Because there's more to life than Halloween costumes

While I may have been consumed by costume construction, life went on for the rest of the family. Here are a few activities worth noting.

Aiden earned his Wolf and was promoted to Bear in cub scouts. They have a ceremony where the mom paints different colors representing different attributes. Unfortunately I was at work so Chris stepped in as "Mr. Mom" and sent me pictures.

Kaylee was one of only two students who made it to the Spelling Bee semi-finals for a second year in a row! She didn't make the finals but she did get further than last year. She had a kind of "been there done that" attitude which helped her have more fun than stress. She also reunited with one of her third grade friends, what a small world:)

Ashton went to the sleep over science camp with her school and she lo-oved it! I thought for sure we had taken pictures, but no. Unfortunately not very many of the pictures she took turned out either:( But, here is a self portrait with one of her good friends. Hopefully she can get some more from her friends.

Halloween 2011

I had to look up the Halloween post from last year to see if I vowed to never make costumes again. I did not..but I definitely was not as gung-ho about making costumes this year. Luckily we found most of Kaylee's costume at Goodwill and Aiden borrowed his from his cousin so I only made two. With that said, here is Edwards Halloween 2011 edition.

Mad Hatter. The awesome hat (and receiver of much compliments) courtesy of Aunt Megan

Greek goddess Aphrodite

Harry Potter

Aang the last air bender (the cartoon version, not the awful movie version). I love how this one turned out. Not to shabby eh?

This is the pile of candy the kids gave Chris without his even asking. We have some sweeties:)

A 5 year old take on...

Being friends with a girl

Dalin's best friend moved away a while ago and he hasn't really found another "bestie" so I was asking him if there were any kids in his primary class that he wanted to be better friends with. He answered Tenley (the only girl in his class). When I asked why he told me, "Because you need to be friends before you can be a couple."

School

You may remember his "Principal Comment"on the first day of school. Day three brought, "I don't want to go to school anymore, can't I just get fired from that place?."

Self Control

One of the behaviors Dalin's kindergarten teacher has been trying to teach her class is self control (i.e. raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak). While we were at Target Dalin wanted to go to the men's bathroom by himself. Despite my overly parinoid parenting style I relented. After we came home he said,
D: "Mom I wanted to say something not nice but I used self control and I didn't say it."
M: "What did you want to say?"
D: "When I was in the bathroom at Target, there was a guy in there who was wierd and kept getting more and more paper towels and hand sanitizer. I wanted to say 'You old coot', but I didn't"

Corporate America

Mom did you know In-N-Out makes their fries with love? It's because they love their customers money.

Happy Birthday Aiden!!

Can I just tell you how much I love this kid! He is smart and kind and helpful and he is usually very happy. Here are a few of my favorite things about Aiden:
He gets distracted easily (especially when doing the dishes) but when I remind him to get back on task he always replies with a quick "Oh sorry."
When he is nervous about something he asks a ton of questions (they usually start with "wait...wait, what about...")
He knows how to annoy his older sisters (like any little brother should) but he has a fair amount of patience when his little brother shows him the same kindness.
He loves to read.
He plays his chest like a drum
He wants to be famous
He recently got into the G.A.T.E. program
He's an all around good kid.

I didn't take many pictures on his birthday (I know what a bad mom), but I hope the cute baby pictures will make up for that

Three for Three

Aiden's the latest to inherit my eyesight. He's not a fan of the glasses and he's fairly certain his eyes will be better by next year. I think he looks so handsome!

First Day of School 2011

Back to school, back to school! The first day of school went pretty well in the Edwards house (there's a first for everything right?). Kaylee is old hand at the middle school thing, being in 7th grade and all. It didn't hurt that she knew she was going to have several of her good friends in most of her classes. Her schedule did get changed around a bit to accommodate a pre-algebra class, but that's what you get for being smart;) Reports are she had a good day. I didn't get any pictures of her because waking up at 6:30 makes my brain a little slow. Ashton (5th grade) was a little sad that none of her friends from last year are in her class, but she really likes her teacher and she gets to see most of her friends at recess anyway. Aiden (3rd grade) really likes his teacher too. It may have something to do with "Cookie Friday" but I think he would love his class regardless. I'm really excited for him because his teacher last year wasn't our favorite so he is due for a good one. Dalin started kindergarten. The school used to have only grades 3-5 and this year it switched to K-5 so luckily Dalin gets to be in the same school as Ashton and Aiden. His teacher is really nice but she had been teaching 4th grade so she's adjusting to kindergarten life too. There are about 38 kids in the class which is kind of insane. His teacher said if the get five more kindergarteners at the school they can get another teacher, so I'm hoping for that because sheesh! Best quote of the day comes from Dalin. He had a homework sheet where he had to color like five things which was almost to much for him to bear. He looks up at me and says, "I didn't even say anything mean about the principal and my teacher still gave me homework!" It's going to be a long year:)

The kids all set their clothes out the night before, it was pretty cute to see in the morning.

The elementaries



Dalin was a little nervous. He told me there were two girls in his class who cried, but he didn't cry, he "held his tears"

The Lazy Days of Summer...emphasis on lazy

This is our first full summer and I had all kinds of plans. Unfortunately I forgot one thing. It is H-O-T, hot! I mean the kind of hot that makes you tell your husband to ask for a transfer up north so you never have to deal with this kind of summer heat again. We did make it out of the house a couple of times, but I'm afraid there aren't too many pictures to prove it. Here are the few pictures that show we do know what the world outside our four walls look like.

Kaylee and the newest beehives on their way to their first girls camp. I know it doesn't really look like they were headed to camp, but they did baptisms for the dead in St. George on the way.

We took our annual library sponsored trip too Shark Reef. Again you can't really tell we were there, but trust me we were.

We did cousin shopping and I didn't get any pictures of the girls. This was the first year we took the boys and the only picture I got was their "huddle" to decide what kind of shirt to get.

We went to the temple with our primary and it was AWESOME! It really deserves it's own post but I'll refer you back to the lazy part of the title.

Edwards Family Reunion

Most of the Edwards crew. We were unfortunately missing Emily's husband and daughters and Lindsay's husband and daughters. Maybe next time:)

Chris's family lives all over the place. We are lucky enough to have one of his sisters here in Vegas, but his parents are in Arkansas, a sister in New York, another sister in Texas and his brother who lives in Utah is going to be moving to Rhode Island in August. That along with his parents upcoming 40th anniversary and a baby blessing seemed like a good reason to have a family reunion. We decided to rent a house in Salt Lake so we could spend actual quality time with the Edwards family. The house we had originally reserved became a case of false advertising (it was dirty, not wheelchair accessible, and previously had cats) so the rental agency was contacted and we were moved to a bigger much nicer house. It was awesome! There was a hot tub, a game room with air hockey foozeball and ping pong, 5 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath and enough space that the whole family could just hang out and not feel like we were on top of each other. There were fireworks across the street on Fri and Sat night and a parade that on the street next to the house on Sat morning. They said those were for Taylorsville days, but I'm choosing to believe it was for our family. It was fabulous to relax and visit and play together as a family. Everything worked out perfectly. Thank goodness aunt Lindsay and aunt Kim took lots of pictures, because I don't think I even took my camera out.

This picture cracks me up! It is typical Chris. These poor girls put up with a lot from their older brother.