First Days of School 2011

Abby and Isabel are in school all day now! Abby has 3rd grade with Mr. Boyle. We did not win the battle to get another teacher,so the classes are large.  So far, it seems to be fine but we really were hoping for her to get a smaller class like everyone else in this town. 

Isabel has Mr. McDaniel and she loves 1st grade. 

"I like lunch and recess, and journal time. I like all my friends in my class." she says.

Her best friend, Rosie, is in her class. They kept most of the kindergarten am and pm classes together when they moved into this year. 

So far things have gone quite well, they walk to school and back together and I feel better with Abby there to keep an eye on Isabel.  We are getting to know so many more parents and kids and people at the school so that is all good.  We look forward to a great year.  There is a new principal, but so far haven't seen many differences.  Yesterday they had an activity where they drenched the kids with a fire hose...they seemed to love it. 

Sara waited forever to start her little preschool. She is going to the home of a friend of mine who got all the preschool stuff from the lady that taught Isabel.  I am not really worried about Sara's academics, but she does still struggle in primary at church and I wanted her to be able to get some more socialization and get used to dealing with structure. She just loves to play with other kids, and is so lost without her sisters at home, and Braxton next door starting kindergarten.  So hopefully this will be a good year for her to learn and have a lot of fun, even if it's only 2 days a week.

As for us, Scott has not been around much but we hope to see him more soon.  I am figuring out what it is like with two small ones at home again.  They are a lot more clingy without sisters to play with and help them.  Hopefully I will get myself together enough to organize our days to avoid any major boredom.  It is definitely different.

Thankfully, all the girls love school and are excited about it. They are smart and good girls and I just hope it stays that way in the future. 

Abby and Isabel are both in piano now.  I look forward to them growing more as the year passes.  We will see if isabel likes it as much as Abby, or maybe more, since she wants to be a singer\songwriter like Taylor Swift (and everyone on Disney channel)

Abby"s Baptism

Pictures are not allowed during the actual baptism because it is sacred, but it is done by immersion the same way Jesus was baptized. I added the picture as an illustration if some of you haven't been to an LDS baptism before.

Abby with the bishop and Watson men who confirmed her a member.

With the Grandmas

At the temple after, we went to take some pictures of our beautiful girl

Wheat field behind the temple

Abby's happiest face :)

Abby made the decision to be baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She is such a good girl and was so excited to do it. She was waiting forever, and once the time got close she kept saying "I can't believe it's finally time!" She had picked out her dress on our 4th of July trip (thanks Grandma Jane) and we also got her first set of scriptures. Of course, she picked out a hot pink, sparkly case for them. She was able to be baptized on the same day as a few of her freinds, so that was nice. The service was good, and we went first. Abby was excited about all of it. She was happy the water was more shallow than she had imagined. Scott did a good job, and they looked great together in white. After the baptism we all went to the County Fair to the mud bog, but it was hot so a lot of us came back. Scott's parents, grandparents, brother and his wife came down, along with all our Watson Nieces and nephews. My mom was still here, too. It was fun to have everyone together. Adding to the fun, a tractor broke a gas main across from our back yard, so we go to evacuate for a few hours. After all that, we took our food up to a campground and enjoyed the cool temperatures and the trees and deer wandering through camp. It was a good afternoon. everybody stayed for part of church the next morning and then headed home. My mom flew out Monday morning, as well. So the house is quiet. well, as quiet as it gets around here. We are so proud of Abby and thankful to have family and friends to support her.

Balloon Festival

The girls and I drove up to Orem for the 4th of July weekend. Early in the morning, we headed to Provo for the annual balloon festival. I had always meant to go, but never made it. We got there just as the balloons were lifting off. Jane, Jeremy, Crystal and their kids were there, too. It was pretty cool to see, I think everyone enjoyed it. The balloons were beautiful, except for the back of the Darth Vader balloon, which was in EVERY picture! next year I hope they put that one somewhere on the edges...

