Happy Birthday Ty!

Matthias turned three on Sept. 12.  Here are some of the pictures from our celebrations.  I love the "pup" cakes I made.  They were fun to decorate and tasty as well.  I am trying to master a great recipe that a friend of mine shared with me--thank you Julia!  Matthias had a great birthday full of much candy, toys and family.  His favorite toy was the tootsie roll bank he ate all of that day.  And he loved the light saber his bro and sis gave him.

Grandma Pitt got to come down the day before and be with us for a day full of soccer and was nice and brought Matthias a great present of clothes, and tinker toys.

Opening the Tootsie Roll Bank

Light Saber Fun!

My two birthday boys.  Ryan's b-day is two days after Matthias' so we kind of celebrated both b-days with the Whitchurch family and Ry's brother Jordan.  Matthias requested pizza for his birthday dinner.  It was a busy fun day!

"pup" cakes en mass.  I used tootsie rolls flattened for the ears.  Marshmallows and m&m's for the eyes and nose, and a piece of licorice flattened for the tongue.

Close up cake!  I think I would have added a white dot of frosting on the eyes if I made these again.  I think it would have made them that much more fun to look at.

My cutie!  Happy birthday my wonderful Matthias.  I am so thankful you are in our family.  You make each day an adventure and I love it! 

First Days of School

So I waited to post this entry because Sarah started school a week later than the kids.  My older three started Aug. 25, but they have the Kindergarten kids start a week later so they can do individual assessments.

At our school there are two times or tracks the kids can go one.  Track one starts at 8:00 am track two starts at 9:15.  We've always been on the later track until this year, when we thought it would be good for Rebekah to get to used to the earlier time before jr. high. and because I teach dance a lot earlier in the day.  Anyway it makes for a crazy morning but we seem to still be able to have a good sit down breakfast and scripture study.

Here is the older three the first day!  I can't believe how much they have grown up!

They really like their classes and they have good teachers. 

Last year of elementary school

my big 5th grader

2nd grade here we come!

Kindergarten fun!  In the next picture notice the black eye she has. This was achieved by attempting to make a bunk bed out of couch cushions with her siblings.

Sarah was very concerned about the black eye the first day of school.  But it worked out just fine.  She loved her first day and her teacher! 

One more side note to this post.  Since I began this post about a 1.5 weeks ago, Joshua came down with pneumonia.  He has attended a total of four days of school and missed a total of 9 days of school.  Hopefully he will be back tomorrow but we will see.  He's lost 10 lbs. and is still a bit weak, but thanks to the many prayers and faith of our friends and families he is returning to good health.

Here is to a great school year!

A Truck is Better Than Disneyland!

When you have a 5 children it means that at some point in life you will be pulled in multiple directions at the same time.  Soccer season is one of those moments for our family.  This year we have 4 of the 5 playing soccer.  My in-laws were very gracious and have given us their orange truck to use for the next two months.  A truck is a novelty in our house and the kids have begged Ryan to take them for a ride while they ride in the back.  So going at 10 mph around the block while the kids ride in the back has become a nightly tradition.  Who knew a truck was better than Disneyland :)

The truck

The driver.

Getting one more passengers.

The sillies!

The End!

Ice Cream, Apostles and A Whole Lot of Fun

The Friday before school started I took the kids on a little outing to Salt Lake City.  Our plan was to go to the cemetery in SLC and find my grandpa W's grave site, visit grandma W and then go to the top of the Church Office Building.  We managed to do everything on the list sort of . . . . and it was really nice to spend the time with my cuties. 

Here is Matthias, on the way to SLC

We only had 30 minutes at the cemetery which, apparently isn't long enough to find a specific grave site.  Next time I think we will make a family home evening of it and spend some more time there.  I love the cemetery.  There is something very special and sacred about them.  Here are some pictures from the cemetery:

Standing in front of our ancestor William Clayton's Grave. 

Close up of his grave.  We come through his wife Sarah Walters.

The kids were impressed at the really tall graves.

After the cemetery we went to visit my Grandma W.  Rebekah was are photographer and I forgot to get a picture of her with the kids, but she managed to take a picture of the beloved dog Elsie.  Elsie is the only dog that Sarah is NOT afraid of.  Not only is she not afraid of the dog, she asked me frequently when we were going to visit Elsie.  So here is the famous dog:

The visit at my grandma's house was great.  She is amazing and I wish we lived closer to her.

Our next stop was the Church office building.  

On the way there we managed to get some great pictures with the SLC temple:

 The reflection pool.

While we were at the top of the COB (church office building), I noticed that there was some kind of event going on in one of the large rooms up there.  As we were walking to one of the look out decks, out of the elevator pops Elder Hales!  The kids loved the view!  They were so impressed by all that they could see!  As we were leaving to go down the elevator I looked up and there was Elder Oaks waiting for an elevator!  It was kind of fun to see these Apostles close up. 

Ty, Lydia and Sarah at the top of the COB.

 Josh called this his special tissue from the COB.  He carried it around for the rest of the day.

The kids thought it would be fun to touch the reflection pool:

 

Rebekah is quite the photographer.  

She managed to capture a picture of a honey bee on a flower:

She also has been trying to get a cool picture of bird all summer and hasn't had much luck.  This is what we found at temple square:

This is how our trip ended:

This is how we all felt by that night!  It was worth all the tired feelings we had.

Modest is Hottest!

I know this is my third post today, but so much happened this week and I wanted to capture it in words and pictures.  For Tuesday night mutual we took the MiaMaid class to our local bridal/formal wear shop.  This store offers the girls an opportunity to come in and pick two dresses to try on.  This shop also focuses on supplying modest bridal and formal wear.  The girls were so excited for this night.  They spent much time curling hair and doing their make up just right.  They had a blast!  It was so fun to see them feeling like a princess.  After we were done I read them a quote about how they need to always remember that they are beautiful daughters of God.  Here are some of the pictures from this event.

Close up shot of all the girls there.

Cyndal aka Cinderella

Rachelle aka Sleeping Beauty

Haylee aka Snow White

Hailey aka Belle

Samantha aka Giselle

What a wonderful group of girls!

Road Runner's 2010

Friday we had our 5k fun run for the Road Runners group I did this summer.  So road runners came about because last summer Rebekah wanted to learn how to run long distances.  So I took her and a couple of her friends and some of the young women in our ward running three times a week.  It was fun and the kids were wanting to do it this summer.  So I thought would open it up to more kids in the neighborhood.  I ended up with a list of about 30 kids who came off and on through the summer.  Well Friday we had our final run for the summer.  It was a great success with all the help I got from parent volunteers and the kids did great.  Here is the group below.  Even little Sarah did it and didn't complain one bit.

My running partner for the summer.  Ty always had to have an otter pop with me after road runners.  It was a fun little tradition.  I loved doing the road runners and I am looking forward to next year!

Sarah's First Soccer Game

So, Sarah had her first game this past Thursday.  Her team is the Shooting Stars Princesses.  The perfect name for a time of all girl kindergarten team.  She went to her first practice in sparkle shoes and a petty skirt.  Only Sarah would do a thing like that.  Here are some pictures of her first game.

Magnent Ball is another name for this age of soccer.

One of our cheerleaders for Sarah!

Cheer leader #2.