Finish catching up....

So now that I covered summer, it is time to move onto the new school year. This year I have all 3 of my children enrolled in Tartan Elementary school. Peter is in Mr. Games 5th grade class, John is in Kindergarten with Mrs. Curth and Emmalee is in the Mrs. Shelley's Pre-K class again. We are in the second week of school and the children are still excited about school so I will take that as a good sign. I helped out in John's class today and Emmalee was mad that I wasn't in her class so she told her teacher that I was helping in her class tomorrow. I was planning on doing John's class one week then Emmi the next so I can get stuff done around the house but I don't know if Emmi will let me get away with that. I enjoy walking to school with the kids and friends from the neighborhood. This is the first year I have gone without a stroller, and it is a little wierd but I think I like it.

So here are my kids on the first day, aren't they just so cute....

Look at my handsome little Kindergartner....

He is in the same class as most of his friends from church, so he has fun.

Now I just have to work on getting a good routine so I can actually get stuff done around here on a regular basis.

And for other news, David was called into the Bishopric in our new ward this past weekend. He is the 2nd Counselor and working with some great men. It was quite a shock because he asked to be a Seminary teacher, but I guess they had other plans. It will take a while for me and the kids to get used to him being gone for so many nights during the week, but it will be an exciting new path.

Well that should get you all caught up, and once again... I will try to blog more... We will see...

Our summer at a glance....

We did a lot of traveling this summer, and we had way too much fun. Here is a glimpse into our great times....

We went to the Manti Pageant in June,

Then hit Cove Fort .... And the St George Temple on the way home.

In July we went camping at Malibu Creek State ParkAnd of course hit Malibu Beach as much as we could...

Then we went to San Diego and got to meet my new nephew Miles.

Then we went to the San Diego Zoo

Then we went to Sea WorldAnd yes, we sat that close to Shamu.... and yes we got SOAKED!Our final day in San Diego we spent at the Wild Animal Park.And we finally got to see some gorillas

We drove home from California Thursday night, did all the laundry Friday morning, Packed our bags again, Then headed up to Utah.

We spent Pioneer Day in Cedar City with some friends then went up to Eagle Mountain that evening. John and Emmalee got to stay the whole week with their cousin Ashlee, and we took Pete to spend the night in Provo with his Uncle David. Peter spent the week at BYU Baseball Camp. He had so much fun!

David and I had to go back up there the following weekend to pick up the kids and we took a little trip up to Logan and were able to see the Logan Temple.

Summer Tally....

8 cousins

7 weeks

7 temples

6 tanks of gas

5 family members that were so happy to just be home for all of August

4 states
3 amusement parks

2 beaches

1 gorgeous brand new baby

= the best summer ever!

And we also realized that from now on we will do whatever it takes to not me in Las Vegas for the month of July.... the power bill didn't kill us because we were only here half the month...

Morning adventures...

So yesterday morning I get the kids all ready for school, we are actually on time.... until I grab my purse and keys. I had my key ring, but I could not find my car key. We took the car in Monday to get serviced and I drove it home after we picked it up. Well the brilliant person I am did not imediately put the key back on the key ring. I think I put it in my pocket... but then I change and put them in the llaundry to wash that night. So I spent at least an hour going through everything on the floor in my closet and all of my laundry in the laundry room, as well as searching in any random spot I could have possibly laid it down. The 2 little ones had to miss preschool and I sent Pete off to school on his scooter and hopefully he still made it on time.
I still didn't find it but I did make a trip to Lowes with David's keys to make myself a new one and I made a whole set of spare keys to keep in my cupboard for just such an occation if it were to happen again in the future.
Moral of the story.... Be sure to always put your key back on the key ring immediately after you get it back from getting your car serviced!

Painting....

Slowly, but surely, we have been painting the house. The weekend we tackled the stairway. We were able to get it all done yesterday and now we can hang the pictures of the temples we got. David made some picture frames for his sister for Christmas and now he is doing some for our house. He really likes working on the frames and they turn out beautiful. My brother came over to help yesterday, and we let the kids paint a little too.

We had a good Valentines Day. We had the family over for Sunday dinner. Emmalee, Marky and I went to John's Party at his school. Everyone had a fun time. David sent me flowers earlier in the week, he did a good Job.

One more thing...

So in an effort to try and remember the funny things our kids say, I will try to record them more often. Thanks to Melanie and others who always keep me laughing with hilarious kids, hopefully mine will keep up with their standards and earn a couple chuckles.
As I mentioned earlier, we were heading out to pick up dinner. I was checking my wallet to make sure I had enough cash. Pete walks up to me and says, "I have a 5 in my wallet, I will give it to you for a 10." I sure have a smart kid...
Earlier today I went to the mall with Emmalee and John (they were actually really good considering I had them there for 3 hours). I was looking through stuff while John and Emm were in the stroller talking back and forth, maybe arguing a little when I hear him tell her, "Stop being a hater!"
So there are a couple I chuckled about.

