First Day of First Grade!

Our Samantha Anne started first grade today at Smith School. She was excited finally, because last week she'd told me she would be sick on the first day. But last night we went to meet her teacher and drop off her school supplies. Samantha was glad to see that a little girl named Carlin from her kindergarten class was assigned to the desk sitting next to her and she met a little boy named Reilly that she kept talking about.
It took a little effort to get her up this morning though. I went into her room and told her to wake up because it was the first day of school. She mumbled into her pillow, "It is?" Then she looked at her clock and said, "Seven minutes?" And I replied, "Uh, yes, it's 7:05." So I kept talking to her and rubbing her back and asking if she wanted waffles (Only the toaster kind. I'm not that domestic!) or cereal for breakfast. Finally she declared, "Mom! I'm tired! Can I just have seven more minutes?" I just started to laugh and said okay. She made me turn off her light and I went back to my room to keep getting myself ready. It makes me worry about how bad she'll be about getting up when she's a teenager if this is already how she's acting! Thankfully, a few minutes later I heard someone coming downstairs, and though I expected Logan, it was Samantha who was very proud of herself for getting up after seven minutes.
She got ready and Ross gave her a back to school blessing and then she and I were off! (At least we were off to the front porch to take pictures.) Then we were finally off to school. I took her right to her classroom this morning and her friend Carlin was already there. Samantha's teacher has been at Smith School for at least 20 years because my sister Wendy had her for a kindergarten teacher. It was funny because Wendy told me she remembered Mrs. Dundas with dark hair cut in a bob and that's still how it is!
I picked Samantha up after school and got a report that the morning was an adjustment, but she had a GREAT afternoon. That was good to hear. I'm so thankful there's so many people aware of her at the school and so willing to keep her safe and help her to have good experiences and learning opportunities. It makes me feel blessed.


Samantha and Carlin

Buzz Boys

I've been meaning to post forever and have tons of summer fun stuff to put up, but never seem to get it done. So for the moment here's some pics of my boys. My parents' new house is going to be in the Parade of Homes here in Helena and I went out there Monday night to help them get ready. I left Ross with the four kids and it was a nice little break. I didn't get back until about 11:00 PM. I crept into the kids' dark rooms and kissed them, but it wasn't until the next morning when Luke got up that I noticed anything. I had fallen asleep nursing Rebecca on the living room couch early Tuesday morning and Lukey came out of his room about 6:45. Bleary eyed, I saw him across the room. I made him come closer and I realized that Ross had buzzed the boys hair while I was gone! He hadn't mentioned that the night before! They've needed shorter hair cuts all summer, but with family pictures being taken at both of our family reunions, I didn't want it too short, and definitely not buzzed. We've just had them trimmed around their ears a bit for months. Well, family pictures are over now, so I guess Ross had no qualms about buzzing away! They both still look cute and I guess I don't need to worry about combing their hair for a little while...

Samantha is SIX!

Samantha Anne Wilkins was born on June 22, 2002 at 6:16 PM in Provo, Utah. (Yep, she's a BYU baby!) A few weeks ago she celebrated a very fun 6th Birthday. Mommy and Daddy got her a pretty green birthday dress that she wore to church that day. Then Grandma and Grandpa Lay came over for a taco dinner that night and we had ice cream sundaes and Samantha opened presents. The next day Samantha had her long awaited costume party. The kids came dressed up and played the typical party games and had a ton of fun smashing into a pinata in the backyard.

I was running late as usual and didn't have her cake finished by the time the party started. Thankfully, my sister-in-law Kathy has an amazing talent for cake decorating and stepped in for me and quickly decorated a totally adorable Strawberry Shortcake cake for Samantha! Samantha loved it and I was so happy and thankful. I had a Strawberry Shortcake cake (old school Strawberry Shortcake, of course) for my sixth birthday and wanted the same for my little girl!
Samantha is such a fun, happy, beautiful girl and we're extremely grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing our family with her! WE LOVE YOU SAMANTHA!

First Day of Summer

Adventurous Logan

Daddy kinking the hose

Daddy unkinking the hose!

A very excited Luke!

3 kids and a little sprinkler

Last Friday Ross decided that he'd better water the lawn now that it had stopped raining and the the weather finally warmed up. So he put a sprinkler out on our front lawn around 7 PM and the next thing we knew Logan had on his swim trunks. We laughed and shook our heads and told Logan to go get dressed. Then who should appear in her swimsuit but Samantha! We decided not to fight it and let them out to run through the sprinkler. Luke couldn't stand it and was so excited watching them that I put on his swimsuit too. They had so much fun that we were glad we'd decided not to be grumpy old parents but let them enjoy summertime instead.

