All the way to Planet X! 

This is Kalixta's new saying! Every time she goes to bed, goes to school or I leave she tells me I love you all the way to Planet X! She picked it up at school from her teacher! I love it!

Yesterday she said it as she got out of the van for school. I said it back and she beamed! As we pulled away Ariana tells me, "Mom I love you all the way to the Planet X!" Being silly I responded, "Ariana I love you all the way to Planet Z!"

"Awwww!" She says, "Thanks Mom, I needed that!"

Classic! 

The days here are crazy! Sometimes I don't know whether I am coming or going! I know sometimes the kids feel the same way! This school year has been interesting with Ariana. Britain and Kalixta go to school at 12:00. Tori usually goes to sleep on the drive to school and will sleep the whole afternoon! This leaves Ari! Most days she loves to just play by herself, which she does very very well. Other days she follows me around and helps me. Those are great days! Sometimes she follows me around and asks questions or just talks and talks and talks! And other days she takes a nap. 

Last week she had one of those nap days. This time she took a nap in the most unusual place! She was in the sun of the sofa arm!

I came upstairs and there she was! I just laughed and then took a few pictures!

Have I said how much I love Reagan Academy? Well I do! And here is another reason why!

Each class has their own day to go to art. They learn great things about artists, types of art and art history, not just the normal elementary art! The art teacher is amazing! He goes above and beyond his teaching duties! Every year he sets up an art show. He then picks the best pieces to represent the school and puts them in an art gallery! The last two years Zoe has been in it and it has been at BYU's art museum. 

This year Ammon got his art picked! He was so excited! The show is at the Covey Center For the Arts. We went opening night on Friday.

Here is Ammon with his work of art!

The teacher mates and frames the pictures so nice! It looks so professional!

There is a little plaque telling about the art and who it's by!

Jordan was there too to see Ammon's art! And there was refreshments, which was my kids' favorite part! 

The entrance to the Covey Center had all these hanging origami! It was amazing! Here is a little peek!

I am again grateful for an amazing school that always puts their students first! Thank you Mr. Pratt!

Growing like a weed! I don't think I understood what that meant until this last year! Nik is growing and eating like crazy! I know it is just the start, but it is amazing to watch. It seems that each day he really is a little taller! Remember when Nik turned 12 in May? Here's a reminder! He got a new suit. He started to outgrow it so to make it last longer we undid the hem at the bottom. Well, he outgrew that too. For a while he was just wearing a too short suit to church. Finally I remembered that I had a suit from my Grandpa! I figured it was way too big but tried it anyways and to my amazement it fit!!!

I love this little piece of Grandpa with us all the time!

He is wearing Adam's shoes too! He has some growing room but I can't believe how big he is! He loves to stand right in my face to see how much taller he is now! 

Here I am trying to be tall and I think he is slumped over a little. I know it will only get worse. I am not ready to have a my son tower over me or be a teenager, but there is nothing to stop it! I have tried!
 
 

Trips to the ER are annoying. 

Trips to the ER that could have been avoided are even more annoying.

And trips to the ER where I fix the problem before the Dr. are the most annoying of all!

But that is all what happened last night. Tori had her first trip to the Emergency room and I had my first trip to a Utah emergency room. 

I am the Wolf Den Leader for our ward's cub scout pack. I love this job! Every Thursday from 4-5 I take Ammon (because he is a wolf), 3 other boys and my assistant and we do fun activities. Yesterday we visited a local nursery and learned about it. It was great. I got home to find Nikolas holding a crying Tori. He said she had been crying for 10 minutes or so and wouldn't move her arm. I thought he was exaggerating so I put her in her high chair and gave her some yogurt. She took the spoon but every time she started to put it in her mouth she would start crying. 

No one saw what happened to her. Nik was doing school work on the computer and everybody else was in my room watching a movie.  

I called Kenny, my fantastic brother-in-law and he came to stay with the kids while I ran her down to the urgent care since it was closer than my after hours dr.  The Dr. there felt her arm and thought she had bruised her bone in her shoulder-back area. He didn't have x-ray equipment in his office so he told me to take her home and watch her through the night. As I put her screaming into the car I knew I couldn't wait all night so I went to the emergency room in Provo and got her check in! She got a fancy anklet, which she didn't like at all.

She was crying and fussy when we got there but after about an hour she seemed better even though her right arm was still just hanging at her side. I tried to clean her hand with a wipey so it would look better when the dr. looked at her. She pulled and twisted her hand away from me and I felt a pop! She started screaming and I felt horrible thinking I had just made her broken arm worse!. She stopped crying, climbed off my lap and starting playing and smiling and using both her arms! I had fixed it! Her elbow was dislocated and I fixed it. A minute later they called her name. I told the Dr I had fixed it and once she checked her out she agreed with me and sent me home! 

