The Hanson Crew

This was our first full week of school for our crew. Homework was very light on Tues and Thurs when they are home with me so it is hard to know what next week will hold... Caleb LOVES his new school and has made some new friends already. We should start speech next week at NKC too. John is sick today and yesterday with a really bad sinus thing. He is teaching 10 th grade Worldview and 8 th grade Geography/Church History this year at FCA . I think he is liking both classes, but can't believe he is already sick. We're just hoping the rest of us stay clear of it. I am starting to have a little more website work requests. I have been doing this as a ministry for 5 years and only had a couple paying customers. This year, I have started a new client base that is spreading the word quickly. So I am excited to begin a new small business venture finally this year - Hanson Crew Design. I am currently working on a website and new business cards for it in between othe

Today was our first day back at FCA. We now have one in 5th, 2nd, and 1st grade. They were all up early, excited for breakfast and out the door right on schedule. We'll see if that happens again on Wed morning! Jonathan doesn't start preschool for a couple weeks, so we enjoyed our first day alone running errands together in the rain. I am curious how much homework we will have tomorrow at home... Here are a few pictures from our morning. When I asked Ashlyn if she would like me to take a picture of her at her desk like I have done each year, she politely answered no this year. She is getting so big and ready to be a part of the oldest class in the elementary...oh, and really excited for her locker! Caleb, Ashlyn, and Joshua before we left We are so proud of Caleb, especially his best buddy Jonathan All ready for first grade with Mrs. Denny Joshua ready for second grade with Mrs. McCullison

Here are a few highlights of the end of our crew's summer: Enjoyed some free Redbox and .49 cent Blockbuster family movie nights Played lots of Lego's Setup too many forts to count Enjoyed the outdoors some (bikes, walks, and trampoline) Puzzles Worked in the yard together (clean up from a couple bad storms) Enjoyed the "name game" (Everyone writes a name on a paper and someone reads them all out loud. Then we have to guess who wrote which name). Our kids love this game and pick the funniest names (TV shows, movies, friends, etc) Enjoyed some grandma time (one on one with Grandma Sue and group time with Grandma Peggy) Ashlyn got to sew Some fun play dates with FCA friends and FCC families Organized closets and school room together And of course, we swam alot!!!

We buckled down this week and started waking up at 7 a.m. each day in preparation for school next week. I did this so our kids might be grumpy that first week at home instead of at school. The plan is working. By around 3, everyone is pretty crabby. But I can see them getting up easier each day. Caleb has enjoyed watching the bus pull up in front of our house while he is eating breakfast in his pjs . I think he will miss the bus the most, but loves the idea of John or I driving him each day with his brother and sister. I think Jonathan is starting to realize it will just be him and I again too! His spoiled self is re-appearing more each day. His preschool does not begin until after Labor Day so he will get me for a couple weeks all day on MWF before that. We have another back to school party tomorrow and then our back to school night on Friday. I will be most excited to bring what feels like half of Office Max to the school instead of seeing it all piled all around my school

While Sue was watching our kids on Friday/Saturday for our anniversary date, they stopped by a lemonade stand at Sue's neighborhood park. Here they are drinking their favorite drink for a good cause...

The boys have been watching the Avengers cartoons on Netflix this summer and are really into super heroes. Today at Hy- Vee , we were able to meet him! He stood like a statue until we got right under his nose. Joshua kept saying, that isn't really him, it's just a statue. And then, he moved his eyes right down at Joshua. He jumped back and started laughing. They thought that was pretty funny. We were able to get a good picture with him too that we had to share. John and I saw the movie on Friday for our Anniversary, and John is hoping to take Joshua to see it soon.

Jonathan is becoming quite the artist. He is really staying in the lines and using a lot of different colors now. We are still working on handwriting, but it's been neat to see our first boy taking after Ashlyn some. She used to love to color pictures like this when she was little. Joshua and Caleb never really did. He is also getting excited for preschool to start after Labor Day. When we drive by Mrs. Taylor's house (his teacher), he waves hi.

We have had our school supplies all set for a few weeks, minus the backpacks. We weren't sure what type to buy. Ashlyn carries a huge amount of books, folders, and binders back and forth because of all the homework she does on Tues and Thurs. Last year, we bought a pink suitcase on Target for $20 and it barely made it through the school year. We had decided to spend a little more this year, hoping that the quality of the more expensive bag would last longer. Well, this year we decided to try something new - a rolling cooler. It's the red one in the middle above and was $30. It seems to be very sturdy as well as just the right size for all her 5 th grade books. Caleb went with a nice black rolling backpack (the one on the left) from JCPenney's during the tax free weekend while it was 60% off. I think this one will definitely last 2 years. He loves that it becomes a regular backpack too, which he says he will use sometimes. It was the most expensive of all 3 b

After playing school with the Build-a-Bears all afternoon, the kids settled them all down in the living room for a family movie night! Here they all are settled in, ready to pop some popcorn!

It's official. Joshua has hit the anti-girls stage. Today while entering Justice with Ashlyn, he yelled out "I think I am going to throw up!" Then he continued to complain the whole time we were in there, kind of hiding in the corner. It was too pink and too girly for him. Too funny!

Hard to believe our school will start back up in about 2 weeks (August 22 nd ). The past week was really busy playing with friends. Today I was able to scrapbook with a couple friends for 5 hours and catch up on their birthday books! That was a very exciting accomplishment done before school starts. This summer has flown by since July 1st. I think I got most of my summer projects completed I wanted to get done, minus staining my backyard fence, which was postponed because of our really high heat indexes the past couple weeks. I have really been enjoying our family more this month. Even though it is only August 6 th , I feel like we have been sitting with one another more this month. Interacting, laughing, and just being with one another. It has been really nice. The problem we haven't begun to address is our sleep schedule. We need to work on that starting Monday. I wonder how difficult that will be. Oh, and I stopped doing Insanity. It was really hard and I was really

Ashlyn and I got back Sunday from our girls trip to MN. We went to Minneapolis, MN with Aunt Carol and Rylee. The trip was very memorable. We got there Thurs evening and checked into the hotel in time for some swimming and hot tubing before dinner. Then we grabbed dinner and header to a $2 theatre. We then went on a GPS adventure trying to find an IHOP for a late breakfast snack! Friday we spent the day at the Mall of America Nickelodeon Theme Park. That was alot of FUN! The park is indoor, which is wonderful in this hot summer. We rode tons of rides while we were there and took a few breaks for meals and shopping. We also did this really cool climbing structure where we could walk across tight ropes and wood boards 3 stories high. We wore harnesses and it kinda reminded me of rock climbing/zip lining put together. We did that for about an hour and a half. We managed to make it back to the hotel for another hot tub party. Saturday we went to the MN IKEA, which was tons of f