1st Day of School: 2017/2018

Casidee is a senior this year.  She's working two jobs and trying to figure out her next steps with college.

Here are her 1st day of school pictures from pre-school and kindergarten.  Look how much they grow.

Jayme is a junior.  She's going to CTEC this year to work on animation.

Brynn is a sophomore this year.  She's on the JV cheer squad at the high school.

Sean is a freshman.  He's all about video games.

Tayler is a freshman.  She decided not to go for the high school soccer team, but is still playing on an outside team.

 Cali is in 7th grade.  She's picking up a tumbling class this year.

First Day Of School. 2014.

It begins.

I officially I have a high schooler.

I officially only have one child left in elementary school.

I officially have four kids in middle school.

I didn't take individual pics this year, mostly because it was raining, and I had just blown my hair dry, and had already stood in the rain on the front sidewalk, waiting for my kids to quit fooling around and stand still.

One picture and this mom was done.

I didn't want frizzy hair from the rainfall.

Priorities.

This year Casidee is a freshman at the high school.
Jayme is ruling middle school in 8th grade.
Brynn is in 7th grade.
Sean and Tayler are in their first year of middle school.
Cali has hit what has always been "big kid status" in my mind, 4th grade.

4th grade has always been "big kid status" for me since I was in elementary school.  We had a big kid recess, and a little kid recess.  Kindergarten did their own thing.  1st thru 3rd went to the little kid recess.  4th thru 6th went to the big recess.

I remember thinking on my first day of 4th grade, "I'm a big kid now!"

Apparently that's stuck with me because I see it in all of my kids when they hit 4th grade.

I don't have any "little" kids at my house anymore.

Things to be excited about this year?
Casidee: well, high school in general.  I mean, come on.  But also her first year of seminary.
Jayme: higher level of art class.
Brynn: dance class.
Sean: doesn't get too excited about school in general, but I think he's happy to know he has friends in his classes. And he decided to be involved in the PTSA this year.
Tayler: involvement in the PTSA as well as another season of soccer.  And art class.
Cali: she's going to try her hand at learning to play the violin in the school orchestra.  And probably choir too.  This is also the year that's gong to determine grade and citizenship wise if she can tryout for student council in 5th grade, so she's excited to prove that she can be responsible.

We have good things ahead of us this year.

Pre-First Day Of School.

They day dawned gray and heavy with the promise of rain, but that didn't damped the spirits around our house.

Today Tayler and Sean headed to their first day of middle school.

And everyone in the house got up early with them.  Which I don't understand, if it were me not going to school yet, I would relish my last day of sleeping in.

Our middle school starts the 6th graders a day before anyone else with a half day of school to give them a shot at running through their schedule and using their lockers before they're swarmed by 7th and 8th graders.

More on the upcoming school year tomorrow, when the rest of them start and it's the "real" first day of school.

And also, moms go to school to.

Sadly I'm not at the University of Utah anymore.  Their schedule has absolutely no flexibility in it.  One of my pre-req's was held at 11:00 in the morning.  And only at 11:00 in the morning.  Being a working mom, flexibility is huge for me, so I've transferred to the University of Phoenix to finish my bachelor's degree online.  Today is my first day, and I'm excited to keep pushing forward with this.

Since we seem to live our lives on a school year schedule, here's to a new year!

Insta Friday (Introducing The Gnome). Friday Brain dump (We're Spur of the Moment People). And Weekend Plans (Learning How to Lip Sync).

Welcome to Insta Friday, where I'm linking up and telling the stories behind my instagram pics.

(I'm thecircus6 on instagram if you want to follow).

And then, just as a warning, you get a brain dump of the tidbits that I haven't blogged about yet.

Totally worth it.

On our bi-weekly grocery shopping trip we found the most awesome gnome.

We bought it for pranking purposes.

The first day of school happened.

In the middle of August.

I swear it gets earlier every year.  But this is so the kids can have more time off during the school year, which used to stress me out when I was a working mom of young children.  Like, stress me out.  But now that they're older it's just like, just keep the house clean, yo.  And don't leave Cali alone.  Word.

Speaking of getting older... I already shared these pics but I'm sharing them again because I love them.

You all can officially stop growing right now.  I didn't want to pause them as babies or toddlers, but right here would be a good place to pause them.

I hear a lot that Brynn is my mini-me.  I don't usually hear it with the other three.