How embarrassing...

So, last night I finally posted a real post to our blog. I have no idea what I'm doing so it took a lot of trial and error with the text and pictures. My poor husband laid in bed reading his book waiting and waiting for me to quit being a silly woman and come read scriptures and say prayers so we could go to bed. When I finished fussing with what I had written and then put the pics in the place I wanted them, I was so excited! I looked at our blog to see how it all turned out and much to my dismay, the new post was before the "tester" post. Then I looked at the date on the post I had just done. It's March 25th! Yesterday was June 16th. Not the same day obviously. (With a March post date, it doesn't make much sense that we could have a baby who is two months old, but born in April of this year!) So now I'm forced to admit what a procrastinator I am. I started writing that post waaaaaay back in March, and yes, it's taken me three months to finish it! Am I allowed to use the pregnancy/brand new baby excuse? I hope so...

Our first post

It's official. We have a blog. BLAAAAAAAHHHHHHHg.

Past, Present, and Near Future

I always have grand intentions to send e-mails to everyone I know that I haven't talked to in forever, and even to those I talk to on a regular basis, but it never seems to happen. I kept meaning to send out a Christmas letter or even e-mail, but obviously never did, so our current status, for those of you who don't know, is that we are living in my hometown of Helena, Montana. Last July we bought and moved into our first home. It's been great to have our own space, a big back yard, and no neighbors to hear walking above us!


Samantha turns 6 on June 22 and just finished kindergarten at Smith School in the same classroom where I was taught in the 4th grade! Right before we moved last summer, she threw a ball up at her light fixture and it shattered down around her. A shard of glass sliced through the pajamas she was wearing and we ended up with our first visit with one of our children to the emergency room. She ended up needing just three little stitches in her side, but wow, did she ever hate it! After the trauma of getting the stitches in (about 5 people holding her down), she was a typical kid who was just happy to get a sucker from the nurse. She didn't really like getting the stitches out any better, but it made for an adventure.

Logan will be 4 in October and is a chatty little boy who loves cars (including the Cars movie, of course), tools, playing video games with daddy, and his Winnie-the-Pooh blanket. He makes us laugh a lot. Once Ross burped at the dinner table and I gave him that wife look of, "That was gross and inappropriate", but even after looking sheepish for a second, he still turned to the kids and said, "Hey, did you hear that frog?" To which Logan replied excitedly, "Can we hear a duck now?!" And on Easter, we finally got around to dyeing eggs, but Logan had fallen asleep on the couch. I knew he wouldn't want to miss out, so we kept trying to wake him up. I finally pulled him onto my lap and told him what we were doing and asked him what color he wanted to dye his egg. Groggily he answered, "White."

Luke is 21 months old and thinks he can talk. He's in the jabbering stage and his little voice is really adorable right now even if the words aren't all coming out in English. :o) He's gotten into trains lately and was mesmerized when he saw a real one. I had to chase him down as he headed off to get a better look! He's our solid little man and weighs about the same as Logan right now. He also looooves his Daddy and just about jumps out of his skin every time Ross comes home.

Our baby girl, Rebecca Michelle, is almost 2 months old! She was born in April and has been so fun to have in our family. We're still not sure, but her eyes may not be the same dark brown like her older siblings! They are so much lighter and keep hinting at turning blue! I know everyone says that all babies have blue eyes, but I've had three babies that that didn't apply to. The other kids' eyes were just black until they turned brown. It's been fun to see something new with baby number 4. She's sweet and cute and Samantha loves having a sister. Today I put Rebecca on Samantha's bed and asked her to watch the baby for a minute while I changed Luke. When I came back in Samantha had pulled down her blind, turned on her nightlight and bedside lamp, covered up Rebecca, and was reading her a bedtime story. It was really adorable to see.

We're getting excited for this summer because we get to see ALL of our family! We'll be attending family reunions/anniversary parties for both sets of grandparents this year. My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary on June 7th and Ross's parents are celebrating their 50th anniversary on August 22nd. We get to do the Lay reunion over the 4th of July and the Wilkins' reunion at the beginning of August. We can't wait!

So, there's our first official blog post, other than the tester Ross helped me with. He's so silly, but he knows his way around our computer better than I do. Good thing I love him so much!