LOTS of catching up!!

I am FINALLY able to sit down and share something REALLY COOL that's been happening at our home for the past week and a half. At the beginning, I didn't have a camera other than the one in my cell phone (my Minolta somehow met it's doom at an indoor soccer game this winter), so the pics leave a lot to be desired. However, after receiving our tax refund, I was able to purchase a replacement camera which I LOVE! OK, it's not like Alli's or Kevin's, but I'm just a simple point-and-shoot kinda gal! Anyway... get ready for some pictures!

On Monday, May 3rd, after dropping the kids off at school, I came home and noticed a birds nest in the tree in front of our house! I guess the bird must have built it pretty quickly over the weekend, because it seemed to just appear out of nowhere! There was no bird in it, so I carefully looked inside and found it beautiful, but empty. I was hoping that we might have a little better luck this year, since we had a bird nest in another tree of ours last year, but it wasn't very secure, and the bird abandoned it before laying any eggs in it. Later that day, I took another quick look inside the nest and was thrilled to see a single beautiful blue egg resting inside! When the kids came home from school, I pointed it out to them, but made sure to also warn them to STAY AWAY from it. I really didn't want to spook this bird away from her nest.

5-3-10... Afternoon... 2 eggs! We're so excited our Mama robin has decided to make this nest a home for her eggs!

5-3-10... Evening... 3 eggs! We now have as many eggs as the nest I was reading about on-line!

5-4-10... 4 eggs!! We're getting SO excited! (Lee took this picture with his phone camera... Obviously MUCH better than mine! Thanks, Lee!)

5-5-10... Morning... Still 4 eggs. She MUST be done. How will any more baby birds possibly fit into this nest??

5-5-10... Afternoon... 5 eggs!! Can you believe this?? Mama robin is amazing!

5-6-10... 5 eggs. We love to see how she keeps moving them around!

5-7-10... Still 5 eggs. Looks like she's finally done!

5-9-10... Proud Mama robin taking great care of her eggs! (LOVE my new camera!!)

After finding the first egg, I found a web-site on-line that detailed a robin's nest from 1st egg, to baby birds leaving the nest. I learned that the eggs usually hatch around 14 days after the last egg was laid. Kendra originally marked 5-17 on her calendar with "Baby Birds!", but it may be later this week. Either way, we are getting VERY excited! Now that I finally have a camera, I am going to keep posting regularly through the end!

(If you're interested, the site I found was www.i-pets.com/rpet19.html)

BEST Book Club Report...EVER!!

All I Want for Christmas...

Oh, Come on now... you know the rest!!

Out of 4 children losing teeth, this is our first Christmas to really CONNECT with, and ABSOLUTELY LOVE this classic Christmas song!

What more can be said??

(Our Last),.... FIRST LOST TOOTH!!

Qiyana just lost her first tooth! I was pretty surprised that the little bit of blood upset her -- it's not like she hasn't seen 3 other siblings lose MULTIPLE teeth before -- still, it freaked her out a bit. But, a quick swish of water and the thought of a visit from the tooth fairy made everything OK very quickly!

Qiyana's top 2 front teeth are also loose, but it'll probably be awhile before they're ready to fall out. Hopefully, it won't be quite such a shock to her the next time around!!

Back To School!!

You know, when Leandra was old enough to start school, I didn't know if I was going to like the year-round schedule that Jordan School District has (due to all the young families out here). But I can honestly say that I LOVE it! It's been GREAT to have a little 3 week break every couple of months. It gives the kids a break from all the work, yet it's short enough that they aren't quite dying of boredom before it's time to go back. Next year will be interesting having Leandra at the Middle School (which is on a traditional schedule), but we'll figure that out when we get there. :)


Anyway, July 25th marked the beginning of the 2009 - 2010 school year for Hayden Peak Elementary (with Kindergarten starting the August 4th). So, as of now, all of the Utah Thornton children are back in school! This will be the one year where they are ALL attending the same school, at the same time (even though Qiyana's only 1/2 day).

Qiyana was especially excited for school this year since she would be able to go everyday. She's even excited to be able to go "off-track" with her brother and sisters this year. The PTA did something cute this year for the parents of Kindergarten kids. After we brought them to school for their first day, there was a "Boo-Hoo Brunch" held on the stage for parents to have muffins and juice and help each other get through this BIG day! They even had little packs of tissues for the parents. I didn't go, because I still had day-care kids to get home for, but my friend Heather is the PTA President Elect this year, and she said there were plenty of tears being shed up on that stage. I had to giggle. I guess if they had done this Brunch when Leandra was going into Kindergarten, I might have had some tears to shed too. But, as I told Lee, I think when you get more to my stage in life, it might be better called a "Woo-Hoo! Brunch". I don't know, maybe if I still didn't have 5-ish kids at my house all day, I might even feel a bit teary-eyed too. Aren't I just horrible??

I'm not sure I'm ready for all the work and projects to come -- I'm probably going to have some nightmares about forgetting some huge project for someone -- but hopefully I'll be able to stay organized enough to keep up with all 4 schedules! But if nothing else, even with the day-care kids I still have every day... can I tell you how quiet it is at my house before 11:17am these days?? :)

JONAS BROTHERS - LIVE!!

Any of you with "Tween-age" daughters, like I have, probably know who was headlining at the Stadium of Fire this year... (YEA!!!!) Well,... Lee did the most awesome thing a few weeks ago and told me he thought I should take Leandra and Kendra to the show.
Well, he sure didn't have to twist my arm! I know it's pretty sorry when an OLD MOM likes the latest GIRL CRAZE, but I just can't help it! Kevin, Joe and Nick are such talented and cute boys, with good values and good music... even Lee thinks their music is good enough for the kids to listen to! I LOVE that my kids love them! It's really hard to find good role models these days! Anyway, anyway...

We've never been to the Stadium of Fire, but I'd love to be able to go again! I couldn't believe what a HUGE production it was! I felt like I was at the Superbowl half-time for most of it!! They even had a fly-over from Hill Air Force Base!
The coolest part of the fly-over, was that they had the pilot of the head plane on camera from his plane, broadcasted to the big-screen in the stadium as they flew over... it was really cool!
When the concert part finally started, Kendra had a hard time adjusting to the volume level... I guess I should have thought about that and maybe brought along some ear plugs, but eventually, she became less sensitive to it (or her ear-drums just became permanently damaged!)... But, WOW!!! What an AWESOME show! They seemed to be having SO much FUN! And, of course, we TOTALLY were!! I love a GREAT concert!!
Even though we weren't right in front of the stage (yea,... the $300 per ticket section... Ugh!), we could see plenty well enough! Also, Lee picked up a couple pair of decent binoculars (from work) for the girls to use. They worked GREAT... just too bad I couldn't take pictures through them!! You know, they are so cute,... they said they wanted to play a song so all the kids could see how cool their parents were... They played "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, and did it fantastically!! (Is that a word??) It was AWESOME!



And, of course, the night ended with an awesome fireworks show!! Although,... I have to say that Taylorsville Dayzz is seriously hard to beat! It was cool to have fireworks shooting right out of the stadium, but we will STILL never be able to say anything against sitting on Nana and Poppy's back deck at the end of June every summer! I would have to say that THAT part of the night, was a draw with the fireworks show we saw last week! We are SERIOUSLY spoiled in that area!!