Connor is in 6th Grade this year and Aiden is in 3rd...


Connor's teacher is Mrs. Rohde and Aiden's teacher is Mrs. Heywood...


We already love both of them!  Mrs. Rohde is a complete 180° from Connor's teacher last year--which is a definite good thing!  I can tell that he will mesh so well with her and her teaching style and I think this will be a great year for him.  Mrs. Heywood is a new teacher to our school, so we don't know much about her--but she seems very sweet and loving, so I think she will be great for Aiden...


Here's the big 3rd Grader waiting to go inside the school...


And, the 6th Grader waiting as well.  Do you know how hard it is to get a 6th Grader to smile for pictures when his friends are around?  I just kept hearing, "Mooooooooooom!  Can we be done with pictures, please?!?"  And so it begins.  I can't believe this is Connor's last year of elementary school!  Where did those years go?


About an hour after Connor and Aiden left for school, it was this girl's turn...


I can't believe she is old enough for preschool...


My *baby* is off to preschool!  I'm feeling really old lately...


Vivvie is going to Learning Dynamics Preschool, just like all her older brothers did.  Her teacher is Mrs. Johnson.  We love Mrs. Johnson!  I had originally requested for Viv to be in Mrs. Covington's (Cohen's old teacher) class, but then her schedule changed.  She now only teaches four-year-olds and the Kindergarten Enhancement classes.  I was devastated when I found out.  Mrs. Covington is our absolute favorite!  The preschool director suggested I request Mrs. Johnson instead.  She thought that Mrs. Johnson would be the perfect fit for Vivienne--and, boy, was she right!  As soon as we met Mrs. Johnson, we fell in love with her.  She is such a wonderful person and loves her little students so much.  We started taking Vivvie into her classroom last year when we would pick up Cohen--just to get Viv familiar with the room and with Mrs. Johnson since she is so shy and hates new places and situations.  Each time we went in there, Mrs. Johnson made Viv feel like the most important person in the world!  So, when the big first day of school arrived, Vivienne was more than ready to go!!  She was so excited and couldn't wait to start school.  She's doing great so far and is loving every minute of it...


Cohen was the last to start the school.  His first day was yesterday because Kindergarten always starts a week after the other grades.  Cohen was more than ready to move over to the "big kid school"...


After three years of preschool, he was more than prepared to take the Kindergarten world by storm...


His teacher this year is Mrs. Bahr.  We have heard excellent things about her.  She seems so sweet and loving to the kiddos...


I think she will be a great teacher for Cohen...


Here's the big kid waiting to enter the public education system...


There he is in line to go inside.  He ended up having sort of a rough first day.  His backpack broke and he ended up missing Learning Dynamics and said he wished he could go back.  But, today was much better and he came home happy as could be!  I think he will have a great year...


So, there you go!  All my kiddos are officially in school!!  And, that means I have approximately 5 hours a week all to myself.  I don't even know what to do!  This is the first time in twelve years that I haven't had at least one child home with me.  It's definitely going to be an adjustment, but I must admit that those few hours of peace and quiet are pretty nice too!  To celebrate my new-found freedom, I met my sisters for breakfast at Kneaders.  Yummy...


Ella and Landon came along too.  Ella made it into the above picture, but Landon didn't--so here's his shot.  You can call him boss--just FYI...


So, the 2014-2015 school year is officially underway!  I think it will be a great year for all four of the kids.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go help with homework.  Blah, homework!  Uggghhh!  --Lindsay

Our Tahoe hit the 100k mark.  Not bad, considering we've owned it for eight years now!  If you're keeping track, that means we have two cars that have over 100,000 miles on them.  We're just asking for big car repairs, aren't we?  Oh well, it beats having big car payments...


An afternoon at the park with Cohen and Viv...




Out on a date with Connor.  Hmmm, whatever could we be thinking about?


Having fun at work...


Amy and I dressing alike (not planned, I promise).  What's new, right?


Connor and Nana...


Selfiefest--compliments of our master selfie-taker, Connor...







Speaking of Connor, he earned his Tenderfoot rank in scouting...


Oh, you know, I'm just exercising my 2nd Amendment Rights over here.  Don't mind me...


Date night with Cohen.  First a spin on some of the rides at Trafalga...


Including a spin on the bumper boats.  Luckily, I escaped fairly unscathed this time...


And then some rock climbing to finish the night...



Our set at Channel 2 is currently under construction.  The new set should be revealed on September 8th.  Our weekend morning show was the last to be done at the old set, so we had to take a picture...


After that, I left for six hours and came back to a totally empty set...


Our temporary set is in the newsroom and is very small.  We can't wait for the new one to be finished.  It's going to look great...


Our Father's Day cooking segment was done by Utah Attorney General, Sean Reyes, and his daughter.  They were both a lot of fun and did a great job sharing some family recipes with us...


Speaking of food, I finally tried J. Dawg's.  Heaven in a bun...


Vivint held a family carnival in July.  It was held during work hours, so they basically paid their employees to hang out with their families for several hours.  Not a bad day.  Here are the boys and me eating our lunch...


Viv too...


The kids had fun playing on the blow-up slides...


And eating the cotton candy...


