First Day Of School 2012

That is so messed up right? Who in their right minds would start school on August 7th? Oh, that's right! We live in California and 80% of the folks here are left minded!

Having got that off my chest, my three biggish kiddos did start school last week, much to Carson's dismay. To the boys, this "first day of school" business is old news. Just give them a few bucks for lunch, pound a fist in the van and let them be thank you very much. I did make them wear new, CLEAN shirts (much to Carson's dismay) and insisted on taking the mandatory picture in front of the house. I got my camera out, flicked my finger to hit the "on" switch and realized it WAS on. On and dead. I cursed myself under my breath (no back up battery either...rookie mistake) and pulled out the ol' iPhone, thus the iffy pictures.


~Preston-5th Grade-Mrs. Serian~


~Carson-3rd Grade-Mrs. Labron-Frazier~

Enough about the boys, let's talk about ABBY! She's a kindergartner!


~Abigail-Kindergarten-Mrs. Simonian and Mrs. Taylor~

I love, love, love me a kinder! And I love knowing and loving the kinder teacher! Mrs. Simonian was Carson's teacher last year and she was ah-mah-zing! She has always taught kinder, with the exception of last year (count my many blessing's name them one by one). We were overjoyed when we read Abby's name on her class list. She job shares with Mrs. Taylor (they've been job sharing for 17 years) and they couldn't be cuter or more enthusiastic about their job. Love that!


~Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Simonian, so cute!~

~The Kissing Hand~

Abby was all too willing to shimmy into her new yellow skinny jeans (much more fashion sense than her brothers). She was a tad nervous, as expected, but was surprisingly stoic. Even when the little girl in the back of the room broke into hysteric sobs, Abby kept right on listening to Mrs. Taylor read "The Kissing Hand". She had a great first day and even napped a little that afternoon!

~Yogurtlicious after school!~

~My tired kinder with William doing his best to wake Abby up!~

Will and I bonded over Target slushies and Diet Coke. I was really looking forward to some one on one time with him. Instead, I'll be teaching preschool with Miss Heather at the Learning Tree Preschool! Yay! It's a great opportunity and I get to bring my little buddy with me. It was a last minute call from the bench and I'm happy to step in and take over for Miss Tami (who is moving to Utah, boo). Before then I think we need one more family vacation. We're taking off Thursday for camping in Cedar City. I can't wait! Neither can Carson. 7 days of school can really take it out of a guy!

A Paragraph From Preston

I'm madly packing this week, room by room, so that I can leave myself enough time to go to Utah in a week. In my mad rush to take van loads of our stuff to the new house, I came across a page of school work that Preston had brought home and shoved in his desk. It warmed the cockles of my heart so I thought it was worth taking a break from the mad rushing to blog it down (I just made that up...blog it down...I should patent it).

There are four seasons in the year. One of my favorite seasons is fall. One thing I like about the fall is college football. I like college football because I like to watch Nebraska crush the other teams. Another thing I like about the fall is Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving because I love the pies and it is my mom's birthday. I love the fall.

Isn't he precious?! We've trained him well.

The First Day Pics + Extras

So school started for my bigs on August 10th. If you ask me, and no one ever seems to ask me, it's far, FAR too early. They got out in a normal month (June) but were forced back 10 weeks later. Rude. Here's why; a full week off at Thanksgiving, a three week "Winter Break" (it will always be Christmas Break to me), and two full weeks for Spring Break. Retarded. That's right, I called our school district retarded. Sue me. Anyway, I digress, as per usual for me. The point was to post pics of my angels (because when they're away from me all day, they turn back into angels) on their first day of school. The best ones are at the end.

Pig is now entering his "Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing" phase. Except that he's not nothing. He's actually pretty spectacular.

My Bigs.

Carson looking all happy-ish to enter 2nd grade.

This was actually pretty hilarious. Will decided to scootch on in...picture perfect smile and all.

So I added the other two. Will's usually not that cooperative...had to take advantage.

Mr. Confident. I love it.

Here come those stinky nerves again. Every year! I hate that it's so hard for him. Changes are the worst for my Carce.

I can just feel the nerves in his stomach. Can a mom get sympathy nerves?

It all ended alright. We're in the swing of things and both boys like their teachers. Carson has pinned down his biggest issues with school and we're working on those. It's boring and there's too much work. Pretty valid excuses I'd say.

And just because I think he's so dang adorable...

Will eating a Gogurt.

Will's concerned/mopey face.

And chilling with his pup. He loves, loves, loves the dogs.

And my princess for good measure. She doesn't always appreciate that I take so many pictures of Will. She doesn't remember the camera constantly in her face when she was 2. Or maybe she does and misses the attention.

