1st Day of School!!!!!!!! 1st Day of School!!!!!!!!!!

*****Notice I wasn't able to post my pictures yesterday so this is a day late********

James getting ready for school. He is taking early morning seminary!!!

Jace woke up at 5:ooam and he laid at the foot of my bed until it was time to get ready. He doesn't seem to be as excited about school as was James and Jaryn.

Jaces desk at school he has all of his things in his desk ready to go.

AND last but for certainly not least my little princess.

I didn't even have to say "time to wake up" , I got as far as Jaryn, and she popped right out of bed. So excited to go to kindergarten.

This is so cute !

Jaryn doing her official 1st day of school picture by the front door

I think that this is such a precious view. My baby going to school.

Jaryn is standing by her teacher's podium so she can get her name tag.

I think that she is a little nervous. She is waiting up against the wall like the teacher directed.

And NOW after school. James seemed to have a good time although I did hear that he might have missed his first four classes, because of a mix-up. But he enjoyed the ones he went to.

Jace looks a little worse for wear, but all in all he had a terrific day.

And Jaryn informed me that she gets to go to school tomorrow, (the teacher said). She didn't eat her lunch because it was too exciting to talk with friends, and in Gym the coach didn't want them to run, (WHAAT?)And they didn't get to climb the rock wall or ropes or anything except jumping jacks and other exercise.

Today is the day, I have reached a major milestone in my life. ALL my children went to school ALL day!!!!! No more little ones to take to the grocery store or shopping while I look for clothes, that I can't try on because they will dart under the dressing room door, so I have the buy the clothes then take them home, then try them on and usually they don't fit, so I have to find another day to go back to the store with the kiddos to exchange the clothes, and I am really tired just explaining this to you all. (Breath Breath)

Okay so maybe I was just trying to sound silly, but ALL my kiddos went to school today and I got to............clean? I really need to find a better way to celebrate that occasion.

Okay so it's my Birthday!!

Well this is it. The big four-oh my heck how did I get this old. (One day at a time) No big party for commiserating. But we just moved here so it's hard to throw a big party. But thanks to all for the birthday wishes.
Since my mom likes me to share stories about my family so here are a couple of funny stories to share:
Yesterday my dad called to wish me a happy birthday and while I was talking with him Jaryn was, of course, buzzing around me wanting to know who I was talking to. My dad heard her and asked to talk to her so I gave Jaryn the phone. After a few sentences of conversation I heard Jaryn say, "Well, hug the phone." When I got back on the phone my dad told me that he wanted to give Jaryn a big hug. I guess she thought about it and figured the next best thing to hugging her was to hug the object on which her voice was coming through. Make sense to me.

Today my kiddos gave me the best present, they cleaned my kitchen and most of the house! Jason gave me a present of doing the laundry. BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!
While we were coming back from my birthday lunch, Jason asked if Jensen wanted to take our neighbor's grandson to the movies. He said yes, so we needed to get him some cash. James realizing that money is usually a birthday gift, suggested that I get some money for my birthday. So he told Jason that he needed to get me some birthday money. Thanks James for lookin' out for me.

Nothin' can keep him down!

Jace is now out of his "green leg" as he affectionately referred to it. Now he gets to wear a leg brace that keeps his leg straight. He will be like that for another 3 weeks. This kiddo has been such a trooper I am so proud of him. The following is about this past week.

Nope! Nothing will keep this little boy down. I am almost hesitant to post these pictures because it may reflect poorly on me, but that doesn't mean that he isn't doing this. Today we went to the kid's new elementary school and WOW! This place is amazing. The school is almost the size of my High School, definitely bigger than the old high school that I used to go to. (Before we moved to the new one). Any way, this two level ELEMENTARY isn't even the biggest one in the district!

Jaryn is so excited that she will be a kindergartner. Her teacher is just as energetic as she is. Jaryn met one of her desk buddies today and I think that they will be good friends. Jaryn also met the school mascot, she got so excited.

Jace will still be in his cast for the first week of school, but the school will be able to use his wheelchair for the long journey from his classroom to the lunchroom. His new 3rd grade teacher and special ed. teacher seem so nice and I think that they will take good care of Jace.

Killer Potato Soup

Oh My Holy Cow!!!! I just invented this and cooked it today. It is pretty simple so I thought that I would let others know about it so if they want to try it or improve it go for it!

Killer Potato Soup-you will need:

10 strips of bacon
8-10 med sized potatoes
4 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
1 med onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic (grated)
1/8 cup butter
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp each of thyme, sage, ground yellow mustard, white pepper
1 bay leaf
salt-opt

Save some time clean skins of potatoes and bake half way in microwave/6mins. Work in batches.
Let cool a little and peal off skins. (It helps to cool the potatoes if you cut them in half length wise). Chop the onions while potatoes are baking.
In a large pot cook bacon to render fat with butter until crisp . (The butter is just a bonus, if you are using precooked bacon you need a little extra fat). About med-low heat.
Remove bacon from pot. Add chopped onions and saute for 3mins. (opt. add salt to help sweat out the onions). Add garlic and saute for 1 min more. Add water, broth, potatoes, spices and bay leaf. Simmer for about 20-30 mins. Potatoes will be extremely mushy. Add milk simmer for another 5 min. Fish out bay leaf and with an emulsion blender, blend all the potatoes, onions, etc. Soup will be soupy not creamy like a chowder. Crumble up bacon and add to soup.

You can garnish with cheese/chives/croutons/more bacon/sour cream/whatever you would top on a baked potato. The choices are limitless.

If you want a creamier soup use less water maybe about a cup instead of four. And sub. whole milk or cream to help thicken.

I hope that I explained this well. I don't write out recipes (That's one of Jason's biggest complaints about my cooking, I can't do the same thing twice). But this came together really quick and even I LIKED IT!

Hardware

So for all those that know what they are looking at, you can explain it to the rest of the people out there. JK. this is Jace's leg. Jason says that you can see where the brake was/is, but I couldn't see it unless it's pointed out to me. I know now that it's on the side where the screws go in, so if your looking at the picture the most obvious is below the second screw right of middle and follow it up from there.

Dr. says that growth plate looks good and everything is staying in place. BAD NEWS is that screws might have to come out. YUCK! But Dr. also says that the bones will heal (the holes will fill in). But that second screw is awfully close to coming out the other side. At least that's how this person sees it.