While we were there, we also went to Stadium of Fire. It is huge concert and fireworks show in the BYU football stadium. Unfortunately, I did not want to carry my big camera, so i don't have pics. But the show was good, Brad Paisley was there, they had flyover and skydivers who land on the field. Then at the end they have the fireworks show that goes with music and then just a bunch of fireworks. It looked like they were going to hit us in the eye, it was a really good show. Abby and Isabel got to go and they loved it and want to go next year. I don't know if that will happen, but maybe in a few years when the other girls are big enough. Sara decided to start throwing up that night, so we ended up going home early and just hung out while Scott worked. How worked most of the weekend, but did meet up with us for Stadium of Fire. Lately he has been involved in surveilling marijuana gardens on the other side of the state, so we don't see much of him, but it is interesting work for him, and good overtime, so we can't complain too much. we do a little, though.

Abby is Eight

Cake Pops-I have been thinking about trying these for a long time, so I did. It was a lot of work for a little bite, but so cute. If you are at all interested, look here. It is basically crumbled cake mixed with the frosting, made into chilled balls and dipped in chocolate coating. And don't forget the sprinkles...lots of sprinkles!
Abby"s star on the "walk of Fame"
Isabel playing "pin the string on the guitar"

Abby turned eight on this week. She is so excited! She is one of the youngest in her class, so it has been a long time coming. We invited a lot of little girls and most were able to come. They had a lot of fun getting accesorized like a rock star, crimping hair, doing air bands, playing with balloons and all the other activities. Abby got some really cute presents and she was very happy. It was stressful to put all together, and Scott ended up being out of town the week before and the day of the party, but luckily I found someone to watch the little girls so I could focus on Abby. The difference between and eight yr old party and a 4 yr old party is very apparent, and I am sorry to say SO MUCH EASIER on the mom!

Abby is so smart and interested in everything. She is a great helper and I probably rely on her too much as the oldest, but she is so good at it. She loves her sisters, even if there is the occasional squabble. She loves to read and is going through many chapter books now. She really tries to do what is asked of her and we are so thankful to have Abby in our family. Happy birthday! She will be baptized on August 6. In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, children are baptized at eight, which we believe is the age where they start to become accountable for their choices. She will be baptized by immersion by her dad. We are so excited for this special day!

Fence Finally Finito!

Scott working hard cementing in posts
The view from the porch
After months of planning, our fence in actually done! we began a long time ago figuring what kind of fence and how many of everything we needed to do the project. Thank goodness for the internet, it helped a lot. We then had someone with a tractor plow up the ground, then had our rock picking party. We also had another nice guy come and smooth out our dirt, then we added five loads of soil to the top and leveled it. After all that, we could start on the actual fence. We had many issues slowing us down, including that time we installed a huge row of posts across the back of our property, only to get a nice letter from the city explaining that we need to move our fence back 5 feet. Even though we had a signed permit....anywho. Before that we broke an auger on rocks. Scott rented a different auger in Moab (paying hourly and it's an hour away) to finish the holes on the sides. He did, and returned it and 20 minutes later we got our letter. We decided not to go through the drama fighting the city, so we pulled out all the posts and chipped off the cement. We also had an insane rainstorm on our way home from buying all the cement, so we had some stiff bags despite tarping everything. Most of them survived, but we did have to buy more cement and a few poles. And of course, another trip to Blanding for ONE little post topper.

On the bright side, Scott worked and worked (when he wasn't at his job) to install the posts and get them nice and straight. We love being close to the school, church and Temple, but it does lead to the entire town driving past our yard. We had many slow down and look, some comments thrown out, but I guess we ought to get used to it, there isn't much going on in this town! After we finally got all the poles in the ground, we spent a few days adding all the pieces and parts and tension bars. Scott did get a little help at the end to put up the rolls of fencing, but it was mostly our endeavor. He spent one evening putting up our 4 gates, and it is finished! It is nice to have it done, but the big kids can open the gate and they play with the neighbors so much that we still have children running free. But with a little height adjustment, and with school starting in a few weeks, I think I will be able to keep my little ones corralled. Phew!

