We Survived Summer Break

Summer break is officially over.  We have had 2 birthday's grew a garden, got rid of some kittens, and so far have survived the summer monsoons.  Maddi turned 5 years old on May 31st and got exactly what she wanted for her birthday, a bike!  Her very own bike!  No more hand me downs with broken pedals, half a seat and flat tires!  Our garden took off like crazy!  It produced countless baby watermelons, and cucumbers, a couple of cantelopes, 8 ears of corn, a full size watermelon and 2 baby tomatoes.  The monsoon season came in with a bang and at first it really helped that garden.  I think eventually we had so much rain that it killed the garden.  That, the 115 degree days we have been having lately and our grden friend, the green horned tomato worm.  The cucumbers and corn turned bad before we even were able to pick them.  Kenni was so excite about the garden that he is already planning a winter garden.  That is one thing about AZ that I love, you can have a garden in the winter!  Laura turned 11 years old on August 2nd.  11 years old!  I still just can't believe it!  She wanted a password journal and bunk beds for her birthday.  She got the password journal but the bunk beds were a far stretch!  Her password journal has a voice activated password.  Kenni being the great brother he is, already mimicked her voice and is able to open her journal!  As hard as it was, we finally were able to find home for 2 of our 3 rescue kittens.  A friend of mine took one and a friend of James took the other so we are still able to see them and see how they are doing.  The kids started school on the 8th.  So now all 4 of our children are officially in school.  Kenni really likes his teacher.  He said he hasn't made too many friends yet but his "girlfriend" is in his class so he was totally excited about that!  He said there is a mean girl in his class.  Maddi has already said that she is going to have a serious talk with this girl then she is going to smack her in the face!  James says he doesn't like school but he really does.  Kenni's teacher's daughter is in James class and she is new to the school.  Kenni's teacher was telling me how glad she was that James was her friend.  When I asked him about it he told me he just lets her follow him around to be nice!  Laura really likes her teacher this year.  She is bummed that her best friend isn't in her class but they still have lunch together   Maddi isn't phased a bit by being in school all day.  Her first day she didn't stop talking at all about it until she fell asleep that night.  She has two teachers, once for normal kindergarten and the other for her extended day program.  Her morning teacher is a girl and Maddi said she is super nice and pretty and that is where she does all her learning.  Her afternoon teacher is a boy.  She said they just have fun and play duck duck goose.  She also told me that on the first day of school she sang the song "call me maybe" in front of the whole class!