Back To School!

 Today was the first day back to school for Logan and Railynn! Logan started 3rd grade and Railynn started 1st!  They were so excited.  Logan even picked out his clothes yesterday...tried it on and everything..and had it all layed out and ready to go for this morning. :)  I just hope that will continue for the rest of the school year.  It would make my life a whole lot easier!

 Don't they look so cute!?  I cant believe how old the kids are.  I got Logans shirt at Kohls for free, a super nice gal in my ward gave me the pants ( she got them on sale at the childrens place for 2.99  and she got me 3 pairs..how nice is that!?)  And I got his shoes at payless. :)

I wish the picture didnt come out so bright white, but I thought it was a sweet picture.

Thanks to Lissa for Rai's whole entire outfit!    The only thing I bought was the socks! 

Rai was so excited and she looked adorable!

I came across these pictures I took on my phone the last time we were in AZ.  Mom- you will have to make sure Toby looks at my blog to see how sweet this pic is. 

This one was from our walk to the park with the kids.  LOVE IT.  :)

I took the kids to a place called Explora over here in Albuquerque yesterday.  I don't know if there is a place like this back home in AZ, but if not, they should get one because it was AWESOME! Remember when I was going to get a zoo membership?  This would be a much better place to get one at.  ALL of my kids, including Logan, had so much fun.  It basically has a bunch of different  "stations" where the kids can play.  They have everything!  They had giant bubbles, a place where you could make your own cartoons on a TV, a ton a different science project type things, magnets, play areas, you would have to be there to see how awesome it was.  We only stayed for about 2 hours, and I had to pry my kids out of each station so we could see them all..

This was the first thing my kids saw when we came in.  The kids watched the balls going around the course FOREVER. :)

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                       This was just popsicle sticks and felt circles with velcrow on them.  Who knew?

 This was a table with a PVC pipe that blew air out of it.  When you put the ball in the air, it would just stay in mid air and float.  Jocy thought it was great, but everytime she put the ball in the air stream, she would freak out becuase she couldnt get it down again. Can you see the look of terror on her face?  She couldn't decide whether to freak out or laugh. :)

 This is a slab of wood with holes cut into the bottom.  They had a ton of PVC pipe that the kids could connect together.

 giant bubble table.

 Remember the science projects in elementary school with the batteries that you would connect to mini lght bulbs with wires?  They stayed in this station for a long time!

It was a great finish to the end of summer before the kids start school on monday!

Logans dance moves.....

I managed to catch some of Logans dancing before he caught me and made me turn off the video. haha  I know you are all jealous of the kids fantastic coordination and dance moves. :)  

Railynn...

 I took Rai to get her hair cut at JC Penney for FREE!  How awesome is that?  Rai missed being called "bobbit" and Zach missed calling her that too....so we decided to chop it all off.  Didnt it turn out cute?

And...I just LOVED this picture of Amaia. Just thought I would share. :)

My big 4 year old!

Happy Birthday to My Jocylain!  It seems like she has been 3 FOREVER. But she is officially 4 years old!  She is such a fun little girl and we are lucky, in more ways than one, to have her as a part of our family.  :)

These are not her boots...lol but you might as well think they are because she puts them on every chance she gets.  I have stopped telling her to take them off, because they always manage to find their way back on her little feet.  I remember wearing my moms shoes when I was little...I guess she just wanted to be like me!  Seriously though...You all know how I only buy things when they are super cheap?  I got these boots at Payless for...wait for it $6! I am really happy to have warmer shoes to wear this winter instead of my normal open toed sandal shoes. :)  Isnt it a cute picture though?

 We went to Dions pizza for dinner. Jocy's choice.  I may or may not have put the idea in her head that this would be a great place for her birthday dinner!

 Amaia and her soda.  She is at the really fun stage where she throws everything on the floor.  The soda made in onto the floor at one point, and yes it spilled, along with the cheese from her pizza and 2 different crusts.  Fun I know.  At least she is cute...makes everything worth it!

 Love this picture.

 Jocy and her cherry cake.  She picked out straberry cake with cherry frosting which sounded really yucky to me...but thankfkully Lissa sent me a cherry cake mix for my birthday, and since she sent it last week, it arrived just in time for Jocys birthday!  It was delicious. :)

 We have a tradition that dad gets to take out the birthday kids for a birthday breakfast.  I tried a long time ago to change the tradition and make it a family thing, but something about how this is what Zachs dad did for them when they were little...blah blah..  haha just kidding.  I actually Love that he does this with the kids. It makes me happy.  We do a lot of things the way I want them done, so I guess I can give him his tradition with the kids.  Since Zach is working a night shift schedule right now, he woke up a little late, so they went for a birthday lunch instead.  They went to chic fil a , and they sang to her and gave her a free icecream.  Gotta love that place.

All in all I think she had a great day.  The only thing that could have made it better was to have family here to celebrate!