First Day of School

The day after we returned from our PNW vacation, the kids started school! We pulled in at about 9:00 p.m., fed everyone, showered everyone and had them in bed by about 9:30. It was a late night, making the first school morning a little rocky. The kids rallied and were really excited to start at their new school.

We decided this summer to send the kids to a local charter school that about 20 families in our ward attend. We had heard such wonderful things about it that we decided to apply and were excited to be accepted. The only downfall of the school is that is about a 30 minute drive each way, with no bussing option. Luckily we are able to carpool with a friend/neighbor making the drive slightly less painful each day.

We had a VERY quick photo taking session before school that morning.

(Kenna has to wear tennis shoes every day which is really putting a cramp in her/my style- LOL. I got her a few pair of the cutest tennies we could find)

After school we had our traditional visit from the Back to School fairy who brought Makenna a pair of roller skates (she is obsessed) and Carter a Tech Deck set. We also had an apple themed snack (sliced apples and delicious toffee dip). The kids had a great first day!

I really can't believe I have two kids in school full time now. It has changed the dynamics of our home a lot. I miss the big kids a ton, especially Makenna who seems so little to be in school all day (don't worry, I felt the same way when Carter went off to Kindy). But both kids are loving school and really thriving there. I must say I am loving my one-on-one time with Addison every day. She is at the most charming age right now and she is flourishing with all the attention she is getting! We are starting most of our extra curricular activities in the next week and I am so glad we've had these first couple of weeks of school to get settled into a routine and to remind the kids that life is not all fun and games when school is in session.

I must admit that after the first two weeks of making the drive to the school that I was about to throw in the towel. I mean, we weren't unhappy in our previous school and I just wasn't sure it was worth it. Then, last Thursday Allen and I attended the school curriculum night and we were completely BLOWN AWAY by the amazing curriculum the school offers. Carter's teacher was particularly impressive and I walked out of there knowing we made the right decision for our kids. I also love that we have every Friday off of school. The kids will have field trips and are supposed to use part of the day to work on their monthly projects but it's been totally dreamy having a 3 day weekend every week!

Just for fun, here are my BTS jars. I needed something to fill the jars with after the 4th of July and decided on a BTS theme, which I've never done before. I love it!! I made the wreath out of brown lunch sacks and love how it turned out (all for about $1). Next year I hope to add some cute ABC/ 123 embellishments on it too.

Family Reunion

We drove to Vancouver, WA (across the river from Portland) to my sister's house on August 1. We had a family reunion scheduled the 2nd week of August but I decided if we were making the LONG drive that I wanted to stay for two full weeks. Allen flew home the next morning so he could spend the week working.

The first week was full of a lot of hanging out for the kids. My kids absolutely adore all of their cousins and they had a fabulous time getting to spend so much time with their Baldwin cousins over two weeks. The weather was up and down during the time we were there (welcome to the PNW, right?) but it didn't stop the kids from swimming the pool every day (in 60 degree weather a couple times).

Mason also taught them that if you put dish soap on the trampoline with a bit of water, you get LOTS of bubbles. They went through and entire bottle of soap over a few days doing this.

We were able to celebrate Maddie's 5th birthday with a fun ice cream themed party. Unfortunately she was sick on her bday but we were happy to celebrate with her anyway.

The kids had LOTS of late nights:


Lots of craft projects (completely organized by the older kids - loved it!):

Tons of yummy treats (and food):


Dress up and pretend play (my little nieces were so good about playing with the younger kids. I loved hearing them direct them in "Little house on the Prairie" and school)

On one of the warm days we went and played in the Hood river for the day. The kids had a ball swimming, digging in the sand and having mud wars. We were hoping to squeeze in one more river day but the weather never really cooperated again.
My sister and I were able to squeeze in a Girls Night Out too. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, shopped for a couple of hours and then saw the Broadway production of South Pacific in downtown Portland one night. It was so much fun getting to spend a few child free hours together.

There was also a lot of pickup basketball played, walks with blackberry picking (yum!), video game playing (by the boys) and going to the movies.

The second week, the rest of my family joined in the fun. Allen flew back on Saturday morning. My mom and dad drove up with Parker and Bailey and then Teresa, Steve and Christina flew up a couple days later.

The first day we were together we drove up to Mount St. Helen's for the day. The drive was absolutely gorgeous and we loved learning about the volcano and the day it erupted in 1980. Unfortunately, it was totally cloudy and we were unable to see the volcano at all. It was a bummer but we just had to laugh about it (like I said, welcome to the PNW!). We had a picnic lunch in the balmy 50 degree weather and then headed back home.

That afternoon the kids filled up a bunch of water balloons for a water fight and we came out to find the girls looking like this:
It was too funny to not take a picture of!

