First week of school!

Tucker enjoyed his last day of freedom before school started! He lots of fun playing with his friend Samuel for a few hours in the afternoon.

Tucker was excited to start school on Tuesday! He has his kindergarten teacher for first grade this year. He is excited to have the same teacher. I just hope he doesn't feel so comfortable with her that he starts goofing off right away in class. On the first day of school there were clouds in the sky and Tucker said he wanted his coat while waiting for the bus. I told him that it was not cold enough for a coat and that he would be fine. He obediently obeyed. Shortly after getting on the bus and to school, it started to drizzle. It continued to rain off and on throughout the day :P So when Tucker asked to have a jacket on the second day of school I said yes, again looming clouds were in the sky but shortly after Tucker was on the bus the sun came out and warmed up the day. 

Gunnar wanted a picture because Tucker had one so here he is :)

Hunter figured out how to make a star shape with these pattern blocks and was very proud of himself. He then continued on to make this "creature"

Tucker was able to see the star in Hunter's shapes and copied it to make his own star.

Gunnar thought it was cool that I was taking pictures of everyone's creations and requested that I take one of his stacked blocks

Other news in life:

 I have started working out. It is strange to work out as I have never had to consciously work out in my life. Since getting married I have completely slacked off on doing anything athletic and I can tell in my complete lack of endurance for anything. Our stake along with two other stakes get together every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to exercise together. They do Cardio on Mondays, Yoga on Wednesdays, and Zumba on Fridays. I have only been going two weeks but am enjoying it. For now Connor is generally happy to sleep in his car seat or lay on the ground and the other kids run around the stake center gym with the other kids that come with their moms. It is nice to have someone else figure out what I should be doing and have a place where my kids can run around like crazy and not need me for an hour. I am no where near as flexible as I used to be and my right side (previously my more flexible side) is now less flexible than my left. 

Last week my sister Michelle talked about her 'Pollyanna moments' of the previous week. When I was younger I loved this movie. So my sister and I talked about reading it together but apart (since we live in different states). I was planning on making a trip to the library at the end of the week to see if it had the book for me to rent. Well Thursday afternoon a package arrived for me from my sweet sister containing Pollyanna and the sequel that neither of knew existed! I was so excited! It has been such a joy to read this book. While Pollyanna's incessant talking might drive me a little crazy in real life her happy attitude about everything is infectious! I couldn't help but feel happy while reading it. I also had a hard time putting it down :) One of my favorite parts of the book was when Reverend Ford had finished speaking with Pollyanna about the 'rejoicing texts' in the bible. He was reading a story in a magazine about a father's interactions with his son who forgot to fill the wood box. Rather than scold the son and have the wood box remain empty, the father simply said that he knew the son would be glad to fill the wood box for his mother. The son then went and filled the box with a happy attitude. The moral being that when we look for and expect the good in people they will strive to live up to those expectations but if we berate or belittle people they will not change for the better. As I write this it reminds me of my brother Jared. Growing up I would ask him ever so kindly to do something and he would occasionally reply "no." My response to him was often "thank you" anyway. He would then look at me like I must not have heard him and reply "I said no." To which I would say, "I know and I said thank you." Almost always he would then go and do the thing I asked. I also considered it a special power I had to manipulate my younger brother to do something for me but maybe because I gave him the assurance that I knew he could do it he did. I am now trying to implement something of this nature with my children. Like when they are making a large mess, rather than tell them to "stop right now" I have been saying things like, I see you are making a large mess but I know that you will be glad to clean it up when you are done. It hasn't always gotten them to clean with a happy attitude but sometimes they stop making the mess bigger. 

On Friday evening we had a marvelous thunderstorm! I loved it! It reminded me of Arizona monsoons. It was one of the few storms that actually started in the evening and lasted the entire night! Connor slept for 8.5 hours that night but Gunnar decided to wake up lots! Thanks to Pollyanna I found joy in the ability to enjoy more of the storm as I fell back asleep at several points in the night. 

I am also going through our toys and minimizing! I am so tired of cleaning up toys that are getting left out and fighting with my children to get the toys cleaned up. The other week Brylee did not want to clean up the little bit of things on her bedroom floor and the threat of throwing the things away didn't seem to phase her at all. So I took her crocs (her favorite pair of sandals) that she didn't want to clean up and threw them in the trash along with her baby doll and a couple of other things. I threw them in my "clean trash" the one that generally only has papers or lint from the dryer in so that I could retrieve them later. This got Tucker and Hunter to work hard on their bedroom thankfully. As a result of this, and a desire to have blank wall space in my home, I have decided to get rid of excessive toys in our home. Some of the things my children were sad to see boxed up because they "really like to play with those toys" even though they had not played with them in seeming forever! I need to go through a second time and pair down a little more to get everything to fit a single toy bookshelf. There has been a lot less to clean up the rest of this week as a result and the children haven't missed any of the missing toys thus far. 

As a final announcement we will be blessing Connor in church next Sunday, August 31 for anyone that would like to attend. We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the family that is coming up to celebrate with us and hope you all travel here safely!