Jack and Annie attended their first day of preschool last week. They’ve been pretty excited to get started, but that may be due in part to the fact that Mom is their teacher (which should really be a whole other post in itself). Due to a rather crazy set of events and the very nice recommendation of an in-law and long time family friend, Emily is now a pre-school teacher. She’s currently only teaching part time in the afternoons, but she’s enjoying it so far (when she’s not stressing out about it).

Anyway, Jack and Annie went to their first day of pre-school the other day and had tons of fun. They’re already making friends and having fun with the many activities that school has to offer. The other day Jack taught me all about “Stop, Drop & Roll” and Annie told me that I should always crawl under the smoke (they were learning about fire safety last week). They also told me all about dialing 911 so I’m waiting until they decide to try it for real. I didn’t get many pictures before dropping them off cause we were in a bit of a hurry, but here they are in their new school clothes with their backpacks on.

Granted this post is a few weeks late, but given how much I’ve blogged this summer, a few weeks is actually pretty darn timely.

Anyway, Jack and Annie are now 4 years old! It’s crazy to think that its already been 4 years, but they’re growing fast. They’ll even be starting preschool in the next week or so. It’s interesting to watch their personalities as they grow though. Under identical learning conditions, they’ve developed into their very own little people.

Jack has become the little jokester. He’s always trying to be funny and loves to tease his sisters. He’s also become quite addicted to playing the Wii. He loves Batman and Spiderman and enjoys playing with Owen and Cutwer (Cutler).

Annie is definitely the boss. She loves to have things her way and is quite vocal about it when things don’t go her way. She loves ponies and would happily own every single one if she could. She’s also becoming quite the artist and has developed her own unique style.

We celebrated in the back yard on the 21st and had family over for cake and ice cream. As you can see, Emily made them fun cakes. Jack got Batman with a sweet Bat symbol and cityscape on the side and Annie got a cool pony cake (and she got to keep the pony). They gots lots of fun presents from their cousins and grandparents and we all had a good time.

Happy birthday Jack & Annie!

About mid-August Jack and I got to head up to go camping with our ward for the fathers and sons campout. After working all day on Friday we threw our stuff in the Jeep and drove up Parleys canyon to the same camp site our ward has been to for the last several years. We stayed in Wanship at the base of the Rockport dam. It’s a fairly small campground, but there are lots of good size trees and the dam runoff river runs along the border.

As we got a bit of a late start we stopped off in Park City for some Wendy’s (and to let the Jeep cool off a bit). After finishing our Frostys, we arrived at the campground and setup our tent. Jack played with Cutwer and the rest of the boys while I got things set up and then we sat around the fire and roasted some marshmallows. After a short fireside we went to lay down in our tent. Luckily I had good coverage on my phone and we got to watch a few episodes of the old 1960′s Spiderman series on Netflix.

The next morning we woke up and had an excellent breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. After taking the tent down Jack and I went on a walk around the campground and spent some time throwing rocks in the river. We then proceeded to wade into the river and Jack ended up on his can in the water after trying to stand on a rather mossy rock. Once Jack was in some dry clothes we played some frisbee with the Tomers and threw his football around for a bit. Even though it was a short outing, we had fun sleeping in the tent and sitting around the fire.

So while Annie was dancing, Jack got to try his hand at soccer (see what I did there?). It didn’t turn out so well. While Annie was not terribly excited about going to dance, at least she had fun once she was there (usually). Jack on the other hand, spent the entire time trying to stay off the court. When we arrived for practice before his first game he seemed excited and was having fun kicking the ball around with Owen and his team. As soon as the game started though, it was just downhill from there. After chasing the other kids around the court for about a total of 1.5 minutes, he decided that the other kids weren’t “sharing” the ball and he broke down into a fit of tears. He never recovered, the whole rest of the season.

I think a large part of his problem was the fact that he was playing in a 3-5 year age bracket and he’s a small 3 year old. There was one kid in particular on his team who was obviously 5 and quite aggressive. Over the course of several games this kid proceeded to injure multiple other children by pushing them out of his way. I think Jack was just scared to be on the court for fear of getting hurt. But the fact that the kids weren’t “sharing” the ball with him didn’t help either. It finally came to the point where I had to put him on the court (they played on a basketball court with some makeshift walls with gates for access) and hold the gate door so he couldn’t come back out. That didn’t work for very long though because he figured out that there were two access gates to the court. He’d simply run to the other gate and come right back out to the sidelines any time I’d put him in. Oh well though. As with Annie, we’ll give it another try in a couple years and maybe he’ll be more excited then.

Cruddy pictures on account of my lame camera below:

So, I’m again late with the post, but I was able to make it out on an adventure with Jack a few weeks ago. This was part of our ongoing “date night” series, but in an effort to make it sound less… weird, we decided that Jack and I will participate in an adventure instead of a date. Seems less… ya’know…

Anyway, in an effort to be fair, Jack and I also went to Yogurtland. His choice was very similar to Annie’s and he ended up with strawberry yogurt with blueberries (cause I had some) and gummy bears. It was an interesting choice, but I respect his ability to make wise decisions (I was actually just curious to see if he’d eat it). We had a face making contest and then ran around on the playground in the cold afterward. It was a fun outing.