1st Day of School

Maggie and Lydia started school on September 7th. Maggie is in 5th grade and Lydia is in 2nd grade. They have both been ready to start school for a long time now. I think it was mostly due to our boring summer, but really because they both like school, especially Maggie. But Lydia was equally excited to start.

Maggie has Mrs. Glasscock for her teacher, but goes to Mrs. Kolstad for 6th grade reading. She was disappointed at first with her teacher because she was hoping for Mrs. Anderson (who was her 3rd grade teacher--Miss Harvey, before she got married). But, I think she's really liking Mrs. Glasscock.

Lydia initially had Mrs. Scott for second grade. But since they had like 30 more kindergartners show up than they were planning for, they had to switch some teachers around. So, they took Mrs. Scott from 2nd grade and moved her to Kindergarten (Paige's teacher) and moved Lydia and some of her classmates into Mrs. Bayley's class. This is the same teacher that she had in kindergarten and 1st grade. We really love Mrs. Bayley. She is a wonderful teacher. Lydia was so excited when they moved her back.

Paigey girl has Mrs. Scott and is in the same class with a lot of her buddies. She's really having a good time and really enjoys riding the bus. Bella really misses Paige while Paige is at school. These two are such good buddies even though they are the farthest apart in age.

This is Paige's buddy, Hayden. They went to preschool together. They are going to marry each other when they get older. :)

As for myself, I'm really enjoying having the girls back in school. Things are so quiet at home and I'm able to spend more time with Bella and Noah. Although I really liked the laid back days of summer where we could do whatever whenever, I'm really liking having things back on a schedule again. I'm trying to get back to my cleaning schedule that I had before and trying to find time to exercise, but Noah's not quite on a consistent schedule yet, so things aren't completely back to normal. Anyways, I really like the school that the girls go to and we've had some really terrific teachers. Here's to a great school year!!

She's such a good helper!!

We're also busy with some after school activities. Each of the girls signed up for a dance class. Maggie and Lydia are taking a hip-hop/jazz class. They are both having a great time with it, although they are in separate classes. They've both taken ballet, and Maggie's taken acrobatics and Lydia's taken tap, so this is new to both of them. Paige is taking pre-tap and is enjoying the sound of her shoes on the floor. She has a really fun teacher, too. I also signed them all up for soccer even though I've tried in previous years and they didn't want to play. They are really liking it though, especially Paige. She runs and runs and kicks the ball once in awhile. Soccer only goes through mid-october and then we'll just have dance. So, we're off to a busy start.

I guess we didn't get a picture of Maggie--oops!

A Visit from Grandma and Grandpa McKibben

Garrett's parents, Jim and Georgia, were able to come and visit us for a couple of weeks. They live in Ohio, so we don't get to see them very often. It was nice to visit with them and hang out; and it was certainly nice to have more help with the kids. The first weekend they were here, Garrett's brother, Josh was also able to come stay with us again. While they were all here, Garrett blessed little Noah. I know that meant a lot to Garrett to have his dad and brother stand in with him.

The McKibben boys

The day before the blessing, we took the kids to a new park in Hillsboro that we've been wanting to go to. They have a really different playground with some funky slides and toys. The girls weren't so sure at first, but then they liked it. They had some fountains to play in, which the girls did for awhile, but it was kind of chilly. Of course, I didn't get any pictures of the water part. Here's a few from the park.

Bella drinking water from Garrett's backpack.

Lydia on the spinning thing--what's that called?

Video of the girls going down the funky slide

While they were here, we also went camping. I wasn't too excited about this plan because Noah is still getting up in the middle of the night a couple of times to eat and I knew that in our trailer, everyone was going to hear him cry and wake up. (I was mostly worried about Bella). But, he never woke the kids up--pretty amazing since we are all right there in very close quarters. I also knew it was going to be pretty squished in there with 9 of us, but luckily the weather was pretty nice and we spent most of the time outside and only came in to sleep. It was a fun weekend. The first day we were there, it was nice and hot, so the girls went swimming in the lake. The second day was quite a bit cooler, but it didn't stop the girls from swimming a second time. We went on walks and hung out mostly. Love vacations where you can just sit around and enjoy each other's company.

Bella ready to go swimming in the lake.

She didn't last long in the cold water. I don't blame her!

Changing diapers in the great outdoors

Noah hanging out on the ground

Grandma and Noah

Lydia found a really cool stick and was pretending that it was a wand, so of course all the other girls wanted a "wand" so found their own sticks. Maggie was even teaching them spells from Harry Potter. That girl is obsessed with Harry Potter.

They love playing in daddy's truck

Bella and her wand

We really love going to Detroit Lake and were glad we got to go this year. It's been a few years since we've been there.

Grandma french braiding Bella's hair. She did it for all the girls.
Right before Grandma and Grandpa leave. The other girls had already left for school, so we didn't get a picture with them. Thanks grandma and grandpa for a great visit!!

Random pictures of Noah

Been taking a lot of pictures of Noah...here's a few recent ones...

He's getting to be a lot more social now with more talking and smiling. He is so cute and so fun to kiss!
At his 2 month check-up, Noah weighed 11 lbs and was 23 inches long. It's been a couple of weeks since his appointment. I weighed him the other day on our scale, and he's already up to 13 lbs!