School!

Sadly for me, our wonderful summer had to come to an end. I truly loved having both boys home all day and being less busy. Spencer wasn't sad summer was over though. He loves school and was especially excited for all of the exciting changes 5th grade would bring.

We had our Back to School Feast in our backyard the night before school started this year. It was fun to have a fancy dinner outside and I think that will be our new tradition (as long as it isn't rainy!). I don't usually do fancy anything, but Alan took the boys to the park for awhile beforehand and I managed to get it all finished. 

Both boys got a crown, a sword, and a personalized sketch pad. I used way too much glitter on the crowns and it got all over the boys' plates. We had to ban the crowns from ever going indoors. Haha! 

We ate homemade tomato soup, homemade french bread, and green beans from our garden. That soup recipe is one of the few I have that everyone in the family likes. We had grilled peaches and homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert. Everything turned out delicious!

Alan and I introduced our new family theme after we had eaten. It comes from President Nelson's talk last General Conference.

This year, we want to focus on having the Holy Ghost with us to guide little decisions in our daily lives and give us personal revelation for the big decisions we face. The theme hangs in our living room and we read it and talk about ways we put it into practice each week during Family Home Evening. Besides just being fun, the swords we gave the boys symbolize arming ourselves against temptation by inviting the Holy Ghost using President Nelson's five ways to open the heavens.

We ended the evening with father's blessings from Alan. It was a really nice evening and I hope the boys felt how special they are to us and how much their Dad and I rely on the Gospel of Jesus Christ to guide our lives.

First day of 5th grade!!

Mason was pretty bummed after Spencer left and it was just the two of us at home again. We road bikes down to the library and he had fun spying on other kids through the shelves though. He also had a lot of fun with the wading pool in the backyard.

Spencer is an ambassador for his school this year. He applied at the end of 4th grade by writing an essay and being approved by his parents and teachers. As an Edy Ambassador, Spencer helps out a lot around the school. He welcomes people and gives directions at school events, turns on the computers in the lab before school each morning, gathers and compacts the recycling twice a week, and walks first graders out to the bus. I'm sure he will do other things as the year progresses as well. It's more responsibility than Spencer has ever had in school and he feels that weight, but he likes it and it's good for him. He feels super important. :)

The other big change Spencer has at school this year is in math. He tested out of 5th grade math at the end of 4th grade and qualified to take 6th grade math this year. He and a few other kids from his grade walk over to the adjacent middle school for a math class every morning. Spencer is doing fine with the concepts so far, but the daily homework is an adjustment for him. Again, more responsibility. I think it's going to be a really good thing for him to actually be challenged in math and am hoping that he will learn how to work a little in school rather than just floating through everything. Academics, especially math, have always come so easily to Spencer that I've worried a little about how he would react when things got harder. I think we will find out how he will react this year.

A couple of week later, Mason got to start preschool! He was really nervous about going until I told him that I could go grocery shopping without him once he went. Suddenly, he was very excited to go. Haha! He was a little nervous the first day, but has done great since then and loves going. It is rather nice to have some time to run errands without a bored, little buddy, but I am also sad that my baby is growing up. It's really good for Mason to spend time with other kids his own age and to start learning school behaviors and skills though.

The preschool is a co-op with some other moms I know from one of the other wards in Sherwood. They meet from 10:30-1:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and there are nine kids in the group. That large of a group is going to be tricky in my little house, but I don't teach until the spring so maybe we'll be able to get outside some.

I am one lucky mom to have such handsome, fun, and talented boys and I'm excited for the things they will learn and the adventures they will have this year!

Summer at Home

We still had about 5 weeks of summer left after we got back from AZ and we had a lot of fun doing some of our favorite things. Oregon summers have beautiful weather so we lived it up as much as we could.

Spencer entered a tiny Lego castle in the castle contest for the Robin Hood Festival this year. We missed the actual festival, but he won the certificate for the "most miniature castle."

Both boys had a list of jobs and different types of play that they had to complete before earning 30 minutes of screen time each day. Surprisingly, one of Spencer's favorite jobs was to clean the bathroom counters. It was awesome!

