School is Back in Session!

We were so busy playing all summer that school snuck right up on us. It's always amazing to me how quickly time passes by. 

The Monday before school started, we held a special Family Home Evening . Nate gave each of the kids a beautiful father's blessing -- how grateful I am that he is able to do this for our kids. I provided a back-to-school treat, which the kids loved.

Mac is entering the 5th grade.  His teacher is Mrs. Bradford and he is thrilled to have a couple of his best buddies in class with him.  A month into school I received an email from his teacher saying, "Mac brings so much energy to class!"  Uh oh! But then I continued reading, "I have enjoyed his personality and the little jokes we trade between us!" She also said, "About a week ago I was on bus duty outside and I noticed the sweet way he helped his younger brother after school.  I told him that said a lot about the way he valued his family and that was something I thought was very awesome about him! I am so glad he is in our class and I hope he is enjoying fifth grade." How grateful I am to teachers who choose to see the good in my kids!

Jaxton is in 3rd grade and has Mrs. Sandberg for a teacher.  She does a lot of rewarding with treats, so it's nice to know that she speaks Jaxton's language.  This year Jaxton has been working really hard on making not just friends, but GOOD friends.  He is very aware of how people treat him and others and considers that when he plays with others.  I love that he is trying hard to make good choices.

Beckam is in 1st grade and Mrs. Northcutt is his teacher.  I spoke to his teacher the other day and she said, "Beckam is one of those kids that I only have to teach him something once and then he just gets it and can apply it."  He has a lot of kids from his Kindergarten class in this class and has enjoyed that.

My baby, Jilli, is in afternoon Kindergarten with Miss Anderson.  She loves school and takes it very seriously.  Every day she comes right home, opens her backpack and sits down to do her homework.  She's learning tons and making lots of good friends.  She seems to be especially popular among the boys.  When I take her to soccer there are always several boys who are yelling out to her, "Hi Jillian!"  Her favorites seem to be Brandt and Henry.

Here's my sweet fellas ready to go on the first day.  What a handsome group they are!

Hoping this year continues to go well and that my kids find success and happiness all year long.

FaBuLoUs and FIVE

Hard to imagine that my baby girl is five years old. Boggles my mind, really.

Here she is on her birthday morning, waking up as an official five year old.

Jilli had been on the countdown to her birthday for months.  I'm not sure how many pics I took of her inside a store holding a toy that she didn't want me to forget to get her for her birthday.

And while she didn't get everything in all those pics, I don't think she was disappointed.

Since Nate had a family work party that we all had to go to that evening, we did cake and ice cream with the family the next day.  Jilli had requested a pink princess cake, so I did my best to deliver.

Birthday selfies with my girl.  Love, love, love her!

A couple days before Jillian's birthday I took her out for mini photo shoot.  It only took about 5 minutes, but I got some great shots of this beautiful girl.

She's full of sass,

beauty,

sweetness,

and pretty close to perfection!

Happy 5th Miss J!  We sure do love you and thank the heavens that you were sent to our family!

*On a side note, weeks before Jilli's birthday we all kept saying things like, "Oh, I can't believe Jilli's going to be 5" and "I remember when she was just a baby" -- apparently she was getting fed up with it because just a day or two before her birthday Mac said, "Jilli, don't turn 5, just stay 4 forever," to which she quickly replied (quite annoyed), "You said the same thing when I was 2 and then 3 and then 4 but you still always liked me and I'm sure you'll still like me when I'm 5!"
Point taken.

Summer Fun, Part Two -- the exciting conclusion

Jilli took summer tumbling and did awesome! She moved up two levels during the summer and was praised for ability to catch on easily, pay attention and listen. If was fun to see her excel at something new.

The Smith family reunion is something that I have missed out on for many years since we lived in NC.  I was so excited that I would be able to attend with my kids this year.  Many of the Smith crew gathered at a privately owned wooded area, complete with a multi-level tree house, and spent three days together exploring, getting wet, paint balling, eating, visiting and sleeping in tents.  It was awesome -- all except for the last night when half the kid campers were throwing up all. night. long.  Amazingly, though, not even that could put a bad taste in my mouth (get it? haha) -- I'm already looking forward to getting together with these great people again next year and doing it all over again (minus the sick part).

