The Pollard Place: August: Back to School

We went and played at a bounce house and it was really fun! Amelia was unsure about things, but liked to just sit around on the little baby one. The older kids were running around so fast they couldn't even stop to say hi to us haha. I did have fun going down the slides with them though!

The mall started the cool story times up again! They combined the two sessions into one, so now it's more crowded, but it is still great! The first time back Della got to meet Ariel and Prince Eric. The next one was reading the Three Billy Goats Gruff. I love this program!

Rusty's birthday was a chill, down day. We barbecued kabobs, ate cake, and hung out. His birthday was the last day of our camping trip with the Bartons, so we went mountain biking before heading home to dinner. I'm grateful for this man and that I get another year with him!

Back to School festivities! We did a fashion show, had our 1,2,3 and A,B,C pancakes, but this year I opted out of the school bus cake because we had just had Rusty's birthday and YES day so it was too much sugar. I can't believe that Henry will be starting school away from me. He is excited, but I am still having a hard time.

Della started school with me at home! She is so smart and picks things up really quickly. She loves doing the online preschool with Waterford and is progressing so much! Della feels so big and grown up now.

August 17 Henry had his first day of first grade! My mama heart was totally struggling, and I cried so much. The night before was Back to School Night, and we got to go walk around the school and meet his teachers. Obviously, Sophia is his Spanish teacher and we already know her, but it was fun to meet her as his teacher! She only spoke Spanish and that threw Henry off, but we had told him before that it would be like that. All night he kept running around because he was so excited. I was feeling really, really sick so Rusty slept downstairs. Henry came into my room in the night and asked if he could cuddle me because he was feeling kind of lonely. That was a tender mercy for me that even though he is big and going to school, he still loves me and needs me.

Thanksgiving Point had a really cool Lego display at Ashton Gardens. They put it up in May and I had always planned on taking the kids, but things just got busy so we never made it there. They were going to take it down on August 28, so we made it there on like the 22 haha. It was amazing! They had so many cool "sculptures", and they each had somewhere between 30,000-60,000 lego pieces! It was so cool! We took our time and laid around on the grass some too, which was so nice. It is so beautiful there and I know that I completely under-use that part of the membership. I'd like to use it more in the future!

Lia touches heads like this when she's being sweet and I love it

Amelia's favorite part was playing in the fountain

After Ashton Gardens we went to Farm Country. We were there after school and there was hardly anyone else there! That was great! There was no line for the pony rides or the tractor ride. They got to ride the ponies twice, do the tractor, and play in the room with some cool toys. We got some popcorn and powerade and had a great time!

On the way home from Thanksgiving Point, there was a terrible accident on I-15. The boards above the freeway said that it would add about 90 minutes onto the time to get home, and the traffic was awful. I tried to go down State Street, but it was so bad. So I ended up calling Rusty, getting Chik-Fil-A for dinner, and going to a park in Lehi to let the kids play while the traffic died down. Rusty drove out and met us there and it was fun!

Henry started soccer again! This time the coach is already really involved and did a practice, which is great because our last one never did that and was late to almost every game haha. He started as goalie and said he liked it but he "didn't get much action" haha. Henry has real talent in soccer, and after the game he told us that he thinks soccer is "his thing". I love that boy!

After the soccer game we went out with my parents (who came down to watch the game) to celebrate Rusty's birthday. We went to a Japanese steakhouse and it was so much fun! The kids loved watching the chef cook our dinner, Henry loved catching shrimp in his mouth, and the chef tricked Della by pretending to squirt her with soy sauce and she didn't talk to anyone for a full minute after haha. Lia's eyes were wide the entire time, and she really went to town on the fried rice. At one point she didn't even use her hands she just put her face down in the rice. We sang "Happy Birthday" to Rusty and he got some ice cream. I love that man!

We met some friends at the zoo after school one day and it was so much fun! Turns out that there's hardly anyone there in the afternoon like that, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. We saw the animals, got some dinner, played in the splash pad area, rode the train and the carousel and had a great time!