Old School, New School, Red School, Blue School

I've been a horrid blogger lately. My excuse is that I've devoted my time to other things. The other thing being my attempt to maintain a happy, shiny, organized house. I used to have one in Utah, and in San Jose. I want one again. Trevor is begging me for one. Anyway, just as I think I have almost achieved it, (owed mostly to the neglect of my favorite past times of reading, eating ((well I still fit that one in)) and venting on this blog) my cleaning weave quickly comes unraveled. My four kids are marathon mess makers. Olympic medal worthy for sure. But I digress, I really wanted to post the pictures of the boys last day at Litel and first day at their new school. Their last day at Litel was a hard one for all of us, mostly me. I'll admit to some (and by some I mean loads of) tears. They have, however, made the new transition much more smoothly than I could have ever anticipated. I believe in miracles and one happened 3 days before their first day. Longish story short, I was out with some ladies from our new ward and happened to sit by a sweet lady who just happened to work at the boys school. She was able to tell me who the rock star teachers were in their grade levels and also put in a good word for me with the administrators. I was able to request said rock star teachers, and the boys love, love, love them. Plus, they are totally popular, being the new kids in town, and all that extra attention (although drastically inflating their heads) has helped them feel more than accepted. I don't believe that it was a coincidence that I sat by this sweet lady and count my blessings for this tender mercy. So, here they are in all their handsome glory. We will miss all our Litel Lion friends but couldn't feel better about becoming Mountain Lions.

~Carson with the petite Mrs. Tronske and Preston with the fabulous Mrs. Beach (best teacher that ever lived).~

~In front of their new blue school.~

The Marathon Runners

I know what you're all thinking, it's about time for those Miles boys to start running. They sooo have the genetics for it, it's only a matter of time. Riiiiiigt. But we are prodigiously proud of them and their accomplishment of running 26 miles over the course of 6 weeks. They spent every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon logging in miles so that, on March 5, they could run the last mile at the UCLA Stadium. They ran the whole way (but they have run much further, so this was a cake walk) and each received a medal at the end, medals that now have an honored place on the trophy shelf, in their room.

I was super bummed to have missed it (it was the same weekend I was in Washington), but I left specific instructions for Trevor to take pictures of our little marathoners. See all the pretty pictures? See them? No? Me neither. He decided to take the Bloggie so that he could video and take pictures. The uncharged battery lasted a whole 45 seconds. So we'll have to content ourselves with the group shot that I stole off facebook. And maybe I'll figure out how to add the 45 seconds of the boy's intense anticipation as they waited for the race to start.

~Can you spot my sprinters?~

October In A Blogshell

My computer was being retarded (we can blame Trevor for downloading a dumb software that wouldn't let me go online) and as a result, I haven't blogged about the many many many many many things we did last month. Hang on tight, here's the review in photos...

In the early days of October, we went to the pumpkin patch with Preston's scout group. Abby loved the little "baby pumpkins" and William went from gourd to gourd trying to power lift them. He was even able to move a few of them...a couple of inches at a time.

The next several are all about Disneyland. We went 6 times in October. 5 of the trips in only 10 days. Carson's annual pass expired on his birthday and we did a few (or 6) marathon excursions.

I finally broke down and stood in line for a character picture. Notice that Carson is absent. He was hiding under his Indiana Jones hat.

The Buzz ride is always a favorite since it's cool and EVERYBODY gets to ride it. A win/win for mom and kids.

On the last trip, Daddy met us there and took Carson on the Indiana Jones ride. He's been begging for this for a year, but still wasn't tall enough. We fudged it this time and folded a pair of Daddy's socks and put them under Carson's heel to give him that extra "lift". He almost backed out. You can see the excited nervousness in his eyes. He claims to have loved it but declined a second go round.

We also braved Toon Town for the first time. We've heard rumors that it's filled with Characters. It is. But I told Carson that he'd have to deal with it so that his brothers and sister could enjoy it at least once. He grudgingly agreed. Or maybe he didn't really agree...just had no choice in the matter.

Carson did get a birthday breakfast. We broke from the traditional breakfast in bed. It wasn't on my account. He was up at 6:00am on a Saturday and I was sleeping off the Friday night Disneyland adventure. Chocolate chip pancakes in front of Saturday morning cartoons seem to be as good as it gets for this guy though.

We had a small get together with a couple of our closest family friends on his actual birthday and did cake and ice cream with the extended family on Sunday night (but I forgot my camera then).

Preschool Princess

She was ready. So was I. We are both very pleased with the situation;) Abby woke up bright and early September 2nd. I joined her. We went all out with hot rollers, a pretty new dress, sparkly backpack, hearty breakfast, and a special snack with requested blueberries (that she didn't eat). We were ready to go at 7:40am. We hustled/nagged the boys all morning (much to their dismay) and landed at preschool at 8:35 (the boys didn't hustle fast enough).

I spent a half hour with her learning the ropes of preschool, finding the bathroom (or helping others find it since Abby is a pro at the Schaumann house), cutting out a tracing of her hand, sorting animals, taking pictures, playing with the toys, and reading stories.



After that, it was time for all the mommies and daddies to go. Abby gave me an obligatory goodbye and waved me out the door. She was ready. So was I. Miss Tami told me it would be bad form to skip to my car. But I couldn't help it.