Avery's 7th grade cross country

Avery is not a huge fan of cross country but she did it again this year and worked hard. She won't hesitate to tell you she hates meets! They stress her out and she would just rather do the practices and never compete in the meets! She went though, and if nothing else had a good time with her friends before and after...

She ran her heart out and i believe her finishing time was 7:20 for the mile but i will have to double check that with her since i cannot find it at the moment.

Way to go Avery on another great cross country season! She is looking forward to track as she says she likes that SO much more! :)

A day in the country

John's brother lives in the country. Well he did until very recently i guess so every now and then we would go out so that the boys could do boy stuff like shooting things out of the sky. John has yet to get me to pull the trigger but i am sure he will win over one of these days. Avery has shot and is quite the good little shot at that!

His brother has a four wheeler and let us drive it around. 

Trey was practicing up his driving skills!

The kids love doing this kind of stuff and i think they would make great country kids, but alas they are city slickers! They can pretend for a day though!

Trey's 9th grade cross country season

Trey joined the cross country team for his freshman year. They ran every day after school. The longest days being their 10 mile runs getting the kids conditioned.

Avery was my sidekick at his meets, she would time him so that i could get pictures and most of the time that meant running around to different parts of the course to cheer him on.

He trained very hard and by mid season the coach had him running with the varsity runners and were encouraging him by telling him he had great potential! It fueled him and he ran hard in practice and in meets.

He was consistently running in the 19 min range 5ks but really wanted to get under 19 minutes. 

His personal best for his freshman year was 19:14. He didn't get that 18 min 5k, but i have no doubt he will this next year!

He never ran the varsity races as they ran the top 7 runners and he was the 8th so he still ran junior varsity in the races.

He had no idea he was going to letter varsity this year so was thrilled when he did! We were very proud of him! Way to go Trey!

He is now doing winter training and conditioning getting read for track and field. He was going to go out for swimming this year but changed his mind and decided he just wants to concentrate on running.

He got invited to go to South Dakota with some of the other varsity runners for the Nike Cross Country Heartland Regionals. It was a great experience for him and he had a lot of fun!

Raegan turns 6

Our "baby" turned 6 on Aug. 23rd!

I went to school and ate lunch with her and her friends and then they showed me all their made skills on the monkey bars at recess!

a dance with her daddy...

dinner at Red Robin with her new baby...

and then off to Build a Bear, after going to get her attitude glasses that she had begged for for over a month!

Avery's little mini me!

Happy 6th Birthday to a very special little girl! Our family would be incomplete without you!!

First day of school 2013

Summers come and go so quickly and back to school time it was. This is the first year that i have all 4 kids in school all day and they are at 3 different schools which means 3 car lines to endure every day! I get lots of bejeweled blitz played while sitting in car lines!

This Year Ethan is in 2nd grade and Raegan is a 1st grader!

Trey is a freshman in high school!

He actually let me get a very quick shot of him in front of his high school!

Ethan is in Mrs Hopfinger's class...

Raegan was extremely excited to find out she was going to have the same teacher she had for kindergarten as she moved up to teach 1st grade. We were pretty excited too as she is an amazing teacher!

Avery got to start a day later than everyone else so she got to sleep in on their first day. She is in 7th grade this year!

Every morning can be quite the challenge getting them all up, fed and out the door on time but once we are all in the car i really enjoy (most days) the trip to school, the conversations we have, the quick prayer that we all share, the looking at the sunrise together and talking about how pretty it is, the complaining about how bright and blinding the sun is by the time we get to a certain spot every morning...

We hit the middle school first, then the high school and then off to the elementary. I am trying to treasure those hugs and kisses and look backs and extra waves that i get from the little ones because i am going to miss those someday...i know that from experience!

And then it is all of a sudden so quiet the whole way home which some days i'm not gonna lie is wonderful and some days makes me sad. 

Another school year, lot's to learn and lot's to accomplish! I hope you guys have great experiences in 9th, 7th, 2nd and 1st grade!