First Day of School for James

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that ALL FIVE KIDS are in SCHOOL!! Where does the time go? I've said it a lot lately, but I felt like time crawled by when the kids were little. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed each stage, but it felt so slow. Now all of a sudden the kids are all in school, Austin has ONE more year of highschool (WHAT???) and not even a year later is on a mission. Ella has one more year of Jr high, Will is already in jr high. Time went from crawling to a high speed chase!! 

James' first day of school was the day after all the older kids. He was so excited, but when I asked him, he said he wasn't excited haha. Little turkey. Jimmy was able to come for the first day which was pretty awesome. James is in the morning class and shares a classroom with a girl from his primary class. It was nice to see a familiar face. He did make an instant best friend named Tayson. These two have become inseparable. It's like they've known each other their entire lives and it's adorable. When we went to meet the teacher night she asked if James and Tayson knew each other outside of school. I said they just met there and she was shocked :) Super cute!

I always thought that when all my kids were in school I'd have all this time to do whatever I wanted or needed to. Well, for the first couple weeks I took full advantage of that "me" time. My neighbor invited me to go to hot yoga with her, so I started going day 3 into school. I bought an unlimited month trial pass and was going 4 times a week. I even got a couple other friends to join me. I really enjoyed hot yoga. I'd drop James off at the school and rush straight to class with just enough time to shower and then go pick up James. It was hot and sweaty and yet so wonderful. Sadly I got sick (even ended up at urgent care because I could barely breathe, super fun times) and stopped going. Even more sad is that my pass is expired and I'm too cheap to justify the full cost. If only the trial price was the regular price ;) I might just have to find another place to go... hmmm.... 

Anyways, after the yoga stopped it's mostly been errands, cleaning, etc. But I'm glad James is enjoying school so much. He gets mad at me when we have to miss because of the doctor or dentist or whatever. That makes me happy that he likes being there. I think he just likes getting to play with Tayson every day, but hey, who cares ;)

Labor Day

On Labor Day we decided to take the kids to Little Bow Provincial Park with the Wood family. We had the most beautiful weather and the kids swam, went tubing and it was all around the perfect way to finish off the summer! The Woods brought their awesome jet ski and the kids were in heaven!  I'd like to get a jet ski!! Not too crazy to haul and so many places that we could do a day trip too. Maybe one day :)

Thanks for the great day Caitlin and Jordan and girls! I think this may have to be a new tradition!

Summer Recap

Well, I'm the worst at blogging! It was a long, mostly uneventful summer with beautiful HOT weather, which was awesome!! Sadly the forest fires put a damper on a lot of our would be adventures as half of us couldn't breathe if we went outside. But here is summer in a nutshell...

Dad sold his Harley and I may have shed a few tears over that. Grabbed a photo of Jimmy on it before the new owner rode off into the sunset.

James and I hit and movie and tried Blaze Pizza for the first time with grandma and grandpa while Jimmy and the kids hiked out in Drumheller.

We got to swim at our friends' house and it was pretty awesome!

We bought a 4Runner and the  boys love driving it.

Our Relief Society had a challenge to read the Book of Mormon in 85 days. I finished in 80!! Now I need to start again. With the challenge the RS presidency sent out questions to go along with the 3 chapters for the day. It was pretty great to get you thinking. But I wanted to read this like I would a novel - as much as I can at a time. I knew I'd miss some days too, so reading as much as I could in a sitting helped a lot with those missed days and I still finished ahead of schedule. Plus, the more I read at a time, the more I was able to connect with what I was reading. Can't wait to start again. My goal is to finish it again before the end of the year! Anyone else want to join me?

We took the kids to go pick berries. We found a great Saskatoon Berry farm just north of the city and we had a whole ice cream bucket filled in about 30 minutes. It was so much fun!! And I even made a Saskatoon Berry Pie!! AND syrup. SO good on ice cream!

For the August long weekend we wanted to take the kids to Grassy Lakes for a hike, but the whole area was closed off due to bears, so we walked around Canmore and then BBQ'd. Not too shabby.

I FINALLY got pictures up on the wall in the hall to the kitchen. It makes me SO happy. I walk by it all the time and stop and look at all the photos. Now I need to find another wall to cover :)

Jenny, Katelyn, Janie and I went to an evening farmer's market in Inglewood and had the most delicious cookie dough treats and popsicles! Thank you Family Freezed! Ethan was working there so I had grab a picture

I shot two weddings in one day. THAT was exhausting! But so fun! I had just a long enough break to grab a Perrier while the photos downloaded and then off to the next wedding. Mariana came and helped me with the second wedding. It's WAY more fun to shoot a wedding with someone else.

We celebrated Ethan's birthday.

Baby Lyla Joan Cichy finally made her appearance on Tuesday August 15th (I guessed the right date). She weighed in at 7lb 11oz and 20" long and is absolutely darling! I was able to go and photograph the birth which was pretty awesome!

The kids finally got to meet Lyla a few days later. They were all in love! Austin was working on the other end of the city, so Jimmy and Austin didn't meet her until much later sadly. 

We went swimming our near another friend's place. The kids had a blast.

I got to snuggle this peanut and take her newborn photos! I miss having a baby around. I miss just sitting there snuggling them. 

We went to CornFest in Taber and stayed late to watch Uncle Mike and his band, Plum Crazy, play and then watched a solid 9 minutes of fireworks which was better than any Calgary fireworks we've seen. Pretty fun!! Natalie and her family were up visiting from Texas and so we were able to visit with them. I love my family.

The senior home by our house has a monthly worship service and I was able to play the piano for it.

Football started for Austin the week before school started. SO SMOKY!!!! But I can't wait for this season. They've got Austin as wide receiver and quarter back! Pretty awesome.

I got to spend the day with Maren and Sarah!! SO MUCH FUN!! Love these ladies and wish we lived closer. It's amazing that 45 minutes make a HUGE difference. They might as well be in Edmonton. But I'm glad I was able to hang out with them. The kids swam in the lake and built sand castles while we chatted. Best day I've had in a long time. I actually started the day with family photos for Maren, so I got to do 2 things I love ;)

Went to Village Ice Cream (my new favorite) to celebrate Caitlin's birthday. Love late night double dates for ice cream! And the melted chocolate with toasted coconut.... MMMMMMM......

Will finished flag football. He loved every minute of it. He scored 2 touch downs and a 2 point conversion in the last game. Way to go Will!

And that is our summer. We spent a LOT of days inside with the kids playing video games. Normally I wouldn't allow that, but when you can't go outside and the other indoor activities are way too expensive for a family of 7, well, sometimes you just let it go. We did go to Inajnation once. They LOVED it, but man alive was that expensive. Crazy how fast and yet at the same time how slow it went. My kids FINALLY got the concept of sleeping in TWO WEEKS before school started! hahah right when we SHOULD have been getting back into a more regular routine. I let that one slide too. There are only 2 months of the year where they can sleep in, have late nights and no schedule, so why not? And now that summer is over, here's to a new school year! Praying it all goes well.