Swimming Lessons 2012

We made it through another session of swim lessons (with minimal complaining even).  Mak passed level 6 and is officially ready for swim team.  I was going to put her in this year but with the unknown if we were going to be here all summer and having to shuttle her back and forth after the baby comes I decided to hold off another year.  At the beginning she didn't want to do swim team, but now she does, of course. 

 Morg passed level 4 (which shocked me a little)  She did really good and I see a lot of improvement from last year. 

 I put Micah in a level 4 as well because. . . well I'm a bad mom.  I was having a hard time scheduling all of them at the same time and he was so far ahead of everyone last year I fiugred he could skip a level.  In the past (at least for us) they've held level 4 in the shallower part of the pool and I thought he'd be fine.  Well, not so much.  They did it in the 13 foot dive well and it wasn't so fine.  He struggled keeping up with everyone and so they had him swim next to the wall so he could stop when he needed.  I felt bad for the teachers cuz I knew how much I hated teaching kids who were not placed correctly.  You'd think I'd know better, lol.  Oh well, he managed and although he didn't pass (surprise surprise) he improved and loves it.

 This was his favorite part.

 I didn't get a good close up of Eah cuz by the time I got over to her class they were playing a game of Alligator Alligator, what time is it?  She's the one the front with the goggles on.  She passed level 2 as well and actually kind of surprised me on how well she did.    She's become a little fish.

 Mak's group and few others played sharks and minnows and she along with the teachers were the last one's standing, so the teachers huddled around her and carried her across the pool so she wouldn't get tagged.  It was pretty hilarious.

 Here are my swimmers.  So proud of them.  Glad they love the water as much as I do.  I think with a little encouragement, they will all do swim team next year.  Ok let's be realistic, they are doing swim team weather they like it or not, lol.  

Baby Bump and James is Gone :(

So I've always been really bad at photo documenting anything to do with me, but I really wanted to have a few pics of my bump this time.  I've only gotten 3 shots in the last 36 weeks, but hey it's better than nothing, right?  This one is at 20 weeks shortly after finding out what we were having.

 This one is 30 weeks. 

 And only 6 weeks later. . .I'm huge and still have 4 weeks to go.  I stayed pretty small for a long time and then bam, here is my belly.  I am sooo uncomfortable all of the time and my legs feel like they are going to detach from my hip sockets, my ankles are swollen every night, Randy laughs at me every time I try to get off of the couch and my AC is driving me nuts and we can't figure out what's wrong.  Oh well, I just need to make it through the next 4 weeks and then I can JUST be sleep deprived not uncomfortable, right?  Here's to hoping I go early (not that I will cuz I never do).

 On another note, Uncle James finished his Freshman year of college and celebrated his bday with us before leaving to go home before his mission.  We went to 7 Peaks yesterday with Alina and kids then came home, used the rest of his money from his meal plan at Jamba Juice (which BTW James know all of the secret flavors and has shared them with us and "Screaming O," (I know, awful name right?) is the best), made dinner and made my mom's infamous bday cake.  James wanted to learn how to make it, so he helped and even chose pink flowers to put on it, silly boy.

 I'm going to miss Zoolander face.

 He was really excited to light his own candles, can ya tell?  He's concentrating so hard. . .love it.

We are going to miss having you around James.  There is never a dull moment when you are here.  

She's a Big Girl Now!!!

She Did It!!!!!!!  She's been asking for a couple of weeks to learn to ride a 2-wheeler, but with how busy we've been, it just hasn't happened. . .till this weekend.

On Friday Randy got out the "small" bike and within a half an hour had her up and going!!!!  We practiced on the sidewalk yesterday and actually used the brakes instead of her feet to stop.  She'll be keeping up with the big kids now.  I can't believe how "big" she's gotten.  Where has my baby gone.  I guess I get to enjoy it all over again. . . soon.

Last Day of School 2012

The inevitable day has come and gone.  Yeah for the kids, sad for me.  I wouldn't mind just a couple of more weeks kid less.  Regardless, the kids had a fun last week.  There was the awards assembly and the dance festival and of course the joyous last day of 1 1/2 hours (don't even ask).    Here are the kids after the dance festival.  I'll post their videos at the end.

Walking to school the last day.  I thought it was a cute shot.

Morg and her besties commiserating on how the last day will go.

One last shot of the kids with their teachers.  Mak had such a great year with this man.  He had nothing but the nicest things to say about her.  She's sad to move on because she says "I want Mr. C to be my teacher forever."  He really is awesome.

2 of my kids have had Mrs. G.  She is just hands down awesome.

Also 2 of my kids have had Mrs. W.  These teachers just know how to reach my kids on a level I can't.  I miss them already.

