UNO

One of our favorite pastimes, as of late, is UNO.  It's been so much fun playing with Lucy and Graham.  We play when we're waiting for dinner to be done, or if the house is getting too crazy and we need to focus on something together.  Sunday mornings are a good time for us, too.  Graham and I play in the mornings every once in a while as we wait for his afternoon kinder class.  

I love how Benny is saying "cheese" but is looking at me instead of the camera.  

Graham is always so excited when he draws a card with "power".  I think 'Draw Two' is his favorite.  His hands can't hold all the cards, so he lays them out on floor on his side of the table.  We have a Dora UNO set that makes the game pretty quick.  Usually we choose to play with the regular cards and those games have been known to last WAY TOO LONG.  

It's fun to teach them some of my trash talkin' skillz, too ; )  

Sweet Lucy

Oh, my Lucy girl.  Where to start.  I love this growing girl so much.  She is getting too old, too fast and it makes my heart hurt to think she'll be eighteen and graduating in nine years.  We're already half way there.  So in the same amount of time we've had her, she'll be nearly ready to leave for college.  Let's move on and not think about that too much.  Too sad.

Isn't she beautiful?  

This girl can be the sweetest kid you've ever met and then in a moment of frustration, she gets super fiery, but then almost as quickly as she got mean, she's apologizing and trying to be better.  Every night before she goes to sleep, after we've tucked everyone in for the day, she comes out and apologizes for "doing anything mean to you today".  Many nights I hear her yelling from her bed to Graham, "Graham, I'm sorry I yelled at you today."  

I love this picture!  I see this sneaky/goofy face a lot.  

Lucy still doesn't love school, but she puts up with it all right.  She's a fabulous student, though, and she always does her homework and studies for spelling tests.  She and her dad have an agreement that whenever she scores 100% on a spelling test, she gets a candy bar.  He's forced to pay up most of the time.  

Dad and Lucy read together every night and I love hearing it.  Right now Dad is reading the first Harry Potter book to her.  They read for 20-30 minutes after the boys are in bed and she has done her 30 minutes of personal reading (which she hates.....any ideas on how to get her to enjoy reading?).  She enjoys this time with her Dad and I know that Jason loves it, too, and is equally disappointed when something gets in the way and he can't read. 

Lucy has a great friend in her class this year that she really enjoys.  What a blessing!  This move has been tough on my girl, but she has been a champ about it.  She has moments of sadness and frustration with Dad's job, but she gets over it quickly and can find a bright spot soon enough.  She's pretty disgusted with the heat here, though.  I wonder where she hears that from?

She is loving her Achievement Days activities at the church.  She has a group of about 10-15 girls and some fun, energetic leaders.  They have activities every Tuesday, except for the first Tuesday of the month.  She's always disappointed on those weeks.  

Lucy Goose tries hard to be patient with her little brothers, but struggles with the 6 year old one quite a bit.  He can bring out the meanness in her at the drop of a hat with his goofiness and teasing tactics.  It's pretty entertaining to listen in when Lucy decides to "let him play with her".  She tries hard to script most of his moves and his choice of character (he usually wants to be a dog and she doesn't "allow" him to be an animal of any kind.....she hates hearing him bark all the time).  For anyone that knows Graham, you can guess how well that goes over. 

I love hearing her sweet singing voice and watching her dance around without a care in the world.  She loves the song, "Call me, Maybe",  and she knows most of the words to the songs on the Sara Bareilles album that I have.

We sure love our Lucy-Girl.  She always tries to do the right thing and make good choices.  I enjoy our talks and the questions she asks.  Even though it makes me sad to think about her growing up too fast, I'm excited to see and know the young woman she is becoming.

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

Lucille Jane turned nine years old back on the fourteenth.  We tried hard to make it a special day for our sweet girl.  

Here's Lucy right after waking up.  Daddy made pancakes and bacon (this girl LOVES bacon).  All of us woke her up singing "Happy Birthday" as loud as we could.  Side note:  Benny still sings Happy Birthday nearly every morning.  He loves the cha-cha-cha part that the kids learned at school.

Becky, Lucy, and Brooklyn

We invited two of Lucy's new sweet friends to come to dinner with us.  Lucy loves a good burger these days, so we went to The Habit.  Such good girls!  After dinner we went straight to the church so they could go to their Achievement Day activity.  