It's not summer without splash pads and picnics.

Mason started swimming lessons! We just did two weeks of lessons this year. The brand-new pool in Newberg is huge and super fun. Mason was nervous and had a little anxiety about leaving me the first week, but didn't have any problems the second week. He loves swimming and had so much fun! Spencer was always off in the deeper parts of the pool and I never got any good pictures of him. He did awesome though and finally passed off Level 3! Mason got to the Preschool 2 level. We had some hot and smoky weather those two weeks so I was really glad we had swim lessons to get us out of the house and doing something active indoors.

We worked hard on Mason's listening skills in July. He got to choose the prize for filling in his entire listening sticker chart and he chose a donut. Instead of cutting it in half and saving the rest for later (or throwing it away!) like we have always done, we let him have the whole thing this time. He ate the frosting first and finished most of the rest of it before he got sick and threw it all up. No more whole donuts for that boy! We did see some improvement in his listening skills though. ;)

We took a day trip to Neskowin Beach on the nicest day we could. It got up to 94 degrees in Sherwood that day, but was only 64 at the beach. That's decent Oregon beach weather, but still rather cool for me. It was a fun afternoon though. We had a picnic and just played for about four hours. Some friends from Sherwood were staying in Lincoln City for the week so they came up and played with us for awhile. It was super fun to play with friends at the beach!

Enjoying homemade fruitsicles with T. (a friend and neighbor). We also took T. to the dollar movie one morning. I thought we should go to the dollar movie at least once during the summer. We saw Despicable Me 3. The boys thought it was ok. I have a really hard time with those movies. ;)

Mason LOVES dirt and spent many happy hours playing with his trucks in the garden.

Mason also loved having Spencer home so much. Once in awhile, Spencer would let Mason snuggle in his bed before going downstairs for breakfast.

We checked out a couple of new parks in Newberg while we were down there for swimming lessons.

The YMCA Family Triathlon was on August 18th. Sadly Alan was working that day and couldn't participate with us, but he did let the YMCA borrow his finish line arch. This was our second year competing in this race. It was just as fun as last year, but a lot harder for me since I had to help Mason swim a lap, pull him in the bike trailer for five miles, and then push him in the jogging stroller for two miles. Pulling about half of my body weight on a bike is no easy task and I got a good workout! Spencer's new bike made the race much better for him this year, but the run was still hard. He swam two laps instead of just one this time. Spencer pushed through and finished it though. Both boys enjoyed the bbq after the race. I'm not sure how we'll do this race next summer when Mason is too big for the bike trailer.

Speaking of biking, at the beginning of the summer, we set a goal to bike 60 miles as a family. Spencer was in charge of making our mileage chart. We only got about half way there by the end of summer and most of those miles were biked without Alan, but it was a lot more than we had ever biked before and we had a lot of fun doing it. The boys and I biked around town to the library, stores, and parks a lot. We often biked to a park on Friday evenings instead of sitting in front of the tv at home. It was good for us! Again, next summer is going to look different when Mason is too big for the trailer but not big enough to ride his own bike long distances yet.

Kiki got a new toy for her 2nd birthday on August 20th. She LOVES going outside in the backyard. I have given up trying to keep her from jumping the fences. She doesn't usually go far and comes running when it's time to eat.

We walked a few blocks with our wagon to pick up a little friend for Mason to play with one day. Spencer was jealous that Mason got ride while he had to walk. ;)

Spencer was my super canning helper this year. He was happy to stay up late to help me fill jars with pears or nectarines because it meant he got to watch American Ninja Warrior while he worked. He was also a huge help snapping beans.

We spent a day at Silver Falls for our last big family activity of the summer. A lot of school districts started a week before ours so it wasn't crowded at all and the weather was perfect. We spent an hour or so hiking to two different waterfalls before having a picnic and playing in the water. Neither boy loves hiking, but playing in the water was new and fun. They played on the playground for just a few minutes before driving home in time for soccer practice. We had a lot of good family time this summer and I loved every minute of it!