First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for both Emma and Matthew. Emma is in 1st Grade, and Matthew is in a half-day morning preschool that runs every day. They were so excited this morning!

Emma enjoyed her first day, and had fun seeing her friends again. She came home eager to do homework and talking all about her new teacher, Mrs. Loftis. She's eager to go back tomorrow and I know it is going to be a great year for her!

Matthew rode to school with Daddy this morning on his way to work. Daddy met his teachers, Ms. Lewis and Ms. Funderburke. It is so cute to hear Matthew say their names (Woo-is and Fun-duh-buhg). Matthew loved their class, and his only complaint was that they wouldn't "let me play on the jumpy thing, they said I had to play on the blue or red or yellow things. I don't like that!"

Utah Trip 2012

In July, we went home for a visit. We were so busy it was overwhelming! But we did a lot of fun things. For some reason, we didn't take many pictures of our activities, but I'll include what we have and add more if anyone has pictures they took that they want to send me!

Our first two days consisted of barbecues with family, and just catching up with our parents and siblings. We spent time talking, playing with the kids and letting Daniel get to know everyone. He was a little nervous, but it was good for him to get out of his comfort zone a little! We also spent some time shopping for things only available in Utah. 

Saturday was the hike for which we had planned and waited excitedly! We both miss the mountains, and I love to hike and miss it a lot. It's just not the same in SC. So we took off with Nathan, Holly and Steve and went up the Squaw Peak trail.

 This is in Rock Canyon, which is right behind the Provo Temple. On the way to the hike, Steve wasn't sure where he was headed, so I told him to park on the street next to the temple and wait for me to drive by so he could follow. When I was almost there I got this text from him: "Erin, hurry up. I'm going to get struck by lightning any minute." Always so funny. Luckily I drove by before God could strike him down.

I have missed the mountains so much! We were headed right to the top of that point. Sadly, we didn't quite reach our goal, but that's okay because we made it to the branch that will be shown soon.

Steve guzzled Mt. Dew the whole way up, which is probably why we never made it to the top! 

Me 'n Steve.

Nathan and Holly!

Steve used Nathan as trash can for awhile. Nathan's a surprisingly smooth walker. It didn't fall off for about 10 minutes.

Steve! 

Nathan!

Holly!

Me!

Mike!

Steve again!

Pictures on the bridge.  

Just keep hiking....

Most of our group had run out of gas by the time we were about 2/3's of the way up, so we decided the branch would be our goal.

Steve apparently thought we were weaklings, but we made him turn around anyway.

We got a couple more shots of the canyon on the way down, and then headed over to Farr's Fresh to re-hydrate with some frozen yogurt.

Sunday we went to sacrament meeting in Midway, and headed to Mike's parents house in Holladay afterwards to meet up with Mike's siblings. We saw David and Sara and their kids, and Adrienne came with the kids, but without Chris, since he had to work. It was good to see everyone! A year makes a huge difference in the kids.

Sunday night after the kids went to bed, Mike and I snuck out of the house and headed down to Nathan and Holly's place. Ian arrived pretty soon after we did, which was a surprise to us, but turned out fun. We ended up playing Words of Wizdumb, which I could keep playing for a long time. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

People started dropping like flies toward the end of the game, so we finished up and called it a night. It was weird to be out at night with no kids, I kind of miss it!

Monday morning we were up bright and early to head to Lagoon with Nathan and Holly, Steve, Ian and his friend, and Mike's mom. Daniel stayed home with my parents and they spent the day together getting better acquainted.

Luckily they've made waiting in line an enjoyable thing for kids, so I guess part of that ticket expense doesn't feel so bitter. Maybe.

We spent a lot of time on the bumper cars, which the kids loved! You can see Matthew behind me. We sadly didn't get any other pictures because we didn't bring our camera!!! Lesson learned- hopefully I'll be more on top of that from now on.

We had fun with Mike's mom, we haven't been able to just hang out like that for a long while. It was really laid back and good to just be able to spend that time together.

Happy kids!

The kids really enjoyed their time with Grandma Woods. They are still talking about this trip and the rides they went on with her. Thanks for coming with us!!

The good old sky ride. The kids were really nervous about this at first; we literally had to drag Emma on kicking and screaming. She finally calmed down and really enjoyed it, and even asked to go again later! 

Nathan and Steve about to go on the Samurai.

All things considered, Lagoon was good. I'm glad we went. It wasn't too hot, and the kids did well. Mike and I got to ride a few rides on our own (thanks Sue!!), which was fun to feel like we are people again instead of just parents. If that makes any sense! All in all, worth the trip.

Just a random shot of Uncle Nathan playing tic tac toe with the kids. 

During our trip we went to our favorite pizza place- Nicolitalias in Provo. A gourmet pizza place with a Boston flare. The owner is kind of nuts but makes it a fun place to be by shouting random things in a high squeaky voice over the loudspeaker. When our food was ready the whole restaurant learned that "the Italian Stallion for Mikey is ready!"