Then there's Eah.  Miss Lynn has had the youngest 3 kids and all of my them have done amazing with her.  They all grow so much during preschool.  On the last day, they did a little program for the parents, it's always cute to watch them sing and dance.

This is the first year we've had Miss Nicole (or "Miss Cole" as Eah says it) as the preschool aid.  Can I just tell you how much I love this woman.

I was a able to get a cute shot of Morg and her friend McKenna coming out to say bye to Mrs. G.

HUGS!!!!

Oh and Malia loves all of her siblings teachers and hugs them each time she sees them.

The usual girl shot with one extra, Savannah.  She moved in close by and plays with the girls a lot.

Mak and Lauren.  At this point it is useless to ever think my children will ever be tall.  These 2 are only 6 months apart in age.

Mak and her bestie Emme.  These 2 are inseparable.  When/if we move, this will probably be the hardest goodbye.

McKenzie's dance.  She's the one in the back with the blue sweatshirt and red hat, all gansta and all.

Morgan's dance.  She's wearing a pink shirt and plaid shorts, third row back.

Micah's dance.  He's kinda hard to see, but he's wearing gray and black pants with a green shirt holding a panda pillow pet, 3 rows back behind the girls with the red pants.

Malia's dance, she's pretty easy to spot.

Now it's over and I can't believe I have a 6th grader, where has the time gone.  The kids learned so much this year and I loved all of their teachers.  Hopefully this next year will bring on some new adventures for our family.  Here's to a fun, hot, exciting summer.   Next on the agenda, getting this baby out.  Only 5 weeks to go WOOT!!!!

3rd Grade Program and Solar Eclipse

I love the end of the school year, there is never a dull moment.  Last week Morgan had her third grade program where she sang songs and recited a part about what they have learned this year.  Grandma and Grandpa Tucker were able to come down for it which was really nice considering it was on a Wednesday and Randy can't do anything Wed. nights because of school (I think there are only 3 Wednesday's left till he's done HALLELUJAH!!!!)  Anyway,  Morg did great.

 Here she is beforehand with one of her friends, hammin' it up like always.

 Sunday was a cool day.  It was the 1st Solar Eclipse my kids have been able to take part in.  I remember when I was in elementary school living in Virginia and how big of a deal it was that there we were able to witness one.  We all got special glasses and the entire school went outside to see this phenomenon.  Well, we tried to make it cool for the kids.  My neighbor Trisha found a cheap way of watching it happen but poking a small  hole through a piece of cardboard and then holding that up to the sun, then holding a second piece of cardboard away from it (demonstrated below by James). . .

 Isn't that cool.  It's really light but you can see the crescent shape on the cardboard of the moon going in front of the sun.

 I don't have any special photography skills or cool lenses, so this was the best we got.  This was just before it was completely covered by the moon, not that you can tell.

While we were using our primitive cardboard methods, another friend in my ward called and said she had some glasses if we were interested in letting the kids actually see it.  I was elated by this and she quickly ran over just in time to see it completely covered.  It was pretty amazing.

It's only the middle of May!!!!!

I can't even describe how busy it has been already this month and we haven't even gotten to all the end of the year hoopla.  I figured if I don't want to get backed up I better get some of this stuff posted quick or it'll never get done. 

First, one of our neighbors that graduated the same time Randy did, became a Chaplin for the military.  Shortly after graduation they moved and will be stationed back east (sad for all of us).  There was an little going away party for them.  We'll miss you Reed's.

 They have 3 little kids, here are the 2 oldest.  The one on the left is Malia's age, actually older but you'd never know seeing them next to each other cuz Malia is a giant compared to this petite little thing.

 The next week was "Mad" week.  It started off with Malia's preschool going to the aquarium and I got to go along.  Good thing it's a small little place, a little less chaotic chasing around a group of 4/5 year olds.

 Here's her class, well both classes actually.  There's an AM and PM class.

 Morgan's ecosystem project presentation was a few days later, which was also the same day as the 1st grade zoo trip. Randy went on it with Micah but didn't bring a camera so I don't have any shots.  Anyway, Morg chose the Ocean for her project.  We had been so busy with everything else that we raced to get her stuff put together.  I felt bad but hey it turned out great.

 Then the next day was the last day of soccer, Yippeeeee!!!! (for me)  The kids had a fun season and scored lots of goals.

 Randy coached both teams both fall and spring season.  He had fun, it was stressful during practices since he combined the two together, but he really enjoys coaching.

 Right after soccer, Gma and Gpa came down for Gpa's birthday "linner".  We went to Applebee's then came back and opened gifts.  We weren't able to go up there considering all of the fun we were having down here, lol.

 Then the next week, James received his mission call.  We were going to have it sent to my house, but since we really had no idea if we would be living here when it arrive (just in case it was late) we had it sent to Billy's house and drove up there to open it up.  We were all guessing outside of the U.S. but. . .

