7th, 2nd, and K

My kids are all in school and have been for almost a month now. It's weird how early school starts around here. So of course I'm just now, a month late, getting around to blogging their first days of school. I think I may have put this off because it's taken me almost a month to deal with the fact that my baby is a kindergartner and that my oldest in is 7th grade. And would you just look at that tall 2nd grader? What in the world?! He definitely had a growth spurt in the past few months.

They are all enjoying school and we have gotten back into the routine that school provides - carpool, homework, after-school activities, etc. I like that. I'm big on routine. Routines make me happy. Sophie has tons of homework every day, especially Algebra homework and geography. Do you remember taking geography in 7th grade?! I do. Very clearly. It is so weird to have a child at an age that I remember so well. But Sophie has tons more homework in 7th grade than I ever had.

Ben is doing great so far in 2nd grade. He has always loved school and I'm so grateful for that. Ben has a moderate amount of homework which he does with out being asked or complaint every night and seems to love it. I know he's a bit odd that way, but not having to encourage him has been nice, because it's a totally different story with Nina.

Nina has more than once declared, "I don't do homework Mom!" Yes, my Nina is feisty. (Which may come as a shock to some who do not see her in the privacy of our home where that feistiness really comes out.) And even though she thinks she doesn't need to, she still has to do homework. She reads a take home book every night and does an activity like review sight word flash cards or writes a sentence about a picture she's drawn, etc. Normal kindergarten type stuff, but wow it has taken a lot of encouragement and patience to do homework with our youngest. One thing she does love is reading pages for pennies. I can't thank my friend Ganelle enough for this tip! Nina sits on the couch and reads books (Bob books for now - they are easy to sound out and are great for first readers) getting a penny for each page she reads. It is so fun to see her gain confidence. Just 2 months ago she was refusing to even try to sound out words (she knows all the letters and their sounds, but she just wasn't interested in reading. AT ALL.) This penny thing has changed it all around and she wants to read me books everyday. Yay!

So that's the report on the start of a new school year. I really just can't believe how grown up these kids are getting. I am thankful everyday to be their mom. It really is an amazing thing to see them grow and gain knowledge. They are real little people and someday they're going to be real big people and I'm going to miss these days of packing lunches and carpooling and homework. Oh look, now I'm getting misty. See why it's taken me a month to blog about this... sniff... :)

The Rest of July

Our end of July was crazy town! But also lots of fun! We'll start with a fun outing that I took with friends to Twilight at Red Rocks. How cool is that??! Seriously it was awesome. I'm there for any Twilight related fun and this one was SO great! Red Rocks is the neatest place and then the crowd was full of Twihards. There were cheers and cat calls every time Edward came on screen. (I'll admit I did my fair share of cheering.) I had to take a quick picture of the first view of Edward on the big Red Rocks screen.

Next in our crazy end of July was Sophie and Nina's birthday parties. Sophie turned 12 and Nina turned 5 and we did the parties back to back. Sophie's on a Friday night and Nina's the next day on Saturday afternoon. I can't believe Sophie is 12. I'm in denial. Can she really be a Young Woman now. I need to order New Era for her. It's weird. Her party was super fun and very loud. We had 12 of her friends over and they played Just Dance on the wii, had pizza and cake, and watched The Princess Bride. Well, I should say they watched some of The Princess Bride. They were all on a bit of a sugar high when the movie started so there was a lot of non-movie watching giddiness going on. I think it was good though and Sophie enjoyed it, so yay!

Nina's party was actually a bit calmer than Sophie's if you can believe it. The theme for Nina's party was "beach party" and she and 10 of her little friends played Just Dance Kids on the wii, pin the tentacle on the octopus, fish-fish-shark (which is the beach equivalent of duck-duck-goose :)), colored beach scenes, had a water balloon toss (which quickly turned into a water balloon fight) and briefly learned how to hula (the hula dancing was kind of like herding cats with all these 4 and 5 year olds :)). Oh and of course had cake and ice cream. Nina's little friend are adorable and it was really fun to have them all over.

 Then we had our family party for the girls which consisted of dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, Sophie's favorite, and the opening of presents. Sophie got an i-Pod Touch and Nina got an American Girl doll - Kanani. They were both ecstatic about their gifts. I can't believe my girls are growing so quickly. They are both beautiful, wonderful daughters and I'm so lucky to be their mom.

So that was our busy end of July. At the beginning of August all the kids started school which is a post in and of itself. It felt like our summer was one event after the other and then school started. SO busy. It has been nice to have some breathing space now that things have calmed down, but of course there's homework, soccer, ballet, piano, Young Women's activities, and everything else to keep us all busy. I wouldn't have it any other way though. It's all good.

I just realized there was a shocking lack of Ben in this post. He's cute. And I love being his mom too. So here's a picture of him.:)

Here's another cute guy I love.:)