Addison starts Preschool!

Today is the long awaited day.  Ever since last year, Addison has been wondering when SHE got to go to school too.

I am so glad that I found a preschool in a lady's home in my ward, just a block or so away from our house.  Addison has asked me every day for the last month if she can go to preschool yet.  When I tell her not yet, she rolls her eyes and groans out of frustration.

But her patience has paid off, and today she finally got to go "Without mom!"

She apparently has been planning a grand entrance for her first day.  Today she told me, "When we get there, you stand in front of me to hide me from my best friends.  Then when they're looking, you can move and they'll all see my fancy outfit and shoes!" (I took her to the store and set her free to choose whatever outfit she wanted.  So of course, she went all out.)

When I mentioned that some kids might be nervous about their moms leaving, she said, "That's ok, I will be their friend and pretend to be their mom, so they won't be scared."

I hope the teacher is ready for Addison!

And you know...I've joked a lot about how Addison is my challenging child, and that I needed her to go to preschool more for my sanity than for her.  But truth be told, I think this was one of the hardest drop offs to school yet!

How did my little Addi Paddi get so darn big??

While I am going to enjoy the quiet time while she's gone (because it coincides with Molly napping and the other two are at school all day), I will miss her cute little face popping around the corner when I'm folding laundry, or doing dishes to ask, "Mom...so I was just wanting to ask you something.  Um....let me think about it..." followed by something super sweet or funny.  I will miss her asking if she can help sort the laundry and being so proud of herself, "I did it ALL BY MYSELF!  I love to help you mom, it's the best."

While she is very strong and stubborn and a bit crazy at times, she is also so caring and kind and sweet.  I get millions of hugs and kisses every day from her.  She tells me constantly "Mom, I just love you so much, you're my best mom in the whole world" and "I just LOVE to be together all the time with my family."  She is the one to have around for a constant self-esteem boost.  She also tells me every day that she loves my: shirt, hair, eyes, nails etc.  She always finds something to compliment, every single day.

Yesterday she was drawing pictures and then showing me, and I had to guess what they were.  After guessing wrong a few times on one, I finally told her I wasn't sure and asked if she could tell me.  She said, "Nope.  I'm sorry, I can't tell you what it is mom.  I'm just the draw-er, you're the teller."  So, I threw out a random "Is it a centipede?"  She got all excited and said, "Yes mom!  That's it!  That's what it is.  And good job, that is a big hard word to say, and you did it right!"  She has no idea what a centipede is.  I think the big word just dazzled her or something. :)

And I LOVE that she still says "yours" instead of just "your".  So it's always, "Mom, I love yours hair" and "Mom, I love yours eyes" and "Mom, can I have yours drink?"

Gosh I love that girl.

Thankfully we're starting out slow, and preschool is just two days a week.  I know she'll love it, and will do great....but by golly, I may just miss her after all that joking about not being able to wait for her to go to school.

Funny how things work out like that.

Back to School 2013

SO...today was the big day.  Brielle and Claire started school!  They were both very excited, and a little nervous.  Mainly they were nervous about getting on the bus, but we talked a lot about it and they felt better by today.

I have to give a HUGE thank you to Marty for getting the girls up, ready (I did manage to do their hair), fed them breakfast, made their lunches, packed their backpacks, took pictures and walked them to the bus stop. I unfortunately had a major kidney stone problem (CT scan showed a 2 mm one trying to pass) and was in the ER this morning from 3:30 a.m. to about 5:45 a.m.  and got about 15 minutes of sleep last night.

But this post is about my cute, big girls.  I am so proud of them!  They are smart, kind, friendly, obedient...a teacher's DREAM student.  They will do so well in school, and will blossom more and more.  I can't wait to hear all about their day when they get home!

Here are my BEAUTIFUL girls on their first day of school!

I wrote "I [LOVE] U" on their hands so if they got nervous they could look at it and know I was thinking about them.

Claire's sassy pose

First Grade!

Third Grade!

Walking to the bus stop

Laying out backpacks to make a line for getting on the bus

Dancing around before the bus got there

And they're off!

It's such a joy being these girl's parents!

Making Memories

*Long post for record keeping reasons.  You've been warned*

SO....this past week (Wednesday through today) we went up north for a family vacation/visit family/family wedding.  We crammed a lot in to the week, and I took approximately ZERO pictures.  Okay, that's not true.  I took 4 pictures - from our drive home.  

Anyway, while we were there, we went to Lagoon, the Bountiful Rec Center, the girls' and Marty went to see Despicable Me 2, we went to the Brigham City Temple for a nephew's wedding...and then we had the journey from [you know where] to get home.

We had planned to head home from our vacation on Sunday afternoon, but as we were sitting around Saturday, we realized we had no more plans and were really tired and ready to be back home.  So we threw all our stuff in the car - very unorganized like - and hit the road around 5:30 p.m. to get home.

Around 7:15 we were getting close to Fillmore - the halfway point - and noticed the Yukon was starting to shake a little.  At first we thought it might have been the road, so we switched lanes.  That didn't help.  We tried going different speeds, and at first it seemed that it only shook when we got around 65 MPH.  