And the shaved ice.  Yummmmmmmmmy...


But, the highlight of the day were these human-sized beach balls floating in water.  Each of the boys had a chance to try them out...




They loved it...


And, there were cupcakes to finish off the day...


You've heard of a salad bar.  You've probably even heard of a soup bar.  But, have you heard of a s'mores bar?  Well, you have now...


Yum! Cherries straight off of David James' tree.  He was kind enough to bring a huge bag to work for me to take home to the family...


Thanks to my sister, Ashlee, we discovered a great park in Saratoga Springs called Neptune Park.  We spent the morning there one day with both my sisters and their kids.  The littles loved it...












Date night with Aiden at the Museum of Natural Curiosity...


We tried our hand at the high ropes course.  Let's just say that I may have found out I have a small fear of heights.  I never knew that until I was on a tiny, wiggly rope 50 feet above the ground...


This kid had no problems with it though.  He does, however, have a slight problem smiling normally for pictures...


Kristin started this game where she instant messages a picture of herself doing whatever she's doing at that exact moment.  Once you get her picture, you have to take a picture of whatever you are doing at that exact moment.  I happened to be at work for training, so this was my picture...


Speaking of Kristin, she has been watching my kids a little when I go to work.  One day, I came home to find the mirror in Mike's and my room "heart attacked."  She had the kids write cute little messages to us on each of the hearts...





She also sent me pictures of my ninja children...


One evening, no one could find Vivvie.  We had no clue where she was.  We finally found her sleeping in Mike's and my bed.  Silly girl...


I'm sure Landon (and his parents) will appreciate that I put this picture on here.  Someday when he's in the NFL, it's going to be awesome to show him the picture of the time when his cousin dressed him up like a girl...


Date night at the Museum of Natural Curiosity with my best gal pal...





Then off to get ice cream and cookies afterwards...


Love this little munchkin...


Date night without the kids at Brio with our friends, the Booths...


National Ice Cream Day.  I tried 20 different kinds of ice cream that day.  Yep, my job doesn't suck...


Mike and the boys got out the pull up bar one night, and Vivvie decided she wanted to get in on the action--with a little (or a lot) of help from Dad.  She was acting like it was extrememly hard--grunting the entire time, just like her brothers.  It was pretty funny...



After pull ups, it was time for some sit ups--using Viv as extra resistance, of course...


Amy Nay, Shauna Lake and I at the KUTV Fall Premiere Party...


One of the best things about summer is walking out to the garden and picking as many tomatoes as you want.  Yummy...


Vivvie loves chocolate syrup on her ice cream.  However, she doesn't call it "chocolate syrup."  She calls it "mustard."  So, if you ever hear her asking for more mustard on her ice cream, you'll know what she's talking about...


We went to the Ogden Temple Open House a few weeks ago with my family.  It was beautiful!  The kids were excited to be able to go inside and temple.  They loved the Celestial Room and kept saying, "It's so pretty in here!"  Here are a few pictures of the day...


All the cousins in front of the temple...



Our crazy little family...


After the open house, we all headed to Union Station for some good eats...


Say hello to our little friend.  Actually, he wasn't so little.  This spider built the largest and most intricate web I've ever seen in one of our spruce trees.  Mike figured out it was a type of Orb Spider, which are good spiders, and he convinced me to let it live.  But, after several nightmares about spiders taking over our house, I made him kill it.  Sorry, spider.  Ewwwwwww....


Date night with Connor.  You know what that means--ice cream and selfies...






I am pleased to announce that this little gal is officially potty trained!  But, whoever said "girls are easier to potty train than boys" apparently never met this little diva.  Pretty sure she takes the cake when it comes to hardest child to potty train.  I started trying to train her when she turned three, but she wanted nothing to do with it.  We tried again a few months later with some success, but--again--she just decided she didn't want to do it.  Finally, on our third try, she decided on her own that she wanted to do it.  She just had to make the decision herself, which makes perfect sense considering the little prima donna that she is...


We went to another Real Salt Lake game again a few weeks ago.  We took the whole family, plus Connor's friend, Hayden.  Both Connor and Hayden sat with my parents and the rest of the crazies sat with us...


Real won and Vivienne used the streamers to accessorize her outfit...


Selfie fail.  Apparently, Connor needs to teach Cohen a thing or two about taking selfies...


But, no one needs to teach him how to eat ice cream!  This kiddo loves ice cream more than just about anyone I know...


Viv has been to several amazing birthday parties lately!  And, when I say amazing, I really mean it.  Holy cow!!  At one of them, she got to meet "Ariel."  That was the highlight of her life!  Unfortunately, they both have their eyes closed in the picture, but I had to have proof that this amazing once-in-a-lifetime event occurred...


Our neighborhood held its annual block party again a few weeks ago.  The fire department came once again and Cohen was able to play firefighter for a little bit.  That was the highlight of his life...


After the block party, we watched "The Lego Movie" on the side of our neighbors house.  They have a huge wall that doesn't have any windows on it, so it makes a perfect spot for an outdoor movie...


So there's a quick recap of a bunch of random moments from our summer!  We're sad to see it go, but happy we were able to squeeze in so many fun moments.  --Lindsay