Cutler's school

So far this year Cutler has LOVED preschool. And I think that's an understatement. Seriously. Every day when he gets out of bed he asks me "what day is it today? Do I have school today?" Now he's learned which days he has school and he knows what time it starts. I love hearing him ask Noah what a letter is that he sees somewhere, and if he's making the right sound for it. He's getting pretty good at writing his letters, and his name (for a young 4 year old).

Last week was his spotlight week. We made this poster of some pictures that describe him and the things he likes to do, and places he's been. He got to tell his class about each of them. I wish I could have been there to hear what he said about them. We rehearsed about 8 times before but you never know what they're really going to say.

I am so happy that so far, both the boys love school. I hope it lasts forever!!

Bridal Shower

My brother is getting married in less than a month now...holy crap!...so last weekend we threw Amber a shower. I feel so bad because she hasn't really seemed excited and all giddy-like, you know how you felt when you were planning your wedding, but I think this helped her. Phew! I was kinda worried she wasn't all that excited about getting married. So we borrowed all of the decorations from Sherie's Party Supply (ha!! no, seriously you should see her stash) and had tons of fun.

the {food}

the {candy}table

and {presents}

We are all so glad Amber (& Peyton) will be a part of our family!

And I had to throw these in of the little girls. They are all born within 9 months of each other! So much fun!

Addi, on the right is the oldes, and I just realized they are in age order to the left.

"Payt Payt bite"

If you ask Lexie if she has an owie she'll tell you this, "Payt Payt bite" in the saddest voice you've ever heard. One night Chad & Peyton were over while Amber was at work. The girls were in Lexie's room playing and all of a sudden Lexie starts crying, loud & hard. So Chad & I go in to see what's going on. The two had been fighting over toys the whole time so we didn't think it was anything too big. I could see Lexie holding her arm so I moved her hand and saw the bite mark. Oh my! It was sad.

This picture was taken later that night. At first you could obviously see the teeth marks, but up at the top where there's a lot of pink, she scraped her teeth. If she would have bitten a little bit harder and deeper she would have torn the skin right open.

Now I can't decide if it's bruised or scarred. It's a little darker but you can't feel it anymore.

Time will tell.

Cowboy Cutler

Yee-Haw!

During the Dixie Roundup around here, everyone dresses like a cowboy. Cutler's preschool had cowboy dress up day and of course he wanted to participate. Well, we don't really have 'cowboy apparel', but we did our best.

staple

It never fails that when we're right in the middle of something...something not so easy to just up and leave...we have an incident. The day we were doing peaches, about 4:30, all our kids + a few more were out back playing. They had been all day. It was quite nice. All of a sudden, Noah comes running in the house holding his breath because he's crying so hard, holding his head. He can't even talk to tell us what happened. Finally we get him to tell us that Cutler threw something at his head. We're all just kind of standing there, not really knowing what to do, thinking it just hurts really bad. He finally calmed down a little bit and moved his hand and looks at it. It was covered with blood, so he started panicking and crying again. We took him in the bathroom to clean it up and determine how bad it was. And of course I thought it would need a stitch or two.
So Janet and I ran him over to insta care and waited...and waited...and waited. Seriously! It was horrible. The dr. said he would need a staple, so we waited some more. We were there over an hour and I think there was only 1 other person there. I hate insta-care just for that reason!

Noah was so brave and proudly wore the staple around for a week.

Happy Birthday...

Kadence!!

she's 6 today!!

We wish so bad we could be there for your party.

miss you. love you.

Happy Birthday...

to Hallie

she's 2 today and on her way to Disneyland!!

Have so much fun!

Noah's audition

For the past year Colby's mom has been taking Noah one day a week and teaching him to sing. He naturally has a good voice, and this has been so great for him to learn a few things plus get some one on one time with his grandparents. Well tonight all that singing practice has paid off. And I bet Janet feels the same! She should...she's done all the work.

Every year we have the Dicken's Festival the first week in December. It's got a bunch of little booths that sell different things, and you wind your way through those to get to the food and stage where 'Oliver' and 'Scrooge' are performed.

Janet saw the auditions advertised in the paper and called to see if Noah would want to do it.

He said yes and tonight was the night.

I couldn't get the first video to load, which is the best one. But he sang the first part, then the guy had him back up about 10 feet and do it again a little louder (this video).

Then 10 more feet and a little louder.

Noah just belted it out. I was totally amazed.

He's a shy, nervous person so I didn't know how he would do at first.

He totally showed me!

When Noah was done the guy told him he wanted him to stay for the night if he could and rehearse with them. He definitely has a spot for him, he's just not sure which one right now.

We'll know next week.

So if you're here for the Dicken's Festival come watch one of the shows.

They're very cute.

Thanks Janet for all your hard work!!

Labor Day - Got peaches?

Ha. Our Labor day was actually celebrated on Saturday. No really. I guess I should say Colby's Labor Day. He got up and went out to the church orchard at 7:30 to pick peaches. They have so many right now they've opened it up to everyone to just go pick. You can take up to 200 lbs. He got home around 10:30 a.m. We started with this many peaches (only all the boxes were completely full)

We now have our year supply of bottled peaches

and jam

Plus we gave some away.

I can't really take credit for much of the work. I left right after he got home to run some errands, and when I did help all I really did was peel them or mash them. Colby did all the hard stuff. With a little help from his parents and Kent. What a {Labor Day}!

4 year old pictures

We are SO lucky to have a grandma that loves to take pictures.

And that loves taking our pictures.

One night we took Cutler out and got some pretty cute ones {if I do say so myself}.

He's not really one to pose, or sit and smile for very long.

But this night he did pretty good.

Good enough for grandma to break out the smarties.

Enjoy the picture overload!

Some of my favs...