Busy June

Whitney turned two on May 30th. I can't believe she is so big. She is still my little momma's girl, so she seems like my baby instead of a big girl. She was sick on her actual birthday, so we got her balloons and cupcakes a few days later. She did not complain. Whitney is saying more words every day and loves to copy everything she hears. She is loving outside, especially the swing, which she would stay in all day if someone would push her. She is a great cheerleader to her sisters and they love her so much. Whitney also has her Daddy wrapped around her finger. We love Whitney and are so glad to have her in our family.

Isabel learned to really swim! She is not at all afraid of getting in the water and just loved lessons. They want to go swimming every day. Isabel can even swim on her back. She is very proud of being able to do a "dolphin kick" which seems to be swimming with just your feet. She is apparantly the only kid in the world who can do this :)

Abby also loved her lessons and her time at the pool. She still doesn't want her head in the water, which makes swimming difficult, but she'll get it and then there will be no stopping her. Isabel and Abby will be in the same class in about a week, which will mean a lot less runs back and forth from the pool for me.

Tball is going quite well, although it is a demanding schedule for the little ones. It is ages 4-6, so Isabel and Sara could be on the same team. Isabel loves it, Sara, not so much. She does love the sdjacent park, and the treat at the end. Oh well, we tried.

Sara is a good batter, but will just stand there after. She marches to her own tune, that girl.

Abby ended up on a team with boys and they use a pitching machine. It is very fast, but she has gotten a few hits. Her previous Tball skills from Eagle Mountain are a little forgotten, she gets a bit lost but she is getting better in every area. We need to practice more at home. She likes it a lot, though, and it is so nice to have all her friends on the teams, so they get to socialize and I get to know a lot of the parents better.

We (me and about 15 other moms)recently went to the School District meeting to attempt to get Abby's large grade to have three smaller classes of 20 (as they have been since Kindergarten) instead of two large classes around 30. The school generally has 2 small classes for each grade, but having gone through the same thing when I went to school, I am hoping they can figure out a way to avoid this. Abby is smart and good, so I am not worried about that, I just want her to not get lost in the shuffle of that many kids. I know lots of schools have big classes, it's just one of the huge benefits of the small town that Abby may not get. And I don't know what they will do in the upcoming years. We will see, it didn't look promising, but we made an effort.

A little craft time. Summer boredom is setting in for my school girls, they want to be busy all the time, but they loved painting while Whitney slept.

Our one Crayfish we caught in Recapture Reservoir. You put hotdogs on a string of some kind and put them near rocks. The crayfish latch on to eat and you can pull them up. Or you can build a trap for them. We didn't have much luck, but I got this guy in a bucket right as we were headed out. It was fun for the girls, and a nice, quick, and free outing.

Summer so far has been super busy but it's good. I am glad the girls could finally get back in swimming lessons, so I can feel confident taking them to the pool by myself. Baseball is pretty involved, but as they get older they can decide if they like it or not. Right now we are making plans for 4th of July weekend, with Stadium of Fire, which is a big concert in the football stadium at BYU. Brad Paisley and David Archuleta are performing, and then a huge fireworks display at the end. People come from everywhere and sit outside for the fireworks, like we did last year. It should be fun, and it's exciting the kids are getting old enough to do these kinds of things. That is on the 2nd. On Monday, the 4th we may head to Fillmore for their celebration with a lot of the Watsons, most of scott's Uncle Kerry and AuntTafta's kids will be here from all over the country. They have a big ol' small town party there, so we will see. Scott has to work the whole weekend but we are trying to figure things out. The rest of the summer willl be a lot of the same, but Pioneer Day on the 24th here in town and a bunch of my fam coming into town, then Abby gets baptized the first week of August!

goodbye Ruby

On friday we took Ruby to her new family. She was a sweet and good dog, and had amazing potential. We had a pretty difficult and stressful week, not counting the dog, and it came down to simplifying what we could. Obviously it is sad for us and the girls but I figured it was better to do it like a Band-Aid, instead of waiting to see if it would get better, and have it just get harder. So she will be happy in New Mexico and we will be ok. moving on....