We headed off to the beach for a few days and had the best time. We stayed in this same beach house 5 years ago (I was pregnant with Makenna at the time!) and we were excited to stay there again. The house is right on the water and is big enough to accommodate us all. On the way to the beach we made a stop in downtown Portland to go to Voodoo donuts. It's a very famous shop that has been featured on lots of Food Network shows and boasts being on the top 10 best donut list for the country. We waited for an hour in line just to get in the store. We were a bit skeptical while standing in line but they were the YUMMIEST donuts ever. They had a huge variety and our favorite was the maple donut with bacon on top. I know it sounds disgusting but it was SO good. We also had a bubblegum donut (makenna), an M&M donut (carter), a mango donut, a peanut butter/oreo donut and a couple others. They were so good!



Our trips to the OR coast always include the same activities. Trips to the tidepools:

Sitting in the hot tub:

Then running down to the beach and jumping in the FREEZING water:

And then running back to the hot tub. Addie was not too happy about being left standing on the beach while everyone jumped in. The water was about 52 degrees on this day and I could barely stand to get my feet wet, let alone jump in. Of course Allen had to get in on the fun as he feels he always has to get in ocean when he has the opportunity (crazy!)

There was lots of game playing:

Spoiling of Addie (who was beloved by everyone and fought over by the cousins):

My mom brought lots of craft projects that kept the kids occupied for hours at time. We took walks on the beach and had fun finding sea creatures everywhere.

On the way home from the beach we always stop at Tillamook cheese factory for the tour, cheese sampling and their amazing ice cream:

(Carter's interesting outfit is due to the fact that he jumped in the ocean full clothed right before we were leaving. I was completely out of clothes for him so he wore dirty jeans and a pj top for the rest of the day. I was not too amused at the time but it was actually funny).

The day after returning from the beach we made the epic 24 hour drive home in just two days. It was pretty brutal and I'm not sure we've ever been more tired in our lives. We had to make it home in order to start school the following morning. The kids actually missed the first week of school so we were pretty desperate to make it home in time for the 2nd week.

We had a wonderful time being together with my family. A special thanks to the Jackson's for hosting our big group and to my mom and dad for all their organization of the events.

Rachelle's Wedding

On Saturday evening, after Jake's wedding and luncheon my niece Rachelle got married. We hurried from the luncheon and drove to SLC and met my parents at their hotel. Addie and I slept for about and hour while Allen {somewhat grudgingly} took the big kids for a quick swim. We were so hot and tired after the long hours in the sun at the temple. Originally I had planned for all of us to wear our Jake wedding attire to Rachelle's wedding but after wearing those clothes for 2 days we were in dire need of showers and fresh clothing.

Anyway, we rushed to Cactus and Tropicals, a nursery in SLC where Rachelle's wedding was held to help set up for the reception. It was chaotic but thanks to my parents and sister, the whole thing turned out really nice. My sis and mom made some AMAZING desserts for the reception and the setting of the wedding was beautiful.

Unfortunately I did not take as many pics as I wanted to since we were helping with food. Here are the three good ones that I got. All the pics I took at the ceremony turned out bad. Rachelle left disposable cameras on the reception tables and needless to say, my kids had a REALLY good time with those. She posted the pics on her Facebook page and Allen and I laughed our heads off looking at them. I will try to get copies so I can post them here. They had a really fun time taking pics of each other, the other guests and everything else you can imagine.

After the wedding it was late but we were hungry for some non-dessert food so we headed to In N Out for a quick bite with my little bro and his girlfriend. We had never met Christina so it was fun to chat with her and get to know her {she's an avid reader too so we had a ball comparing books}. We finally got back to the hotel at about 11:00 p.m. where we crashed for a few hours before driving to Portland the next morning.

The wedding turned out beautifully and we are so happy for Rachelle and John and we are so happy we could be there for their big day!

Jake's Wedding

We started our whirlwind 17 day trip by traveling to Utah for Allen's youngest brother, Jake's , wedding. We had originally planned to fly to the Pacific NW for our family reunion this year but when Jake got engaged and planned his wedding the weekend before we were planning to go, we decided to drive since we would be half way there anyway. The timing worked out great. It worked out even better when my niece decided to get married the same day as Jake's wedding. We basically killed 3 birds with one stone!

Anyway, we drove up to UT (a 10 hour drive) on Thursday afternoon and made it by about midnight. We stayed with Mindy and stayed up WAY too late talking that night. The next morning we slept in a bit and then had lunch at Cafe Rio. Hooray for yummy and cheap Utah food! After lunch we headed over to Erica's house (the bride) to help with reception preparations. Jake and Erica decided to have the reception the evening before their wedding ceremony. The reception was gorgeous and filled with lots of yummy food. My favorite was the cookie table they had with about 20 varieties of different cookies! It was so fun to try everything (and when I say we tried everything, I mean it!).

