Terrifying!

My world has just turned terrifying! Today, my oldest child is legally allowed to drive a car!! I'm in a complete state of panic! On one hand, it's going to be so nice to have another person to drive the other kids around to all of their various activities, but on the other I keep having nightmares she is going to kill herself, or someone else. Last night I had a dream she hit Luke while he was outside playing and he flew into the curb, head first. I literally jumped out of my bed. I know I'm just being a little paranoid, but I can't help it. I am very glad she can now drive herself to school, especially early morning seminary. I'll just keep thinking of the positives and I'm sure I'll be just fine.

This is Jess taking off for the first time by herself. She just went to a friends house, but I made her text me as soon as she arrived (I know more paranoid behavior).
She wont usually drive the Suburban, she has her own car thanks to her Nana Collins. She gave her, her old BMW that Jess has named "Billy". But today Clay drove it so that he could get it registered. I'll take another picture with Billy tomorrow to show everyone.
Keep her in your prayers, she will need them! So will I!

are you ready for some football?

I have to admit, this is my favorite time of the year....football season! I can't tell you how happy I am that I have boys and that they love to play football. It is so exciting to go and watch Cody play in his games. When I'm at the game I can't just sit there and watch. I pace up and down the side lines, yelling and cheering the whole time. Yesterday was Cody's first game against one of the three Lehi teams. It started about 1/2 hour late, thanks to the game before ours going longer than they were supposed too. It was over 100 degrees by the time the game started, but that didn't matter, we were so pumped and ready to start!
Cody plays a multitude of positions. First and most important he is the quarterback, his also plays full back, running back and half back, that is just on offense. On Defense he is the defensive end. So here is how the game started, Clay is their head coach, they huddle and decide what play they will run... You can tell where Cody is because he has a different color helmet.

Cody and the team line up and get ready to run a reverse...

Cody snaps the ball and he's off

He runs it down to the 20 yard line. It takes one more play and he is in for the first touchdown of the game!

After half time, Cody has to be pulled out for a few minutes to cool down. He starts complaining of feeling nauseous. I'm afraid he might have heat stroke. We put him under the canopy, put a bag of ice on the back of his neck and spay him down with water bottles. After a few minutes he was ready to be back in the game!

With only a few minutes left in the game we are ahead by one touchdown. The other team is at the 20 yard line and it's up to Cody and his team mates to try and hold them back.
Thankfully, they try to throw the ball, it's intercepted by one of our team mates and the game is over! We won!
It was cute to see how happy these boys were after their first win of the season. It's going to be an exciting season, I'm looking forward to going to all the games and watching Cody and the rest of the team play hard and hopefully win most of the games. Go Knights!!

Lake Powell

Not last week but the week before that, my girls were invited to go to Lake Powell with their Aunt Kym and Uncle Martin. We all wanted to go so badly, but because of football, had to stay home. The girls had the greatest time and we informed Kym and Martin to save a spot on their house boat for all of us for next years trip!
I gave Jess the camera and told her to take tons of pictures. Well they got back and had about 10 pictures taken over the entire week. This was all I could get out of them :( This picture was taken in the car on the drive down to Powell.
Once on the house boat it was all about relaxing! Savannah enjoyed doing lots of reading, when she wasn't in the water.
Here were some of the teenage group of kids that were on the boat all week. Brittany is on the end of the left side with Savannah next to her. Jess must of been taking the picture.

If they were not inside eating, they were outside tubing. Jessis the tallest one on the left, Brittany is next to her on the right.
Here is the houseboat that they stayed on. Every night all the kids would sleep outside on the top of this monster.
When the girls got home, it was story after story of how much fun they had during their week on the lake. I'm so grateful Kym invited the kids to come with her and look forward to going with them next year with the entire family.

First day of School

It's the most wonderful time of the year, that would be the first day back to school! Because I have five children in three different schools we have three different schedules in the morning now. Jessica is my first one to leave. School starts at 7:45 on A days and at 6:00 on B days (that is because of early morning seminary). Jessica decided this year she wanted to transfer over to American Fork High School. She has never liked going to Lone Peak and she was tired of all the drama over there, so we switched her over to A.F.
This was bright and early this morning before she took off for her first day of her senor year.
This is Jessica with "Best Friend". Her name is actually Kaylie, but Jess just calls her best friends and so do we!
After Jess left the rest of the kids spent their morning packing their lunches and getting everything ready for their first day back to school. I love this picture because Luke was so excited to be able to pack his lunch for the first time.

Savannah looking very cute for her first day back, now a big 8th grader!

Britt was up all night trying to find the perfect outfit to wear for her first day as a 9th grader.

Best friends and sister, could they be any cuter?

Cody and Luke were the last ones to leave this morning. Cody didn't even want me to walk them into the school this morning, but because it was Luke's first day of all day school, I felt the need to make sure he got to the right place and new where to line up. ( I know, I'm crazy. I'm so excited to get rid of them, but I'm so over protective of them).
After walking into the front doors of the school, Cody took off and I couldn't find him again. But Luke let me walk him out to the play ground and I was able to get this last picture, right before he had to line up to walk into his class.

