Good or Bad Mother?

So today was the first day of school for Sammy and Nicholas. Sammy is in Kindergarten and Nicholas is in second grade. I am one of those mothers that gets excited for my kids to go to school. I love the break and I think my kids love it too. I am a much happier mom when I have a schedule. In the last couple weeks I have seen so many status updates on Facebook about how sad moms are that their children are going to school. How they will miss them and yada yada. Listen I love my kids and love being with them. But I also love school and the break it gives me to get things done. Do I miss my kids when they are in school? Honestly? Not really. Doesn't mean I am not really excited to see them when they come home. I remember waiting for Nicholas to get home and how excited I was to see him and talk about his day. It makes me a better mom to my kids having that little break and my kids really love school so they love going and don't ever fight me.

I can't believe Nicholas is in 2nd grade. It seems like yesterday he was this cute little thing

And now he has turned into this handsome, sweet, and independent boy.

Sammy is going into Kindergarten. Like Nicholas I swear she was just this chubby adorable baby

And now she is a shy,wonderful, and beautiful Kindergartner.

 Now seeing Sammy go to class was a little harder for me than Nicholas. You could tell Sammy was timid and scared, but she did great going in. I'm sure she won't be like her older brother who told me he was fine the 2nd day of school, and I didn't need need to walk him. I have a feeling I will have to walk her the first couple weeks. That's okay. Here are some shots we took of the kids on their first day.

Noah had to get in on the photos too.

It was sooo hot so Sammy sat down until the opened her classroom

 
 I know there are more pictures of Sammy than Nick. Luke took Nick and I stayed with Sammy. I told him to take some pictures and he only took 3. That's a man for you. I can't wait to see what this school year has for our family. It's going to be a busy one. One kid in 2nd grade, one in Kinder, and one in preschool. We will also have 2 in a music class, one in flag football, one in dance, and another one in karate. I am getting tired just thinking about it. Wish us luck!

UNLV Baseball Camp

My Dad pulled some strings and got Nick into UNLV's basbeball camp. I was a little nervous leaving him for 4 hours at a camp with strangers. I have never done anything like that. Luckily my Dad or Luke was there for some of it. Nick loved it so much. Are we surprised? Not at all. It was a very HOT week. Like 105 and he never once complained about having to go. On the last day he told me he was sad he couldn't go anymore. He was the youngest kid there but he worked his butt off and kept up pretty good with the rest of the kids. He learned so much.Here he is up to bat and playing 3rd. I forgot a camera so I made Luke take them on his phone.



 
On the last day of camp they let the kids swim at the UNLV indoor pool. They had a high dive and they let Sammy and Parker on it too. I was very surprised Sammy jumped off of it. She is usually so cautious. Parker on the other hand had no problem doing it over and over and over again. I was a little nervous at first because the pool was 14 feet deep. Every time he jumped all the coaches would run over to help him thinking he was going to drown. They couldn't believe a 4 year old would jump off this thing and still want to go on it. They obviously don't know Parker very well.


 
 
At the very end of it they gave Nick a t shirt, which he was waiting all week for. They had extras so they gave them to the other kids too.
 
Parker thought he was pretty cool and asked if he could go to camp next year. Thanks Dad for setting this up! I love seeing my kids do stuff they love.

Grateful

I am grateful that I got to spend a full 24 hours of no interruptions with this guy
 
Even if his hair looked like this
 
Let me explain. Luke got a new job. He hasn't started yet because he has to do some drug testing and background checks. Well they needed a hair sample. He came home with his hair like that. Oh I laughed so hard. The lady swore she had to take that much off but I think she just messed up. It looked worse in person. He cut it to look better but you can still tell it was messed with. I still laugh at him everyday. Yes I know Wife of the year right here.

 I am grateful for these cuties
 
 Even if they sometimes do things like this

One more thing I am grateful for. We are officially out of debt! What a nice feeling it is. Now let's hope our paid off car doesn't die on us.

Nicholas is 7!

