Phase 1

Okay as promised I am updating my blog. Some of you may wonder why I am going so far back. I am doing this mainly for myself. I plan on making a book of my blog at the end of the year and want to try and post most of the big moments.


So we will begin with the Last Day of Kindergarten. I was able to go to the school on the last day and eat lunch with Riley. I took him a McDonald's happy meal. While I was their Riley insisted that I take a picture of him with all the various teachers that he had.Riley with his Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Rose.


Riley with Mrs. Shaffer. She was one of the Kindergarten paraprofessionals.

Riley with Mrs. Greenwood. She is one of the other Kindergarten teachers. Riley had her as his reading teacher. She loved Riley and every time I saw her she always told me that she has a son named Riley as well. She even gave us a picture of her and Riley and her son Riley.


Riley with his PE teacher.




Riley with Mrs. Butler. She was one the kindergarten paraprofessionals.





Father's Day

We had fun celebrating father's Day. The kids were excited as usually. They love their dad so much. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband. Whenever I feel bad about asking him to stay with the kids so I can go shopping or exercising he always tells me to not feel bad because he would not want to be doing anything else but spend time with his kids.

The kids could hardly wait to give Terry his present. Riley has been begging to go fishing for a couple of years now but we have never had any gear. So for Father's Day this year we got him a fishing pole. No excuses now!~

Dress

I made this simple dress for Abbie. It was suppose to be pajamas, but it turned out so cute that if she wants I will let her ware it during the day. It is really easy to make. Just go to the store buy a t-shirt and fabric that matches. You cut the t-shirt so it is just under the chest, than cut a front and back out of the fabric to the length and width you want. I made the width just a bit bigger than the width of the t-shirt so I could gather it together. Sew the front and back together, than a gather stitch along the top, gather it so it fits the shirt and than sew it onto the shirt. I than cut about a 5 inch ruffle twice the width of the skirt folded it in half, stitched a gather stitch and sewed it onto the bottom of the skirt. A quick note: make sure that the shirt fits. I bought a shirt that was one size to big thinking that if I made it big she could wear it longer. It ended up looking like a tent on her. I had to spend more time on it than I would have liked getting it to fit right.

I know that my explanation isn't the greatest so here is the web page I found that helped me with the project: http://deannasstuff.blogspot.com/2009/05/make-simple-tshirt-dress-with-ruffle.html

Ward Campout!

I don't know if I have mentioned how awesome our Ward is here, so I will. We are blessed to have such a wonderful ward family. Everyone is so close and whenever there is a new family they welcome them with open arm. It will be really hard if I ever had to move out of our ward. With that said, after having been in this ward for seven years, we finally had our first ward camp out. It was so much fun. Riley pretty much spent the whole time running around with his friends from the ward, and Abbie even got to spend some time with her best friend as well.
We stayed at the stake campground. All of the campsites are named from people in the Book of Mormon. Their is even a strait and narrow path over the River Sidon, and The Promised Land were you can get together and have a bonfire or play games.

We all got together that night and roasted marshmallows and sang songs. All the young women in the ward led the songs. It was fun watching them together. Than Brother Nelson, from the bishopric, got up and gave a small message and prayer. I loved what he had to say. He talked about how he got ready to come over to the Promised Land when he realized he had forgotten his flash light. He figured it would be okay because he could see the camp fire and all the flash lights, from the ward members, that he could find his way. Even with this guiding light he still stumbled and tripped over rocks and pot holes. He than talked about how much easier it would have been if one of us with a flashlight had come and helped him to the campfire. He said that our ward is a shining beacon and how we can be those people who go out and help guide those who may be stumbling through and tripping over those pot holes and rocks of life.

I am posting a slide show of our ward camp out pictures. At the end there is a picture of Riley next to a pile of bear pop. At least that is what everyone said it was.



This is a video of the kids crossing the strait and narrow path over the River Sidon. Notice how Riley just walks across no problem at all, while Abbie holds nice and tight to the iron rod. Of coarse Riley did have his walking stick with him. Makes you wonder sometimes.

First Day of School

Yes we are here. We just had a fun, full and busy summer. I will have to take time to post more about our summer later.

Riley started first grade on Tuesday. I am excited for this year and hope things will go a little better than kindergarten. Some of the things we had an issue with in kindergarten are not being used in first grade. Riley wasn't sure about going to school, but the first day was a success. At least I thought so, until it was time to get ready for the second day of school and he didn't want to go. He said he didn't like school because it was boring. We had a good discussion about finding positive and fun things about school. I asked him to go to school and find something he liked about school and than come home and tell me. When he got home I asked him what he liked about school that day. As most of you can guess, his favorite thing was recess. He also said he liked that he didn't have to go to PE and music. When I asked why he didn't like them? He responded by saying that they take to much time. Go figure a boy who doesn't want to go to PE. We will see how today goes.

I was surprised that Abbie has been fine with having Riley gone. We have been trying to stay busy and make sure we do lots of projects. I am enjoying my time with her.




Riley modeling his backpack. He really wanted a Lego Clone Star Wars backpack. So I sewed on a iron-on transfer. He loves it.



Riley's Classroom is in the background.




Abbie wanted to model her back as well.




I just have to post what Riley did at church about a month ago. Riley got a new teacher to help out in his primary class. I was excited when I found out because I thought she would be great with the kids. She told me later what Riley did the first day she was their. When they got to there class room she had to do something to discipline Riley. After wards, he looked at her and said, "I X you out." The teacher said that by the end of class, though, Riley had come over and sat down next to her and put his head on her shoulder and said, "We can be friends now."