Mitchell

Mitchell is getting older every day. He started 3rd grade this year. It is nice living close enough to the school that he can ride his bike. I wake him up in the morning and he gets up and ready all by himself. He even makes sure he leaves on time. Here is a picture Tania took before his first day this year.

Mitchell still does really well in school. He never practices his spelling tests at home and rarely gets lower than fourteen out of twelve. He still reads tons and goes through books like they are cake. He has read all of the magic tree house series books that he could find and always looks for more.

This year we signed him up for soccer. He really seemed to enjoy it. When he first got his jersey, shorts, cleats and socks we kept having to tell him he couldn't wear them every day and every where. He would probably still be wearing them if we would have let him. During games he mostly played defense. Sometimes he would play offense and for being his first year playing he did pretty good. One game they stuck him in as goalie. The coach soon found out that the only kid on the team with glasses shouldn't be the goalie. In the picture Mitchell is the blue jersey between the green team.

Here a while back Mitchell lost one of his baby front teeth and when the new one started to grow in we thought it looked weird. We took him to the dentist where we found out he had an extra baby tooth that was blocking his permanent tooth and causing it to grow in sideways. The dentist removed the extra tooth and we hoped that the tooth would straighten out more as it came in. Well, it is still mostly sideways. After talking to a few orthodontists we decided to put a small set of braces on to help his tooth straighten out. He was excited to get them on. Today I got him out of school early and we headed to the office. He was still excited when we got there. He even had them put Halloween color bands on his braces. Later he started saying that they were hurting a little but he has been pretty good about it. He wanted to go back to school and show his friends but I told him he would have to wait till tomorrow. In the picture you can see how crooked his tooth is. It is almost 90 degrees out from straight. They say he will probably have these for eight to ten months. Mitchell can't wait to have a straight tooth.

Trip to visit family

A few months ago we were able to drive up to Caldwell Idaho and visit with my family. We had a lot of fun while we were there. We were able to go fishing, jet skiing, riding horses and tons of other things. We didn't have the camera out on the pond while we were skiing. It could have been because we forgot it or it could have been to spare you from looking at pictures of us in our swimming suites. Here are some pictures of fishing at my dads ponds.

Mitchell was able to catch tons of Blue Gills. He really liked it. He was even able to take them off the hook after he caught them. Here is a picture of one.

While we were fishing the girls went for a walk around the pond. Sami seamed to really enjoy it.

It was nice to get Buddy all saddled up and ride. The kids always love horse rides. I took them all by themselves and then I took the girls together and I just led him around. They loved it. Mitchell is almost getting big enough for me to let him ride alone. Mitchell would have no problem getting him to go his problem would be not being able to pull hard enough to get him to stop. Buddy likes to go. He was really tired though by the time we were done.

Visiting family is always fun. Especially if it is a horse.

Summer fun

This summer went pretty fast for us. We were plenty busy and the weather usually cooperated well for us.

Earlier this year we decided to buy a year pass to the Hogle Zoo here in Salt Lake City. I has been good. So far I think we have been able to visit at least four or five times. The pass is for a calender year so it won't run out for a while still. All the kids seem to enjoy it. Here is a picture of Lizzy with a few animals.

Here is a picture of a giraffe that apparently could taste something on the pole that was really delicious. It kept wrapping it's tongue all the way around the pole. Who knew they could do that with their tongues.

I think the girls really liked the giraffes because it seems I have a bunch of pictures of them. While we were inside the giraffe building we were able to see their trainer working with them. They don't do anything amazing but it is still neat to see them handle them.

More house work

Well, if you haven't read enough about the house here is some more for you. We have been working hard and got all the major repairs done. We still are working on the lawn but the house looks dramatically different. Don't you think?

Amazing what a new coat of paint will do. The wall inside has also been finished. It is nice to have the projects done.

Behind the picture frame with two pictures there is a door that can be taken out to grease or adjust the track for the pocket gate. These projects have taken quite a bit of my time but I think they were well worth it.


Tania helped quite a bit on most of the projects. Mostly she was just moral support but she still helped a bunch. Most of the time I would have to work on the projects after I put the kids to bed. If I tried to work on them when they were awake they would either try and use all my tools or beat each other up to where I spent all my time tearing them off each other, and yes I mean they are very aggressive children. Even little Sami can hold her own.

