Terrific Tessa

Tessa came home with some fantastic grades this past grading period and apparently her teachers noticed her awesomeness.

They threw every award they had at her except for 'most improved' - but how does one improve on excellence? Don't worry, she will stay humble, Ryan and I plan to remind her that she only has the second highest grades in class. Lazy.

Milestone

I tried to pick up Alana the other day and I couldn't! She was actually too heavy.

Looking at the picture you may wonder how I was so wimpy, but I assure you, she was heavy.

Ripening for Destruction (?)

We have a tomato plant that has little tiny green tomatoes on it. Peter looked at them and said asked when we take them off. I told him we have to wait until they are red and yummy. He wanted to know why we don't take them off now. I said they have to stay with their momma plant until they get big enough for us to eat. "Just like you," I said, "You stay with me until you are grown up then someone eats you, right?" He said, "No, nobody eats me!" "Then what happens?" I said. "Maybe somebody eats you?" says he. "-No, probably that doesn't happen either." We will figure it out eventually, I hope.

It's beginning to look a lot...

We decorated the Christmas tree last night, each kid got to go up and hang their own ornaments. It was pretty exciting.

We looked at the tree with our glasses that make the tree look nifty. They also make us look super cool. Hooray for Christmas!!

Tessa's Ditty

On Sunday we made an announcement to the kids that they were very eager to share with the world so when we went to have dinner at Ryan's parent's house that evening they were all anxious to spill the beans.  I told them they were welcome to make up a skit or a song to perform for everyone after dinner if they wanted.  Tessa was the only one to take the suggestion all the way.  She wrote a song and bravely stood and performed it (that girl is a performer.  PS - she made the school play, The Little Mermaid, she will be Adelle, Ariel's sister also a princess and a sea creature.  She is pretty excited and has been showing it by singing Little Mermaid songs for weeks.)

We are very excited and looking forward to meeting our new little friend in May.

Last week Jeff went to Rocky Point with Uncle Chris, Aunt Heather and Oliver.  He had a fantastic time.

 

They found interesting critters.

 Made a habitat for said critters.

 Played in the sea.

 Some more...

Alright, they played in the sea a lot a lot.  We missed him but we are glad he got to go and have lots of fun.  Thank you Chris and Heather for taking him and bringing him home safe.

Ultimate Birthday

October is the month for birthdays around here.  At least it is the month for all the cool people's birthdays.  I had a multiple of five birthday myself and had a big party, it was pretty awesome.  Just because all of the 50 people at the party were actually there to see Grandpa is beside the point.

All of the following photographs were taken by the talented and patient Steve Watson.

 

 This is Ryan's Grandpa.  We celebrated his 80th birthday on October 8th.  He has a large posterity.  He is a great man, everybody loves Grandpa Bateman, me included.  He has a great smile and is so kind and loving.  I am grateful for the fantastic daughter he raised and for the marvelous son she raised.  He is a keeper and I see a lot of Grandpa B in him.

 

5 out of 6 of their children were there and 15 of his 22 grandchildren and 21 (plus two on the way) of his almost 29 great grandchildren were there as well to party with him.

It was a little bit crazy at times.

 But don't worry, there was lots of cake so the kids didn't have to run out of energy.

We loved playing with the out of towners. This is one of our favorite travelers, Aunt Kirsti (Ryan's auntie, she is just a smidge older than us) and her three kids.  She stayed with us a bit and the kids had great fun playing together.  We missed Uncle Brad, he had to stay home in freezing cold Edmonton to work.

 Jeffey is getting too big.  He was supposed to be my little baby.  Last week he went jetting off to Rocky Point with Chris, Heather and Oliver to play at the beach and build Legos.  I actually missed him a lot.  I think I'll post pics of his trip in a bit.

Buggy is growing up too fast as well.  I am sensing a pattern.  She is growing more and more lovely.  Their Primary Program was yesterday and it was her last one.  She is a sweet girl and had a great time taking care of the babies that came to the parties.