Again, not too many pictures. We were with Nathan and Holly and Steve. Fun times! Posting this makes me want to go home and eat like this every day.

The rest of the trip went quickly. Tuesday night we went went to the temple with my parents and it was supposed to be Nathan and Holly as well, but they ended up at a different temple due to a  miscommunication ... thanks to me. :D Mike's parents watched the kids for us, and we all met up for dinner at Robintino's (a high school hangout of Mike's) afterwards.

Wednesday I went shopping in Park City with my sister-in-law, Adrienne and we had a great time visiting and catching up. We spent Wednesday night with our friends Adam and Jennie Gundersen and their kids, and again, no pictures! We had a bratwurst cookout and things were going fine until we both started feeling heat sick, which later that night turned into a stomach flu that lasted all day Thursday. We cancelled everything and just tried to concentrate on feeling better for the flight.

Luckily Friday morning, we were feeling up to the flight, but it turned out that there was a torrential downpour over Atlanta, so most of the way there we got rerouted to Memphis to wait out the storm. When we finally did get back to Atlanta, we were in time to miss the last flight to Greenville for the night. Neither of us cared to spend the night in the airport or a hotel, so we ended up renting a car and driving the 2 1/2 hrs to Greenville to pick up our van. We would have just gone home, but we needed the garage door opener in the van so... we dropped the rental off and finally headed for home, rolling in at about 4:00AM Saturday morning. Poor kids!! They did so well with all of it, and they even slept in a bit on Saturday.

That was the end of our Utah trip! Getting back into a routine was tough, and I don't look forward to flying again with kids anytime soon. But we did have a great time while we were there and can't wait to see everyone again!

Summer Vacation in SC

We kicked off summer vacation with Daniel's first haircut. I didn't want to chop off those curls!!! But Mike was getting antsy to have them gone, so it finally had to happen.

He was so cute about the whole thing, and he really wanted to taste the scissors and comb. It was a struggle to keep him still.

Almost done.....

Finished! It was much shorter than I wanted, but it's tough when you have to work so fast.

Daniel turned 1 on the 19th of June. I made him this lumpy dinosaur cake with no legs. It wasn't much to look at, but it sure tasted good! :)

Opening presents was a sight to be seen. The two older kids just couldn't bear to let Daniel try to open his own presents. He took too long and didn't seem to care, so they eventually took over.

 He did eventually start enjoying himself, and loved playing with the ball popper from mom and dad.

And of course, the chocolate cake challenge! 

He did a bit better than the first two, who seemed really hesitant to make a mess. Not this kid! He wanted to give us a great big squishy chocolate hug. We gave him a bath first.

Moving on to show a normal lazy summer day. Daniel's morning face:

Emma watching cartoons:

And Matthew taking a break from his puzzle:

Doing Emma's hair:

We can't forget to show pictures of chores. That was a big part of summer too.

We recently visited the Greenville Children's Museum, which was really impressive! The kids had a blast. Emma wanted her picture taken right out front to document the occasion. We weren't quite to the front yet, but she was happy anyway.

They had a big vacuum tube system that Daniel fell in love with. He would pick the balls up as they dropped into the bucket, and load them in again. I've never seen his attention span last so long!

The massive "lite-brite" wall was pretty cool too. I would love to have one of these put in our house.

In the basement they had water tables. The kids stayed here for the longest amount of time. There were lots of other exhibits we looked at too, including the best grocery center I have ever seen. It was a great place and we'll definitely be going back.

 Another day at home. The kids love to play with the camera when they get the chance! We had some fun taking goofy shots one day, and we all laughed uncontrollably. Pretty fun.

Another favorite pass time- dress ups. This particular occasion was fantastic. Just before bed, they were supposed to be getting pajamas on. They came back downstairs looking like this. 

Matthew announced loudly that he was a super hero and he was here to save the day! It should be a fun picture to use later on, maybe in his high school yearbook if he doesn't keep himself in line! :D

Bath time! I couldn't resist snapping a couple shots of these two. They have so much fun in the water!

Emma recently got a new-to-her dresser, and passed her old one on to Matthew, who passed his on to Daniel. It was quite the project. Once it was in her room, we tucked the kids in. Later when we checked on her, she had made the dresser her own. At least we know it will be accepted and loved in it's new home.

The final project of the summer was a 1500 piece puzzle. Mike and I had some fun putting this thing together at night, and it gave us a lot more time to talk too. The kids tried to help during the day and actually helped fit a few pieces in. It took about a week of odds and ends time. It was about 3 feet across. I've heard there are 5000 piece puzzles out there, maybe we'll be more adventurous next time!

All in all it was a grand summer. We had fun and spent a lot of time together. I left our Utah Trip out, since it needs a post of it's own. Stay tuned and you'll be treated to a play-by-play of that extravaganza. :)