Back To School

It's that time of year again. The kiddo's have headed back to school with a few changes happening this year. Makala is off to her Freshman year of school. How on Earth did we end up with a kiddo in High School already. That doesn't even seem possible. Of course she's at that age where anything and everything we do is embarrassing to her so daddy had a little fun with that during pictures. Just think what we could have done picture wise if she would have let us take her to school.  :)

 

Our baby is all grown up
 

Really dad? Is this necessary?!

When you refuse to smile daddy will embarrass you more with a kiss. #BestDadEver

 Next up is the other babies. Talk about a crazy morning. They don't even get up till Makala has left and been on the bus for 20 minutes. I forgot how challenging it can be to get two kids up, dressed, feed them breakfast, make their lunches, and all their school stuff ready to go. Now we are adding in the baby this year which makes it more challenging with three kiddos but still doable. What a fun morning we had getting things together and off to school for the first day. Unlike their sister they happily allowed us to take them to school.

 

Lunch making time

First day of Kindergarten means a fun sandwich.

Sammy boy ready for Kindergarten

Abby's ready for 3rd grade

Off to 4th grade for Luke

Our babies

Yearly tradition. Picture on the school sign.

Daddy telling Sammy how much fun he's going to have.

Time to color.

Sammy & Mama

Babies are HOME!
 

It was quite an eventful day in the Hanson Household. Our oldest started High School and our baby started Kindergarten. Its so neat to see how are lives are changing from year to year. There is so much change but its good change. Our kiddos are growing up and starting to figure out who they are. We just want to make sure they have full bellies of yummy food to help them along the way.

Updates

Wow. February was a crazy month for us but its finally coming to an end.

 

After three long weeks Mike finally came home from Georgia and we couldn't have been more happy to see him. Three days before Mike left my dad was hospitalized and remained there for over a week. During that time he had a defibrillator placed and is doing a bit better. We went to see them during Valentines Day and I know he enjoyed it just as much as the kids did.

 

 

Abby, Papa, Nevaeh, and Makala.

 

Gavin, Papa, Sammy, and Luke

 

 

Sammy and I started his Spring project. I'm doing one thing with each of the kids to get Spring started a bit early. We are re-doing his bike and he's excited. Future post to come about that. Here is helping me take it apart.

 

Sammy helping to take apart his bike

 

Abby is so excited for it to be warm outside again. That girl is such a skirt wearing tomboy. She takes after me and isn't afraid at all to get her hands dirty.

 

Luke is getting ready to celebrate his birthday soon and is really excited for his birthday. He also enjoy's tutoring and is making great progress in the areas where he struggles. I can't say enough good things about Republic schools. Those teachers bend over backwards to help out their kids.

 

Makala is doing her thing as well. She's working on her Science Fair project about global warming. Yesterday she had an ensemble at school for band. She was asked to fill in for someone who was gone as well so we got to see her preform twice. Once with two friends who play the flute and once with her friends who also play the clarinet. Both her teacher Mr. Altis and the judge recommended that she get a leather ligature for her clarinet so today Sammy and I bought her one. Can't wait to see what great things she does in band.

 

 

Mike and I are starting a few projects around the house. First we purchased a new garage door and all I can say is were getting old. We are so excited to have a working door again. We chose a steel insulated door that looks like wood. We are having really nice windows put on the top so we can have some natural light in the garage. Our big project that we are doing ourselves is the Master closet. Finally after almost three years we will have a closet that works for us. Next week on his day off we will start to frame it up. Initially we had planned to use the entire old laundry room for our closet but I really wanted a broom closet to store all my gadgets and cleaning supplies. Not to mention we will finally have somewhere to store extra toilet paper and paper towels upstairs. Score!

 

I love the fact that we finally have a place to call our own and we can decorate it however we want. Our next project after this will be solar tubes for the boys bathroom and staircase. Neither have windows and because of that the lights are ALWAYS being left on.

 



MUCH NEEDED BREAK!

I decided to take a much needed break from the world of Facebook. Its been over a week and I can say I really don't miss it. I've gotten so much of the tedious things done around the house. Its a great feeling to know so much of my 'to do list' is getting accomplished. I did log on today to get a picture off of my timeline and decided to scroll through to see what was going on. I can say that there wasn't much going on except the same old thing and the same old drama. I can honestly say for the time being the only reason I will log on to Facebook is to start pulling my pictures off to save them to my computer.

 

 

 



Grocery bills just keep going up....

Has anyone else's grocery bill just skyrocketed these past few months. Holy moly! With a family of six I have a budget of $600 a month but we always seem to creep past that towards the $800 range. While $800 for a family of six isn't really all that bad I knew I could do a lot better. I knew for sure I could get back down to my $600 budget but I also wanted to challenge myself to get it down to around the $400 mark. Over the next four weeks I'll be posting weekly menus, grocery shopping list, and recipes. Please take into consideration that the menus for lunch are kind of repetitive. Three of our kids are in school, the hubby takes his lunch to work daily, and the tiny muffin and I usually have the same thing as the hubby or leftovers if we have any.

Love my husband, in-laws, & Italy

Where to begin...

