Of course Taylor was excited because Jr. High is so much more fun than elementary school, according to him anyway. His reasoning for this theory is that there's so much more freedom and they treat you more like an adult there. Plus if there's a teacher that you hate you only have to be with them for one hour and then you're out of that class for the rest of the day. (that's looking at the glass half full) The classes are more fun because you get to do a lot of different things during the day and sit with whoever you want to at lunch. AND you can eat pizza every day if you want, he is generally a home luncher so I'm not sure why this appeals to him so much, maybe just knowing that he could have pizza every day is what's cool about it. He was also much less nervous this year being an eighth grader and having done the seventh grade-nervous-to-start-jr.high-thing already, he knew what to expect and how to find his classes and wasn't afraid of getting a swirly anymore. :) In fact, he came home from the first day and said, "man, the sevvies are so short this year!" 
Allie's excitement was centered around one important thing: ruling the school. Sixth grade is the top of the pancake stack when you're in Elementary School still and so she was definitely looking forward to all of the fun things that come with sixth grade, like DARE and the graduation dance and being called on to help the younger grades with various things. She was really sad that Functional Skills is no longer at our school, the sixth grade classes volunteer their recess times (on rotation) to help out in the class with the special needs kids and she was really looking forward to that. She is also part of the Student Council this year and is very excited about the service projects and different things she'll get to do with that. Of course, FRIENDS are a big part of why she is looking forward to the sixth grade, she hung out a lot during the summer but nothing beats being able to spend every day all day with the same girlfriends that she loves. One more thing, the year after second grade, her wonderful teacher Mrs. Bryson moved to sixth grade. Taylor had her two years and ago and Allie was thrilled to get her again, she is really fantastic and we are looking forward to a great year! 
Spencer's excitement about school is finally knowing a big group of boys from our ward and finding out that they are ALL, except one, in his class this year for fifth grade! This is a big deal because in our last neighborhood it was a difficult thing for Spencer to try and fit in with a really hard group of boys. This move has been the best for him because he has been surrounded constantly by a great group of boys and so that makes school that much more fun. He also has had a whole year now to get used to being on his own at a different school than Allie (he switched to the new school in our boundary after we moved and Allie stayed) and he finally doesn't feel like the new kid. He also got two of the most wonderful teachers in the universe! Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Lawson team teach fifth grade and I was so impressed last night at Back to School night, I'm excited because I know Spencer will have a fantastic year with them. The school Spencer attends just barely finished an addition to their building and he was excited to find out that the fifth and sixth grades were the ones who got brand new classrooms and they smell so nice and new! So I guess that's it, it was a crazy morning, the only one NOT looking forward to school starting was me, but that's a blog for a different day. Everyone enjoyed their first day of school and it went off without an incident. Ethan wasn't too happy to be pulled out of bed early but when you're the tail-ender of a family, that sometimes happens. It has been fun to have alone time with Ethan this week, we'll see how much he likes hanging out with only me in a few weeks. 
Here's hoping for a wonderful 2007-2008 school year!
Here's hoping for a wonderful 2007-2008 school year!
They both liked the car, in fact it was hard to get Ethan to look at him for a picture because he just wanted to look at the car. They went for walks to see the deer and so it was good that they both wore orange so I could spot them from a long ways off. 
I'll be honest, Ethan didn't love the swing with grandpa or with me, but later Allie told us we were doing it wrong, she said she swings with him on her lap but she faces him the other way and he loves it. Oh well, next time I guess.
Grandpa didn't even mind sharing his sunglasses to try and up the cool factor for little E. What a cool Grandpa and what a fun day for the two of them getting to know each other a little better.
After you're dressed, it goes like this...
The kids took Ethan down the big slide a few times but he wasn't super interested. In fact, the only thing he wanted to do was look at, and touch, the Holiday Inn stock car that was there on display. We looked at it and then left to go do something else and then every time I turned my head, all I had to do was look toward the car and there was Ethan. I thought maybe his obsession with the Disney movie "Cars" was because of the movie, but maybe it really is because he loves cars. It was like a real life Lightning McQueen, only green. At least he had a good time.
I mentioned the heat right? Well, the kids didn't get to swim, we arrived a little too late and so they decided to take advantage of the giant metal trough that was filled with ice and bottled water. Let's just say, a water fight broke out and so my whole reasoning for not wanting to let them swim because I didn't want to drive all the way home with wet children, went right out the window. They might as well have jumped in the pool fully clothed. At least they're cool now. Spencer did not appreciate the water fight as much as Taylor and Allie, but they didn't seem to hold that against him, they seemed to fine with helping him get wet just the same. What a good brother and sister he has, considering his feelings like that.
All in all, it was a fun day. I appreciated the time with my mom, we don't hang out as much as we should. We've been lucky this summer to have family in from out of town that we played together a lot more than usual which is of course great. Allie had fun trying to pose us for these pictures. 
Ethan was grandpa's shadow this whole day, but I will post about that later. I need to get to bed.
(we used to do birthday gifts at night with dinner and there was all this pressure to invite all kinds of family which is so hard for everyone because weeknights are so busy, and then the kids had ten minutes to play with gifts before it was time for bed, which is such a bummer, so we switched to breakfast, it's just our family which is sometimes so nice and the kids can be excited about their gifts all day long because it feels kind of like Christmas!) phew! 
He was super excited about a new lacrosse stick w/balls, Monolpoly - the 'here and now' edition, totally cool and also a book of Jack Johnson guitar music which he took with him to guitar today so we'll count that as a good gift too. He went boating with the Merrill's all day and then they came for ice cream and cake Friday night.
Then, we celebrated again on Sunday when the Smith's came for dinner to celebrate Taylor, Addie and Ashton's birthdays with, yes, MORE cake and ice cream.
