The End of the School Year

Brynlee is officially done with first grade. There were a few bumps in the way but I would say that over all she had a fantastic year. She made lots of friends. She is beyond ready for summer break (getting her up for school this last month was torturous) but she will sure miss her teacher and all of her friends. Luckily her teacher is doing a book club once a week for any kid that wants to come so Brynlee is pretty excited about that.

Brynlee passed first grade with flying colors and is looking forward to second grade. She has become a great reader and knows how to read with a great storyteller's voice. She loves writing the most. It is amazing how much her writing has changed and how far she has come in just one year. I took a picture of a few of my favorite writings from her. These are from the beginning of the year. These are supposed to be what her teacher called "small moments" so they are just moments from her life. I wish I saved more of these. She had a few that were completely made up. There was one about getting a pet kitten, another about a time when she saw a real mountain lion while she was going for a walk in the mountains and it growled at her. The first one I kept is from August 26, 2016. It says; I went to the park and I made a new friend. Her name was Brooklyn. I love her so much. She lives close to my home. Next page... Love is important. You should love everybody. You see I love you Brooklyn. I will love her forever. Love herrrrrrr forever.

The next writing is from September 20 it says... I was coloring. I am passionate. My color I was using was black.

This one from September 27 says, I was jumping on the bed. It was fun. I said I like to jump on the bed.

Here is a little story that Brynlee wrote about the time we got a flat tire on our van. It says, My mom got out of the car and checked the tire. Well Annalyn was getting out of the carseat... and Kyla was playing on the phone and I was reading my princess book. I like princess books. Suddenly my dad came and.... Finally It Got fixed.

These writings Brynlee did were "How to" writings. Her teacher printed out what she said on the first picture. The second one says "How to make (a) Bed" By Brynlee Hirtle. 1. First you grab the blanket from the closet. 2. Next you grab the pillow and get in bed. 3. Last you make yourself comfortable or make your dad do it. Have good dreams.

The next writings were persuasive writings. The first one is from January 13, 2017 and it says, Dear Mom! Please wash my dishes. Because 1. I think you are a great cleaner, 2. You are special to me. 3. I think you know how to clean. Love, Brynlee.

Her second letter down here is from Jan. 20 and it says; Dear Dad, You have to hang out with me more please do it more every night and day. Love Brynlee

The next letter from Jan 24 says; to God, Next summer make summer stay forever please because I can go (to the) cabin and the zoo and Not be Stuck inside. Love, Brynlee

This letter from Jan 24 says; Dad! Can you please clean my room. Because 1. I think you are a great cleaner 2. I also don't like to clean. 3. and cleaning is boring. Love, Brynlee

Here is the last persuasive letter from Jan 31; Dear Neighbors! Your dog's bark all night. Please make them stop! NOW. Sincerely, Your Neighbor

When Brynlee brought home that love note at the bottom of this letter it had some candy hearts glued to it. Kyla ate them even though they were covered in glue. Before that her note used to say, Dear mom and dad,  UR Sweet mom and dad. My love it you. You have beautiful Hot Lips. Brynlee Hirtle.

The last writing unit Brynlee did was all about poems. Here are a few of the poems she wrote. The First one is titled, Me and it says, I am a volcano getting mad and getting ready to explode on the world.

Cotton Candy By Brynlee

Cotton candy is like a cotton ball rolling away from me.

Cats By Brynlee. Cats, Cats are the best. Cats, cats bit me AAHHHHH.

The last letter I am going to include from Brynlee was a letter she wrote to us a few nights ago. She got in trouble because she wouldn't stay in her bed. She ran out and handed her dad this letter and then ran back to bed. It says; Dear father and mother. The thing you have learned but forgotten it love your kids forever. I say unto you. You should listen to your heart forever. Love Brynlee.

I love getting letter from her. Many years ago I got to teach first grade so watching her go to first grade brought a lot of happy memories to me. It would have been fun to be her first grade teacher.