I love this picture of my girl.  She's looking so grown up!  

Lucy still prefers brownies to cake, so I delivered.  I know you're jealous of my decorating skillz.  Yes, that's an L.....you know, for Lucy.  

After brownies and ice cream, we did our traditional "Hot 'n Cold" game to find her presents.  She reallly wanted an iTouch, but we talked her out of it so that maybe she could get a nicer one for Christmas.  We got her a cute door hanger to decorate, a floating lounge chair for the pool.  She ended up taking them both back and using the cash for something else.  Yes, we have officially reached the age when my child no longer likes the gifts I choose for her.  Oh well.  

It was a fun day celebrating with little Lucy.  Now, if only I could figure out a way to keep her 9 forever.  

First Encounter of the Tooth Fairy Kind

This little guy lost his first tooth a couple weeks back.  If you look close at the picture below, you can see that his permanent tooth has already grown in behind where his baby tooth was.  I'm hoping it'll make it's way forward as he loses more.  

He was pretty nervous about me wiggling it.  Lucy had warned him about my tactics.  I wiggle it a few times and if it's really, really loose, I yank it out.  I had to wrestle this kid, though.  He put up a good fight.  In my defense, they are always relieved that I took care of it.  By the time I take matters into my own hands, they've been complaining for a couple days that it hurts or it's bugging them.  

I think it's hilarious that this has become a "mom job".  Jason steers clear of the teeth-pulling scene.   

Good Behavior Jars

We still continue to do our "Good Behavior Jars" at our home.  The kids earn colored rocks to put in their jar when they exhibit good behavior (sharing, doing something without being asked, not whining when asked to do something, getting ready quickly for school, kind words, etc.).  Last month they finally filled them all up.  They decided ahead of time what they were working towards, so we made a trip to Target for their prizes.  

Benny didn't have a jar yet, but we were hoping this Spiderman pillow would help him stay in his own bed at night (he thinks he needs someone to sleep in bed with him).  It didn't work.  We started a jar for him, too, though.  

Here's all the kiddos right before our family scripture time.  They're all jammied out and ready for bed.   

Graham decided he was going to start "collecting toys".  This means he is going to start getting toys that all belong to a big set.  These are the first of his collection.  

Lucy lucked out today.  She got her jar prize, but also had birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa to spend as well.  She chose a little Lego to buy with her dough.  

Rollerblades were her prize.  She had to fill up her jar four times to get these babies.  It's been so fun watching her get better and better.  The first week she wore them everywhere.  She'd glide around the house all evening.  

Love that smile!

Back to School

School started super early here in Phoenix.  August 6th, to be exact.  Poor Lucy didn't get out of school in Oxnard until June 23rd.  Her summer was cut short this year, but with the new move, we were anxious to go to school and make new friends.  

We started a new tradition this year (thanks for the ideas, Lichelley).  The Sunday night before the first day, we had a special dinner planned for the kids. That morning we had each of them decorate their own crowns.  We didn't tell them what it was for, though.  

After church, we sent them to their rooms to play so that Dad and I could set up.  When our meal and atmosphere was ready, we called them in.  We had fun announcing each of them separately and presenting them their crowns.   

Princess Lucy

Prince Graham

Prince Benny

Dinner itself was Jason's homemade pizza, a crowd favorite.  

We talked about how each of them are children of Heavenly Father and how that makes them royalty.  We discussed the importance of gaining knowledge on earth so that we can take what we learn with us into the eternities.  School provides the opportunity for them to gain knowledge.  

It was fun to focus on each of them individually and point out how their strengths are going to help make them good students.  

Graham 

My little buddy started kindergarten this year.  

We didn't know they had to wear uniforms until about 4 days before school started.  YIKES!  We ordered some online that night and they got here just in time.  

He's enjoying his teacher, Mrs. Estrada.  He only goes for half a day (afternoon), but he loves going early and eating lunch with his friends.  After only one day, he wanted me to just drop him off and not go in with him.  

Lucy was quite nervous about starting at a new school.  She missed her friends at Marshall Elementary.  She was not pleased with the early start to her 4th grade year.  Luckily, a friend from our ward is in her class!  They get to sit by each other and have become great buddies.  

I couldn't get this one to flip.  

I actually love that they have uniforms.  It makes getting ready in the morning super easy and I think they look so cute all spiffied up for school.  I think it helps them take it more seriously, too.