All joking aside, I really do love this kid. He is so easy going and he has a heart of gold. Always willing to help out with anything and is such a gentleman. He works hard and is super-motivated when it comes to things he feels passionate about. Something that totally shocked me last year was that he wrote a few songs, good ones! I told him, that's how you get the girls Taylor! You could talk anyone into marrying you if you sing them a song you wrote for them! How could they say no?! So, as scary as it is to think that I am old enough to have a teenager (aaahhh!) I have to say that I wouldn't trade him in, not yet anyway. But I did tell him that just because he is now an official teenager doesn't mean he gets to all of a sudden turn into a turkey and start breaking all the rules. He just nodded. Is that a bad sign?
Then he saw the other kids dunking and of course had to try it. Although we lost a few cookies at the bottom his cup because he insisted on dunking way too long, he's officially an Oreo fan.
Allie won FIRST PLACE in her class, 
and Taylor won SECOND PLACE for his class!
I won first place in the pro portaiture class! I seriously can't believe it, and like I said at the beginning, it is just Davis County, it's not like I was invited to do a gallery in New York or anything, but I have to say, it does feel very nice. A little pat on the back and some bragging rights that I really needed. Funny how those things always come when you need them most, huh? So, now we're thinking that since they're already mounted and ready, why not enter them into the state fair? I'll let you know.... Here's to taking great photographs! :)
Have you ever tried to photograph three year old twin boys? Well I have, in fact, I tried to yesterday, the operative word in the sentance being tried. I just have to say that these boys had more energy then I have ever seen in my life and at one point after about an hour of trying to get them to smile and look nice and posed, I just started to laugh and got this funny picture. There were two or three (out of 613 - not kidding) pictures that turned out half way decent that they will be able to hang on their wall framed, but most of them look like this. I wish I could bottle their energy and sell it, or maybe better yet, keep it for myself!
Finally, about an hour before the party started, we took the rollers out and made all sorts of Annie jokes, I couldn't believe how CURLY her normally stick-straight hair became! I must admit that I was supportive of this make-over but did not have super high hopes for the outcome. 
Then we teased and hair sprayed and teased and hair sprayed those curls into near EPA pollution restrictions and came up with the Corbin Bleu hair-do. (oh that rhymes nicely) We cannot wait for the other girls to come so we can see how they dressed up. I told Allie that her hair is the funniest thing that I've seen in a long time and she should definitely dress up as Corbin Bleu for Halloween. What do you think? Pretty good match eh?
She pretended to not love all the attention she was getting, but I know the truth! Funny girl.
Several months ago at Ethan's 18 month well-child check up, the doctor recommended an Early Intervention Evaluation to figure out why Ethan is not talking yet. It probably wouldn't be too big of a deal if he had a few syllables but he doesn't even say ma, da or ba or anything like that. I will admit that even though I was trying to calm myself down with thoughts like, "he's the youngest, everyone talks for him", or "he's smart enough to talk, he just doesn't want to yet", there was a part of me that was super nervous to hear something about autism or other developmental issues. When we went for the evalutation, I was shocked at how thorough they were with him, and the different ways they were able to get information from him. Their "tests" were disguised as play time and Ethan loved it. He passed everything they gave him with flying colors and were even impressed by how much he understood even if he doesn't respond verbally. The end result was this, he is a smart little boy who just isn't ready to start talking, but it's clear that there's nothing "wrong" with him developmentally. It was a huge relief, I remember pulling into the Costco parking lot after our appointment and feeling a little teary-eyed as I took a deep breath. I don't think I realized until how really worried I was that something might be wrong. We had our choice to put him in speech therapy, because at the time he was about 11 months behind in that specific area so he definitely qualified for it, or we could try and work with him at home. We decided to go forward with the speech therapy, what could it hurt right and Friday was finally the first day that Jean came to our house to work with Ethan.
He doesn't usually take to strangers so quickly but right away she got down on the floor and pulled out a bag of toys and he liked her from the get-go. He stayed engaged the entire hour that she was here, she was impressed by that. She was surprised that he still isn't using any syllables but gave us some fun games to try to play with him that should encourage him to model what we're doing and eventually start communication verbally. I'm sure that they will come with time, his words I mean, but for now we can just enjoy his funny laugh that comes straight from his belly.
Tonight I was driving home from a paper flower class at Heartland and I noticed the gorgeous pink sunset which I knew Taylor would love to photograph. So, I called Rich on the phone and told him to let Taylor drop whatever he was doing and encourage him to go photograph the sunset (with the camera strap hung securely around his neck of course!). So when I got home I asked Taylor if he got the great sunset shot and he admitted to climbing a tree to try to get a better view (man I love this kid). I haven't worked with Taylor on composition and that kind of thing as much as I've worked with Allie, but after reviewing the 15 or so pictures he took I could see that he walked around to several different places around the neighborhood and house trying to get the best shot. He didn't just stand in one place and take fifteen of the same pictures (which I'm so guilty of sometimes). One thing I will say is he not afraid to work (or climb trees) to get the good picture!
As for my photo shoot with Ann and her family, well, Daniel was not so happy about having his picture taken except during the rare moment that Allie could get him to forget for a second that his mother was not holding him and make him smile. Max is in the stage that all kids go through where they're concerned about how their smile looks so they try too hard to smile and end up looking worried. No matter how we tried to make that boy laugh, it just didn't quite work. And darling Sammy was distracted by everything else around him, feathers, sticks, ducks, etc. So, needless to say, I've had better shoots, but it sure was fun to hang with the Fanks for an evening and we did get some good pics, but these are actually some of my favorite kind of shots because they tell such a funny story about each personality. This is the best part of my job.