10 years later I got a 2 year degree!

A little history lesson for you: I met Allan after being in college for one year. We got engaged during the first semester of my second year. I tried to transfer to BYU where Allan was attending school, but my GPA was an awesome hundredth of a point below their transfer acceptance at the time. So instead of being able to keep going to school, I got a job and we got married and started our family. I have no regrets about this decision and feel it was the right thing for us. I am also grateful because before I had kids I wanted to be an Elementary Teacher, and since then have decided that is not the way I want to go. Anyway, Allan finished his degree and went on to dental school and I put my focus on having and taking care of our family. When he graduated and we moved back to Idaho Falls, I was close enough to head back to good ol' Ricks/BYU-I. At this time I was pregnant with our fourth child and could only handle one class at a time. So after another year and a half of plucking away at courses and now being pregnant with my fifth child, I finally got an Associates of Science in General Studdies.

So just a side note, the day I graduated Allan had a cancer spot removed from his nose. It was a basal cell carcenoma and basically about as harmless as we could have hoped for. His poor face got a lot worse looking before it got better, when his doctor found out I was graduating that night he told us the surgery could have waited, but it worked out well for Allan because he got to take a couple of days off work as sick leave that he was planning on taking anyway.My parents came up for the evening. Really it was all much more emotional than I had imagined and I was excited that my kids got to be there to watch. I also do plan to someday go back to school and get a bachelors degree, probably after all of my kids are in school. This time around the plan is Home Family and Consumer Science, or basically home ec.

Summer Fun and the Livin's Easy

July was a great month this summer. We really got into a great routine with all of the kids home! I made chore charts for the girls with one chore for each year old they are and they were so great at helping out! Now that they are back in school I sure miss this because they just don't have the time.
We had lots of time to play outside. This is Lilly and Natalie playing in the little car we have. Lilly just loves being pushed around the driveway and Natalie had a great time doing the pushing. They were very cute!
I don't really have a picture about this but I know I have mentioned how great our neighborhood is and how many great families we have around to play with! It is awesome being able to send the kids out to our back yard and have tons of friends to play with right there!
June also brought our first bout of swim lessons. The girls had so much fun. We signed up with our friends the Pettingills and each one had a friend in their class.
Here is Natalie in her class practicing her kicks and her friend Spencer is actually doing it too! He is a bit crazy and liked to give the teachers a challenge. Natalie was and still is a bit of a chicken, but by the time we had our family reunion in August she was at least brave enough to put her head under water.
Here is Ally practicing a back float. I fibbed a little and put her into a 6 year old class so she could be with her friend Sydney, and she was actually the only one of my kids who passed their class up to the next level. She did really great!
Here is Hailey swimming. She struggled because she was in a pretty high class, but she really tried hard and got a lot better in the 2 weeks. Hailey was in a class with her friend Maddie.
Another thing that Summer brought was park day. Every Tuesday we went to a different park with the girls from our ward. It was a lot of fun. These pictures are from the day we went up to the Rexburg Splash Park.
There is a Carousel and the girls always love to ride on it at the end of the day.

Writing about this makes me miss those care free days, although at the time I know I wasn't feeling so care-free as it was my first trimester and I was not feeling great. I am just grateful now that it was during the summer I wasn't feeling good because I am so busy now if I didn't feel good I don't know what I would do!
Well, mission accomplished, I am blogging and catching up. Next you all get to hear about my graduation so stay tuned!

The Catch-Up Begins, back to the 4th of July!

Okay, I have slacked on blogging! In my defense, I have a crazy schedule as seen before only a little busier because Natalie is doing 2 preschools AND I am pregnant with my 5th child! Yes I am going to pull out that card because how many of you have 5 kids! (Robin, I am pretty sure you are the only one) Anyway, canning season is slowing down and although I still have a to-do list a mile long I have decided I need to take time each day to do a little catching up on my blog. There will be some days that this won't happen, like Friday when we leave for Utah for the third weekend in a row, and possibly Wednesday when I am teaching my sister-in-law how to can tomatoes, but I will make a valiant effort to get caught up. So here we go...

THE 4TH OF JULY!!!

We started out our 4th celebrations on the 3rd by going to a BBQ at our awesome friend's the Laytons. One of my friends e-mailed me this adorable picture of Lilly and since I didn't bring my camera, this is the only picture I have of that day. Arin and Jaren (but mostly Arin) are amazing at having get-togethers which I love because if they didn't do it, I would probably have to!
The next morning we got up nice and early to go to the parade. Jaren Layton went even earlier and scored us a great seat! I made some muffins and took some fruit so here the girls are enjoying their breakfast and waiting for the parade to start.
Dave and his kids came over from Boise and we always love hanging out with them. Lee and Jean also met us to watch the parade.
Here are all of the kids (and Allan) lined up after the rest of the Laytons got there. Hailey is actually down past Allan sitting with Anna if you look closely.
I started a craft group a few months back and as one of the projects we made t-shirts for the 4th. You can't really see Lilly's in this picture, but it says USA like Natalie's.

Ally wanted a flag like her friend Ila Layton. I was really happy with how cute they turned out! I also found them all these super cute shorts at Walmart.
I also went to Target's $1 spot and grabbed these headbands and the sticker/tatoos which the kids were pretty excited about!
Here are the girls with Ila. You can also see the cute bows that I made for Natalie in this picture.
After the parade we went over to the river and camped out our spot for the fireworks with Allan's family. We went over to Chilie's for lunch with Dave and the kids and walked around the river. The kids were obviously pretty tired because a little later in the afternoon they looked like this!
My parents drove up to watch the fireworks with us and after a quick nap we went and let the kids play on these fun toys that were set up.
Here is Natalie coming out of the maze.
And Hailey after finishing first in a race against Ally
And here is Ally coming down a giant slide. They obviously had a lot of fun.
Then it started to rain and luckily we had taken the Layton's canopy so we all huddled under it and made a little necklace project that Jean had brought.
Of course later that night we watched the fireworks show. The halarious thing to me is poor Natalie was sitting on my lap and about the time the first firework went off she said to me, "I'm tired" and fell asleep basically missing the whole show. It was a late night for everyone and I am not really sure any of my kids actually stayed awake during the fireworks. Oh well, they still had a fun day.