1st Grade

Well-it's official!!! Cole is now a first grader. It makes me so sad. I can't believe I have a six year old and that he is now in school all day. I've had a harder time with first grade than I did with kindergarten. I think it's because he is in school from 8:50-3:50. That seems like such a long time for him to be away from us. His teacher is Mrs. Bennight. It was so cute--when Damon dropped him off at school yesterday he said "Dad-I like school... but I miss my family, too." Ohhhhh! That just about broke my heart. He had a rough time adjusting to 1st grade and came home a little bit sad for the first couple weeks. Damon and I have been stressing out and trying to figure out what we can do to make him enjoy school and to want to be there, even though we are really wanting him home with us. It was such a relief to pick him up yesterday and to see his huge grin and happy face. He got in the car and told me how much fun he had at school. I am so glad that he's used to the full day, has made friends and is now enjoying it a little bit more!!! Luke and Ellee obviously miss Cole and talk about him all day long. They start preschool soon and ask almost every day when they will get to go to "Mama's school". They are so excited....we'll see how that goes.

Our little lady

I had volleyball camp down in St. George a couple weeks ago. My sister Teresa stepped it up and helped watch the twins for almost a week while I was coaching. While the twins were with her she took her daughter Alyssa to get her ears pierced. It was so cute. I immediately started working on Damon. He wanted it to be Ellee's choice about getting earrings. Ellee is the girliest girl I know and she started in with asking Damon, too. I know we could have waited, but it was innevitable that it would happen sooner rather than later. We ended up taking Ellee to get her ears pierced while down in St. George. She got to pick which earrings she wanted-pink flowers, of course. I was surprised-she actually asked for purple first. My daughter who cries when I dress her in anything but pink? Well, they didn't have purple so she went for the pink flower earrings. She only cried long enough for us to open a sucker and pop it in her mouth. She is so proud of her earrings. It is one of the first things she shows off to people when we are out or when we have people come to our house.

The Manti Pageant

We went down to the Manti Pageant last month. We went down with Sarah, Adam, and Brody. The first attempt we decided not to brave the weather and ended up just staying at Adam's parents house playing games and watching movies. We decided to try again and actually made it to the pageant. We had lots of fun while we were waiting. Damon and the kids had an awesome wrestling match. I think Damon ended up winning-I really think the kids almost had him beat for a little bit though. It was fun to watch the kids' reactions to the pageant. Ellee stayed awake through the whole pageant. Cole and Luke both fell asleep about halfway through. I think we might wait a few more years before we attempt it again. At least until the kids are a little older to be able to appreciate it.

The Tigers

Yes-It's finally Luke's turn to get involved in sports. He is on the Detroit Tigers with the county tee ball program. Every morning when he wakes up he asks if it is a tee ball day and if he can go to play baseball. I don't have many pictures yet since he has only had one game but I will get some more posted as soon as I get them. He loves having Joel on his team and can't wait to play some more! It is fun watching them practice running bases. When Luke gets to a base he get super excited and jumps onto the base instead of just tagging it-sooooo cute! He thinks he is the coolest thing ever! We especially love the too big hats-with the ears poking out the side---he loves it so much he even slept with his baseball hat :-)

The Yellow Jackets

I know-we keep Cole busy. Cole brought home a flier to play county soccer and we figured it would be good for him, so why not? He loved it! He practiced once a week and had games every Saturday. It has been fun watching him in all his sports because he is so aggressive. It was especially fun watching how quickly he picked it up and how he improved from the first practice to the last game. So much fun! The highlight of his season was scoring a goal-he still talks about it. It was cute watching him keep score during the game-and how excited he got when his team scored or won a game.

The Sidewinders

Cole had so much fun playing baseball again this year. His team was the Sidewinders. Even though it was a very bright color he was thrilled to have a cool snake across the uniform. He got a new coach this year-he was coaching two separate teams and so the dads got to help out a lot. Cole's friend Jackson was on his team again this year and they had tons of fun together. He is getting really good at baseball. His favorite position to play is first base, and he did a pretty good job there-especially since he is actually able to catch the ball.
He is really understanding the game and will definitely be ready to move up to the big boy league next year. He's ready for a few more rules and structure. This was Cole's third year playing and he thinks baseball is "cool". That's the only thing he'd say about it. Last year he couldn't stop talking about it-now he's Mr. Cool Guy. Fun times! He did tell me that his favorite thing from baseball was when he hit a homerun. Usually the kids hit the ball and only run one base. Cole had such a good hit that the first base coach told him to keep running and he decided that meant it was a homerun and ran around all the bases. It was so cute!

Dancing Ellee!

We signed Ellee up for dance about two months ago. I swore I would push sports with my daughters instead of dance but the way she moves and is all girl had me jumping at the chance to get her going with dance. She absolutely loves it!!!! Her teacher's name is Miss Brittany-she is so outgoing at dance but gets shy every time she sees Miss Brittany at church. It's super cute. I am bummed because there is no dance for the month of June and she is missing it already. It has been fun watching her doing chasse's and plie's around the house. Yes, I am learning my jazz and ballet terms-can you imagine? It really is lots of fun to see her doing well and enjoying it so much.