Thank You!

I just wanted to send a shout out to all of you who read my blog. A lot of you know that I have been going through some rough times lately. I know that I have been terrible about calling and returning calls. I know that a lot of you read my blog as a barometer of how I am surviving life. I am doing fine. We are at the tail end of our long summer of visitors. Life will return to "normal" soon. So, I have to send you out my deepest and most sincere Thank You! I appreciate your thoughts and concerns!

School Teacher Revival!

For those of you who don't know, I used to teach. Yes, I did. I taught first grade for 5 years and I loved it. Not to brag, but I was fairly decent at it too. I ended up quitting my job to stay home with Kyra when she was born but, I never really lost the itch.

Every once in a while, when my inner clam, zen self gets flustered, I pull out the repressed lesson plans in me and we try them out here at home. I have summer reading and math books. Yes, I know... I am one of THOSE moms. My kids are very, VERY into arts and crafts. Lucky for them, their mother is too! So, a lot of our summer and off track time is spent with the right side of our brains.

I also will admit that I am not afraid of a mess (no comments on my house here please) and I will get my hands dirty no problem. A lot of our projects get sticky and gooey. Monday, after I dropped Kyra off at school, I came home to my boys and my niece and nephew. My brother in law was still sound asleep and I didn't want to just turn on the TV. So, we made Kool-Aid play dough.

Kool-Aid play dough is fun, easy, exciting, smells great and cheap to make. I will buy normal play dough but, more often than not, I make my own. The kids love it. Here is the recipe for you to try at home:

1 C. flour
1/2 C. salt
3 T. oil
1 Package Sugar Free Kool-Aid (or the knock off)
1 C. boiling water.

Pretty self explanatory. Add the first 4 ingredients. Mix it up a bit. Add the water and mix with a fork. When it cools down a bit, turn it out onto the counter and knead it up really well. Then, when it has cooled even more, hand it to your kiddos.

Later in the day, my brother in law, took off with his kids and my kids were left bored (which I still don't understand.) Well, my acutely tuned teacher brained switched on and I whipped up three batches of pudding. The kids took the bowls and paint brushes outside and I let them loose. They love it. It is relatively easy and cheap and the kids love that they can lick their brushes clean. A little yucky, I know, but it keeps them happy.

Anyway, just a couple of ideas to keep you in the know of what is going on in my madness of a home!

Kyra's First Day of School

Kyra finally started school again. I hate to say finally because I truly do enjoy spending time with her. She really is a wonderfully joyous child to have and I miss her when she is in school.

This year, she is starting second grade. SECOND GRADE!!!! When did she find time to grow up? I can't believe that she is already this far in school. Walking her to school today was a bit bitter sweet. For some reason, she thought that she was only having a meet the teacher day and didn't realize that it was a full on school day. She was rather upset and wasn't fully prepared for the whole thing. I don't know how we got our lines crossed but, somehow we did.

She looked darling though and was excited once she saw her cute friend, Kara. Kara has a way of making things better. Upon coming home, Kyra was thrilled that school had started. She was even more thrilled that I had packed her a chicken salad sandwich for lunch and she was on cloud nine that we had brownies for after school snacks.

I am having a harder and harder time with these first days of school. Next week when I drop Kaeson off, I think that I will end up being one big puddle.

Kyra's Birthday with the Griner Clan

By Sunday, I was pretty beat. I was exhausted with running around getting Kyra ready for the start of school, attending the Francopolooza, getting over having sick kids, entertaining company and trying to stay moderately on top of the house. However, with my side of the family, we get together on a Sunday around the time of your birthday to celebrate! So, my family came on over to pig out on hamburgers. That has become my new "typical" meal to be served.

With my family, it is always a blast. My sister found a snake in my driveway and had to show it off to the family. After arguing with my sister that my mission was NOT a cruise but was indeed a hard core mission, I threw a glass of water on her and she returned the favor. So, we did get in a bit of our water fight tradition. And besides having the backyard look completely white trash, we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. I have to work out a plan for that yard!

I loved making Kyra's cake. It didn't turn out exactly how I had wanted it to turn out but, it worked. She wanted me to make an elaborate ocean scene. But, I was just out of steam.

We are very close to the final moments of Kyra's birthday. The rest is coming in a week when we finally throw her friend's party. That will be the last of the Birthday Bash!