I called my dad to pick his brain.  He said it sounded like a tire might be coming apart internally, that the shaking would be tire related, not mechanical.  He told me that if it only happens at a certain speed, that we would be fine to get home and check it out.  If it shook all the time we were to call him back.

So, we kept changing speeds...and it kept shaking.  We had planned to get off in Fillmore for a potty break and to stretch our legs before finishing the last couple hours.  As we were getting off the freeway, the shaking became worse...and we knew we had a problem.  

Marty checked the tire when we were at the gas station, and sure enough...part of the tire was starting to bulge - which means it's coming apart internally as my dad had predicted.

I called my dad again and he said if it's noticeable like that, then it isn't safe to drive on and we should probably switch that front right tire out with the spare.

We drove over to another gas station to check one last time if the shaking was still bad.  

It was.

So we stopped and unloaded stuff out of the back and got to work to change that front tire.

By this point it is about 8:30 p.m.  We had tired/bored kids, Molly was crying (she normally goes to bed around 7:30) and I was feeling flustered and just wanted to get home.  I was passing them drinks, candy and toys, trying to keep them distracted.

Just as Marty was getting the whole spare tire thing figured out, we realized that the jack in our Yukon was missing a part.  We wouldn't be able to jack the car up OR get the spare tire all the way out.

We were kind of stuck.

We started racking our brains.  Do we just check into a hotel and see if a tire store or mechanic was open in the morning (which I didn't feel too hopeful about - I didn't think there'd be much open on a Sunday in a tiny town like Fillmore)?  Do we start asking random truckers if they have a jack?  Do we just risk it and try to drive home anyway?

Then we realized we had gotten roadside assistance when we purchased our Yukon.  So we called the number.

LUCKILY there was someone in Fillmore that could get to us in about 20 minutes.

So, for 20 minutes we sat around in the gas station parking lot. I let the kids walk around, took them to the bathroom and turned a movie on for them.  Anything to keep them distracted.

(Here are the four pictures I took...they're of Addison enjoying herself at the gas station while we waited)

The guy showed up and quickly helped change the tire.  

We thought we were set.  It was about 9:30 p.m., but we didn't care that we still had 2 hours on the road...we just wanted to get home.

As we were putting our luggage back in the Yukon, the mechanic guy walked around the car checking all the tires.  He got to the front left one and I heard, "woah...this one is even worse."

My heart kind of sunk.

We asked if we could switch that one out for the one we had changed on the right one, just something to get us home.  He said no, they were both very unsafe to drive on and we'd have a blow out if we went any further.

He tried calling a friend to see if he could find a used tire for us - but his friend didn't have anything.

The mechanic recommended that we find a hotel for the night and check the tire store in the morning to see if we can find something used to just get us home.  He even warned us to NOT get back on the freeway, but to drive slowly through town to get to the hotels.

We were worried about how in the world we were going to make all this work.  Four tired kids, two bad tires, not sure we'd find a hotel, not sure the tire store would even be open in the morning, not sure how we'd pay for all of this.

Then Marty told me the best news I'd heard all evening.  Our set of factory tires and rims that came with our Yukon when we bought it were still at his parent's house!  (The previous owner had put fancy rims and tires on it, but also gave us the factory set)

So I called my dad and said, "How would you like to take a little trip to Fillmore tomorrow?!"

He laughed and said he'd be happy to.

THANK GOODNESS FOR MY AWESOME DAD!

He said he'd go pick up the tires that night and head out early the next morning.

So we went on our way to find a hotel...got a stinky, overpriced room, and tried to get people to bed quickly.  It was now 10:30 p.m., and we were all exhausted.  The baby immediately fell asleep and the rest of us were quick to follow.

The next morning, my dad got to us about 10:00 a.m. and quickly changed the tires out for the factory set.

(My dad took these two pictures)

He brought an air compressor, jack, electric impact gun (whatever that is) and other tools to make the job easy.

We were on the road by about noon, and home by 3:30 (had to make a potty stop)

I was SO glad to be home!  There was definitely some divine intervention keeping us safe and making it so we were in the right place at the right time, not dealing with two blowouts in the middle of nowhere...or even a horrible accident.  As my dad said, it was a "catastrophic tire malfunction".  I'm just glad we caught it before a catastrophe happened!

You want to know what the kids said when we asked them what their favorite part of our trip was?  (Keep in mind they had just gone to Lagoon, the Rec Center and seen Despicable Me 2)

In unison they all yelled, "Staying at the hotel!"

At least they enjoyed it, and it definitely makes a memory that will last forever.

My dad said, "In 20 years from now, your kids will be sitting around your family room talking about that trip when the tires in the Yukon were about to blow and you had to stay the night in the hotel.  To them, it was a great adventure."

And I know he's right...because that's what my siblings and I do as well.

It kind of stinks being on the adult side though and realizing how much work and stress REALLY went into all those "memory making" experiences.