hugs me too.  I'm more of a toucher than I thought!  I love being in the school!  I think it's an awesome school!
Well, I need to get back to my poor "starving" baby.  He's only eaten a ton tonight!  He must be going through a growth spurt!

Almost time for real school to start!

I had to do something everday, schoolwise.  Which I loved!  It's the whole leaving my babies behind that hurts.  I've felt super lucky that I've been able to feed him at lunch everyday, so I've had a chance to work my way into leaving them all day.  I'm also incredibly blessed to have a mom and mom-in-law willing to trade off watching the kiddos, so I know they're with someone who loves them!  I'm thrilled that Scott will be teaching in a school too, so we'll have the same schedules (for the most part)!  Our AC went out on Thursday.  But, we're very loved and the temps were lower this past week!  Now we're praying for our landlord's heart to be softened, so he'll give us a new AC, because that's what is needed.  He told us that it was our fault and that we'd have to pay for it.  Yikes!  We are hoping his mind changes!  Quickly, so we don't have to suffer through the heat.  The good news is that our next electricity bill shouldn't be as much, since we haven't had the AC on in a few days.  We also desperately need a vehicle that will fit all 8 of us, so we've started looking at vans and SUVs.  Fun times.
Anyway!  We were able to go to the Midwest Balloon Festival on Saturday which was great fun!  Scott stayed home with Josh and Cecilia went to a wedding reception with one of my sisters, and one of my other sisters went with us.  You can check out the pictures on my Facebook page!  It was lots of fun and our big chance to make the summer a little better right before school started.  I didn't want my kids to write that on their summer vacation they moved and watched tv.  Boring!  I even climbed a rock wall!  I should have taken off my ring, because I pinched the skin under it.  Ouch!  And I was wearing flip flops, so I went up barefoot.  My kids were cheering for me!  What sweethearts!  I had a hard time once I got up close to the top, I started getting a little scared.  I really didn't want to let go and bounce down, although I had every intention of doing it at the beginning!  The wall shook as the group of us was climbing up.  And then I was only harnessed around my waist and legs, so that was a little scary for me too.  Either way, I started climbing back down and then I couldn't find a foothold, so I had to let go.  Once I did and I felt the resistance that kept me from falling, I was okay!  Phew!  It really was an eye opener for me!  We may do just fine in life, climbing with our little harness on and feeling like everything is going great.  Then we have to do something different, like moving, getting a job, having a kiddo (or another kiddo) and we really just have to let go and trust that the line is going to catch.  It's time for us to let go, and it's hard!  But we'll make it back down or keep climbing up!

Bring on the schooling!

Josh is in cloth diapers at least half time now.  I put him in disposables for nap and bed, because he sleeps better and doesn't get soaked like he does with the cloth diapers.  I'm not sure if I'm doing it right or not!  He's a fantastic sleeper though!  Last night I fed him at about midnight and he woke up at 3:30 to eat and then again at 7 and 9.  Great kiddo!
Thursday and Friday started my last year of school!  Well, of me working on my Bachelor's that is.  Since I am working on becoming a teacher, I'll be spending a lot of time in a school!  Enough rambling!  I went in on Thursday and was super late, due to getting lost after slow traffic (people that drive five under the speed limit are not my favorite) and a crying baby as I left, plus the car I needed to take was in front, so I had to swap cars out.  Either way, they were very forgiving!  Phew!  And Scott oh-so-kindly drove out with all the kiddos (but Kira and Ben, my mom had them, since we can't put all of our kids in the same car) for me to feed Josh at lunch!  My double electric breast pump works fantastic!  Thanks to Simplisse!  It's the one that I won a while back and it is awesome!  Scott has been doing great with the kids and the FANTASTIC news is that he got a job!  Doing what I think he'll be awesome at-teaching Spanish to kids!  I'm so excited for him, and for us as a family-so we will be able to pay bills (something that Ben has been praying for)!  We're hoping to have enough money to buy a vehicle that we can all fit in!  That would be fantastic!  I would gladly trade in my van for one that would fit us all!
So begins this week!  Scott has some training next week/the end of this week and I have days and times at about three, maybe four different places and actually have classes on Wednesday (or Thursday, my photographic memory is slipping lately).  I'm excited to use my Kindle, because two of my books are on it!  And three of my books I was able to order and they came in super fast, thanks to the free Prime 2-day shipping, since my family got me a Kindle and I get free Prime for a month!  Woohoo!
And did I mention I won a Kindle Touch from one of my awesome author friends?  So cool!  I get to pick it up this week sometime when I'm over her way!  I also won $100 worth of Photoshop actions, which was fun to figure out how to use actions in Photoshop.  Now I know!  It's pretty cool!
I can't wait to get my studio up and really running, although it will only be open once a week while school is in session, except for special clients/friends/family.  I will be pretty busy this Semester, but if all goes well, the Semester will be over December 9th!  Which is awesome!  We'll have almost a month break before my very last Semester in my Bachelor's!  It's going to be fantastic learning from great mentors/teachers!  I'm so glad that Scott and I decided to go to ESU!
Now for some picture catchup!  Mind you these are straight out of the camera, not edited!

 When my Mamaw was here.  I LOVE her!

 4 Generations

 His 2 Mamaws giving him kisses!

 His first trip to the Swimming Pool, he slept through it thankfully!

 Cecilia was a little scared when her daddy went under!

 Ben and Kira holding hands

 One of the awesome Sunset shots, after I play with them, I'll post more!

 What can I say?  I love baby feet!

 So sweet!

 He slept okay for a little while...

 I love the fluidity of the cloth in this one!

 Trying to get him on his tummy is ridiculously hard!

 I love little hands too...  Maybe there's a support group?

 I had to get at least one with the banner that I worked so hard on!

 Cute little football feet!

And the classic hand up shot, we had one of Ben as a little bitty too.  I wonder where that one is?

Kansas City Temple Pictures

About to start my last year of school

Tomorrow starts the "craziest semester."  I'm not sure that it will be for me, but it might!  Once again I have a newborn as I go back to school.  And, of course, these are all day long, with occasional lunch breaks where I can go home and feed him.  Aaahhhh!!!!  I love this little guy and I'm sad to have to leave him already!  I still need to figure out how to get my older girls in school!  I don't want to completely wear out our moms if Scott does start working!
The good news is that he had another interview today to be an ILA, this time at Green Springs.  We're not picky as to where, that's for sure!  The other good news is that I won 2 things yesterday!  I won a Kindle Touch and a $100 gift code at OTSS (I used it to get 55 Photoshop actions)!  Woohoo!  I love winning things!  Especially when I take a break and only enter a few giveaways!  I keep hoping to get the stuff that I won back in April, but I figure my $15 for shipping is lost.  She's having lots of personal issues and can't afford to buy the stuff to make my stuff.  It's a HUGE bummer, because I was counting on those hats for pictures and although she's promised them to me multiple times, no dice.  I've decided to let it go and move on.  Well, mostly, I'll still email her once a month to see if there's a chance I can get them!
Now I desperately need to get a few things done before the craziness begins.  I feel like I'm chugging up the roller coaster hill and am about to be hanging there in limbo.  Here we go!