Nicholas is 7 today. SEVEN!?!?! How in the world do I have a 7 year old? If I have a 7 year old then I am getting older and I don't like that at all. I will never forget the day my baby boy was born. I was excited,scared, and ready...or so I thought. He was a daddy's boy from the start. I remember he was the first night he was crying and I couldn't get him to stop. So Luke held him and started touching his face. He immediately stopped crying and finally fell asleep. Still to this day he loves when we tickle his face. Nicholas is a sweetheart. He is very sensitive and tries to always do what is right. He doesn't want anyone mad at him. He loves school and everything about it. He makes friends so easily and could be with them 24/7. He LOVES sports. He thinks about sports all the time. This might be TMI but he will appreciate it one day that I wrote this down. Nick takes long bathroom breaks(if you know what I mean). I am talking like 20 minutes. Most of the time I hear him making game plays while he is doing his thing. Depending on the season. If it's football season then he makes plays for that sport. I'm telling you, he is crazy about it. Nicholas remembers everything. He always says things like "remember when I was 4 and we went here". Nick is awesome and we love him so much.

The last 3 years I have done stuff outside for Nick's party. After last year I told Luke I will not do another outside party. Of course Nick wanted sports. We decided on a basketball party. Well Nick decided to name it his Miami Heat party. Luke is still trying to understand why he is into this team and why he likes Lebron James so much.
 
 See he Loves him
 
I made all the kids their own "jersey".

Of course Parker had to have one too.

Then Sammy of course all the kids had to jump in. I love the one of just Noah and Nick. My oldest and youngest together.

 

The whole team together

And the back of the shirt

 

We split the teams up so they could play a game. It was the Rebels

Vs. the Heat

 

Then we came and did pizza,cake, and presents. The kids had fun and I didn't almost die of heat like the previous years. Yay!!!

Happy Birthday Nicholas Christopher!

Just have to throw this awesome picture in here. I love how the medal is in the perfect place for a nudey picture.

Getting Smarter

I'd like to think that I get smarter as I get older. When it comes to raising kids you are always thinking of different ways to get them to do their chores. Some parents are lucky and have kids who do them with no problemo. Well this summer we were struggling with the kids and getting them to do everything. I had the idea to create a "store". They can earn fake money with things they do and then they can spend that fake money on a list of things I made. Brilliant, right? Here's the thing. The older kids loved it and really understand and want to earn money. Parker.....not so much.

See what I mean? Parker has nothing in there. Sad? Don't worry we are a little easier on him and that day he had just had all his money taken away because he was BAD. Same day I called Luke to come home. Some of the other things I have on there is a snowcone, slurpee, trip to the $ store, date with just Mom, or Date with just Dad, ice cream, trip to the pet store by yourself,stay up 30 min later, 30 min of Xbox. They have so many ways to earn money. Make bed in morning, brush teeth morning and night, clean room, no fighting, help mom, dust, vacuum stairs and so on.

When you have kids of all different ages you have to think of stuff that will motivate everyone. No wonder my parents were so easy going on my younger siblings. They were so exhausted from thinking of ways to make us behave and to do our things that when it came to my 2 younger ones they were out of ideas and tired.

So one of the things you could spend your money on was a date with Mom and Dad. Nick was determined to get that one. So he saved up his money for a couple of weeks and finally was able to go.It was so nice to have one on one time with him. Since he is the oldest and had to deal with so many babies coming so fast into this family, he really needed this. We had a lot of fun. He requested spaghetti so we chose to go to California Pizza Kitchen. We hardly ever take our kids out to eat. With 4 kids who now eat their own meal it gets so expensive and also since our kids aren't used to it they act crazy. I can handle it more than Luke can. Nick thought it was the greatest that we were eating out at a restaurant.
 
 

They brought him a free sundae for his birthday.
 
 
 
After that we went school shopping for him. It's so much easier going school shopping with just 1 kid.
We had a lot of fun, and he is already saving up for another date with us.

 By far this has been the best system that has worked for my kids. I love it and it's helping them a lot with their math skills too.