But when I posted this picture of Casidee people thought it was me at first, which makes me happy because I kind of  wish my daughters did look like me.

That random plant growing in our yard that we didn't plant, but let grow out of curiosity sake, and I really wanted it to be a pumpkin in my front yard? (here)

So is. (Eek, shriek, and jumping for joy).

But it only has one pumpkin on the entire vine.

I ran to the store to get Brynn a specific notebook that her teacher was requesting.  The ones we'd already bought weren't the "right" kind.

The Man sent me a text to grab something for him while I was there, only to have my phone go off right next to him on the couch.

I'd forgotten it.

When I got home, my background was The Gnome.

We're getting our money's worth with it already.

A new semester started for me this week too.

If I have to get up and take a math class before work, at least I get to be greeted with a sunrise like this.

The first day of school is for moms too.

Here we go again.  But I graduate this spring from the community college and will head up to the U of U to finally work on the fun classes for my bachelor's.

My first day of school selfie.

Mornings wouldn't so bad if it weren't for the waking up part.

They were really pretty this week.

I was clearing of Pioneer Day photos from my phone to (finally) blog about it when I found this one that one of The Circus had taken.

My cutest friend Jen found this picture frame and bought it for me.

I printed off one of the pictures from our family photoshoot that just happened a couple of weeks ago and set it up on my desk.

I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures.  This was just one she sent me as a preview, to tease me and get me all excited for the rest.

It worked.

And, Jen, I love the frame, thank you!

Now for my friday brain dump:

I had Chick-fil-A for lunch because I received an email inviting me to apply to be on a panel of mom's for them.

Which I really want to do.

So if I eat Chick-fil-A right after filling out that application then it's like bonus karma points, right?

And also, the Chick-fil-A by my work serves breakfast.

Shut the front door!

Also, we are a very spur of the moment family, but it occurred to me why this week.  I've been making plans with friends to head up to the Fairy Forest and see all the wonders there, and in so doing have changed the day of our outing twice.  And now we have it set up for another day, except The Man just planned a camping/riding trip for that weekend and booked our spot and all so... I get to change my Fairy Forest day again.

We're spur of the moment people because even when we make plans, other things come up spur of the moment and I have to change plans.  I don't like planning, it's a lot of work to coordinate and be annoying and change the plans, again.  I don't even want to tell my friends that I need to change the Fairy Forest date, I feel slightly embarrassed.  I'd rather just send out texts a day in advance, or a couple hours, and say, hey, we're going, come if you can.  And then if they can, they can.

Because, you know, people should be waiting around for my spur of the moment invite...

Dear friends, I'm sorry.  I know I have issues.

Also, life just feels so full and so exciting right now.  It's like I'm walking on super charged cloud nine.  Everything is so beautiful and perfect and full of promise.

I don't know how I got on this ride, but I don't want to get off anytime soon.

Weekend plans:

Make a lip sync video with The Circus.  I want to learn how.  They're my guinea pigs.  Anyone have any tips?

Church carnival where I get to help with both the cake walk and the face painting.

Possibly the Fairy Forest?  But Jayme will be with her mom so probably not because we want her to go too.

And that's all I have.  I guess we'll have to make this weekend up as we go along, you know, spur of the moment.

What are your weekend plans?

First Day of 2013-14.

The first day of school.

Again.

Officially.

For everyone this time.

Our three middle schoolers:

We are so in trouble.

Frying pans, who knew?

If you understand that reference and why I went there, bonus points to you.

Casidee is ruling the school as an 8th grader this year.

(for more on Jay's first day go here, for Brynn's go here).
Our elementary crew:

We have two fifth graders and a third grader this year.

Cali's already killing me with her eclectic style.

And it's only the first day.

She revamped her outfit five times until we finally settled on this.

Tayler and Sean get to be on Student Council this year.  They had their first meeting about their responsibilities before school this morning.

We got a letter saying they had to earn money for their student council shirts and sweatshirts.

Tayler was all over it and has already earned her money.

Sean was like, "why would I earn money for that when I could earn money for a video game instead?"

Which is typical behavior for both of them.  We'll see if Sean changes his mind as everyone else has shirts, but I don't know that he will.  That boy is comfortable in his own opinions.  Which is not a bad thing.

And so it begins.

The school year of 2013-14.