First Day of School! First Day of School!

Leah Lou Lovely on her first day of school

Walking to her first day of class

Mommy's big mistake.  How dumb can I be?!  I took Leah to the wrong classroom, sent her to put her backpack away, even took this great picture, only to realize after she had sat down with the rest of the class that she was in the wrong room.  Duh!  I grabbed my embarrassed daughter and we started over.  I am just not a good mom sometimes. 

Troy Boy, patiently waiting for Mom to come back

Millie, chillin'

Back to School!

It is now an official tradition.  Having this cake, I mean.  I know this because Sam came to me and told me that the best day to have this cake would be on Sunday night, the day before school started.   It was an expectation, something that he just knew would happen. So, here it is.  I complied.  They love this cake that marks the beginning of another school year.  And this year is special because Leah gets to start kindergarten. They were all so excited they devoured their cake and quickly went to bed.  Here's to another school year.  Bring it on!

Happy Birthday!

Michelle's Cake.  This just reminded me of her. 

Troy wanted a race car cake.  This is actually made of rice crispy treat and has a chocolate marshmallow frosting in the middle.  Thanks Martha Stewart.

Shaunie's cake.  This is an ice cream cake with a brownie layer.  Yum.  Good choice, Shaunie!

I can add these to my long line of fun birthday cakes.  The kids picked theirs, and I picked Michelle's.  These are the August birthdays that we celebrated on our Sunday dinner with the Mangum clan.  On the actual birthdays we have taken the family out to a restaurant that the birthday kid chooses.  For Shaunie, we went to Souper Salad.  It was fun.  Troy chose 'the grape store' or Olive Garden.  It has been fun to spend the time as a family and not have the focus be on presents and parties.  That just gets old to me after a while.  I hope that each child has felt special and knows that they are a very important member of our family.  That's what I think that birthdays are for. 

Cake Top

While my mom and I were looking for some meat for Brazilian Rice and Beans, we found this.  It is the cake top to my wedding cake.  It even had the real flowers still.  I originally thought this had been thrown away long ago, but here it is.  And, no, we didn't eat it.  Yuck.

Jordanelle

Marcus and Troy eating lunch

Millie, enjoying the cousins and food

Stud Man Jeremy

The Calm Before the Storm

The day started off innocently enough...then all Hell broke loose.  Okay, so it wasn't a hurricane or anything, but it was quite the adventure.  My dad rented a boat up at Jordanelle Reservoir for the day.  We were going to have it all day.  We were going to be able to ride in and be pulled by it all day. We were going to have lunch, dinner, and snacks by the water all day.  That was the plan.  And that is what was happening.  The kids were enjoying the water and mud at the water's edge and the adults and older kids were enjoying taking turns riding in, or being pulled by, the boat.  It was nice and hot, with a little breeze.  We started getting lunch ready: hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, soda and lots of other stuff.  The kids had just eaten and some were waiting for Dad to return from his latest ride.  We had seen the low, dark, billowing, clouds just to the south of us, but we waved them off and told ourselves that 'the clouds travel west, not north,' and that 'those clouds won't be here for a while, they're too far away'.  But our words had no power.  The clouds did come.  And suddenly.  At first it was just a strong, cold wind that blew.  We scampered around, at first trying to just gather in the food and paper products so they wouldn't blow away and litter the ground.  Then, we all realized that the wind was only the beginning, and without saying anything our defensive action changed from gathering to saving.    This wasn't going away, or even letting up a little.  The wind increased in speed and chill and with it came stinging rain.  We starting piling the kids into any open vehicle.  Minivans and SUV's quickly filled with frightened children.  Mom's ran around gathering what was left of the folding chairs, food, coolers and blankets and stuffed them into any space not filled with a child.  Sam, crying, and barefoot, stole down to the dock to beg Jeremy to come away from the waves rocking the out-of-control boat.  Jeremy left the boat, not able to resist Sam's plea's, and my dad, without a life jacket, steered the boat away from the dock and over to the marina.  When I finally climbed into the van I tried to calm the children's cries.  I said a prayer, yelling over the storm outside and asked Heavenly Father to bring peace and quite to the weather and our hearts and to protect my dad as he battled the waves. I then put on a movie to distract the scared and emotional kids from the storm.  Within moments the rain stopped and the wind calmed.  Everything was ok.  We were a little wind-worn and the kids were a little tear-stained, but we were all safe.  

The Budding Photographer (s)

Troy, taking his own picture.

