F is for...

FROGS & TOADS~

Thomas loves playing with his frog and toad friends! They are his little buddies! As the weather cooled off the toads went off to hibernate, but we still have a few frogs sticking around the house! :) Don't they realize it's "cold" outside???

FREE HAND CHALK DRAWINGS~

Every morning while we waited for the school buses to come, our driveway became a HUGE chalk board for Thomas! We had amazing chalk scenes! This is one of my favorite. Thomas had copied our trees and was working on a rainbow with clouds. We also had numerous jungle scenes, the North Pole with the Polar Express, oceans, anything that Thomas could imagine! When it rained, it all got washed away and we started again. After Thomas started pre-school, the chalk was put away...no more lazy mornings to just draw.

FIRE ANTS~

One Saturday morning, in the beginning of September, after my bike ride, I decided to work in the garden before it got too hot. Unfortunately, my time was cut short by me, unknowingly, standing in a fire ant hill!!! I jumped out of the flower bed, onto the driveway, and kicked my shoes and socks off as fast as I could...TOO LATE!!! Those fiesty fire ants got me really bad, at least on one ankle...23 bites on my right ankle and only 3 on my left. NOT FUN!! :(

Too many fire ant bites = trip to doctor! By Monday, my ankles were really swollen and the bites were getting infected...not good...dumb fire ants!!! After some medicine, I was on the mend. :)

FACES~

Bethany was so excited to finally get her braces off!!! :) She got them off near the end of August. Don't those teeth look nice!! :)

Thomas, on the other hand, had this freaked out look! One of the things at the top of his "to-do" list once the kids went back to school was to go to the zoo and see the dinosaurs!!! Well, the last time we went to see the dinosaurs, he was super freaked and wouldn't let go of my hand.

This time, Thomas was still freaked out, but was brave enough to walk without holding my hand, most of the time! He was a little nervous that this baby T-rex would get him though because there wasn't a fence by him. :)

FAMILY ~

We finally were able to meet ELIZA!!!

My sister, Carolee, and her husband, Tim, came with their daughter, Eliza, to visit us for Labor Day!! :) They live in Jacksonville, FL! We all had fun playing with Eliza and getting to know her! We also got to celebrate Eliza's FIRST birthday with her, a few days early!! :)

FOOTBALL ~

Edd was able to take his girls to one of the Saints' pre-season games!!! They were all super excited!!!!

Edd took the girls to Victory Square before the game started! The football game was pretty exciting too! They all had a great time!! :)

As I drove back across the lake, after dropping the girls off, I realized that the clouds looked more like Autumn clouds...they were long and stretched out instead of the big, fluffy clouds I was used to seeing. I was a little sad to see Summer slipping away. I wasn't quite ready for FALL~

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER...

The dog days of summer have come and gone, but they sure were fun!!! Here's some highlights from our summer...

JUNE:

While Bethany was at camp, we went to the Audubon Zoo one night...lots of fun! It was the members only night and they fed the alligators for us...which was the best part of the trip, of course!!!

The trip to the zoo wouldn't be the same without doing our two favorites:

RIDING THE CAROUSEL~

POSING BY THE WILD CREATURES~

Of course when Bethany returned home from GIRLS CAMP, she told us that she'd had a crazy good time! :)

BLUEBERRY PICKING!!!

A couple of weeks later, we joined up with some other families in the ward to do some blueberry picking!

We got there super early so we could beat the heat of the day! Unfortunately, it was already hot and humid when we got started.

At first we had a lot of fun picking!

As the time went by and the buckets filled up it got "DRIPPING HOT!!!" as Thomas called it!!! Even sitting in the shade, it was miserable...

Once everyone had had enough, we turned our buckets in, paid for our blueberries, and headed home.

It's now November...and Summer is LONG GONE. I saw my breath Friday morning while I took the garbage can out to the road and we had frost on the grass Saturday morning...not sure I'm ready for the cold...sometimes I think I'd like to go back to those "DRIPPING HOT" days.

***SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTS THE LAST LITTLE WHILE!!!***

Life in our house has been a little busier on Sundays. Tonight, I took advantage of the end of DAY LIGHT SAVINGS!! The kids were so ready for bed before 8!!! I didn't tell them how late it was. Only Aimee figured it out when she looked at her clock and it was only 7:50!! Everyone was sound asleep by 8:45~ a near MIRACLE in our house!! :)

Maybe I can get caught up now! :)

VOLCANO WEEK!!!