I'm officially free now for an entire 6 hours everyday. I have to admit I was nervous for Luke, wondering if he would be able to find his lunch, wondering if he was going to fall asleep in class after lunch, would he be able to find his friends (the ones that were not in his class). But when I picked him up after school got out he just talked my ear off about how much he loved it and he was so excited to go back tomorrow.
I spent my day with my girlfriend Stephanie and we went and got ourselves pedicures and had lunch together. It was so fun and so nice not having to worry about getting back at a certain time. I have a feeling I'm going to love this new life of mine!
All the rest of the kids had great days as well, except Brittany. She didn't get any classes with any of her friends and she explained how she tried to make new friends, but the girls were really snotty and the boys asked her if she was a cheerleader or on the soccer team. When she explained she wasn't involved with any of those two things, she said they ignored her the rest of the time. I asked her is she wanted to changed the classes but she already looked into it and all the classes she needs to take are all full. She then informed me she is thinking about going to A.F. next year and not Lone Peak. I tell you I'm starting to really wonder about this school. What is up with all these snotty arrogant kids around here???? Oh well, I've already spent too much time complaining about this problem.
Besides that it was a great day and I'm excited for my kids and the great year they will all have.

Crazy times!

I can't believe so much time has passed since my last post. Time is flying by so quickly right now for me, I can hardly believe summer is over and school starts back up next week. I have no pictures to attach with this post so I apologize right now for that. Mostly because I have been so busy getting my kids ready to go back to school and taking pictures of that would be down right boring.
My days lately have been spent driving, talking on the phone or filling out paper work. I told you boring! I have been getting Jessica ready for her senior year at a new High School, trying to get her a drivers license, filling out a mountain of paper work so that Savannah can carry her insulin pump at school ( yes, it's worse than trying to buy a house), getting the other girls registered at the Jr. High school, taking Luke in for his teacher meeting for 1st grade, football for Cody and so much more, I'm afraid I'm boring all of you too much.
It's all been good though but I can't lie, I'm really looking forward to next week and a quiet house! I'm still in a little bit of shock and can't believe all 5 kids will finally be in school full time. I'm a little bit afraid I'm going to find myself bored. Of course the first month will be complete heaven, but after that I hope I can find enough to keep myself busy all day long.
On to a different subject, we recently added to our pet population when Savannah decided to earn enough money so that she could buy herself a hamster. She and a couple of her friends decided they wanted to get something that connected them, like in the book Sisterhood of the traveling Pants, where they shared a pair of Jeans. Well they came up with a great idea to share a hamster. All three moms agreed that if they could come up with the money themselves we would let them. So, they decided to sell some baked goods on the street corner to earn their money. Savannah asked me if I would bake some chocolate chip cookies, which I did with her help, as her contribution to the bake sale. In one day they sold $40 worth of cookies, water bottles and crystal light drinks. So when they went down to the pet store to purchase the hamster they figured out they had enough to buy each girl their own hamster. That wasn't the plan I had in mind, but that is what they did. Of course when Savannah came home with her own hamster Luke went crazy and begged us to get him his own hamster too. We of course said no! It just so happened that Nana Collins came home from her cruise the very next day and gave Luke a belated birthday card with a hefty birthday check in with it. Luke decided to spend his money on his very own hamster. So off to the pet store we went to buy our second hamster. Now I have to admit, these hamsters are pretty cute and very small. They are called Robo Dwarf Hamsters and they only get to be 2 inches in length. I really don't mind them at all, but I knew we might have a problem since Luke loves to hold his, all day long. Now since they are small, it makes them very fast and they also can jump right out of your hands. The very next morning after we bought Luke his hamster he came into our bedroom at 7:00 a.m. to tell us he had lost his hamster. Clay asked him what he was doing up so early and he told us "he just wanted to play with his hamster". He didn't want to make any noise so he took her out into the garage and that is where he lost her. Clay and I just rolled our eyes, knowing we would never find the tiny hamster, but Luke was so upset we had to at least try. So, off to the garage we went to search for this 2 inch hamster. We looked for over a 1/2 hour and couldn't find it anywhere. Clay had to leave for work, so Luke went upstairs to wake up Cody and ask him to help out in the search and rescue mission. Cody being the soft hearted brother he is, got up and spent the next hour trying to find the hamster. I went in earlier to make breakfast for the boys when Cody came running in saying he saw it running behind the air compressor. I ran into the garage and lifted up the compressor and saw the hamster. I immediately grabbed a dust pan and placed it infront of the rodent. I then stuck my hand behind him so he would think I was trying to grabbed him. He ran right into the dust pan, I put my hand over him to block him from running or jumping out and got him safely back into his cage. Cody then told me how they had said a prayer earlier to help them find the hamster and he just knew it would be answered. I was so proud of my boys and was amazed at their simple faith. What a great lesson for them on prayer and I can't even say I had anything to do with it. They did it all on their own. When we came back inside to eat breakfast (yes, Melinda we all washed our hands, a few times) Luke said the prayer to bless the food and it was so cute how he thanked Heavenly Father for helping them find his hamster. It's been three days since that happened and in every prayer Luke still thanks him for helping them find the hamster. It's very cute!

So, that has been our exciting lives the past few weeks. My three girls have been at Lake Powell with my sister in law Kym and her husband, so the house has been very quiet with just the two boys. But I have enjoyed doing things with the boys this week and can't wait until Saturday when the girls get back. We just feel like such a small family right now, I don't like it, I need my girls back with us!