The Triplets Go To School

So since Emmett moved into the neighborhood this summer he gets to go to school with our kids! We were so thrilled. He didn't get in the same class but that's OK. They still go to school together some days and apparently play at recess. Avery says she sees Emmett, runs and finds Alex, tells him where Emmett is and then they all play. They also look for the girls to play with too. I LOVE that they all have each other at school!!! Happy times. Love these little guys so much!!!

First Day!!

Oh Happy Day!!!

Hailey Grade 4
Mr. Summers (the all time favorite 4th grade teacher that every kid wants!)

Karis Grade 2
Miss Moore "She's as pretty as a teenager" Karis said.
"She practically is a teenager." I said.

Avery Kindergarten
P.M. Mrs. Stred - Karis had her too and loved her

Alex Kindergarten
P.M. Mrs. Stred

Mt. Raineer and Wilde!

Every summer (well the last 2) and from now on we try to get together with Alex's little buddy Wilde. If you remember, we travelled to Haiti on our court trip with his parents and really bonded with them. Something about leaving your sons in an orphanage for who knows how long and the heart-wrenching drive away from them as you all do the ugly cry pretty much cements you as friends for life. Then going through the earthquake and process after with them! They live in Canada and since we STILL DON'T have citizenship for Alex and can't travel out of the country with them, we have to meet them somewhere in the US. Well this summer we met in a random little town in between us going to Oregon and them being at Great Wolf Lodge! We  had hoped to go to Great Wolf with them but the 2 weekends we were in Washington was my 20year reunion and Michael's wedding. More on those later.

Anyway we had a great time. Went to a park and had a picnic, took a walk, and went to ice cream. It was so fun to reconnect!! The boys just start right in playing, laughing, and giggling! Love the bond they share!!! It is so amazing!!

On the way we stopped and looked at Mt. Raineer. Loved it and it was so fun to see it through our kid's eyes.

Grandpa!

One of the fun things we did this summer was see Grandpa Hoefer and the Prosser relatives! Grtandpa is really struggling with dementia right now so it was sad to see him and realize how far the dementia had progressed. I was really glad I was able to get a picture of him with the kiddos. He has recently moved into a care facility since it was no longer safe for him on his own. We are so blessed that three of Scott's siblings and their spouses live close by and take such good care of him. Scott being the youngest and the only sibling with young children at home and living in Idaho has not had the responsibility that his siblings have with him. They have loved him and taken care of him every single day in such a loving and respectful way. We are so blessed to have such a large family of love!!

Can I Get an "AWWW"?!

I posted on Facebook this summer that one of the best things about having more than one child is that they can sleep together at night! Thus, freeing the parent's bed from the kid invasion. (Sometimes this works.) We have gone through times with all our kids where they seem to be more scared at night or have a harder time settling down. By the end of the day though, I am often not really wanted to spend my few free adult minutes with kids, but rather with my husband! So a great solution has been putting kids in the same room or same bed. Alex and Avery do amazing sleeping in the same bed. They usually fall asleep faster than on their own in fact. And look how adorable they look?!!

Visitors!

Another highlight of our summer was when our friends the Brooks came to visit. I go all the way back to college with Denise. She was actually on staff at George Fox and the two of us spent quite a bit of time together. After college we kept up our friendship through all the significant stuff. Our wedding, a few moves, babies being born, kids being adopted, etc. Scott loves her family also so it was so exciting when they told us they were driving through Boise and wanted to hang out! Our kids LOVED their kids and we all had a blast.

American Girl Doll Store Trip!

First night there. She'd just bought her doll who really does look just
like her!! She also had her bitty twin!

With Grandma in front of the store!

With Mommy

At the cafe. Everything is soooo cute! Even the dolls get served.

Grove shopping center. Love that place.

So each of our girls gets to go to the American Girl Doll Store with Grandma and Mommy the summer before Kindergarten. Avery being the 3rd girl has been looking forward to this trip since she was about 2!! Well the day finally came and we packed up and got on a plane and met Grandma in LA! It was an amazing time. Avery had so much fun and did so well. Travelling can be really hard for her, but she was a trooper and we made some awesome memories. It was so good for us to spend that time together without the distraction of siblings!! We are so blessed to have such a loving and generous Grandma! And now to figure out where to take the boys!!