Our summer started off with lots of fun!

Here and Mattie, Thomas and Andrew with our volcano!! It was VOLCANO WEEK!! :) One of Thomas' favorite things right now is volcanos!! So we endulged him by making one! The kids had so much fun!!
Working hard to creat the perfect volcano~

Meanwhile, Bethany was off at GIRLS CAMP! She had a great time and was able to make some new friends.

Here are the girls from our ward who went:

Angel, Bethany, Faith, Lexi, Annie, Laura, Aubrey, and Tiffany :)

Lexi and Annie had just barely met everyone!!! Their family moving into the ward!! They'd arrived from Arkansas hours before they were to head off to camp!

Bethany and Annie really hit it off since they are both April girls...Bethany's b-day is on the 18th and Annie's is the 19th!!! :)

Here's Bethany loading up her stuff. She's pretty excited for her adventure! :)

Bethany's violin recital

A few months ago, Bethany's violin teacher, Lauren Miller, held a recital for her students. It was actually way back on June 4th.

This was Bethany's first violin recital! She was a little nervous, but did a great job! This is Bethany warming up with her pianist right before the recital.

Bethany played a Vivaldi concerto. It's been so long now that she can't really remember for sure which one, but she thinks it's the A minor!

The recital was held in a little white church and it had this pretty stain glass window!

Thomas wasn't very excited about getting all dressed up when it wasn't really a church day, but he finally gave in. He started freaking out when I tried to put on of his Sunday shirts on...it was just a polo shirt. He tried to tell me he wasn't going to wear that shirt because it wasn't a church day!!!

We compromised and he got to wear shorts. The other kids weren't that excited about getting dressed up either, but they didin't put up a fight like Thomas. Getting him dressed on Sundays, when he HAS to wear his Sunday clothes is ALWAYS A BATTLE!!! So getting dressed up for the recital was especially hard!

Here is Bethany after she warmed up! :)

Bethany playing the actual recital performance of her piece! She did a great job!!! YEAH!!! :)
After the recital, we got to meet some of Ms Lauren's other students! She has both violin and cello students. Most of them are around Bethany's age, but Ms Lauren does have some really young girls who are around 5 years old! It was really fun to watch them perform their pieces.
I used the video camera to film Bethany performing. I've never put any of our videos on the computer, so I need to read up on that! If I figure it out soon, I will post it!

***ok, it's been almost a month since I started this post. I realized there's more than one way to skin a cat!!! i.e...I haven't located the software disc I need to tranfer files from the camcorder to my computer...the joys of moving...it's somewhere...just got tired of trying to find it so I re-recoreded the recital with my camera!!! :)*** TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES...THE VIDEO WON'T POST SO I'LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHARE IT A DIFFERENT WAY! :)

Needless to say Bethany did an awesome job and both her teacher and her parents were very proud of her! :)

Christmas in AUGUST

Christmas in August...Once upon a time, a couple of years ago, a little boy got a remote control airplane for Christmas! He was so excited!!!

Unfortunately, almost before it got off the ground for the first time, it crashed into the pavement, breaking the motor.

Luckily, we were able to locate a new motor...only problem was we didn't have any elves to help us install the motor!

FINALLY, Edd re-located the motor! A huge accomplishment since when we moved and the new motor was packed away by the moves in a totally random box. A couple of Saturdays ago, he and Andrew took the airplane apart and were able to install the new motor!

At last, Andrew was able to fly his airplane!!! Best part is now he can fly it in his own huge backyard!!! Before we moved he and Edd had to go to the school playground to have enough room to fly it around.

Andrew was so excited!!! He said it was his best day ever!!! :) He flew it over and over and over again! Thomas came out to watch too!

They probably would've stayed outside all day long flying the plane, but after about 30 minutes, they were grounded by rain. An afternoon well spent! :)

R U A Louisi-ALIEN?

Well, all good things must come to an end...and such is true with summer. Our last week of summer was spent getting ready for school. The most exciting part was "Meet and Greet!" Aimee and Mattie were the only ones who got to meet their teachers this year...

Our first stop, MADISONVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

Mattie is in 2nd grade now and her teacher is Ms Cyprian!

Ms C yprian seems to be a very fun teacher. Mattie was hoping that she would get Ms Cyprian so she was very happy!

