Natalie's in Preschool!

Well Natalie has officially begun preschool.  Yes she attended my class last year but now she's actually of age.  She's been so excited.  This year I'm teaching two preschool classes-a morning and an afternoon class.  So Natalie actually get double preschool. She loves it though and really enjoys having so many friends at her house.

I'm so lucky to be her teacher!

Oh my goodness, this girl can't get any cuter.  She's way too loveable.

Of course Anna has to join in the fun in the morning class.  Here she was really concentrating on putting pom-poms in the ice cube tray-a fine-motor activity.  She loves having all the kids come.

Preschool has been going so well, I'm happy about that.  I will do a post about the preschool room, since  it's really the only room I've decorated!

Silly girls

Oh to be a kid again, I long for those days.  It's a good thing I have kids around to remind me to just have fun!

One day I saw Anna like this.  Apparently she was having an important talk with Jesus on the phone.  She kept looking up at Him and chatting away.

Lately the girls have been running through the sprinklers. They don't bother with suits, they just take off in their clothes when the sprinklers come on!

Cyrena's First Day of School Fall 2012

Cyrena's first day back to school was yesterday.  She took it all in stride.  She has plenty of old friends in her new class and I've encouraged her to make new ones too!  I've heard great things about her teacher this year so I am hopeful it will be a wonderful school year.  We didn't really need to buy any school clothes this year (she gets great hand-me-downs from her cousin!) but we did buy her a couple of new polo shirts.  No, her school doesn't have uniforms; this girl just loves polos.  She's funny.

 When Cyrena was getting ready for her school blessing Anna insisted on joining in.  She went and got the 2nd chair all by herself then sat by Cyrena and folded her arms.

 Before school

After school

Ahhh the goofiness

Sometimes, well, many times our kids just crack us up.  I'm lucky to be married to a man who laughs easily which makes us all think we're funnier than we really are but also makes hard times easier to bear.  I love that about him and even when our kids are being naughty or crazy, we can usually find something to laugh about!

 Anna is always wanting us to put a bunch of these headbands on her.  She thinks she's stylin'

 Anna doesn't like eating dinner.  Here she's pawning it off on Benjamin when we watched him one evening.

 She loves to dress up with her sisters and DANCE.  That's her newest word.  Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.

 Since we watched the Olympic opening ceremony the girls pretended to be the Queen and King watching the olympics (even though there wasn't a king!) 

Yesterday Natalie built a temple with legos.  She was proud of her work!

A rare treat

We never have visitors come in the summer--NEVER.  It's not surprising that no one wants to come here since it's SO STINKIN' HOT.  However, we got a surprise visit from Grandma and Grandpa Lemmert.  It was so fun to be able to see them for a few days!  And guess what, they didn't melt!  Just goes to show you can visit the Arizona heat and live to tell about it.

Just keep swimming

The girls rocked it at swimming lessons this summer. They completed 2 sessions and came away very confident swimmers! My friend Miss Brittany did a great job with the girls. Both of them can now jump off the diving board and swim across the pool. Cyrena has always been a bit nervous in the water but she overcame a lot of that. Natalie was like a fish in the water, constantly underwater playing around. She tends to rely on her feet instead of using her arms--she's got a strong kick! The last day she kept doing corkscrews in the water-she's in her own world. 

Staycation at the Buttes

David's work family invited us to their family staycation last month. We love spending time with them, it makes us feel like part of a family again! We had a great time at the Buttes which is a resort built right into a mountain in Tempe. Pretty cool and so much fun.

The first night we ate pizza, swam for a bit, went on a walk around the resort, then most of the kids headed to our room to watch Tangled and eat popcorn and starburst.

We spent most of the day Saturday in the pool-about 4 hours in the morning and another 2 that night!  The girls loved showing off their skills they'd been working on in swimming lessons.

They had this great water slide that was perfect for kids.  I think Natalie went down it at least 20 times.  She would go down, land in the pool, swim to the side, climb out, then climb the stairs back to the beginning of the slide.  Also about halfway through the slide she would flip from her back to her tummy and come out that way.  The lifeguards (and some of the other swimmers) knew her by name and cheered her on each time--it was SO funny.

The water was so warm and they had a great step that went all the way around the shallow end so Anna just monkey-walked around everywhere.

Part of the group

David competed with these 2 lovely ladies (Natalie and Trudy) in a handstand contest

Beautiful!

Trudy ordered us some poolside drinks-she really spoiled us! 

 All of us fell asleep for an afternoon nap

We woke up early Sunday morning and got dressed for church.  We ate breakfast, checked out, then went straight to church!  We had such a great time, we definitely want to head back to the Buttes next year!  Thank you Blount Family!