Dear Aria

Dear Aria -

My cute little girl.  Even though you are taller than your sister I will always call you my little girl because you were only 4lbs 5 oz when you were born.



We have had such a good year even with lots of changes.  We moved this year and when we told you that we were moving everyone was so excited.  You jumped up and down at the thought of moving to a new house with a new bedroom.  Only 10 minutes later though you came up to me in tears talking about how much you were going to miss this house and that you love your house.  It broke my heart to see you cry and it really was such a good home for us and so many great memories.  But we have had such a good move.  You have loved the house with the red door as you call it and you adjusted really easily.

You still love horses and even got to go to a horse camp this summer that I found out about.  You were so amazed that you got to take care of the horse and ride several different ones.  You loved going to horse camp and still ask me often if you get to go again next summer.

You are very creative and I often hear you making up little stories or even recently writing little books/stories.  You love to color and I often find little notes you write to me on my bed, or under my door when I'm working.

You still love your stuffed animals and if you ever get a chance to go to the store and buy a toy, almost every time you still pick out a stuffed animal.  When we moved we had to buy each of you a big storage box for your stuffed animals and yours is completely filled to the top of stuffed animals.



You started gymnastics this summer and love it.  One day you came out and literally had little beads of sweat coming down.  You work hard at it and unfortunately you and your sister inherited your mom's flexibility which is little to none.  You've improved in your cart wheels, doing much better at handstands and even did a forward dismount on the bars this week which I was so proud to see.  And you're even walking across the balance beam with less hesitation which is huge since when you started you wouldn't even stand up on it by yourself.  Although after watching Jaron play soccer this fall you said you wanted to try soccer this spring so we'll see how that goes.  I'm proud of you for trying so hard at things that don't come naturally for you.



You love school and have loved going to Kindergarten.  You were so excited to be one of the first students to 'clip up' to purple one day for good behavior and got a treat, much to the dismay of your sister.  You've improved a ton on your reading and when I was in your class last week noticed your whole table was goofing off only to find you the only one still sitting at your table and you had picked up a book and was reading it to yourself.  I was proud of you not only for reading but also for not goofing off while the rest of your table was.

I love your 6 year old self Aria.  You are comfortable with who you are and are still sensitive and love to hold my hand.  Never ever stop doing what you are doing now.  Keep growing and being the cute little girl you are.

Love, Mom

September 2017

September started off with my birthday.  We had a busy day of work and school but it was fun to go to dinner that night at Texas Roadhouse for dinner. I was spoiled and got a new computer from Shane and the kids are always good at picking out my favorite candy.


While getting ready for church one Sunday, I was combing Jaron's hair and as he looked in the mirror he all of the sudden turned to me and said 'Mom I think I'm kind of handsome, right?'  Haha, I love this handsome guy.


Like I said in my earlier post all 3 of my kids were Stars of the week in September.  Here are their posters they got to take to class and display all week.



The girls had Kindergarten Nursery Rhyme Olympics.  I kept seeing it on the calendar but had no idea what this meant.  Only the week of did I get a note saying 'I hope you've been practicing with your kindergartner memorizing a nursery rhyme so they can dress up as their nursery rhyme and recite it to the whole class this week!'  What???  Luckily we pulled it off with The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  They looked so cute and apparently did great reciting it in front of their whole class.


Shane's mom got married!!  She has known Jim for a long time since he raised his family in Quincy as well and have become better friend this last year after his wife died of cancer.  Well in July I noticed she was spending more time with him and sure enough a couple weeks later she was engaged.  They eloped in August and came out to visit us for a few days in September.  We took them to the Monte Bean museum at BYU and the creamery for ice cream one day.  It was fun and my kids always like this museum.


We finished up the soccer season.  We weren't sad to see it end.  Being a coach was kind of stressful with parents who didn't want to coach but seemed to think they knew when it was time to substitute their kid back into the game.  I felt stressed the whole time trying to make sure everyone was getting equal playing time.  It was fun though and Jaron loved having his dad as his coach.


The big event of September was the girls got a butterfly habitat for their birthday.  They were mailed 5 caterpillars that we got to watch grow and then turn into Butterflies.  They named all their caterpillars the first day 'Catta, Diamond Sparkles, Jaron, Aria and Siena'  One caterpillar formed their chrysalis first and then fell and we weren't sure if he had completely formed it yet or was going to survive.  When I told the kids that morning they looked and Siena burst into tears 'not diamond sparkles, no!!!'  Luckily Diamond sparkles turned into a butterfly and we had fun feeding and watching the butterflies for a few days before it was time to let them go.  Everyone including their neighborhood friend Sorena got a turn holding one for a while until it flew away. There were a few tears but not as many as I had expected. The last one was Diamond Sparkles and although he had turned into a butterfly he couldn't fly.  So we put him back in the cage for a few days until he died and then we donated him to Cameron's biology class he was collecting insects for.  That caused quite a few tears as well.  Overall though they loved watching the process and having a few 'pets' in our house for a few weeks.


