It's been awhile...

since we've blogged!


It's been a busy month. I started teaching preschool and I LOVE it! I had a very steep learning curve on the first day, but once I realized that 3 year olds need to be trained to be in school (and I was the one that needed to train them) I was able to set some boundaries and move on. It's been relatively easy. A lot less time consuming than 4th grade. I have no papers to grade, no scores to enter, no meetings to attend, etc. I am done at 2:30 everyday and get to jump right back into to being a mom! My house has had to stay relatively clean so when 2:30 rolls around I get to just be a mom! I'm really glad that I decided to follow this path.


Carter and Kathryn also started preschool. It's been great being their teacher. Carter follows the other kids while they call me Miss Mary, Kathryn calls me Miss Mom. I love being with them.
Kathryn is still a little young for preschool. She is just as bright as the other 3 year olds, but she is still a little immature for school, she doesn't know how to sit still for very long and she cries way more than the other kids. She likes coming, but is ready to go to the babysitters after school. (My friend Melissa has been tending Kathryn and Kimball since my mom has been so sick. It has worked out so well and the kids enjoy going there. They miss grandma's house, but seem to do great at Melissa's.)

Carter is doing great in preschool. He is such a trooper and is attending 7 classes of preschool a week. The lessons are repeated so he gets a little bored with the curriculum. He loves the other kids in the classes and enjoys being the star pupil by answering all the questions before Miss Mary finishes asking the questions. He is so competitive in the games and wants to do his best at everything. I've really enjoyed seeing him play with his friends and do his school work. He is very ready to be reading. We've been reading books at starfall.com and his is doing fantastic sounding out words and reading!

Chris has been busy building us a swing set for the preschool. We had a metal swing set that was given to me by my friend Leah. It has been wonderful and served us well the past 4 years. But adding 12 three and four year olds to it for 15 minutes/twice a day beat it to pieces. I was so afraid that someone was going to get hurt that we had to splurge and buy a swing set that would last and endure the rambunctious preschool children. We found a play set on KSL that was new and in it's box and bought it. When we got the boxes, it said it would take "2 moderately skilled men 20-24 hours to assemble!" WOW! We read online reviews that said it took most people 40-60 hours! Chris started his mission to prove that he was more than just moderately skilled. He worked every spare minute this week, putting up spotlights so he could work into the night.. My dad came over a couple times and helped with the labor. He finished it yesterday, with a grand total of 22 hours. NOT BAD! I'm sure the preschool students will love it, but in the meantime, Carter, Kathryn and Kimball have LOVED it! Chris was a proud dad, when Carter came in this morning and said, "Thanks for building us a swing set Dad, it is great!"


Thanks Papa Boz for helping us. He even engineered and added a fall area over the monkey bars.We have now officially started the Saturday Soccer Era of our lives...and we love it! Carter is such a great soccer player and really enjoys the game. He is the little star player. Last week (his first game) he scored 3 goals in a matter of minutes. He took the ball and headed towards the goal while the other kids still struggled to find the ball. He is very aggressive (and kinda a ball hog) but it melted our hearts to see him do so well. This week he kinda chilled out and learned how to pass the ball. This week he scored 1 goal. It's pretty amazing to see him try his best at things and succeed.


Kimball loves the soccer games just as much as Carter; and I think he gets just as much exercise as him as well. He loves the "Baa" and knows to take it over to the net. Future soccer player for sure!

Our Saturdays have been full of canning as well. I joined this co-op organization that gets me fresh fruits and vegetables every week. It's so wonderful. Go to bountifulbaskets.org for more information. I have been able to get great deals on produce so I have been filling our shelves for food storage. Below are the pictures of the stuff I got one Saturday for $15.00. It is amazing and wonderful!

You can also order large quantities of certain things. This week I was able to get corn and apples for a really good deal.

As of today, I have canned: 14 quarts of peaches (from our tree), 37 quarts of tomatoes (from Days Farm), 48 1/2 pints of chicken (in a pressure cooker...it is amazing), 20 quarts of beets (from the ward garden and our garden), 14 freezer bags of corn, 12 pints of applesauce, 12 pints of pepper jelly, and I'm thinking I want to do more. I have caught the food storage bug! I love seeing my shelves get full.

I also wanted to post some pictures from our family camping trip. We went up to Mirror Lake the end of August. It was quite the adventure. We (well...Chris) packed up everything but the kitchen sink and we headed to the hills. We were bound and determined to have a wilderness experience with our kids. We bought fishing licences and were bound and determined to catch some fish. We spent the whole day trying, but to no avail. The drunk guy next to us, however, caught 29. We finally made friends with him, so the kids could see what it was like to catch a fish. We brought our bikes and I decided to take the kids on a bike ride around the lake. Carter riding his bike and I pulled the trailer with Kathryn and Kimball. Well about 15 minutes into the ride, the trail kept getting rockier and rockier. Finally it was so bad that Carter and I had to walk the bikes. I was having to pull the trailer with all my might to make it around the rocks. I really should have turned back, but I figured "how bad could it be...it can only get better." I was wrong. We were 1/2 way around the lake, but we kept pushing forward. Luckily some very nice people offered to help me. The two men carried Kathryn and Kimball and Carter's bike, so I could pull the bike and trailer without the kids going 4-wheeling. What an adventure! We had slept there one night and that night was miserable. It was cold, the air mattress was a joke and we spent the entire night flopping around on the mattress. We decided to only stay the one night and packed up at dark to head home. But we got the adventure we wanted!

Teaching the kids to fish was priceless. They loved being by the water and the freedom of camping.

We went on a drive around nap time and they all crashed. I love these darlings.

Isn't it funny to see how kids entertain themselves on long drives. Here is a little blurb of the kids while en route to Mirror Lake.