 Brynlee also brought home several different crafts and art project that she did throughout the year so I am adding them too.

My other kids didn't get to go to school this year but we did do lots of art projects at home and at the library. Here are a few that Kyla did. Her coloring and drawing have improved a lot over the last year.

Annalyn loves crafts and the mini Monet class at the library is one of her favorite parts of the week. She gets to go to kindergarten next year and can't wait. She has gotten pretty got at coloring, cutting, and at writing her name this year as well. I am not quite sure how I feel about the prospect of having two kids in school. For now we are just going to spend our time enjoying summer.

April 2017

I am going to start off this post with a whole bunch of random pictures. Every other Sunday we usually spend the day at grandma Verna's house eating a wonderful Sunday dinner and we took some pictures while we were over there a few weeks ago. They ended up at the top of this page and I didn't want to move them so you get to see them first.

If I had to pick a theme for the month of April it would be pink eye. I feel like our family was plagued with it and it took the whole month to get rid of it completely. Somehow Joel and Summer never got it and Brynlee and Kyla didn't get a bad case but it hit me and Annalyn hard. I never knew how much I hate pink eye until this month.

I think the whole pink eye thing started for our family from my brother Brian. He came over one day while we watched Elowyn for him and his eye was super red. He was also over later that week for family dinner and his other eye was super pink. He didn't think it was pink eye at first but later realized that it was.  Two days later Annalyn's eye started to get red and goopy. The next morning she woke up and was miserable. I couldn't get her an appointment to see her doctor until 3:45 and she was begging me to take her all day. She was super excited to get some drops for her eyes. She kept asking why this had happened and I told her she must have gotten pink eye from Uncle Brian so she was cursing him all day and vowed to never let him come over to our house with pink eye ever again.

The day after we got eye drops for Annalyn, Brynlee woke up with pink eye. She had to miss a day of school but her eyes never got super red and they were never super goopy so I sent her to school the next day. She had to miss Art night at school which is where all the kids create art and the parents get to come and look at the art with their kids. Brynlee was really looking forward to going and insisted that I not miss it. She made me go without her.

My other brother Josh got pink eye and my Sister's little girl Remi got pink eye a week after we did. Kyla played with Remi right around the time we realized that she had pink eye and exactly one week later she got it. I think I must have got it from Kyla because it was just a few days later that I got it. I got it on a Friday evening. I was supposed to babysit the next day but had to cancel and I had to send the girls to Remi's birthday party without me. Sounds like they had a great time celebrating her birthday. I was thinking I would be fine to go to church on Sunday cause the doctor said we weren't contagious after 24 hours but my eye was so swollen and red, oozy, and puffy that I ended up desperately calling around to find someone to teach my primary class and I stayed home. It looked better that night so we went to visit Joel's parent's and realized that Joel's mom had pink eye. It had been three weeks since she had been around us but during that time Anna's eyes were still a tiny bit red. She had to go in and get medicine for her eyes later that week. My eyes were all better by day five of the drops but on day six I woke up with my other eye super red and goopy. I had been putting medicine in them but I guess the infection was viral so the drops did nothing. My eyes were still red on Sunday but I couldn't find anyone to teach my class. My eyes didn't look too bad so I just went. A few people commented about them and I felt a little awkward about being there but what do you do? Luckily the pink eye hasn't hit anyone else so I am hoping we are done with that.

Despite all of the trouble with pink eye, there were lots of fun things this month. We started out the month with General Conference. Madison spent the night that night so she was there for the Saturday session of conference. The girls did lots of crafts together, played at the park, and had a lot of fun playing together. Conference was good but I feel like I missed a lot of it cause I was taking care of kids.

Joel made a new swing set for the kids and they have had a blast playing on them. They love swinging. Joel also helped my sister Heather to put a salon room up in her garage. We spent lots of time playing outside. We got some rainy days, a few windy days, and several days that were really nice. We tried to take full advantage of those days.