Some times I think it would be nice if they were a little more settled, but then I think of how I want them to always stand up for themselves and for what they believe, and I realize that they are exactly how I want them to be. Don't get me wrong they drive me crazy most of the time, but because of how they act some day they will be great at what they do.

Mitchell will be a great lawyer some day. He still works hard at honing his arguing skills daily. I'm sure he drives his teachers crazy because he is so far ahead of the group. The other day he took some reading test at school and found out on average he reads 150 words per minute. We went to the library on Monday and he got four books that are over a hundred pages each and I believe he finished them all already. He still enjoys math and science as well. He will be finished with second grade here in the next few weeks. I can hardly believe he is getting so big.

Elizabeth has turned in to quite the little dancer. She enjoys playing songs or music and dancing. She insists that she can only dance if she is wearing a dress or skirt. If she is wearing shorts or pants she will change so she can dance. So needless to say we need to buy more skirts. She can sit and watch princess movies all day long.


Sami is our little climber. She is 14 months old now but still is too chicken to walk. She can stand and could probably walk if she would just try. Even though she won't walk she climbs on to everything. She will climb onto a speaker next to the couch then lift her leg up like she is getting on a horse and climb over the arm of the couch. She uses this same method to climb on everything. She loves most of all to climb and get the remotes, and then she will bring them to me as if to say "try again, I could still get it."

I have finished another semester of school and am currently looking for employment. Mostly right now I spend a lot of time working on the house and the rest watching the kids. I still get to spend some time with Tania so that is nice.

Tania is still a wonderful wife and mother, not to mention a wonderful nurse who still works hard so we can have such a nice house and I can afford to go to school. All in all our family is doing pretty good. We are just hoping the snow will stop before it's time for winter again.

Sami

Sami is 6 months old already. I can't even believe how fast time flies. She is such a good, happy baby, and we love her so much. Here are a couple of somewhat recent pictures of her.

This first one is Sami in a horse costume that we used for pajamas. We bought it after halloween last year because it was a horse. And her dad is Josh. Enough said. :)


This next one is just a cute smile. She is sitting with help in this picture, but she is sitting without help now. She can roll both ways and sit up on her own. She is starting to get angry when we eat without her. Getting so grown up.

Sami likes her Johnny Jump Up. She loves to jump. Here is a video of her jumping while Lizzy is taking pictures of her with her Ariel camera. At the end, Lizzy says, "Oh, that's a good picture of Sam!"

Summer Fun- Work Parties

Josh and I both had work parties this summer. It is the first time either of us have had those. They were pretty fun. Both of them were at parks, but Josh's turned out way better than mine.

The day we had mine a huge storm came, and big gusts of wind kept trying to blow the food 0ver. I don't think we got any pictures from that day, but the big news of the day was that Mitchell lost a tooth while we were there.

Josh's party was much more fun, with good weather, face painting, bounce houses, and a fun playground. The food was pretty good too. Here are some pictures of the kids at Josh's party.

Mitchell got a spider web with a spider on one cheek, and a soccer ball on the other cheek.

Lizzy got a cute butterfly on her cheek. She held still for the girl to draw on her face.

Unfortunately, as soon as she was done getting it drawn, she fell off the bench backwards on her head. So her butterfly has tear streaks through it. Poor thing. Don't worry, she recovered just fine with no lasting effects. :)

Here is a video of the two kids going down the slide at the party. They loved this and played on it for hours. Lots of other peoples bigger kids helped Lizzy climb up to the top many times. It was a fun day!

Summer Fun- Dinosaur Park

Well, I need to do a couple of posts about what we have done this summer. I will split them up so there aren't so may pictures in one post.

First, the Dinosaur Park. Our neighborhood does neighborhood field trips once a week through the summer. I only made it to one of them unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun. We went to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. They have lots of statues of dinosaurs outside, and some robotic ones inside, as well as fossils and cool rocks and gemstones. Lots of fun stuff to see.

Mitchell and Lizzy posing with the dinosaur

Lizzy with her friend, Lizzy. The older Lizzy was so cute with little Lizzy!

Sami thought the whole thing was rather exhausting! :)