The end of September was Grandparents day and the kids were so excited that Grandma and Grandpa both got to come to Grandparents day.  Jaron's class sang them a little song and then made a little handprint craft. Siena and Aria got the ask them questions about their grandparents and also do a little handprint craft.  What a fun day.  It's amazing to think that 6 years ago this month we were told my mom only had 1-2 years to live and what a miracle she is in our life to still be here 6 years later.  We are so lucky and love living close to them.

Siena and Aria turn 6!

Siena and Aria turned 6!

We had such a fun weekend celebrating their birthday.  Their birthday fell on a Sunday this year.  We decided to have their party Saturday evening.  They've been begging us to rent our clubhouse so they can watch a movie in the movie theater, so we decided to do that for their birthday party.



Their theme was of course Pokemon, which yes they are still obsessed with.  Shane did their birthday invitations in the form of Pokemon cards.  I think they turned out so cute and Shane did such a good job personalizing them for each girl.  Most people couldn't see some of the little words he added which made them so cute and unique.



We invited girls from their primary class/neighborhood and also cousins.  We had a great turnout and it was a super easy but fun party.  We watched 'Secret Life of Pets' had pizza and then did presents and cupcakes.  We gave out some candy and Pokemon cards to everyone as they left.  I loved having a place to go with a quick set up and then doing a quick clean up and we were done.




Sunday they opened their presents and were pretty surprised when they got a Hatchimal that I'm pretty sure they had given up even thinking they would get.  It was fun because we spent most the afternoon watching it hatch and playing with it. They also got a Pikmi Pop which was some new surprise bag type toy that had just come out on September 1.  They had been seeing commercials about it for over a month.  We couldn't find them in the stores and I had them convinced we couldn't get them for their birthday because they weren't in any stores.  Luckily Amazon came through for us and they were totally shocked and super excited to open their Pikmi Pops.





That afternoon we went to my parents and had a birthday dinner for them, Jennifer, myself and Kayla.  They got Little Live Chicks from my parents and were soo soo excited about that since they had been playing with their neighbor friend Sorena's chicks the few weeks before that.



It was a fun birthday weekend full of lots of celebrations.  My girls are growing up and turning into cute girls and are becoming more independent along with forming their own opinions on things.  It's so fun to watch them grow and interact with us and each other.

Kindergarten and Pre-K starts

And just like that summer ends and school starts.  The kids have been so excited to start school. Ever since we moved to Highland, every time we pass their school they chant 'Ridgeline, Home of the Raccoons.' over and over again.  It helped that Jaron was able to get into one of their Pre-K classes they offer there and made him feel included in all the school activities.

The Friday before school started they had their back to school night where we could meet their teachers, see their classroom and sign up for things (aka sign your freedom away to volunteer.)  They were excited to see Rocky the Raccoon there as well!  All 3 kids had their assessments the following week and picked out desks and cubbies (I have the girls in the same class but made sure they picked desks away from each other.)



The first day of school was exciting.  No one seemed nervous and everyone went fine without tears, except me.  I was totally fine and did not think I would cry until I saw the girls line up with their class and then all of the sudden they looked so old standing there in that line leaving me.  It was also cute because right behind the girls were 2 twin boys (Luke and Landon) who as of last week like chasing them around the play ground.



Since then school has been good.  Everyone is doing great, likes school, likes their teachers and has friends they play with.  It has been an adjustment getting used to doing homework.  The girls come home every Monday with quite a list of homework to do for the week.  It's all pretty easy but just time consuming.  But it's a good habit to get into as well.  Jaron who doesn't have homework, came home with letters and his name he can practice writing on a dry erase page and he does it over and over again.



I've been shocked how busy school is.  I guess it's an adjustment from having no kids in elementary school to essentially 3.  Just in the first month I've had to take snacks in for the class for each of them. Somehow they were all stars of the week this first month so we made 3 posters, I had to go be a Royal Reader for the girls class, school pictures, Nursery Rhyme olympics for the girls, volunteering in Jaron's class, grandparents day (which I helped with), book orders, box top collection, reflections contest, book fair and parent/teacher conferences....the programs are all great but it never ends!!

Jaron also started his speech therapy class so I've been to the school a few times for that to sign paperwork, etc.

So all in all school is great, we all enjoy it and I have to say  having 2 hours and 45 mins to myself has been super helpful.  95% of the time I'm working but it's nice to get most my work done while they're at school now.