I'm an Empty Nester!

All of my babies are gone! Brycen has started Kindergarten and my house is eerily quiet. I don't want to focus on how sad this makes me, so let me just say I bawled my eyes out Saturday night over losing my baby to school. I keep praying that our adoption social worker will call TODAY to say he has a baby for us. Come on Wayne! Alright, that's the end of my pity party now on with the cute pictures:


All grown up and looking good!


The many faces of Kindergarten Brycen:

Sweet Cheesy Boy.



Mr. Tough Guy.


The Philosopher.


Little Goofy Guy


Mr. Are We Done Yet?

Last Friday Brycen got to go to school to meet his new teacher. She spend 1/2 hour with each child just getting to know them and showing them the class room.




We took pictures on Friday, because today parents were asked to just drop the kids off in the carpool lane and go. They say it is easier on the kids, but harder on the parent this way.



Brycen is holding his Lego catalog. He brought it a long to show his teacher what he wants for his birthday. He thought it would be good to have it in a picture so others could see what he wants too. I hope he makes a fortune when he grows up because he already has expensive tastes!

Lat night we had a special back to school dinner for Brycen with my parents and my sister, Ali. Homemade cheese pizza, root beer, and warm white chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Can you guess who picked the menu?

Side note to post:
Brycen had a great first day his buddy Dominic who was suppose go to a different school is back in his class, his parents just changed their minds. When I asked him what he learned today he said' "I'm sorry Mom I can't tell you all the stuff we did today because in kindergarten you do a hundred things a day!"

Zac must have sensed that this empty nest thing was going to be hard for me because his teacher called to say he was sick and needed to be picked up from school--so much for the quiet.

Lastly, having the kids all in school could get expensive--I know have time to shop! I will have to try to refocus some of my efforts towards cleaning or something!

Daddy of the Year

Brycen and I discovered this cool park last week. It had a pulley system to lift sand up and tubes to dump the sand back to the ground. Brycen played with the pulley for over an hour. Yesterday Lance brought Brycen back to the park to take pictures so he could make a pulley for our backyard play structure. After a family trip to Lowe's we were ready to built in the 100 degree weather.

Even I chipped in to help.

Can't you just feel the heat!

This play structure was originally built by Lance and his brother Mitchell about three years ago. They worked all weekend, using laterns and lamps so they could work well into the night, all in an effort to have it up for Zac's 7th birthday. The got it done and the birthday was a smashing success. Of course Mitchell hasn't been back to visit since hmmm. Mitchell, if you come out again I promise to not put you to work! I am so grateful that Mitchell was around that weekend; Lance could have never got it all done in time with just me helping.

While Lance slaved away in the blazing sun, the boys swam.

Although, Brycen actually did help a lot with the pulley system building.

The finish project is a big hit! Way to go Super Daddy.

Do Not Read if you are a Truant Officer!

Imagine this, you are about nine years old and your mom comes into your room to wake you up for school and asks, Do you have anything important going on at school today, or do you want to go to Nordstrom with me? Could anything in elementary school be more important than shopping? My mom asked me that question and other similar questions quite often growing up. When we had dentist appointments we never returned to school afterwards. We would usually drive in San Francisco, pick up my grandma and some Chinese food and eat it in the car at the beach or at a park. Life was good! My mom must of really enjoyed our company to willingly pass up on having us out of the house all day. I must have been a great kid! Luckily I managed to do okay in school too. It is probably a good thing that I went away from home for college though--it greatly improved my attendance record!

So now I'm a mom. A mom who was very happy to see summer end and loves the fact that two out of our three kids go to school until 3pm. Still, I did inherit a least a little of the school skipping gene. On Wednesday, we kept Zac out of school, Lance took the day off work, and we took Brycen and Zac to Six Flags Marine World. I figure skipping school the second week either makes us great parents or horrible parents. But really there is a good reason to pull such a stunt. There were NO lines! Our longest wait was about 10 minutes, we got to sit in the splash zone for the orca show. (Luckily my camera started to work again after getting trenched although not until the next day, so we only have pictures from the morning.) Brycen even got picked out of the audience to answer a questions about killer whales. He answered the question correctly and won a stuffed animal killer whale. Zac, who is terrified of characters, wasn't sure at first that he even wanted to go, but he had a blast and never saw a single character. He kept saying things like "I'm really happy I decided to come this is so cool!"

So yes school is important and we should all send our children daily blah, blah, blah , unless of course something better comes up!


Brycen finally got to see real elephants!

Lance packed us all PB&J sandwiches so we didn't have to spend a fortune on food.

A whale and a can of root beer could life get any better Brycen?


Whale watching!


The star of the show and temporary camera destroyer.

