August

 August in a nutshell.....

Again, a busy month with last minute summer fun, school prep and all the other day to day activities.  

The first of August, the kids attended a 'Hero's camp'.  A lady who used to be in our ward put this together.  I've searched everywhere, but can't find my pictures from this.  These are pictures from a book she put together for them. 

 It was three days and each day they had different hero's from the Book of Mormon come and talk for a few minutes (below is a Stripling Warrior and his mother, Ammon and Moroni were the other 2), then they broke off into groups and went to different stations (lesson, arts/crafts, activity, music, humanitarian).  Above is the humanitarian activity.  Our stake did backpacks for kids, so these guys got to put together a few of the wards backpacks (filling them with paper, pencils, etc.).

 I was in charge of the lesson station.  The first day I did Lehi and the Tree of Life vision.  I had fruit hanging from the tree and blind folded each kid and made them find their way using the Iron Rod.  The second day I did "Armor of God" and we somehow incorporated it into making smoothies. :)  Each piece represented a different smoothie ingredient and then they got to drink it at the end. 

 Noah as Captain Moroni

It was fun for the little kids.  Noah didn't care too much for some of it, although he got to be with friends.  

 School started on August 20th.  I swear it gets sooner and sooner every year.  I didn't buy any new clothes for them this year (actually, I ordered Noah a couple shirts), so preparing for school was pretty easy.  Noah was the only one who needed a new backpack, so I ordered that online too.  I hate shopping, so luckily Ava has plenty of clothes from her cousin, and Grant gets Noah's hand-me-downs, and Noah still fits in most of his clothes from last year.   Score!!

 Noah's backpack looks huge in this picture.

 All the kids got great teachers again this year, so we were grateful for that.  Ava's classroom has a little kitchen in it, so they get to cook and do all sorts of fun stuff.  They are the 'Kind class', so when I help in the classroom, I get to help them make cupcakes and they deliver them to other classes.  Noah's class is Big Buddy's (each kid is assigned a 1st grader to help) with Ava's class.  When the teachers were matching the kids together, they put Noah and Ava together.  Neither of them knew they were siblings.  Too funny.  They ended up switching them, because Noah's teacher said he might want a little break from his sister. :)

Grant got the same teacher that Noah and Ava had for kindergarten.  She's great, and I know how she runs her classroom, so it makes it easy.  

Crazy, that's all the pictures I have for August.  Better hurry up and do September and October, before November creeps up on me. Man time is flying by, is it not?!