 

Pickles is on the soccer team at school (so what if I haven't blogged since school started?).  She is really enjoying being on the team.  She is one of the youngest girls, we are a K-8 school so it is a bit intimidating at times to see her out there with the bigger girls.  But she can run fast (thanks to Ryan).

Wello is too darling.  I've been enjoying helping out in her classroom about once a week, most of the time Alana doesn't know I'm there because I'm making copies or cutting things out in the work room, but it is nice to be on campus and be spotted by the kids occasionally.  I think they like seeing me there.

I love this picture.  Petey has been doing well at school, he is liking being a big kid.  He is still kind of the boss of me, but lately he has taken to apologizing after he shouts at me, "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Mom".  I think he is learning.

  

This one makes me very happy.  These two are trouble, trust me.  But I love them both a whole bunch.

Thank you for letting us celebrate your special day with you Grandpa!

School

 School started this week and it is lovely. 

 Even though the five of them came home with 2 hours worth of  forms for me to fill out (the same forms four times over...), it is a small price to pay for a quiet house and kid learning.

 Jeff says he is excited about the awesome things they will learn this year.  They will even get to dissect animals in science!  And learn about world wars and so forth in social studies!  Rad.

 Bug is excited to be in 6th grade (practically middle school!).  She even has a homeroom teacher!

 The 5th graders are even going to different teachers for different subjects!  Pickles is excited to be in almost middle school too.  She is pretty giddy.  And as I looked into her tear filled brown eyes this morning when Jeff took her bagel, all I could think was, 'She is so pretty.' 

 Alana gets to have the same teacher for third grade that she had for first grade.  Pretty awesome!  She is actually getting bigger, I promise.  She has been going gangbusters on reading every evening, Junie B. Jones totally has a Peep in her Pocket.

 Punkin Eater gets to go to preschool.  He goes to a different school than the big kids and as I drove him there the first day he said, "Are you going to take my picture and give me a hug and a kiss?"  He is all for fair treatment.

He is still getting used to having a school career.  He is bummed that he isn't as big as cousins Zeke and Afton who are kindergartners this year.  But his chin goes up when I remind him that he is bigger than Stone and Yubsie.  And he always will be.

Next year they will all five be at the same school for one year until Jeffey heads off to be a high schooler!

Aack.

I had to...

The award winning photographer, Arnon Livingstone, gave me a disk of the pics she took on our trip to Canada.  It is so very handy to have had a fabulous picture taker on our vacation.  So here are some of my favorites.  Above is Alana at Waterton Lake.

 

We took this one because when Phil first saw the bee boxes in the fields he said, "Why did someone leave their legos in the field?".  So we thought a photo would be cool, unfortunately as you can see by the kid's faces, being in close proximity to a million bees was not a happy thing for them, they were all mad as hornets about being made to pose for a photo in front of bees, and it amuses me. 

They were very good sports about rubbing gravestones and did a really great job.  They made some beautiful rubbings and had a great time doing it.

 

This is from the family history treasure hunt.  They were looking for Great Great Great Grandpa Will Redd at the library and found him.  Peter's eyes are excited!

This was taken during a long family history day.  I just love their faces, they did great.  And I think they secretly liked most of the day.

 Here is Grandpa B telling us a story about when he was a young boy at this very school and the scrapes and fights and adventures he had.  He had great stories and the kids liked them a lot.

 

  

This was taken shortly after the above pics, I LOVE this picture.  Note Alana's face, and Grandpa's face.  An ant crawled on her foot.   We learned that Canada ants don't bite, unlike their mean AZ cousins.

 I climbed down from the path to get the video of Leah falling in the river at Red Rock Canyon. 

 

 

 

 

 At the squirty water park with Brad and Kirsti, the kids had a great time soaking Uncle Brad.

  

Lots of pretty grassy steep hills to hike up.

Happy campers.