We went camping in Hobble Creek Canyon up by Payson Lakes with the Bartons as a final hurrah before school started and it was a blast! We didn't have a reservation so we had to just go to a first come first serve place, and it ended up being awesome! We went to Payson Lakes Campground and got an awesome spot that was so huge and right by this cool area for the kids to hike in. We had no neighbors and saw a big hawk catch a mouse and eat it in the tree. I loved this place! We went up Friday evening and camped that night and then went and hiked The Grotto Saturday morning. Saturday night we went fishing and played with the Bartons and then Sunday morning we went mountain biking and walked out to a viewpoint for Devil's Kitchen. It's really pretty over there!

This month we did our first ever YES DAY! The kids got to pick a few things that they wanted to do and I had to say yes to everything they asked. I was actually surprised at how simple the things were that they wanted. Mostly they wanted to spend time with me, which both swelled my heart and burst it at the same time. We started the morning with ice cream for breakfast while sitting on the roof of the shed and reading some books.

Then they got to get ready for the day however they wanted, and they got to get me ready too! They picked out my beautiful outfit and did my hair. I had so many barrettes in my hair that I would get weird looks from people throughout the day and then remember my hair haha! We picked up Brayden and Kade and went to a park.

Oh the kids also picked Daddy's clothes: a swimsuit!

A funny corsswalk sign in PG haha

After the park we did some painting! Then we met Jessica at Golden Corral and they got to eat whatever they wanted before we went swimming at the Provo Rec Center. It was a busy day! We were going to go bowling too but oh my heck I was so tired haha. I convinced the kids to just go home and watch a movie.

They always want to play this game and I never let them because we are rushing, but today they got to!

The requested dinner was Chinese, so Rusty picked up some Panda Express.

Rusty had been working on a deal and it fell through. He was so disappointed, so I brought down some Oreos and some sparkling cider to "celebrate" the loss. I'm so proud of him and all of his hard work and all of the great things he has accomplished. He is amazing, and this little celebration helped us remember that even though that small thing fell through he has big things coming!

One day this month we just went to Thanksgiving Point and sat on a blanket to have a picnic and then played a ton of games. Then we wandered through and looked at how beautiful everything was!

Rusty asked if we could do a huge summer bash in our backyard this year, so we did! We had a ton of people show up and it was really fun! They brought their own meat and Rusty grilled it up and then I had sides ready for everyone. It was so fun and we decided it should be an annual thing!

Rusty went mountain biking with Kyle on the trails back behind his house. He loves it up there!

Henry's Highlights:

Really wants an electric scooter. He talks about earning enough money for one all of the time
He was describing a hot wheels car to me and told me it was fabulous. He was trying to decide which of the two cars to buy at the store and he said, "Mommy can I pick your brain?"
Henry LOVES school. Like loves it so much. He is thriving there and I couldn't be happier about it.

Adeline's Adventures:

Took my face in her hands and told me, "You are the sweetest mommy I ever know"
Everything that is red is called "ruby red", especially when she asks for lipstick. She wants to wear ruby red lipstick every day.
Told me the other day that "this life is hard because we have to drive places in the van."
Loves to dance. She did a little class online on youtube and loved it

Amelia's Updates:

She always has her tongue sticking out
She shakes her head back and forth ("no") ALL the time
She is getting ornery! If she wants something that someone else has she will just scream at them. If she has something she shouldn't have and you try to take it away, she screams and plays keep away
Lia babbles now a lot, but she uses "dada" to mean Rusty! Her new favorite sound is "ssssss" and she says it all the time
She is 11 months!! I cannot believe that next month she will be one. It honestly makes me cry. When I was taking her pictures she was holding a Tylenol bottle so I took it away and she got SO MAD at me. Then I gave it back to her and she did her fake cry for a while haha. And this month she hated her flamingo and kept pushing it off of the chair.