Tori did get this cute little doll that she and the girls all love so the trip was not in vain!

 
 
 Through this whole ordeal I felt awful saying I didn't know what happened to her. I felt like a negligent mother! If I had known how she got hurt the process would have been quicker and easier. As it is I still don't know what happened. Here is my guess. Tori spilled her cup of water on the floor because she refuses to use a cup with a lid. She opened the drawer to get a towel to clean it up and slipped when her hand was on the drawer pulling her elbow out. Who knows! All I know is that from now until she is three it can happen again, again and again!   

Have you heard of The Freecycle Network? It is this awesome network that helps you get rid of stuff you don't want! Plus you can get stuff you want or need for FREE! It's "all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills." It is fantastic! I can post anything I want to get rid of, people who are interested email me, I send them my address and they pick it up! Same goes for anyone else. They have stuff they want to get rid of, they post it, if I want it I email them. Sometimes I get picked sometimes I don't!  

Saturday I got picked and I got a dresser!!! I was so excited! Britain and Kalixta share a dresser. They have clothes enough for two dressers so I needed another one, but I was afraid of having to split up the clothes. I didn't want fighting over what was who's! There was a dresser post so I emailed the lady and she gave me the dresser! She said the dresser was old and heavy so I took Nik with me. It is huge!!! It looks homemade so it is sturdy and enormous!

It needs a little love and a little paint, but I love it! There are eight drawers. Five covered with two doors and then three of the biggest drawers I have ever seen! I mean seriously! I put all four little girls in that bottom one and could have shut it if they wouldn't have freaked out! No need to split up the clothes! They all fit in this one dresser with extra room even!

Britain and Kalixta love their new dresser and look forward to painting it! It takes both of them to open and shut those drawers so it is also teaching them to rely and help each other!

Ariana is excited too because she gets the old dresser, which is new to her so she loves it! She now has plenty of room for her clothes. She was using one of those little plastic set of drawers! It was too small. Now no clothes exploding from anyone's dresser! Bliss!

 
 
 Anybody can freecycle! Just go to http://www.freecycle.org/  and see if there is anything in your area! Enjoy!!!  

Today was Dr. Seuss day at the kids! It would have been Dr. Seuss's 106th birthday! The kids read Dr. Seuss's books and watched a movie at school. It seemed fitting that we should have a Dr. Seuss dinner! SO we had green eggs and ham and read a few books!

Once they got past the color they really enjoyed it!

I love these books! They are so much fun to read! Last week I was having a conversation with Britain. She sometimes wants to fit in too much at school. I remembered this quote that I love, "Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you." It is now written on my board! I want my kids to always know that they are unique and special and that that is how it is supposed to be!
 
 

Yes, I am finally back. My computer was down for a while. Then I needed a few days to catch up on all of your blogs and now here I am and boy did I miss it and you!

Here's a short update on Tori and then through the next week I will post all the stuff that we have been up to! Tori is as goofy as ever and constantly getting into everything and gets stuck in weird places. 

For example!

I know the bottom ones is blurry but can you see how squished her toes are and the fact that she has to have her hands inside?! She is a silly girl. 

She has been sick the last little while plus her top two molars came in and her bottom two are coming anytime now. Needless to say she has been GRUMPY!! She has also started the need to do everything herself and has a stubborn streak! Oh my! I don't know where she gets that from?! But she also loves to cuddle and read books! Oh yeah, she has to read them on the bookshelf!

Her vocabulary is growing fast! She can now say help! And she has been using stop! more than ever! Everyday is an adventure with this one!

Don't you love Britain's little cheesing face in the corner?!
 
  
 

Last week was spirit week at school. The kids all had fun with each day's theme.

Monday was hat day!

Tuesday was Silly sock day! Zoe's favorite day!

Wednesday was crazy hair day! 

Thursday was jersey day! The girls borrowed from Ammon. The jersey Kalixta is wearing is a old one of Nik's, she thought that was pretty cool!

The kids go to a charter school called Reagan Academy. I drive them to and from, a 30 minute drive round trip. Between Adam and I we go three times a day! Sometimes I wish they went to the neighborhood school and then I could carpool or they could walk. But I LOVE Reagan! I love everything about them, except the fact that they don't have all day kindergarten:)! I will never change schools!

During the summer the school did a bit of remodeling. They added new classrooms and moved offices.They also did some redecorating! They painted walls and put up large photographs of the kids doing school activities. Zoe is in one of these pictures! It is so Zoe! Can you find her?!

She is the third student there with her hand straight in the hair and her mouth open! I can tell she knows the answer!!! That is how my Zoe is and I love her for it!!!