 He got called to the Porland Oregon Mission and will go into the MTC on August 15.  We were all surprised because that was the mission he was born in (At the time. Prineville was moved to the Eugene mission after I graduated from High School), so he won't be going back to his birth place, but he is awfully close.  The other funny thing is my sister lives in Vancouver just over the river from Portland but is in a different mission.  Do you see the shocked look on his face?

 Then the week after James got his call, it was Kristi's turn to report to the MTC.  We drove up Tuesday night to see her get set apart and then drove home and they came down to drop her off.  We ate at Pizza Pie Cafe.

Julie had to rush home so we took a quick shot before she bolted.

 Then with the new rules with dropping off, we decided not to chance not getting shots at the MTC so we stopped at the Provo Temple to get a few.  It's a good thing we stopped.

Malia's really good at being a ham and getting people's attention, can you tell?

Then it was time for goodbye's  There really wasn't any time for tears, which was good.  Just a quick hug then through the gate she went.  We are really excited for Kristi, she's going to be an awesome missionary.  She just kept saying how happy she was that day, and we are so happy for her. 

I know I still have Mother's Day to post and we have more school performances coming up and of course the traditional end of the year festivities.  I can't believe there are only 11 more days of school for these kids, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Can't we just go a few more weeks?

WE'RE DONE!!!!! Well almost

It's hard to believe that we were here just 3 years ago.  It's been a looooong hard road, but we've made it, kinda.  Technically Randy has one more 3 credit class to finish until he's officially done, which will be completed by the beginning of June, but since we really don't think we will be here in August when the summer session ends, we decided to have him walk in the Spring Graduation.  We have struggled since the day we got married as to which was the right direction to go for Randy's schooling but once we figured which path to take, Heavenly Father sure took over the reigns.  We have gone from clueless on how we were going to go back to school to getting relocated to Utah, losing a job, miraculously getting Utah residency, going  to and finishing a Bachelors from UVU, thinking we were going to move to Cedar City to finish school and having that fall through, to being led to the EMPA program at BYU and not having to pay for his graduate degree all in 5 years time (which to some might sound like a lot, but when you have 4+ children things sometimes take a little longer, lol).  I can't count how many times I have felt my Heavenly Father push us in a different direction than what we was going during this time.  I am sooo grateful that He did though otherwise we may have ended up with a completely different outcome.

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!!

Now for the fun you've all been waiting for. . . the pictures, ta da!  Randy picked up his clothes early and we decided instead of waiting till graduation day to take pics when there would be tons of other grads doing the same thing, we'd go to the signs at BYU the day before and take advantage of less crowds.  I have so many shots and really wasn't in the mood to do a lot of editing so I just put up a few random ones. 

It was a little breezy, can you tell?

I love this shot.  We were walking back to the car and I couldn't resist shooting this.

Micah sporting his dad's cool hat.

Randy walking in, he's 9th from the end with his arm up pointing.

 A little closer shot, looking right at us.

His mom's camera got even closer, I love that he looks like he's marching.

This was right before his row got up to go to the stage.  That's one of his EMPA buddies that decided to graduate early as well.

Really blurry I know, but here he is going up on stage.

On the other side with the 2 other EMPA guys.

We were naughty and left after he walked.  Apparently in the business school, over half of the grads were getting their graduate degrees.  I really couldn't sit any longer for them to go through the Bachelor's as well especially since Randy was literally right at the end of the graduates.  Blame it on #5.

Here are the families that were able to come and celebrate with us.  Julie and her kids.

Alina and Ki Ki-these 2 are troopers.  They had already sat through another graduation early that morning.  Alina's mom graduated with her Master's in Education.  Thanx again Alina for coming.

Of course us-minus Morgan who decided she should make this day extra special by barfing, the poor thing watched movies on my bed all day.

Randy's parents and sisters.

Even though she looked like trash we didn't want to leave her out.  We had to get at least one shot of her with her handsome daddy.

At home for a couple more shots.

I'm going to regret this later, but I couldn't resist.

After it was all over and we checked up on Morgie, we went out for Linner at one of our favorite places, Rib City.  It was probably our last time eating there and man it will be missed.

Grandma tried really hard to get these kids to sit still long enough to get a cute shot, this was the best that we could do, the little stinkers.

Next on the agenda, getting a job.  Right now Randy's got a really great opportunity in San Antonio and we will find out by the end of this week if he got the job.  We are hoping things work out for us down there, but I've learned over this past years that it's really not in my hands.  So if we are suppose to be there I know that Heavenly Father will have a huge part in it.  However, prayers couldn't hurt, lol.  Here's to the next chapter in our lives.  Congrats Toots!!! We Made it!!!