Francopolooza

When it comes to the Franco Family, we are all Leos. Lets just say that August gets very expensive when it comes to buying gifts. Here is the run down of birthday people and their dates.
Harvey- July 28
Haidy- July 31
Ethan- July 31
Me- August 2
Sabrina- August 4
John- August 9
Kyra- August 14
Ernesto- August 25
Whew!

Well in order to accommodate everyone this year, and because everyone was in town, my inlaws decided to throw a huge birthday bash for everyone involved. They asked for my to bake a huge birthday cake but, I decided to leave that in the skillful hands of Costco. The party was a bit over the top with hula dancers, accordion players, salsa music and the lighting of the same birthday cake 8 times but, the kids seemed to enjoy it. Happy Birthday Everyone!

The Franco's Hit Moab

My brother in law, John, and his children are in town for a bit and have wanted to do some sight seeing. They wanted to do a trip to see some red rock so they took off for Moab. Kyra, Toad and I took the weekend off and sent them on their way!

Kyra's Birthday

I have been getting a lot of slack from certain people (you know who you are) that we celebrate birthdays for up to a week at a time. However, there is logic and reason behind it. And yes, you will see all of the blog entries posted separately. So, just deal with it!!!!!

Cute Kyra turned 7 on August 14th. We went in for her annual check up to find that she is exactly on track. She is at the 0% for her weight and the 15% for her height. Yes, she is just as dainty as a fairy. (We tease her that she is going to go on her first day riding in a booster seat. She doesn't like that very much, but, she has to deal with her mother's pathetic teasing nature.) At her appointment we discussed her asthma and a terrible cough that she had developed. The doctor was concerned that it may turn to walking pneumonia and that she should take it easy!

That was fine with her. We sent Dad and Kaeson on a Moab trip with Uncle John and the cousins. She wasn't too terribly disappointed (except that she wanted to go camping) because I told her that the day was hers and that we could do whatever she wanted to do. So, this is her detailed amazing birthday day.

1. Got her hair done (by me)
2. Got her nails done (by me)
3. She took a three hour nap.
4. She laid in my bed and watched cartoons to her heart's content
5. She chose to eat ice cream right out of the carton.
6. She chose a banana slurpee.
7. She chose to go to Grandpa and Grandma's house for dinner.
8. She chose to jump on their tramp.
9. She chose to have the cake mashed in my face.
10. She chose to snuggle up with me and sleep in my bed that night.

Now, as far as the cake is concerned. My parents bought her a tiny little cake for her so that she could blow out candles on her actual birthday. When she blew out her candles, she announced her wish. It was that I would smash the cake in my own face. When I told her that I would take a big bite but, not smash it in my face, the uncles took over. Kyra gets what Kyra wants....oh, and by the way, why was it never like that when I was that age?????

Dalton pinned my arms behind me, Kyra and Dayn smashed the cake in my face. Hard I may add. I had strawberry up my nose and look like I had just left a clown school. Dad, being the kind hearted father that he is sat back and grabbed his camera phone and snapped away. And aren't those the most flattering pictures that you have ever seen. Me with the deranged look on my face and my bra strap showing!!!

Later that evening as we were watching Frasier together, she snuggled up to me and told me that this had been her best birthday ever. I can't tell you how much I love that little one. She is absolutely the light of my life!!!

My Awesome Sister

The other day, I got a phone call from my sister. She has decided to change her look and go for a completely different style. She had gone through her closet and decided to get rid of all of it. However, in a moment of awesome clarity, she realized that I might like to take a look at what she was getting rid of.

Well, I met her and she not only had a couple of things, she was quite literally getting rid of everything that she owned. I was thrilled to see that everything she had was darling, trendy and FIT ME!!! It was like Christmas in August!

So, now I have more quadrupled the size of my wardrobe and I could not be more excited. Thank you to my sweet sister who thought of me. I love hand me downs!!!

Toad and Grandpa!

They are completely joined at the hip! Toad can spend hours with my dad on his back porch. They sit and read books, build with blocks and look for bats and hummingbirds. Thank you dad for being such an amazing grandfather. I love you!

Erin's Wedding

We went to a friend's wedding last weekend and it was really quite nice. It was WAY up Provo Canyon and very out of the way but, very pretty. I was a bit nervous driving up the one way winding road with my mini van. They had a small, very causal but very nice wedding. I think that I was the only one wearing a skirt. They even had s'mores. I felt bad for the poor bride, she planned her wedding for the middle of August to take advantage warm weather. However, that was the day that we got our nice influx of Octoberitis! I thought that I would share some fo the pictures since it was such a gorgeous location.