Playing in the rainstorm

It really decided to rain pretty hard for a probably less than an hour. It was one of those warm rain storms and kids where bouncing off the walls from sitting at school at day. So they went outside to play in the rain. For some reason, we always have a pool of water where our driveway meets the street which makes for lots of kids play time.

The Dress

I was at Kohl's finding an outfit for the little one to come when I spotted this dress that I thought was so beautiful. Better yet, it was on clearance. I told McKailey that she could have the dress if she would let me practice some more photography skills with her. She quickly agreed. I haven't gotten around to taking those photos but Alex did take some of her. Then, we went to Grandparent Day's house on a Sunday and Squeakers was wearing the same dress! Of course we had to take a picture.

Since we went to church with them, Braxton went with Brandon to Young Men's. Braxton thought that was super awesome to go to another class and be older, than to sing songs in Primary. He is getting to that age that singing in primary is not one of his favorite things to do. He loves being with Brandon and getting to do older activities, not to mention, hanging out with another boy. He doesn't get that very often.

30 weeks along

Not that I want to remember this but it is part of life right now. So, here I am at 30 weeks with the new little guy. 10 weeks to go to see him and I am ready for him to be out :) However, it has been a pretty normal pregnancy and I am very grateful for that. He moves like crazy and must know karate already. He also loves to hang out in my right rib (which all of my kids do that for some reason). I hate garlic salt, stuff with tomato sauce (but I love tomatoes, I don't know how that works), and I can only handle a little bit of meat at a time still. I love fruit but have had no cravings which is really sad (that's my favorite when you eat something you crave). His meal preference is a lot like Braxton. It's pretty humorous.

Grandma Bird's 90th birthday party

We went to a park in South Jordan to celebrate Grandma Bird's birthday. What a wonderful, amazing example she is. We had a dinner and then watched a picture slide show of her growing up with her telling us what she did growing up.

Our homemade slide

Thanks to Pinterest, we found this crazy idea to slide down the stairs on top of the box. The kids actually went pretty crazy fast and we put pillows at the bottom to prevent them from really hurting themselves. It provided great entertainment and lots of laughter. We took video of this but we did get 1 picture.

First Day of School for 2013-2014

This year is a big change for us since we decided to switch schools and go to a charter school, Excelsior Academy in Erda. It's 10 min. away but I loved how they divided the students by level and pushed them at their own level. So we had kids pray about it and so did Alex and I, we got the answer to switch schools. So on August 19th, we headed to Excelsior to try it out. Kids were anxious and wondered about making new friends but so far (a month later) things are going great. It has been an adjustment with friends, school work, homework and uniforms to name a few, but overall, we are pretty happy.

 Braxton is in 5th grade with Mr. Olson (come to find out he was one of Alex's USU students a couple of years ago. We thought that was pretty awesome. Plus, he loves to tell cool Army stories in class that Braxton loves.)
McKailey is in 3rd grade with Miss Williams (who just got back from a mission that McKailey was excited about).

 Here they are in front of the school. This was Alex's first year ever to be able to drop kids off on their first day because he didn't start with students till the following day. Kids were pretty excited about that.

The kids meet in the gym and line up before school so we didn't get our traditional picture of them in front of their desk.  Alie goes to afternoon kindergarten which is why she is not in uniform in the picture.

Here is Alie all ready for school. She goes from 12:15-3:30 with Wed being different; she goes every other Wed from 8:15-1:30.

 Lining up ready to go inside.

Alie was so excited to start kindergarten with her new teacher Ms. Crane! She has done very well adjusting to school everyday and making new friends. She seems to do pretty well at making friends and playing with whoever will play with her. I can't believe she is so old.
This is Alie's first day of school work.

Alex's Triathlon

This is Alex's first triathlon where he had to swim in a lake.  He was kind've  worried about it but he did just fine.  He had fun.  He finished in 1:26:?? He was so slow in the water that some of the women, that started 10 minutes behind the men, passed him up before he got out of the water.  He was great in the water, but it took him 26 minutes to finish the 5k.  Pretty slow for a 5k, but not too bad, for not training much over the summer. 

The Kids' Triathlon

The kids participated in a kid's triathlon in Stansbury on Aug. 16th.  They didn't train a whole lot this summer, but they still wanted to do it.  After Alex talked them into doing it, he had to do his own the next day.  Alex thought about wimping out, because of having to swim in the "swamp," but Alex was glad that he did it.  Neither Braxton and McKailey won a trophy, but they still said they enjoyed it.  Braxton time from this year is: 0:27:36, and McKailey's 0:37:16, last year: Braxton: 0:27:09, McKailey: 0:34:24.  Both of them went a little slower this year, but they were very proud of them. 

Our trip to Island park and Yellowstone - Bird Reunion

We had a fun time July 31st - Aug. 3 at the Bird Reunion.  After we arrived, the first evening, a beautiful double rainbow appeared.

Lots of family came to the reunion.  Aunt Kim had a full agenda planned for us on Thursday complete with a children's Olympics.  It was a great time to play and take pictures. 

Braxton found some "natural chalk," so he spent hours trying to make chalk from some rock that he found.  We had to bring home some rocks and a bag full of chalk that he spent a long time putting together. 

That afternoon we floated down the river.  It was a lot of fun!  It was Michelle's favorite part of the trip.  Not everyone went down the river, but a lot did. 

That night, we went over to Aunt Susan's cabin and sat in the hot tub.  Everyone except for Michelle, of course.  The little alien in her belly wouldn't have liked that.  Alie kept asking after that to go back over to the hot tub, but we never got another chance.

The next day, we went to Yellowstone early in the morning.  Alex was super excited about taking lots of pictures of animals, but was very disappointed.  We hardly saw any wildlife.  We saw 1 bison!  How crazy is that! We saw some elk and a bald eagle also, but not much more than that.  The geysers were cool and old faithful was definitely a highlight of the adventure.  Before we left on the trip, we watched the live webcam of old faithful, so the kids were very excited to see it.

On the last day of the trip we left before lunchtime to head home.  We stopped in Rexburg to see the new temple (new for us, since we hadn't been back for a long time).  We walked through the gardens and took some photos and looked around campus.  Both Michelle and Alex miss the place, except for the cold, of course. 

It was a fun trip, even though several of the Bird clan got sick and had tummy problems.