I love getting together with friends and reminiscing about old times.  Katie and Camille are some of my all time favorites and I'm so happy that I got to catch up with them.  Hoping a lot more reminiscing is in my future with more good friends that I haven't seen in ages!

And a summer just isn't complete without a trip to the Merrill's cabin and Bear Lake. How grateful we are that they allow the entire Olsen family to take over/enjoy their cabin for a few days.

I love July 24th.  Here we are enjoying a firework show from the comfort of Beth's backyard.

But I mostly love Pioneer Day in Mendon!  I love the races, the parade, the food, the entertainment, the ball games, the firework show -- I love it all!  At the end of the night, even Nate admitted, "Now that's a great city celebration!"
Nate and I ran a 5k early in the morning and the kids each ran races in their age divisions.  All of them did well -- Jilli took 2nd overall in her bracket, Mac and Jax took 3rd in their different ages and Beckam followed close behind Jax in their race.

Hiking the Y is always a fun and tiring activity.  Glad we could do it in the company of Bethany's family!

We spent lots of time at parks, especially Jilli, while we waited for the boys' practices to be over.

Since we are locals again, I was adamant that the kids needed to experience the Cache County Fair.  We were only able to stay for a half day, but it was great while it lasted.  It was country livin' at its finest!

Bert had planned a trip to his home town of Boulder, UT to show us all the sites and history of that town.  Only 100 people live there year round (200 in the summer), but the beauty of this town was awesome!  We all loved seeing firsthand, the place that is clearly very dear to Grandpa Bert's heart.

Way back before we moved to UT, but knew we were moving, I bought 7Peaks Pass of All Passes.  While in the beginning it was a pain to set everything up, in the end we loved and used those passes over and over at the water park and fun center.  I swore I'd never buy them again, but I may just have to eat my words next year.

We attended the BYU football scrimmage, but didn't last long -- between the family behind us who continued to kick our chairs, the heat and the kids' constant complaining that they were hungry/thirsty, we were lucky to make it through the first half.

And nothing says "summer" like late nights, sleeping in and sleepovers.

We squeezed every last minute of fun out of this action-packed summer, but some of my favorite times looked like these -- just playing together in the backyard.

I do love summer and this crazy little family of mine!

Summer Fun, Part One

School is back in session, which leaves me some time to sit back and wonder what happened to summer. From swim lessons to family vacations and everything in between, summer flew by leaving us some awesome memories and wishing it would've stayed a bit longer!

Summer started off with three basketball camps right in a row. First Maple Mountain High School, where both Mac and Jaxton earned more medals and trophies than they could carry home, second was BYU camp, where Mac was named to the All-Star team, and third was USU camp, where Mac also claimed a spot on the All-Star roster.

Now that we're officially locals, we attended Springville's Art City Days and rode a few rides.

Swim lessons with Mark are always a big hit.  It was Jilli's first time with swim lessons and by a total of one hour of lessons, she was swimming the full length of a large pool.  Mark said that she's a "natural."

Kim's family came into town from OH and we had lots of fun cousin time.  Among other things, we spent the day at the Spanish Fork Reservoir,

played outside A. LOT. and made lots of messes,

and went swimming at the Provo Rec Center pool.

Before Kim and her family headed back home, we snuck in a quick photo session of the cousins.  What a great group of kids!

The Olsen reunion was a fabulous trip.  Our first stop was at Bear World.

We then made a stop at Mesa Falls

and then we were off to stay in a big cabin in Island Park for two nights.

We also made a stop in Yellowstone

and then we were off to Jackson Hole to stay another night.

Seven years ago was the last time that the whole family had been to Jackson together, so we thought it only fitting to recreate the picture that was taken all those years ago.  The kids have definitely changed and how lucky we are to have added three more to the mix since then.

*Notice that we tried to recreate every detail from the stuffed dog, to the dirty looks, to Beckam sitting in a carseat.

Fourth of July was spent with Nate's family.

It's not summer if you don't run through the sprinklers at least a dozen times.

And that only gets us to about mid-July.  Part two is coming very soon.