We took tons of pictures the hour before the reception began:

Family Picture attempt #1:

Family Picture attempt #2:
{Neither turned out stellar but baby is definitely making it's presence known in this pic!}

The loves of my life:

Some of the grandkids:

Grandma with her granddaughters: The guys:
Jake and Erica had a fun dance party at the end of the reception {where I got some amazingly hysterical footage of my kids dancing) and then we headed back to Mindy's tired, sweaty and full of yummy treats {where we stayed up way too late talking once again}.

The next morning we had to be at the Provo temple bright and early for the ceremony. It was a lovely ceremony and we were all emotional watching Jake and Erica make their sacred and eternal covenants to each other.

After the wedding we took more pictures!

It was a HOT day and the kids played and played in the fountains - no matter how many times we told them not to {at one point we actually had to fish Addie OUT of a fountain - yeah, good parenting there}:

Part of Frost clan:

The bride and groom with the siblings:

Allen's mom put on a lovely wedding luncheon for the family and friends at a beautiful new reception center in Provo. The food was fab (catered by Magleby's) and it was fun to be together for a few more hours. This was the lone picture I took at the luncheon of our new niece Madeline. She kept giving me these adorable grins that I just couldn't resist.

We are so happy for Jake and Erica and are excited to get to know Erica even better! She is a smart and fun girl and is a great addition to our family!

Next up, my niece Rachelle's wedding! {Hoping/planning to get caught up on my blogging this week. If only my daily afternoon nap would quit getting in the way!}

The Truth about our Summer

Yay! We are home from our epic 17 day vacation. We had a grand time but I do not recommend coming home the day before school starts. It's been a bumpy start to the school year. I have been busy with laundry, getting groceries, unpacking and making sure my kiddos get adjusted to our new schedule. I have A LOT to blog about though and I'm going to go in chronological order.

At the beginning of the summer I was so jazzed about having a fun and productive summer with my kiddos. We were planned and scheduled and things went smoothly for the first couple of weeks. But then.... we got this:

And everything besides SURVIVING this summer went right out the window!! Surprised? Yeah, I'm still feeling a little shell shocked about the whole thing, even though this is a planned pregnancy. I spent the majority of July feeling like I wanted to die and my poor kids took the brunt of it. I tried hard to keep some semblance of normalcy around here but I'm pretty sure I failed miserably! Luckily, my "morning sickness" usually hit around 3 p.m. so I was able to keep it together until then and Allen was able to take over when he got home. In short, we ate out way too much, my kids watched way too much TV and my house was messy for the better part of a month! Allen also got a BIG promotion at work this summer so he has been working an insane number of hours adjusting to his new job making that first trimester rough on everyone.

The good news is that at 15 weeks most of the MS seems to have passed, though I still have my moments most days. This pregnancy feels pretty similar to my pregnancy with Carter - extreme nausea unless I am eating, plus being starving most of the time. It's been a weird combination - nausea + hunger. I've managed to pack on a few (haha) pounds already. It seems that no matter how hard I try or how much I swear "this time will be different" I still gain lots of weight. You'd think by my 4th pregnancy I would just accept that's how my body does things.

Most people know I was pretty adamantly against having a 4th baby so I will just address it right now. Allen felt very strongly that there was another baby out there for us. I felt pretty content with 3. I was so sure that we were done that I worked my tail off last fall and lost the rest of my baby weight and felt awesome. But his nagging feeling wouldn't go away. I prayed and prayed and prayed about it a lot and didn't ever really feel a definitive answer either way. So without going into a lot of details I will just say that I could have sat on the fence for the rest of my life and am pretty much going on faith with this one. I am HAPPY that the decision is made and that I'll never, ever have to think about it again.

To say that the kids are thrilled to pieces would be an enormous understatement. We told them pretty early on because I just felt so lousy and I felt like they needed to understand why. Carter and Makenna have been praying for another baby for a long time and just couldn't understand why their prayers were not being answered. The first thing out of Makenna's mouth when we told them was, "oh mom, Heavenly Father FINALLY answered our prayers." It was the cutest thing ever. She is forever kissing my tummy and they have been great helpers. Addie has no clue what is going on even though we talk about the baby all the time. Carter is 100% convinced that he is getting a brother this time around and prays about it every single day. I guess we will know in a few weeks!

Anyway, that is the truth about how our summer really went around here. I try not to think too much about having a nursing newborn next summer too but I'm sure this baby will be a huge

blessing to our family. I did already post my pregnancy news of Facebook so most of my friends already know our news but I wanted a record of this pregnancy too!