Way Behind!

I realized a couple weeks ago that the last post I had done was on the last day of school! That just shows you how BUSY and CrAzY our summer was!!! I am too behind to post everything, however will do a couple posts on some trips we took. Our summer was sooooo fun!!! We spent almost every.single.day at the pool!! Our neighborhood has 2 pools and loads of friends are always there. It was even more special this year since Brent, Hannah, and Emmett moved in the neighborhood and would often meet us at the pool. Every afternoon after lunch we would pack a very large snack bag and another bag of things like goggles, snorkels and various toys they wanted to use, and pile in the HoeferMobile and go to the pool!

The kids would swim and swim and swim and then eat snacks and play on the play structure next to the pool, and eat a snack, and stand in the shower, and swim, and fight with a sibling or neighbor kid, and swim, and pretend to be mermaids, and eat a snack, and dance on the side, and play Olympics, and eat a snack, etc etc. I found as long as I had several varieties of snacks that we could stay usually at least 3-4 hours!! I would literally lay there, chat with friends, occasionally read, chat with friends, sip on beverages, and eat snacks. NICE!

The crazy part of the summer, besides keeping 4 kids happy and trying to keep up with the house and laundry, was Scott was gone A LOT. So I was on my own quite a bit, which is sooooo much easier than it used to be, but still can be challenging. Thankfully I have Hannah who helps me when I need it, a good friend down the road who is always willing to lend a hand and help out with running kids places or watching kids (she even took kids to the dentist one day!), and a great babysitter who we used a lot. She bought an Ipad with babysitting money in the middle of the summer!! So between everyone it went quite well! Although I will say this is the first year I didn't cry on the first day of school!!! Longest summer ever since they got out May 25!!

Last DAY

School got out the 25th of May this year! So we are already on week #2 of summer vacay! Love it!! The girls had a fabulous year. Karis had Mrs. "A" the superstar teacher who Hailey also had in first grade. She adored her. She also came soooo far in her reading. At the beginning of the year she could read 5 words a minute with 10 mistakes. Yes, we were slightly worried, but not really, as I know when they are ready it will click. And it clicked for her this year! She is  now at 73 wpm with 1 mistake!! We are so proud of how far she came. Mrs. A truly has a gift with teaching!!! Karis was so sad to leave her teacher that she spent days sobbing over it. So heartbreaking!!

Hailey had Mrs. Moyle and she loved her!! Mrs. Moyle was by far the most laid-back teacher the girls have had yet. It was a great situation for our little worrier/rule-follower. Hailey used to worry so much about passing all the tests and doing everything just so. Well with having such a laid-back teacher, it really translated to Hailey. She had no school anxiety and had such a fun year. And she came so far also in Reading and Math. It was really neat to see.

We are so happy with the school the girls go to. The teachers are phenomenal and really love and care about the kids. Next year we will have 2 Kindergartners, a 2nd Grader, and a 4th Grader. Wow!!

Preschool Graduation!

I can hardly believe that next year we will have all our kids in Elementary school! It is definitely bittersweet for me, but mostly sweet. First off, no more having to write a tuition check every month! For the past 3 years, we have had 2 kids at a time in Preschool! Avery went for three years breaking the family record of most years at preschool. She is now a Preschool Expert!

This year was really special as Emmett went to preschool with Avery and Alex. So between the 3 of them, they were a big part of Miss Erica's class! They had a great year and learned so much!! Small Hands was such a good experience for them and we are so proud of how far they have come. In fact, Condra the director, commented to me that she can't believe how far they have come. From when I dropped them off 2 years ago and she had to hold Avery the entire time to now, where Avery interacts and has friends and does all of the activities. Alex of course came so far with his English skills and fine motor. He used to hardly be able to cut or hold a pencil, but now he is Mr. Crafty who can create and draw things that amaze us!!

Next year they will be in afternoon Kindergarten!

The Zoo!

Wow...I have not been a good blogger lately! In between the multiples of school projects, end of the year school stuff, Scott out of town randomly, overnight guests, and appointments, it has just kind of slipped my mind. There is no way I can catch up on the last couple months but I will do a couple random posts.