Lets start with the hubby and all the beautiful things he's sent to me this past year. I've received a jewelry box, two necklaces, pillow cases, wall hanging, and a beautiful wooden wall hanging as well. He has also sent me eye liner. I know what your thinking but its way better and goes on smoothly.

Hand woven and dyed pillow cases



Hand carved jewelry box

Wall hanging

Beautiful necklace

 I'd have to say that I'm a pretty lucky girl to get such beautiful things from the hubby. I know that a lot of these purchases meant that he wasn't going to get much sleep. The only time for him to go shopping for them was during the day and since he worked nights he slept during the day.

On top of that my in-laws went to Italy for three weeks. Knowing that Italy is the one place in the world I want to visit they bought me gifts. I love gifts! My mother-in-law, Marjorie, bought me two wall hangings. One is of Italy and one is of Toscana (Tuscany) which is the one area I want to go the most. I also got spaghetti seasoning, pasta, a key chain, calendar, bookmark, and best of all a hand painted wall hanging. My father-in-law, John, is an avid picture taker like me and got some amazing shots. I was actually surprised to see him in a few shots since neither one of us can ever be seen in family photos because we are always the ones taking them. 

Tile painted with a scene of Tuscany and set into a wooden frame

Pompeii, Italy

So beautiful and I can't wait to make a trip out there. This means I'm going to need to do a lot of saving because my trip is going to be at least 2 - 3 weeks so I can see everything I want. Who knows when I'll get to go back again. Now to start learning Italian so things go faster, smoother, and easier when we actually get to go.

Ants, plants, & Duggars.

The drought is causing so many problems. My beautiful yard went from being green and beautiful with tons of plants and flowers to dry, brown, and crunchy. The only green in my yard is around the pool where the water splashes out. Its so hot and dry that even my burning bush is literally burning. With all of this the little black ants think they need to come in the house to cool off and get some food and drink. I put out some Torro so hopefully that will kill them off.

We got the cutest plants today at Wal-Mart which is a surprise because they are usually dead, dry, and ugly but I think these look good. I love having fresh flowers and plants in the house. Not only do they look good but they help clean the air. I'm thinking I may need to purchase more. :)

My new beautiful plants

Makala and I got the third and fourth seasons of the Duggars so were having a marathon right now. I love getting to spend some time with her and need to find a time to take her to get a pedicure before school starts. She is Middle School this year which is still hard to believe.

Movie time

March - July Recap

Well I'm getting a little better at remembering to update this blog. Its only been a three month gap since last time. :)

Lets back up a bit:

March: Luke turned 7 years old in and it doesn't seem possible. He finished the 1st grade and was able to graduate from the Reading Recovery Program and is kicking some butt in his reading this Summer. We are still trying to figure out how he eats with all those missing teeth but some how he does it. :)

Luke's new bike for his 7th birthday.

The toothless wonder.

April, May, & June were busy months with us preparing for school to get out, trying to figure out what to do for the Summer, and watching as many movies as we can. Sadly we have not been able to do much because the weather is just unbelievable. We don't make plans any farther out than 2-3 days because we just don't know what the weather is going to be like. Since we've been stuck at the house a lot because of the heat we decided to buy a pool and its been a great investment for us. The kids have become little fish and have amazing tans. Abby can now swim underwater without holding her nose which if you know her is a huge step. Sammy still does the plug my nose and touch the water with my face then come back up really fast thing. :)

Well this isn't our new big pool but it did get us through till we got our new one.

July:

Well there is only one thing to say about July: BIRTHDAY'S!

Our sweet yet ornery little Abby turned 5 years old on the 7th, and our sweet and very helpful Makala turned 11 years old on the 9th. I can't believe how fast our babies are growing up. They had a great turn out at their birthday party and got lots of goodies. We had to rush it at the end because a huge storm started rolling in and the wind was blowing all the decorations around.

She's growing up so fast.

Our newest little fish.

 With the girls birthday party over is was time for the big kids to get ready for church camp. Makala and Luke spent the week at Dry Gulch USA with the youth group at Church. They had a blast and are ready to go again next year. They went swimming, tubing, horseback riding, hiked, made crafts, bumper boats, go karting, canoeing, and so many other things. They also had daily worship at the Chapel. They both said their favorite thing was the horseback riding and have both asked for lessons.

Getting ready to leave for camp

New Life kids ride in style

Getting ready to go down the slide

Alex & Makala - Found out they were attached at the hip the whole week

Luke riding Monte

Makala on Ben

They rigged it so he could ride by himself

This is gonna happen for real in 4 years when she gets her permit

Whew! I'm tired just thinking about July and all the things we've done. We also went to the lake with my family on the 4th of July and rode jet skis and went out on the pontoon. Kids had a lot of fun and were tired by the end of the day. My mom took Luke that week so he went home with her. Erica wanted to take the girls home to have a sleep over, so it was just Sammy boy and I that night. We spent the evening cuddling on the couch and watching cartoons.

Loving it but hating that she had to wear that life jacket

Pay no attention to the hair

Super tired boy. I may have let him eat on the couch since no one was home. Shhhh.. ;)

Love this picture

Well that about wraps it up for now. Oh, wait!!!!

I can't forget to post a picture of the love of my life. Isn't he just the cutest thing ever!

My hubby = HUBBA! HUBBA!