back to school!

how do we have a 5th grader?!?

my mind won't accept it and i keep telling people, including jack, that he is in 4th grade on accident. 

ellie is now in 4th grade, which makes the fact that jack is "in 4th grade" kinda strange :) and charles is in 1st, although he is the size of most 4th graders.

grandma and i put together our traditional back to dinner feast, complete with crowns and candle-blowing!

oh charlie! his smile is even crazier now because he's lost another tooth! his school picture this year will be a doozy!

ellie made our place cards and i thought she did a fabulous job

chicken tikka masala,

a family favorite!

so sad this shot is blurry, cause toasting with grandma is so fun!

grandma likes our chocolate cake and took these to make florida family a little jealous!

owen missed the candle blowing the first time around so we lit them again... two wishes for the school year are better than one!

after dinner we presented our theme for the 2017-2018 school year:

chris gave a really great lesson on how to not only be an example of Christ to others, but how we can make our "lights", or testimonies, grow stronger and brighter. afterwards he was able to give each child a priesthood blessing. and of course owen didn't want to be left out so he had one too.

it was a very special night for us!

first day of school, august 15th

i asked them to hold up their fingers and this is what chuck gave us, what a ham haha!

that night at pack meeting, Jack received his Arrow of Light and Webelos awards! a lot of time goes in to receiving those awards, so we are proud of jack! He is a great example of what a scout should be. he was very happy that grandma could be here when he received these honors.

chris definitely should have been the one to get a pin for helping jack, cause he was there every step of the way.

a man from the greenwood ward was kind enough to come speak about keeping commandments and why its important. then he read the scripture in matthew

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

he asked the boys to try to balance all of those nails on top of one nail. the nails represented all the commandments we are given. of course they couldn't balance it, so he showed us how. by using the two greatest commandments to hang the others from, he could balance them all.

it was a very neat visual!

it was fun to have grandma here for the first week of school!

she even took each of the kids out of class to go to lunch, which they thought was awesome!!!