Wednesday, September 16, 2015

August Misc.

A few more pictures from August:

This is when we picked up Dorie from dog boarding when we got home from our Norway trip. As you can see, the kids and Dorie were very excited about this!

Sam has been making his bed every morning - with all of his toys in it. Hehe.

One of Mike's friends had a birthday party at the park, and they set up this cool water slide. The kids had a blast.


The girls made this crown for Max

One Sunday, Sam decided he needed a third eye

Sam having fun at a playdate at the splash pad 

All the kids had a dentist appointment this summer. In Nora's x-ray, they noticed that she had an extra tooth above one of her front teeth, so they sent us to see the oral surgeon who did a 3D xray, and said it needed to come out since it was right up against the root of her permanent tooth. She had oral surgery to remove the extra tooth the Friday before school started. She healed up really quickly, and was back to her normal self in a couple of days. This picture is from the day of the surgery after we got home, where Dorie was hanging out and watching TV with her. 

Max mostly likes to hang out upstairs. He often comes and pokes his head out through the railing to watch what is going on on the main floor, while remaining in his safety zone.


The kids filled Sam's tent with pillows, soft blankets, stuffed animals and put Sadie in there.

Ugh - Mike and I went up to bed one day to find that Sam had been practicing his artistic abilities on one of our bed pillows with a permanent marker. I showed this picture to Kate, and she said that it looked like he was drawing himself drawing on the pillow, with mom and dad finding him and being upset. HAHAHA!

Dorie loves to hangout in the knee-hole of the kitchen desk while I am working there. I call it her wolf cave. 

We took the kids to the bank to set up their own little savings accounts so they can put the money they earn in there. This is a picture of Sam while we were in the waiting area. He loves money, so this made me laugh.

I helped Dorie take a "selfie". I think she was trying to roll her eyes at me

This is Max sound asleep on my pillow one morning. I was so jealous that he got to go back to sleep, but he is SOOO cute.

Nora and Dorie on National Dog Day

Evie photobombing my picture of Max

Dorie is not the only furry critter that loves tennis balls...

Nora finally finished earning enough money to get a new bike, so we took her to go get one. She loves it!

A picture from our neighborhood's annual cookie contest. Sam sure had a lot of fun going around and sampling all the cookies!

Mike's Birthday

We had a good time celebrating Mike's birthday at Sunday dinner.

Love the Backer's cake!

Singing the birthday song...

Getting ready to blow the candles out - hehe!



Each of the kids made him a special present



After presents, Beth, Reece, Mike and I tried playing the Battlestar Galactica game. It is a little complicated, but very fun.

It takes a pretty long time to play a whole game, so we will have to spread it out over a few weeks.

Scotland Day

Karin's family made a short visit to Utah for a weekend, and while they were here we had a Scotland culture day at Grammy and Grandpop's house.

Mom's Scottish table

 I made a little powerpoint presentation about the basics of Scotland that we went over with the kids.

The kids learning about castles, and coloring cardboard castles


We were able to sample a delicious variety of short bread cookies

Cute little Baby V!

Nora and Will built a model of Stirling Castle from a diagram that Grammy printed out for them

Cute James, modeling the kilt and vest for us while holding a West Highland Terrier.

Starting a New School Year

The day before school started, we went to the elementary school open house, and the kids got to meet their new teachers and see their new classrooms!




The girls had their first day of school on August 19.


We continued our tradition of walking together to school on the first day

Poor Sam was pretty jealous - Kindergarten starts a week later than the other grades to give the teachers time to do a one-on-one assessment of each of the new kindergarteners coming in. I took Sam and Dorie to play at the park, and Sam was happy about that.

We took Dorie on a walk to pick the girls up from their first day. Dorie is doing sooooooo much better with her leash manners!

Grammy and Grandpop were in Provo for education week, so we met up for dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. What a fun way to celebrate the first day of school!

 On August 26 Sam finally had his first day of school!


They even had the school mascot out greeting the kindergarteners on their first day!


Sam was very happy and excited when he got home from school, and he decided that Dorie needed dog school. He was working hard on teaching her the ABCs, but she didn't take her studies too seriously...ZZzzzz. Haha, silly pup.
The kids really like their new teachers and classes, and the year is off to a good start!