school is in session

School has begun...I am exhausted, but the kids seem to be adjusting back to school schedule. I have 29 5th graders this year. Just a ton of work keeping on top of things, but SO much better than last year when I wasn't sure what I was doing or if I could even teach!! Jacob is now in 4th grade, Sofia in 3rd and Isabel in 1st. No tears from Isabel this year, I can't even begin to describe the relief of her being a happy little school girl, again a huge change from last year where she basically cried for 2 months straight. Anyway, here are the yearly first day of school photos. I kind of forgot to take pictures the first day and the second day and the next, but finally managed to get it done this week.

future teacher?

My kids were 'lucky' enough to spend time with me in my classroom while I was getting ready for the new school year. They have a lot of fun playing 'teacher' with the whiteboard and all my teaching stuff. They are very creative and luckily it kept them busy while I was doing all my work. I found this picture on my camera after the fact. Sofia loves to take pictures and I'm always finding odd pictures or self-portraits. This one was fun. Isabel is instructing the pretend students. Too cute!

the nerve of some people!

So I left my house this certain Saturdayat the end of July at 12 noon and returned by 3 pm. I noticed a few things out of place when I went down the hall. This is what I found when I entered my room. It was a strange moment. I have never had this feeling before, someone was actually in my home, in my bedroom and completely tore it up. It wasn't fun. I forgot to lock the back door when I left. I always lock the doors, but forgot this one time. This would be the one day that someone would climb over my back fence and try my house. Of course! They pulled everything off the closet shelves, emptied my cedar chest completely, emptied the drawers, emptied my file cabinet (that was fun to put back together), tossed my sewing box, and seemed to dump my jewelry box onto my bed. UGH! They took all of my kids piggy banks, my full piggy bank, one of my checkbooks, and my videocamera. All 5 of the tapes that I had recorded my kids on since 2004 were in the videocamera bag. I can't even think about it, it makes me too sad. I wanted to scream out the front door, take anything you want from this house, keep the money (only about $30 they got away with) but return my video tapes!!!! Oh well, not much to be done. The police came, after about 6 hours took a report and left. It makes me so mad that some evil people have nothing better to do than take from others what doesn't belong to them.

A few weeks later, on a Friday night when the kids were at their dads, there was a knock on my door around 9:00 pm. I peeked out the window to see who it was (because I'm at least smart enough not to open my door that late at night, right?). No one was there, but there was something on the porch right outside the door. I opened the door and found a bag of money, dollar bills and change. Attached was a note that read: To the Fernandez kids, Here is a little something to replace what was lost. From, Your Friends. Inside the bag was 3 two dollar bills, 3 one dollar bills, 3 gold president dollar coins, 6 half dollar coins, and I can't remember how many quarters, dimes and nickels, but when the kids came home the next day, we split it up and counted it. They each received the same amount, $7.20. Can you believe it? I was stunned. My R.S. president lives across the street, so she knew about the burglary, and a few neighbors knew, but I will never know who took the time and love to give back to my kids some of what they had lost. We are surrounded by angels here in our little part of Mesa! I have seen soooo much goodness given to me and my little family in the past year and a half. It's incredible to me. You can be sure that I double check all my doors before I leave the house always...too bad I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

swimming under the stars...

My good good good good friend Emily was in Mesa for a little bit this summer. She invited us to go swimming at her grandparents pool a couple of times. We had too much fun, and probably too much sun. My favorite time to swim during July and Aug. is at night! The water usually feels just right and no sun means no sunscreen to lather on 3 kids! Hotdogs and chips make the best poolside food. The kids had a blast and it was good to just sit and catch up with Emily and her sister Melissa. GOOD TIMES! Thanks Em and Melissa, especially for feeding us so well!

When are you too old for this...?

These kids are hilarious. They are always wanting to go on rides like this. I never let them because usually I have no money, or not the right amount, and I think it is such a waste. But Aunt Jenny was visiting and loves her nieces and nephew and is so good to them. I just silently laughed because they are all TOO big for a ride like this, yet they were in heaven! Thanks Jen!

swimming=necessity

This is the only way to spend summer if you live here in Mesa! We love swimming and have spent a large portion of our time in a pool. These pictures are of the kids swimming at their dad's house. They are lucky that he has a pool and they can go over pretty much whenever they want and swim. We also go to Kino pool just up the street from our house, it is a city pool at the junior high school that was just renovated this last winter. It is pretty cheap and feels so good! I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of Sofia this time, but she was there.

summer fun

Somehow the pictures are first and the writing is after...not what I intended, but I don't feel like 'arguing' with my computer right now. Here are some photos of what we have been doing this summer.

Jacob chipped off quite a large piece of his front tooth. In this picture it is the tooth on the left. I didn't get a before picture. I was certain they would have me schedule another appt to repair it, but they took care of it all the day we went in. You can't even tell it was ever chipped, they did a great job! He probably should have brushed his teeth before this picture was taken, but oh well.

Isabel has spent much time playing with her friend who lives across the street. What a lucky girl to have a friend so close. They always play with Barbies and are so funny to listen to when they play. Just totally girlie-girlie to the nth degree.

Jacob and Sofia have spent many hours drawing, coloring and making cards, and they both spend a little time on the computer. I'm a pretty mean mom and only let them have 20 min. a day, if that.

Sofia loves to take pictures and I'm always finding interesting photos on the camera, this is her latest self-portrait

Jacob found some masking tape, colored it black, cut it to size and all of a sudden became some kind of fighting guerilla ninja? Too funny.

And Isabel learned how to ride a bike this summer. We had to practice after the sun went down, but she figured it out, mostly because when we were in Utah she rode on a smaller bike than hers and felt more comfortable practicing up there. When we came home, it only took a day or two for her to get it! I'm so excited to finally be able to go on bike rides with all of us now.

We went on a week long trip to Wellsville, Utah to visit family in the middle of June. We drove up with my sister Kaitlin. It was a LONG drive up, 12 hours long! Anyway, I had so many great pictures of our trip and I was excited to blog about our adventure, but managed to erase the pictures off of my camera thinking that I already loaded them on my computer. Ooops! Luckily I had already ordered prints from the store so I have most of the pictures, I just can't put them on here. We had a super time, stayed with my Aunt Laurel, visited with all the family that lives there, mainly my cousin Amy who has three kids of her own. The kids seemed to have a good time together and I was so grateful for her letting us use her kids bikes. One thing we did that we all totally enjoyed was when we rode the Front Runner from Ogden to SLC, then hopped on TRAX for a ride to Temple Square. The kids loved sitting in the upper deck of the Front Runner train. It was a great ride. We toured Temple Square and then took in the Joseph Smith movie that was playing at the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg. Great movie. We also went swimming at Hyrum Dam on our last day there. COLD lake water, but the kids again had a super time. Since we have been back from our 'vacationing', we have been trying to enjoy our summer, which is hard for me at times because it is so hot! We have been swimming a lot, playing with friends, riding bikes, going to the library, watching movies, and relaxing at the same time. It has been so good this summer to not have to get up and get ready to go every day!