The Mom

The Millster Meister

The Dad

Obviously, Troy's favorite model

These shots were taken by Troy.  After the three older kids spent 10 days with Grandma and Grandpa in Utah, it was time to pick them up.  We left on a Saturday night  with only Millie and Troy in tow, and headed to St. George.  We found a place to eat after our well-intentioned host, Sterling Coons, burnt our dinner.  It wasn't actually his fault.  The problem was that when you mix fire with lots of old grease, whatever gets close to that is not going to come out edible.  So, we set out to find some food.  We found The Pizza Factory and while waiting for our food Troy decided to get creative with the camera.  Here are the results.  You can tell who he likes the best out of our group, and she was a beautiful model. :-)

Funny Faces and a Domino Church

Troy and Leah have been ummm....borrowing the camera.  Here are some of their pictures.  These two have proven to be very good friends.  They get along best when the others are gone and they can play anything from Barbies, to preschool, and house to Legos.  They are fun to watch and listen to.  I will be sad when Leah goes to school and leaves Troy alone at home.  I guess I shouldn't be too sad because that situation will lend itself Troy and Millie playing together more.   I guess it's more of one stage passing on to another.   Is it sad to mourn the passing of a stage?  They seem to come and go so fast that just when you get used to one, another comes and takes it's place.  I guess these can be considered part of the Joys of Motherhood. 

I wanted to showcase one of our latest creations.  Can you guess what it is?  Jeremy made it with the kids.  Hint:  Yes, that's a pulpit and those are choir seats.

Seven Sam

My little Sam turned 7 this last week.  For some reason that seemed really old to me.  People tell me all the time to enjoy the time while they are young, and now I think I'm beginning to understand why.  Sam just needs to stay about 5 and that would work for me.  I guess, though, that I'll just add this on to the list of things I can't control while I try to soak up every moment of him being 7. 

Sam requested cupcakes for his class on his birthday.  I prefer not to buy cupcakes because, well, they are just too pricey to me, they taste gross,  and nobody really eats them anyway.  But since he insisted, I decided to steal an idea from my very creative sister-in-law.  She made an alligator cake out of cupcakes.  I looked online to make sure I got the details right and I went to work.  Here is how it turned out.  Sam was very excited to see me show up not just with cupcakes, but with ALLIGATOR cupcakes.  I felt like a good mom.  We handed them out as the kids lined up to go home (Sam almost went with them until I reminded him that he was coming with me) and Sam was practically walking on air. 

Later in the week we had a family birthday party for Sam at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  I made his "real" cake, we sang Happy Birthday and he opened presents.  I think he had a great birthday. 

He requested a Batman cake.  This is an ice cream cake with Oreo crumbs for decoration.  It is made out of ice cream sandwiches and was SO easy. Her is a link to the recipe.

Sam had wanted these for a while. 

Couldn't resist putting this in.  Troy, Ammon and Carson are so cute as they try to figure out the game.

We also got him this book about ocean animals.  It has fun 3D puzzles and lots of fun information.  Perfect for Sam.

This is another one I couldn't resist putting in.  Sam and his cousin Ani have a lot in common.  Here they are putting together the 3D puzzle of an octopus. 

Leah--the Graduate

I'm a few weeks late on this update, but at least it's getting out there.  Leah graduated from preschool and is now officially ready to enter Kindergarten.  She had a great graduation ceremony that showed off all she has learned this last year.  They sang songs, spouted off nursery rhymes, and showed off their alphabet and number recognition skills.  It was awesome!  She has really loved her teachers and I have appreciated the love they showed her.  Here are some pics of the event.  

 Leah's class.  You can see Leah's white cap in the middle of the back row.

The graduation procession. My beautiful Leah-Loo after she received her "degree".

Leah with her very loving teacher, Mrs. York.

 The children's creations were on display around the room.  Here is Leah's handiwork. This poster is now on display at our house.

Pictures

We got our pictures done by a very talented friend of Celeste.  Her name is Lindsey Shaun and she handled the big group very well.  Go to her blog and look at more if you want. Lindsey's Blog

Haws Happenings

My beautiful Shaunie and baby sister.  Kelli is going to Chicago, Illinois Spanish speaking mission.

My sister Celeste blessed her little girl, Halle.  She is a beautiful baby and it was so fun to be there
.

There is NOTHING better than playing at grandma and grandpa's house.  The tire swing, play ground and motor cycle rides really made it memorable.

  

We also went to Pirate Island.  It is a great big place like a pirate themed Chuck E. Cheese.

For Family Home Evening we went Bowling.  We took three lanes and played as hard as we could.  I think the kids beat most of the adults.  It was a very entertaining night.