We went to the zoo with my good friend Erica and 3 of her 5 kids. Emmett had spent the night with us, so he came with Avery and Alex. The big girls were still in school. So between the 2 of us we had 6 kids, but each were missing 2! We felt like we were on a reality TV show as with all the kids being between 5-7 we made quite the raucous! And there is just something about living in Boise and being a white mom with dark kids that makes people do a double take.

The kids all had a great time and Erica and I had fun too. Our conversations are always so jumbled but we always enjoy each other. We have similar parenting strategies so it is fun to do outings together. We both get the chaos of kids and neither is horrified by meltdowns or multiple issues. Just how it goes with some kids. ☺ I love that Alex has some friends who have dark skin and a white parents and white sisters even!  I think it's important that he see that there are other families that look a little like ours. ☺

American Girl Doll Easter Party

That's right...we threw an Easter party for the American Girl Dolls! In December when we did the Christmas one, I got the idea to do an Easter one too. I mean what could be more fun than miniature Easter baskets and mini eggs and little girls with their dolls right? I was so thrilled when I found these little tiny baskets and little tiny plastic eggs! We also did a little craft, had mini cupcakes, decorated bunny cookies, and decorated mini cookies (for their dolls of course). The highlight was the Easter egg hunt though. It was so cute to watch the girls all run around with their dolls and their little baskets getting the eggs.

Decorating and eating cookies

The dolls all had their own table with everything doll size!

I did a little photo shoot so each girl will get some pictures of herself and her doll.



Photos were done for each girl



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Twists!

Oh my goodness...what an experience we just had. The plan with Alex's hair has always been to get twists. We didn't know what we were doing in the beginning and his hair got so dried out we had to shave it a year ago. We have deep conditioned it twice a day now for a year, and it is super healthy and  not dry at all. So we took him into a hair salon that specializes in black hair. The people who own it are actually from Haiti! It was so neat because Cecile the owner was so positive and excited about meeting Alex. He kept saying how happy Alex must be to be with his mom now and have a good life. I think it was neat for him to get to hear that from a fellow Haitian.

Anyway...the appointment was supposed to take 2 hours. We got there at our scheduled time, but had to wait almost an hour and no one seemed to mind. It was very much like being in Haiti where there isn't a huge concern or any concern whatsoever for time! The whole process took until after 9:30!! And we had the girls there too! But it went so well. There were between 20-30 people the whole time in the studio and in the back room. Kids all over, a baby playing, everyone seemed to know each other and was taking care of each other's kids. Including ours. The girls were running around, carrying babies, and acting like they were just part of the group. It was awesome! One of the girls who worked there asked me if I had ever seen my daughter dance (Karis) because she had quite the moves! I was like, "Oh yes, I've seen her dance!"

There were large trays of meat that they were also barbecuing behind the shop. The girls were out there too playing with the children. The discipline strategy was quite different that what our kids have ever seen. The kids would do something wrong and someone who pop them on the hand or arm or leg, the kid would cry, and then move on. Hailey goes, "These people are strict!"

Twists!

A highlight was several of the BSU players came including Doug Martin who is going into the NFL! So we got pictures with him. Also another player was there whose hair was in twists so he showed Alex how his would eventually look. We are in the beginning stages so we have to twist every other day, but eventually we won't have to do much at all so it should be really easy to maintain. What an experience it was!

Not so fun combing out all those curls!

I was shocked how much hair he had!

This was before!

Doug Martin!

Love the outfit...swimming suit top and a sundress pulled down as a skirt!

Lots of work!

Big Girl Night

So Scott and I went to this restaurant....Barbacoa a couple months ago. Everyone in Boise raves about it. It was so much fun and decorated like an art gallery. It really is quite amazing. You have to look at it yourself, so if you haven't been there click on the link! Anyway....I knew after we went that the girls would just love it! So Hannah took the littles for their first ever sleep over and we took the big girls to dinner! We let them get dressed up in whatever they wanted! Yep! We did! I think the girls had more fun walking around and posing than anything. They were so funny!

Trying to look like a model

Prettiest Girls Ever at Barbacoa!

This picture doesn't do the Birthday treat justice...but it is glowing! It was really neat!

More posing...in the bathroom!She begged me to go in there and take pictures of her in the fancy pink bathroom!
I love these girls so much!