First Day of School 2011

Kenzie and Cierra started school on the 10th and Caden started on the 16th. Kenz is in 8th grade, Cierra is in 4th, and Caden is in kindergarten. My kids are growing up waaaaay too fast for my liking. Tyler is going to be 2 soon! Even my baby isn't a baby anymore.

Kenz is loving school and being back with her friends and cute boys all day.


Cierra is struggling to adjust. She is in a 4th/5th/6th grade class and a lot of the work is advanced and over her head. We are working on getting her an IEP, so that she can have a little extra time to get her work done. Her seizures can really wipe her out and make it hard to focus.



Caden is adjusting better than I expected him to. His teacher is amazing and very accommodating and supportive of his special needs. And it has been really nice to just have Ty home for 7 hours a day. It is much easier to keep with my schooling this way.

As I'm sure most of you know, Caden LOVES getting his picture taken *insert sarcasm* so I have to show you the whole sequence of pictures I took on his first day of school.

Harry Potter

When we got back from Utah, Erick took the older three kids to see Harry Potter 7, pt 2. They all loved it. I still haven't seen it yet, so I need to do that soon. It stinks not having a dollar theater here.

Kenzie did not dress up :P

But Cierra and Caden did :)

So of course, TyTy had to dress up as well.

A Musician in the Making

Our Summer Vacay-The Rest of Our Trip

Caden face-planted it the second day we were there. Poor guy looked all beat up.
We played outside a lot. It is SO green there!

We ate out quite a bit, especially at Cafe Rio :)

We went horseback riding at Doug and Ilean's house. The kids had so much fun.

Caden loved riding the horse with someone. I made him ride alone the second time and he cried for a half hour.

TyTy LOVES horses. He was nervous at first, but once he got on, he had so much fun!

I had to bribe Kenzie with a shopping trip to Aero to get her on the horse. She is not fond of them.

Kenzie and Miss Tammi

Grandma Tiede consoling Caden after I made him ride the horse alone.

Bubba and Tyler (with Angie and Sully in the background)

My cute Cierra :)

We had a Sullivan Family get together and the kids had lots of fun playing together. KD and her kids and Chuck and Carter were in town at the same time as us, plus Dave and Heather were there.

Carter, Caden, Drew, Isaac

Caden, Carter, Tyler

TyTy's grumpy face

Tyler loves babies and couldn't get enough of baby Colt

Going to town on that ice cream cone

Trying on Bubba's new hat :)

We spent a few days at my Grandparent's house and had so much fun. My Grandma and I are so much alike, so we were very relaxed and had a great time.

Grandpa and Cierra playing in the rain. We hadn't seen rain for so long!

Grandpa, Tyler, Kenz, Cierra, Grandma Carol, and Caden.

My Grandparent's and me :)

We spent lots of time with Grandma Linda, Megan and Tanner. Caden and Tanner are besties (most of the time anyway)

Caden, Tyler, Tanner

We took trax downtown one day and stopped and ate at Pier 49 Pizza for lunch.

My Ty baby and me

Caden enjoying his pizza

Waiting for the train to head to Temple Square

At the Visitors Center. Tyler and Caden both love trains, so they had fun looking around in there.

The Christus. My favorite part of downtown. Caden was completely freaked out going up the ramp to see it. He thought we were really going up to heaven......lol

On the ride home. Tyler's two loves are trains and horses, so he had a great trip.

He fell asleep just before we got back to Sandy. Cutest baby ever.

I spent one morning rescuing 12 baby quail from a window well at the Sullivan's house. They were teeny tiny (like the size of a quarter) and it took me hours to get them all out.

This one hung around for a while after I got him out.

Angi developed pre-eclampsia while we were there, so they delivered Braden early. Boo on pre-eclampsia, but yay that we got to meet him! He is so super cute! We can't wait to see him again in October.

Caden adores babies and was very upset when we had to leave.

Kenzie playing in the rain.

At Cafe Rio again. It is way too loud in there for Caden. If we forget his headphones, we don't get to go in.

Cierra and I saw these cute bunnies in Salt Lake one morning right outside a building where she was having a test done.

Getting prepped for the MEG scan. It took a full hour to get her ready. We still don't have the results yet. I called again today, but they are still not ready.

Cierra getting her ears pierced. She has had them done twice before, so hopefully they work out this time.

My mama and me

My mom with all the kids.

So that is a short summary of the rest of our trip. We had a great time in Utah, but I never want to be away from home for six weeks again. The medical stuff made the trip stressful, but we tried to do lots of fun stuff inbetween. Tyler's hand is looking great. We saw the surgeon and ordered three more gloves. He has to wear them for another six months or so. Once we hit the one year mark from the accident, they will be able to give us a better idea about his need for surgery in the future. Caden saw the neurologist because of his chronic headaches and they diagnosed him with viral encephalitis and said that it would take 6-8 months to go away completely.

This was on the drive home. Caden spotted the letter I out the window, so we had to take a picture of it. Since he has been learning the alphabet, he loves to find letters everywhere we go.

We are so glad to be home and are enjoying a huge rainstorm tonight (the first one here since September.)