Spiders

I hate spiders. A lot. I am really quite afraid of them. So much in fact that I can not even post a picture of one on my blog to describe this post, because I can't even stand to look at even just a picture of one. Today I was in my kitchen and I saw one of Tori's socks laying on the floor. I reached down and picked it up and brought it over to the washer and dryer. As I was doing this I felt something brush my hand. I thought it was just the sock or something, but then I saw something fall to the ground out of the sock. a GIANT spider. Perhaps the biggest spider I have ever had in my house. It was big, and fat, and brown, and oh so scary looking. I started to scream, as it frantically started running all over my kitchen floor. I swear it was running after me. All I could feel was the spot on my hand where I felt something brush against it. I tried to put that thought out of my mind and immediately started looking for something to squish it with, all while it is still chasing me. I finally find Levi's shoe, and so I hit it as hard as I can and leave the shoe there. By this point, Tori and Levi both run in to see what the commotion is all about. "It's a huge ugly spider!" I scream. Tori says, "Where!" , " Under that shoe, I just killed it!" I say back. " Can I see it??" (Tori), "I guess..." I hesitantly say. As I slowly lift the show up we see the dead spider laying there. We all three get on our hands and knees for a closer look, when all of a sudden.....It started running towards us! It was playing dead!! Now this had us all screaming, so loudly that Brandon comes racing down the stairs to see what happened. He thought it was pretty hilarious. Our cat then ran in and ate it. I am so glad I didn't have to pick it up.

2nd Grade Already?!

Today Alexis started 2nd grade. It seems like I was just posting pictures from her first day of 1st grade. I can't believe how fast time is flying. We started a week earlier this year, and even though it was only a week, it made the summer seem so much shorter! When we saw the class lists this year I was so happy to see that all of the kids from our ward that go to her school ended up in the same class. Here is Alexis with her friend Bethany:
Alexis's teacher's name is Mrs. Diggins. I have heard such good things about her, and she seems so nice. Here is Alexis with her this morning when I dropped her off. You can see Alexis's 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Griffith in the background. Alexis was very excited that she got to line up next to her class, so that she can still see her this year.
The other night I was laying in bed, and it just hit me how big my kids are. I just wish time could slow down a little bit. I am trying to make a conscience effort to not stress about all the little things that need to get done, and just enjoy this time I have to spend with my kids, when they actually want to spend time with me! I have been stressing about whether to send Tori to kindergarten this year. Her birthday is September 12, and the deadline to start school is October 1, which means she would be the one of the youngest kids. I have gone back and forth, and actually registered her for Kindergarten. Then last year when she was at dance class I overheard one of the other parents talking about this same issue. She said, "you know it's just one less year that you have with them". That's what did it for me. I decided right then that I was going to wait. Today as we were dropping off Alexis, I was talking to Tori, and I said, "Do you wish that I was dropping you off for Kindergarten?" She said "No!" I said, you still have lot's of days till you will be going to kindergarten, and she said nervously, "Do I have to go tomorrow??" I happily said, "nope, not for 365 more days" That felt so good. So here's to another year, which hopefully won't go as fast as this last year has gone.

Lakeside

This summer, our kids participated in our local library's summer reading program. After completing 8 hours of reading (or being read to), they each got to pick out a new book. They also got a few free passes to some fun things. One of them was to Lakeside amusement park. I remember going there when I was little. Kristalyn and I were talking and we thought it was funny that the only ride that we could both remember was this ride where you are completely enclosed. It must have been pretty traumatizing or something! Anyways, we decided to go use our passes one afternoon last week. Kristalyn and David, the Pollocks, and the Beyerlein's went too. I don't think they have changed anything since I was a little girl. Everything looked pretty old, and they only had a few workers, so there were only certain rides open at a time. After a while the workers would move onto a new ride. Nonetheless, the kids had a ball. We got a ton of pictures of them having fun riding the rides. The very first ride we went to was the mini roller coaster. Alexis, Levi and Mason were the only ones who wanted to go on this one. Here is a picture of them right before the ride began. Kristalyn, David, Brandon and I stood on the sidelines nervously waiting to see how the boys would do. The roller coaster went around a few times, and so we got to see their faces as they whizzed by us. The first time they flew by it was the most hilarious sight ever! Levi and Mason's faces were priceless. They had these looks of total terror on their faces that only a picture could describe. We tried several times as they passed to snap a good picture, but we didn't end up getting a good one. By the end they were starting to get used to it. We were laughing about that one for a while. Here are some more pictures we took throughout the day.

As you can tell by their faces, they loved it. It was a very fun day. It's always nice to discover new fun places to go.