First Week of School

We got first day of school pictures again this year. Yippee!

Some thoughts:
It doesn't matter that we got all the kids up early for the first day of school. One child still forgot their schedule and had to come back, one almost drove off without their mask (and did forget their water bottle), and another couldn't find their backpack for a while. At least I can say I made them a yummy breakfast (breakfast burritos) before school. I don't expect that to happen very often. Thank you, Jeremy for getting cold cereal at the store.

I had my nice breakdown less than an hour after the last kids went off to school.
I always have a lot of homework the first week of school (lots of disclosure documents to read and sign and getting to know you sheets to fill out). Of course later there's the helping kids with homework.
There are plenty of things to be grateful for. My kids like school and are good students.
It was so quiet that first day with four kids gone at school. Jeremy was doing work emails and Jet was concentrating on eating when I noticed the quiet around lunch time.
Lucky's teacher sent him home with a little package of donuts and a new book. The first thing I heard when he came in was him exclaiming that he liked his teacher.

That evening we went for a drive up Provo Canyon.

Lucky had a praying mantis on his shirt so when we got it off and put it in the grass, Nichole got some good pictures of it. That was not so easy to do since it was the same color as the grass.

When we got home, everyone got to talk to Grandma and Grandpa on the phone to tell them how the first day of school went.

Since it is Jr. Jr.'s teacher's first year teaching, Jr. Jr. wanted to do something special for her to let her know she did a good job on her first day. He wrote her a note and had Jeremy make a balloon apple for him to take to her. Lucky wrote a note for his teacher, too, even though she's been teaching for a lot more years than Jr. Jr.'s teacher.

By the end of the first week, everyone was exhausted. Lucky was happy to bring home a bat toy he earned for good behavior. He then proceeded to fall asleep on the floor while reading a book.

He fell asleep on the couch the next day while plenty of things were going on around him.

Nichole and Jr. both took after school naps on some of the days.
The boys were cute during the weekend and built a blanket fort in the living room with stuffed animal walls.

But we did it. We survived the first week of school.

Family Pictures

Since Jeremy and the boys (besides Jet) got haircuts, we wanted to take family pictures since it has been a while since we had a nice family picture. And grandparents would like updated pictures of the kids for their walls.
We had fun.

We started with family pictures. Everyone cooperated except Jet. He would look as Jeremy set up the camera and the timer but as soon as Jeremy came to join the family, he would turn to look at him. It was funny. I appreciate how well all the other kids did, though, and it's hard to expect a baby to look at the camera when there was no one by it to entertain him. It's too bad Jeremy couldn't find the remote to the camera. Then we could have timed it for when Jet was looking in the right direction.

After our family picture, we let the kids go in to play games while we had one child (plus baby) out at a time for individual pictures. It was fun to do nice and silly pictures. Again all the kids did a good job.

I think we parents did a good job as well.

This is us.

What They Missed- August 17

Monday, August 17-
The day they came back.
I sewed two more masks before putting the sewing stuff away. Lucky and Jr. Jr. were having fun with them.

Lucky: My precious.

The boys were saying, "If you want your precious, you have to wear a mask." They are silly.
When they found out Dad and the other kids were coming home that night, they said they won't be able to get in. I told them Dad has keys. They started brainstorming how to make some sort of magnet that would get his keys away from him. They tried to get Jet in on it, too, asking him to distract Mom so they could do these things. They interpreted his looks as his willingness to help out.
I love the creativity in this family.

Jet had fun cleaning Mommy's face since she cleans his so often.

There were more things due at the library so we took back library items and recycled glass. I remembered to put the glass in the van this time. In the van, the boys had paper and clipboards to work on their plan for when Dad got home. They also challenged each other to draw different things.

We drove up to Bridal Veil Falls again. Jr. Jr. didn't want to get out (it was too hot at 97 degrees). Lucky did want  to get out. We parked in a spot where we could see the falls well from the van and both boys ended up getting out. They threw rocks while Jet slept.

Both boys put masks on without me asking them to even though there were no people near our van at all. I think they'll be able to handle getting into the habit of face masks for school.
I tried to take pictures of the boys with the falls in the background. Lucky explained that it was "too sunny."

When we got home, the boys "locked" me in my room with Jet as a distraction so they could "carry out their plan."

Later Jr. Jr. fed Jet so I could do dishes.

Lucky helped make pizza.

The boys took out the garbage and fed the birds.

For my Family Home Evening lesson, I used The Friend magazine for August 2020. We sang "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man." We read Helaman 5:12 and talked about building our foundation on Jesus Christ and not something else. If you follow him you'll be okay even with the storms of life.
Jr. Jr. built a structure out of cards that was easy to knock down.

Lucky built a structure out of blocks that was... easy to knock down. He kept redoing it until it was hard to knock down. The cards were always going to be easy to knock down. Anyway, they got the idea and had a lot of fun.

Jr. Jr.'s treat was marshmallows dipped in chocolate. We had to hold off on the activity because we ran out of time.

Jeremy, Nichole, and Jr. came home. Yippee! I love them so much and was happy to see them. Jet was a little hesitant at first but quickly warmed up to them.

They were exhausted. But they're home!