Now that everyone has probably given up on me....

I decided it was time to just sit down and blog again. It has been 9 months since my last post so you can imagine a few things have happened....
I now have all 3 children in school. Peter is in the 4th grade, John goes to preschool at Candil Hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Emmalee go to the preschool class at our elementary school Monday thru Thursday. Each of them have a completely different schedule so you can imagine how crazy it can get around here.
I started working at a scrapbook store in Summerlin in August and just recently cut my schedule down to just Saturdays. I do love it there and have so much fun. I teach a couple classes here and there.
David is loving his job at Bank of America and is actually in LA right now for work stuff. He took on a second job working for Google and doesn't love that one so much, but he makes $15 an hour so it accomplishes what we need it to.
We had a great Holiday season, as always. The kids got too many toys, they are way too spoiled, and we had a ton of fun with all the family. David and I were lucky enough to have a dinner the Saturday after Christmas with every single person in both of our families. That was the first and probably the last time we will ever be able to get everyone together all at the exact same time. It was a special thing for both of us. We both love our families so much that is just such a special thing to have everyone together.
To add even more to our crazy schedules, we just signed up Pete for Baseball again and John for Teeball for the first time. They are both very excited for the season to start in March. They want us to take them to the park all the time to go practice.
Well that is the last 9 months at a glance and I pledge now to be better at it this year. Maybe I will add some picture soon too.

Summer break....

So I had my last final tonight for this semester. I still have 3 years left... but completing this semester feels good. Of course I didn't do as much studying earlier this week, so I spent a lot of today studying for my hardest and last final. Now that I am done, I think I did pretty well... feels good too.
Also more good news, David was just offered a new position, told actually that he needed to post for it tomorrow. This is a very good step up and he is quite excited. He went to a dinner with the bosses and a big boss too, so he had a great night. We are excited for the new possibilities.
Here is a funny story about the kids today... Since I have been taking some early childhood classes, I have been trying to do more with the kids. I actually let them paint sometimes, we go to the library more, and I let them use my make-shift water table, aka my sink. So Emmalee and John were at the sink while I studied and Pete did his homework. John took his shirt off because it was wet already, or he was trying to prevent it, I don't know, and of course Emmalee had to take her shirt off too. A little later, John did something mean to Emmalee so she ran over crying. I told her to go check and see if Marky was awake yet. Another minute later they both come running downstairs and Marky's shirt is off too. They went upstairs to play for a while and I was making dinner. John comes into the kitchen to tell me something, and he is completely naked now, I don't know why. Marky runs in after John and he is butt-naked too. I think to myself, "Oh, no!" I run upstairs, and sure enough, Emmalee is stuck on Pete's bed, absolutely naked too. When one of them does something, they all do something. I thought it was pretty funny. so that is our latest updates...

North Las Vegas Police Department.....

So we had some very interesting visitors this evening... North Las Vegas Marshall Sergeant Bunch came ringing my door bell at 9:30 this evening with a warrant for my arrest for failing to show up at court. Now here is the back story (I know it is long but everyone knows I am incapable of telling a short story)… A couple months ago I got stopped on Azure for speeding, he said I was going 45 in a 25 but I don’t think so with all those start and stops down that road. So my brother-in-law Paul is a police officer for Metro and I called him to see if there was anything to be done. He has a buddy in the North Las Vegas Department and called him to see if he could take care of the ticket. I checked in with Paul a couple times to make sure everything was taken care of and that there was nothing else I needed to do. He said his buddy called the officer that wrote the ticket and they were going to void it so I didn’t have to worry about anything, plus if figured if it still went through I would get one of those post cards in the mail. No post card came so I figured everything was fine, that is until this evening…
The doorbell rang and they said they were here for Jessica Zygmont. I already had my pajamas on (of course one of the few nights I actually got into my PJs early) but I came to the door to see what was going on. The Police Officer said he had a warrant for my arrest for failing to show up at court. We explained that my brother-in-law works for Metro and he said he took care of it. So we called Paul to see what happened and the Officer called to see if it was taken care of. Paul came over and they made some more calls and it turns out that the first Officer didn’t end up voiding the ticket after all when Paul’s buddy asked him to. Needless to say I did not have to take a late night trip down to the jail and sit down there for however long it would have taken to get me out. The Sergeant said he was going to go to the Judge’s secretary tomorrow and see if they can put it down to a parking ticket and I would have to pay only $67 instead of the $480 that he was talking about at first. He said I still needed to be careful because if I cot pulled over for any reason they would take me straight to JAIL.... I don't think I will be doing much driving for a while until I know that it is all taken care of.
Moral of the story: DON’T SPEED DOWN AZURE!
And make sure everything is really taken care of because I wouldn’t wish that almost heart attack on anyone.

Maybe some day I will be able to laugh at it, but for right now it is still a little scary...