Update

Well, what can I say. Life has been crazy these past few months! It is finally starting to settle down. I saw that the last time I had done a blog post was for Mya's birthday. I have quite a few dates to upload on here as well, but you are not missing much because most of them take place at the Craze and there are about a million posts on here from there. I found a bunch of these pictures on my phone so I decided to upload them and do a post with them. School got out for the girls last Thursday. This year has been awesome academically for them. When we were in Sunriver the school was small and pretty laid back. The girls did not get pushed like we would have liked them to. At the beginning of the year we were worried about them and their ability to keep up. We even considered holding Shelby back to give her a chance to keep up. I will start out with some pictures of Hallie and some details about her. 

This is a note that her teacher sent to us about halfway through the year. 

Austin and Annie, 

I just wanted to let you know how hard working Hallie is and how much I appreciate her positive attitude in class. She's a joy to teach. Thanks for all you do at home!

 Mrs. Lloyd

We were excited to get that letter from Hallie's teacher. She has worked really hard. Her reading ability has gone way up and she has come out of her shell as far as being friendly and outgoing are concerned. 

One of the best things to happen to Hallie this year was this little girl right here. Her name is Ehliza and her and Hallie are attached at the hip. They are both the same height, birthdays are two days apart, they both wear glasses and have all sisters. Ehliza was in our class at church and was in Hallie's class at school. Their school is only a couple of blocks from where I work so on Thursdays I go up there and have lunch with Hallie, Shelby and their friends. It is always really fun. I usually end up pushing the whole playground on the swings for recess and they all know my name and say "Austin, can you push us?" As I am running around trying to keep them all going.

Here are Hallie and Ehliza riding on the swing together

One thing I like about Ehliza is that she gives me all of the dirt on Hallie like Hallie does with Shelby. This is a boy named Kaysen who Hallie and Ehliza both like. Hallie would die if she knew I put this picture on here. I had Ehliza point him out to me. I was going to put the fear in him, but I backed off. Even though they both like the same boy it does not seem to affect their friendship. 

After a wild Friday night this is Hallie passed out on a camping chair in the living room.

Now onto Shelby. As I mentioned before we were worried about Shelby as far as school went. We decided to keep her in first grade and with her hard work and a great teacher she progressed really well her reading is going well and she has really excelled in math. She even got a math master award. She has a butterfly painted on her face above from the same wild night that Hallie had. These girls were pushed this year and there were quite a few frustrating nights of homework that ended in tears and frustration. They learned to push through the difficult parts and it became a lot smoother as the year went on. I am truly grateful for the academic experience that they have had this year. 

Shelby is a social butterfly. She has a ton of friends both boys and girls. She loves her recess time and is very particular about how she uses it. One day her group didn't get their work done and had to spend recess inside and her teacher told Annie that she had a meltdown and was concerned for her. When I go up there for lunch, Hallie usually gets stuck with dad because Shelby usually has a make believe game planned out with her friends. 

Shelby is our stubborn picky eater. She usually only wants macaroni and cheese. This is her preparing her famous meal. 

Shelby has had some good friends too. This is her and her friend Riley. She was a cutie, but had to move to northern Idaho a few months ago. She always called me Mr. Page. 

Shelby is a kind spirited little girl that doesn't like to let anyone down, but she is stubborn like her mom and dad. 

This is Shelby at lunch with Riley and Michael. Michael talks with a lisp and rides their bus. He always watches out for Shelby if the other boys try to chase her. They chased her so much that they ripped the hood on her jacket!

Next we have little miss Mya. She is definitely the spoiled baby that gets away with murder. She still doesn't sleep in her own bed and goes to sleep whenever she wants to. I don't know how that happened. She makes me laugh. She has a little stutter and is in speech to help her with her words. She can be hard to understand at times, but is so darn cute as she expresses herself. She has been doing well in speech and the weeks that she practices she improves dramatically, but sometimes it is hard to help her not slip back into her old ways. 

She got daddies appetite as you can see with two bowls of cereal and two lollipops in her mouth at the same time. Even though her stomach is bottomless and everyone says she looks like me, she is definitely a mommy's girl. She LOVES her mamma. 

Here is Abby under the covers with Mya. 

Here is the spoiled little girl eating cereal in her bed after 10:00 and falling asleep with the spoon in her hand, but she is actually in her own bed!

She loves her new little bike and is doing well on it. 

This note is hard to read, but it is from a girl in Hallie's class at church. Along with Mya not sleeping in her own bed, she has gotten away with not going to her own class at church. Annie and I taught Hallie's class and she would just come with us. Mya drew a picture for this girl and the girl wrote her this note that says, "Dear Mya, Thank you for the picture. Do you want to come to my house? I love you Mya. You are tender, kind and true, When is your birthday? Mine is April 2005. Love Arianna. I thought that this was so cute and Mya was so excited to have someone invite her over to their house. 

I love these pictures that we took while we were walking to church. The first one captures all of their little personalities. 

Here they are squeezing into my bed again!

This was a little wild, we walked/rode down to the snow cone shack and the girls were trying to hold their bikes and snow cones and I was trying to hold the dogs. It got a little stressful. On another one of these trips I ended up stepping on one of the dogs heads, Shelby got pulled onto the ground by the other one and Hallie was throwing a fit because of all of the chaos. 

This is a dance recital, Hallie and Shelby are in the back in blue. 

This little rascal was a new addition. He is a spaz!! He is half Pug and half Chihuahua. They are called Chugs. The girls named him Jackson, but call him Jack for short. He can't breath like me so when he gets excited which is all of the time he snorts. 

"The Beard"

I had to put this picture in here, because I haven't grown a beard for ten years. After I got a haircut one day I saw that my whiskers were about as long as my hair so I didn't shave. The next day my boss gave me a bunch of crap for not shaving and said that beards were unprofessional and that I looked like a drunk when it was growing out. Even though I had no desire to keep it, being the stubborn cuss that I am I left it and have had it for at least a month now. We were in a meeting at work and a bunch of people commented on how they liked it and thought it looked good and he was there, then I was at his house working on some stuff that they wanted done and his wife told me how much she liked it. Each time someone says something it just fuels the fire. I haven't shaved it yet and I went to get my temple recommend renewed and even the bishop said he liked it and wished he could grow one. It has been funny, I think that everyone is having beard withdrawals here in Rexburg since they don't allow them on campus. I keep it trimmed short and am not looking to go Duck Dynasty with it, but it has kept things interesting.