Milestones

Both my kids have reached a big milestone recently.

First, Austin started kindergarten!  

He is a very young 5 year old and we debated holding him back another year but in the end decided to have him start this year.  I still have mixed feelings about it but I'm sure that is partly due to it being my oldest going off to school. We were both a ball of nerves that first day but he walked right in.  He did look back though and waved goodbye!

Silly faces. Kensley didn't want to miss out on first day of school pictures

 Everything went great that first day.  Then the second day...
On the first day I took him to school and picked him up from school but starting the second day he rides the bus.  Putting my 5 year old on a big bus and watching it drive away was a little gut wrenching for me that first day but i knew it would be fine.  Well I started walking to the bus stop from our house to pick him up and saw all the kids already walking home.  I had missed the bus.  It came 10 minutes early!  So i asked the other kids if they had seen Austin and no one had.  AHH! I didn't know if he was still on the bus, or maybe got on the wrong bus, or maybe got off at the wrong stop.  No idea.
I called the school and they said there were no students left at the school.  I called the bus transportation and they got in contact with all the bus drivers and they said all the buses were now empty. WHAT?!  Then where is my son?!  I called the police and explained the situation. They told me to stay home and sent an officer to my house.  They had to search the house first since 98% of the time a missing child is reported they are hiding in the house somewhere.  I assured them he was not home.  Then they got in contact with the school and the bus transportation and could confirm that he got on the right bus to come home. So they put a police officer at every stop the bus made and started searching.
Finally an officer radioed in that they had him  He apparently stayed on the bus the whole time and the driver didn't see him.  The driver looked up his stop, drove back and dropped him off at the correct stop.  An officer saw him get dropped off and drove him home.
It was the scariest 40 minutes of my life not knowing where my son was.  Austin just thought it was pretty cool that he got to drive home in a police car.
Now I am at that bus stop every day super early!

Kensley's milestone is that she is now potty-trained!

I was not looking forward to this part of parenting. We were not sure how it was going to go but she has far exceeded my expectations.  She has been doing great!  The first two days she had no idea what was going on and was pretty upset that her whole world was just turned upside down. But with princess panties, a sticker chart and gummy bears we are doing pretty good. She looks so grown up in underwear!  

Yay for kids doing awesome things!

Camping

We have been itching to go camping all summer and finally made it happen this Labor Day. Actually we went two different times!
The first time we went with Matthew's parents. They had last minute plans to go up into the Uintas right on the border of Utah and Wyoming.  It  was a small campground with little cabins and real bathrooms (woohoo!)  The cabins had heat too which was great since it was chilly the whole time we were there.

We went 4-wheeling up in the mountain trails. It was so pretty and super steep sometimes too.  We also had to ride through several huge mud puddles so we were pretty covered when we got back.

The kids had so much fun playing with sticks and rocks and just exploring.  It was so nice to be outside in nature.

 Found this huge pile of branches.  Austin and his cousin Aaron spend a good hour or so throwing sticks into the pile or pretending the pile was a bad guy/monster and fighting it with sticks :)

Kensley and Declan spend a good deal of time "fixing" the broken trees.

We also went canoeing.  I was worried that we would tip over but it was great!  The kids were excited and nervous to be riding in a boat.  They are the two little blobs in the middle of the canoe.  

Our second camping experience was a little more rugged.  Our ward was putting on the camp out.  We showed up and it's just an empty space for tents.  No facilities or anything.  Which is fine, but I was grateful it was only for one night!  We were also 1 of 4 families that came up to spend the night!

We love our ginormous tent!  

 After roasting smores and exploring the campsite with flashlights Austin asked "When are we going to bed?"  He thinks going to sleep in the tent is the best part about camping. So here we are reading books and putting kids to bed.  Not sure why Kensley is giving that face!

We only had three sleeping bags so we gave the kids 2 of them and Matthew and I slept on an air mattress and laid the third sleeping bag over both of us.  Bad idea.  We froze all night.  I checked the kids and they were both toasty warm curled up with blankets and sleeping bags.  Not us.  I fell asleep with numb toes, woke up about 20 times in the night with numb toes and got up in the morning with numb toes.  No amount of cuddling warmed us up either. Matthew got up about 6:30 to make a fire because he was so cold.  Needless to say Matthew and I slept horribly.  But both the kids slept all night. Next time, we will be sure to get enough sleeping bags for everyone!

We got in our camping itch and I'm so glad we did.  They kids love it and do really well and we love getting away too. 

Boys vs Girls

Looking back at the things we have done this summer, it's so funny how different boys and girls play. These are a few examples:

"Mom, look how tall (and symmetrical) my tower is!" 

 "Mom, my tower is for a princess to live in."

We decide to paint one day. Austin drives his cars through the paint to make tracks, while Kensley paints her nails.

At the beach: Kensley splashes around with her floatie pretending to swim

Austin is scooping and playing with construction trucks in the sand.

But other times they play just the same. Like when we went hiking and they both tried to pick the biggest rock to keep to put in my backpack to carry home.

 And when they play together at the park trying to climb up the slides together.

Both of these cute kids share a major sweet tooth. This summer's trend for us was popsicles.

And they are equally competitive when we race cars down our ridiculously steep sidewalks. 

For the most part they play pretty well together and I am so grateful for that! And I love when they help each other or share or think about what the other one might want.  It's also fun to look back at our summer at the things we have done.  I think I am dreading winter a little since I have never lived in real winter condition since having kids (minus the winter when Austin was a baby)  We were in AZ for three years and then in TX for last year's winter. So, I'm not really ready to be cooped up inside for months. So I'm just holding on to the warmth as long as possible!