Next we were off to MADISONVILLE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL:

Aimee is in 4th grade now and has 2 teachers!

This is Aimee with Mrs Danenhauer, who teaches Aimee in the morning. Mrs D teaches Language Arts, Social Studies, etc.

This is Aimee with her other teacher, Mrs Arroyo who teaches Math and Science, etc in the afternoon. Aimee was excited because one of her buddies from last, Ainsley, is in her class this year! :)

SCHOOL STARTED ON MONDAY, AUGUST 9TH!

Our first school morning started really early!!! Bethany had to leave for Early Morning Seminary at 5:40am! So here she is a few minutes before she left:

Bethany is a sophomore this year at MANDEVILLE HIGH SCHOOL! Bethany is lucky and doesn't have to wear uniforms to school. :)

Seminary ends at 6:50. Bethany gets a ride to the high school with the kids that go to her high school. I think there are 6 of them that go together to school...5 girls and 1 boy.

High school starts around 7:30 am and gets out at 2:36 pm. Bethany rides the bus home and would get home around 3:12 pm but her bus route just changed. Instead of being one of the first stops, she is one of the last now. She gets home at more like 3:20 pm.

Mattie was next to leave. We went outside around 6:45, just so we wouldn't miss the bus. Mattie's school colors are navy and white. Mattie decided that white was the color for the day! They have to wear khacki on bottom.

One of the nice things about being up so early is we get to see beautiful sunrises! This is what it looked like when Mattie was waiting for her bus to come!

Here is Mattie waiting for her bus to come! We didn't have to wait long. The bus came at about 7:03. The bus usually comes now around 6:53. Mattie's school starts around 7:30 am. She gets back on the bus around 2:10 and doesn't get home until around 3:45 pm!

Poor Thomas wasn't used to getting up this early! So he slept through Mattie leaving. He woke up just in time to say good-bye to Andrew and Aimee!

Here are Andrew and Aimee! All ready to head out the door! Their school colors are Yellow and Black. So they can wear yellow or white polos and khacki on the bottom.

Aimee is starting school over at the junior high this year! They have 4-8 at the junior high. Andrew is starting 6th grade, which is officially Junior High!

We went out to wait for their bus around 7:15. Look how beautiful the sky was by then! :)

To pass the time, Andrew practiced his pogo stick! Aimee decided to borrow my backpack for the day. We ordered her a new one, but it didn't arrive till Aimee was at her first day of school. So she had it for her 2nd day of school. It is a cute backpack with like a Hawaiian print that is pink and navy!

We ended up waiting quite a while for their bus to show up!!!

Bella even came out to wait with the kids! :) She got all cozy with Andrew for a few minutes!!!

Bella curled up next to Andrew's arm! She likes sleeping with Andrew at night sometimes!

After about 20 minutes of waiting, Andrew decided to climb up on his lookout point to check out things...

Finally, Mr Greg ~ the bus driver started around our corner! It was almost 7:50!!! Guess the bus route really changed this year! He used to come around 7:20-7:25. Good thing their school doesn't start until 8:31 am! Andrew and Aimee get out of school at 3:31 pm. They ride the bus home too. Their bus drops them off at around 4:10 pm.

Even though it was only August 9th, as I walked back into the house after Andrew and Aimee got on the bus, I found these two leaves on the grass!!! Wow, guess the trees are getting tired of summer too! Mabye FALL will come early this year?!?

WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL! WE WERE ALL SOOO TIRED ALL WEEK!

Our second week of school had its ups and downs. It was a little easier to get up but we had a lost homework folder and a missed bus...not in the same day either.

Saturday, Andrew and Aimee were in on my bed and we were talking about how school is going. The kids were so glad that they aren't the new kids anymore! Then we got talking about how someone asked Aimee why she doesn't talk like she moved her from Texas. Which lead to what you are called when you live in Louisiana.

If you are from Utah you are a Utahn, if you are from Texas you are a Texan. If you are from Houston you are a Houstonian. So if you are from Louisiana you are a Louisi....Aimee had a hard time saying Louisianan...sounded more like Louisi-ALIEN! SO we decided that we liked Louisi-ALIEN!!!

We live in Louisiana, but we weren't born here. We love living here, we love the food, we love the people, we love everything, pretty much, about Louisiana, but we definitely are not Louisianan. Guess we are definitely Louisi-ALIEN!! :)