  We got to celebrate Summer's first birthday, Easter, and Joel and I celebrated nine years of marriage. We hired a babysitter and went out to dinner at Joel favorite restaurant and then we went and walked along the river and played a few games of ultimate croquet. It was fun just to have some alone time with him and we had a fun night. Joel bought a new truck from someone at work and called it his anniversary present. I told him he better get me something really good. He got me some earrings.

Kyla played hard this month. Most of the time she doesn't need a nap but every once in a while she gets tired and will just crash on wherever she is. Sometimes she tells me she wants a nap and will crawl in her bed. She falls asleep on the way to grandma Hirtle's house almost every Sunday when we drive over there.

Brynlee filled up her shell jar and chose to take me on a date night this time. We went to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie and then we went to Panda Express and to the dollar store. At the dollar store she picked out some bubble blowing things that she took home and shared with the rest of the family. I love that she thought of them. It was lots of fun to spend some fun alone time just with her. We both enjoyed the movie and had fun together.

Annalyn, Kyla, and Summer have been so busy playing together lately. Kyla is constantly trying to feed her baby dolls random concoctions of food. They all try to dress their dolls up in Summer's clothes or sometimes plastic bags or whatever they can find. I am glad they play together and have great imaginations but they sure do make a lot of messes. 

Joel went on a campout with the teachers from our ward and it sounds like he had a good time. We can't find the title to our Suburban Joel was going to register so he had to take the mini van. Brynlee ended up running and fever and threw up only hours after Joel left so we wouldn't have been able to go anywhere anyways. Luckily that didn't pass to anyone else.

Joel and I also got to go to this thing called the Escape quest with my sister Alesha and her boyfriend and my brother Brian and his wife. We were supposed to figure out all of these puzzles and escape out of this room they locked us in. We were close but we didn't make it out in the hour time frame. It was still fun.

Now that Brynlee can read I let her make muffins all by herself one day. I just had to help her with the oven, she did the rest and ever since then she has been making cupcakes and muffins all the time. She is turning into quite the little cook. So far she has only done ones from a box but I bet by this summer she will be making all kinds of things from scratch.

I babysat a  few times and we went to the library, went to the park, and played outside. Brynlee ended up cutting her own hair again. She tried to play it off like I was just now noticing that she had layers but it was pretty noticeable that she cut it. Heather cut it pretty short and did her best to fix it for us. You would think now that she is almost seven she is old enough not to do that but she wanted her hair to be like her friend Tatum's so she just cut it herself. I spent the month doing a lot of spring cleaning. I finally deep cleaned the fridge, organized the books in the office, and cleaned several more hard to reach places. It has been a slow process so the job is not done yet but we are on our way to a cleaner house. Life can sure be crazy and chaotic but it is full of lots of fun moments that just seem to make it all worth it.

Summer's First Birthday

We got to celebrate Summer's birthday on the day she turned one. My girls were so super excited for the party all day. They could not wait to celebrate with Summer. They kept hugging her and wishing her a happy birthday and reminding her about her party. They helped me to decorate a simple cake and they helped me pick out a baby doll that we wrapped for Summer. We invited some of the extended family and had pizza but it was mostly just a small simple celebration.

Summer ate quite a bit of her pizza. She stared at the candle until her sisters helped her blow them out and she didn't unwrap any of her presents. Her sisters got too impatient having to wait for her so they did most of the unwrapping. She cuddled her doll right away and did not want to let it go. She cried when we took it away and gave her a new present.

Summer really enjoyed her cake and dug right in. I think the ice cream was too cold for her because she didn't eat very much of her ice cream. After cake we played with balloons and got Summer ready for bed. She was pretty tired because I woke her up from her nap just so that she could go to the party. Her party was simple and easy but we sure do love her and we are glad we got to enjoy such a fun year with her. Happy Birthday little Summer.