Smith Family

Audrey found a friend that lives in our neighborhood. Her name is Natalia. Her parents are from Guatemala and she's a really sweet girl. They talk on the phone a lot and were so excited to go to the orchestra party at the skating rink yesterday. She's just growing up too fast!

We caught our first bug of the school year! I was worried it was strep so I took her down to urgent care to get her tested. The doctor said it just looked red and swollen but didn't see any white puss spots so we'll just treat it as a virus. She spent the day building forts and watching movies. Her teacher called me the other day to let me know shes doing really well, and can't believe how good of a reader she is!

It was a scary and intimidated process buying a house. The kids and I were in Arizona and Elliott was in Georgia for training and wouldn't be done until the week of Thanksgiving. Which meant neither one of us was here to physically walk through houses. We wanted to be in a home before Christmas and so the timing was extremely tight. We started looking for homes, and had put in an offer on one that I fell in love with from the pictures. We had put $1,000 down, had the inspector come out and had one day left to decide whether we were moving forward with it or not. Elliott did a drive by the night he got into town and didn't have a super great feeling about it. The next day when he did the walk through he knew it wasn't our house. I remember him calling me while I was sitting at church in Arizona and telling me this house wasn't going to work out. I was devastated. I walked out of Relief Society tearing up because we were running out of time, I wanted to spend Christmas ...

Everyone survived their first day of school! Audrey said her highs for the day are that her orchestra class has only 9 kids. Her friend from last year has PE with her and they got to sit by each other for lunch and she was able to find all of her classes! Brandon said his high for the day was that he saw Tristan, a neighborhood friend, at recess and he likes that he gets to move to different classes throughout the day which makes it go fast. Melanie's high for the day was that she saw her best friend from last year and got to play with her at recess even though they are in different classes and her teacher is sooooo nice! I think the first day was a huge success! I'm excited for what this year is going to bring.

We always try and make the evening before the first day of school special for the kids. I've taken ideas from my childhood and other ideas over the years and made it our own. I picked this theme because I felt like it was one that all of us can implement in our lives. Melanie struggles with doing everything perfectly, and if it isn't perfect she will easily give up. Brandon excels in math and science but isn't interested in reading or writing and because of that he often doesn't have a good attitude about it. Audrey is being put into an entirely new environment being in middle school with new kids and experiences. I wanted this to be something that they could have in their minds when they feel like they are struggling with something and not to give up but try their best and that's enough. Before dinner we all wrote an encouraging note to everyone and then read them out loud at dinner. Brandon as a joke decided to just write hi to everyone. We all got a kick ...

In February we had to fill out what classes Audrey was going to take in middle school this year. There were 3 options for every course: regular, pre AP or accelerated. I had no idea what to do since we were so new here and didn't know what to expect so I put her in regular. Once the semester ended and she was on the A/B honor roll and after talking to some parents I felt it was important to get her switched into pre AP but it seemed impossible getting in contact with the school during summer! Over the last 2 weeks I had called the registrar multiple times never getting through, left a voice mail, left an email, went down to the school but it was locked. Ugh... My frustration level was at a 10. So during orientation I went to a counselor and she seemed extremely reluctant to help me this late in the game and all the pre AP classes were full, I expressed my frustrations and explained we had recently moved here and I didn't know any better and she FINALLY approved her to move to a...

Pete took the day off on Saturday so we could spend the last day of summer together. We decided to head to the beach and have a chill day there. We got there early enough to park right on the beach. It's so nice to back your car right in and set up camp along the water. No dragging all our stuff all over creation to find a spot, it's wonderful. I'm sure gonna miss these kiddos when they are at school next week, but am very much ready for some routine and the house to stay clean!

We picked names out of a hat to see what order school shopping would be done this year. It ended up going in birth order! I wish I did more one on one dates with the kids, I enjoy that bonding time and should try and make it happen more. We always make it happen at least once a year for school shopping and we look forward to it. They are all so very different and that definitely played out with how each of our days went. Audrey and I spent about 4 hours shopping. Shopped till we dropped. She chose the Cheesecake Factory because she knows whats up! At dinner we had a discussion about going into middle school and not to change who she is to make anyone like her. Girls can be mean, don't talk behind girls backs and always find someone who looks like they need a friend. She said her biggest fear about school is not being able to figure out her locker combination. We got her a combination lock to practice so she should be fine. She is most looking forward to being able to switch class...

Every Monday this summer we had a lunch date with Sam's Club after we cleaned up the house, for whatever reason the house seems to fall apart over the weekend. We love getting the samples, and checking out the cool things they have including these chairs. Every week they beg for these chairs and every week the answer is nope! Better luck next year kiddos.

We were all excited to try Tie Dye. I honestly don't know if I've ever done it before. Brandon had a tie dye activity in 2nd grade but it was a first for the girls and I. We went down to Goodwill to get shirts and used a 40% off coupon at Michaels to get the kit. It comes with bottles that have the powder dye already in them, so you just add water! It came with a plastic tablecloth, gloves and rubber bands. We loved it! I didn't realize until later that Melanie took her gloves off. When I asked her why she took them off she said, because I wanted magical unicorn hands!

He's asked me at least 3 times today when his dad is coming home. It's pretty cute. When I told Elliott he chucked and said it's only because he wants me to share some of my Pokemon with him. Ha! The two of them have gotten into the Pokemon game and it's fun they share something they can do together.

When we were packing to move to Texas we were very liberal about getting rid of stuff, whether it was broken or we didn't like. Our Mary Engelbreit crockpot that had been missing a handle for years, and our blender with a missing lid were a couple of things that didn't make the cut. If felt great to get rid of it, spending the money to replace it doesn't feel as great! I wanted to make sure that what we did get was something we actually really wanted and had good reviews. When the Sam's Club ad showed up with a one day sale of their Ninja blenders for $80 off I was thrilled! I patiently waited until that day, then on the actual day I forgot until around noon. I went online to buy it and they were sold out.... nooo! I figured it wasn't meant to be. I called Elliott to tell him the sad tale, then he showed up after work with the blender! He had called all around to find if anyone had one left and find a Sam's Club who still had a few. We've been having smo...

Since getting home from Arizona I feel like I've been in a bit of a funk. It took about a week to get everything all put back together, then Elliott went out of town for work for a couple weeks, we didn't have a car for a while because it was it the shop and it's all just kinda felt off. I think part of it is the fact that in Mesa we had summers down to a T, we did summer movies, swam at my parents, school lunches, the kids all had really good friends and cousins they played with. I can't be sure exactly what it was but this week I decided we were gonna do something about it! We have 3 more weeks left of summer so we're going to have a theme each week starting with art week.  Getting out of the house each day to get supplies, working together to get things done and having a creative outlet has just been good for my soul. First up was paper mache bowls. Except we used fabric. When doing crafts with the kids I normally get everything prepped but this time th...