A Boy's Life

While we were in San Francisco Brycen and Zac discovered that some brothers "get" to share a room. They were so cute in the Bay Area talking with their buddies all night. The night after we got home they wanted to sleep together, so they pulled their blanket off their beds and set up bed in their doorways. Zac read Brycen books, they put all their webkinz to bed, and talked and talked. They were so sweet, but still sleep deprived! The next day Brycen and I moved his bed into Zac's room. I am very excited about the possibility of having a guest room/future nursery. Before I go crazy redecorating Brycen's room I think will give this whole room sharing idea a couple weeks. But just think Grandma Carolyn, we may actually be able to offer you your very own room with a real bed in the future!

There's No Place Like Home!

As we drive into San Francisco over the Bay Bridge my heart just can't help skipping a beat. I'm home! I love to be engulfed by the blanket of fog--so long as I'm dressed appropriately. I told the boys that fog is San Francisco air conditioner to which Brycen replied "They have outside air conditioning here?" The 40 degree drop in temperature felt great. While I basked in my memories and love for San Francisco, Lance counted the hours until we are home again--all he sees is the traffic and the huge numbers of people. Although Lance does love reconnecting with our Bay Area friends.


We went to San Francisco to attend my cousin Christian's wedding. Chris and I were very close growing up even though he is 5 years younger than me. Chris and I were always labeled the nerds of the family by the other kids. A title we to this day our proud of! Chris may be Lara's Chris now, but he will always be my Chrissy! For their reception they wanted everyone to feel at home so they served comfort foods. Their appetizers included mini cheeseburgers and pizzas and for dinner they served, meatloaf, fried chicken, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. Instead of a cake--cupcakes of course. Very cute! I really wanted to get a great picture of the bride and groom but they never stood still long enough. The picture below was the best I could get.



We took the kids to the SF Zoo before the wedding because Brycen has been wanting to see real elephants for about two years now. We got in the gate and searched the map for the elephants, but we couldn't find them. Brycen asked a zoo employee who informed us that they no longer had elephants. Brycen was crushed and ready to leave! We had to work hard to convince him to stay to see the other animals. When our friend Tim later asked Brycen what he saw at the zoo he said, "NOT elephants!"






Brycen's favorite animal---the Seagull




Zac's favorite--the cotton candy!


Scott's favorite--the stuffed bear in the gift shop.


Cute boy, Cute Daddy!


For those of you who enjoy genealogy and believe in evolution, look carefully at the sign. At the zoo we were able to trace the Jones family back to the gorillas! Now that's a pedigree chart! I was even able to get the gorillas above to pose for a picture.

During the wedding my wonderful friend Karen watched our three boys, her three boys and her sweet baby girl. Her husband is the Bishop of the ward and he was gone for most of the evening too. Karen is amazing though she took all the kids to the park and even bathed them all before putting them to bed. However, five boys in one room make it hard for them to get any sleep. We got home around 10pm, but the boys stayed up chatting in their beds until after midnight.

Today we went to our old ward for church. It is so much fun to go back and see our friends. People still remember us and are always excited to see us. They make us feel like celebrities. I think they all feel Zac and Scott are part of their families. Everyone in that ward prayed for them so much and loved us during those difficult first years. They will forever hold a special place in our hearts! After church we went to some friends for dinner--it was a lot of fun to catch up with them and watch the kids play together.

Cold Feet

Brycen cools off in a bucket of ice water at our Stake Pioneer Day celebration. As he was standing there a group of teanage boys came over--they were amazed that Brycen could take the cold. The told him he was the bravest kid they'd ever seen. Needless to say he was thrilled with himself. I bet the real pioneers would have loved to soaked their feet in a bucket of ice water during the summer too!

Back to School

I LOVE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!

And not just because I get to lay around all day, after they're gone, and eat bon-bons and watch soap operas.

I love buying new school supplies, and...

New clothes!

I love getting my creative juices flowing by coming up with fun ideas to welcome in the new school year, like...

Back to school cupcakes,

and our eat out of your lunch box back to school dinner.

I love the return of routines, schedules, and limited TV access! (At least for the first week)

So this morning I woke up bright and early at 6:00am...

Made the kids a well-balanced, nutritious breakfast,

We got the beds made,

The dog walked,

Took some good first day of school pictures (you will have to wait until Brycen's first day of school to see his new back-to-school fashions)

And some not so good pictures,

Gave some hugs,

and we were ready when the buses showed up,

Both boys made it to the right schools. Although, Scott didn't seem real thrilled when his teacher actually expected him to start working. I guess math isn't his favorite subject!

Honestly I will be thrilled when Brycen is also back in school in two weeks and I will have time to:

SHOP

And SHOP!!

I will also enjoy the sounds of silence at least in the mornings while Brycen is in kindergarten; that is on the three days I'm not watching our little friend "Alex Lou-Lou Berry"

I can also exercise, blog, read, rest, go out to breakfast with my mom, hang out with my friends who have all their kids in school, and of course clean the house, volunteer and all three schools, drive Brycen to and from school for a total of an hour and twenty minutes a day, fulfill my obligations as the PTA Historian at Zac's school, and publish the Family Supporting Adoption Newsletters. Hmmm, I think I'm going to have to think this out again!