School, the Zoo and Life in between

This past week has flown by for the Nutt House.  It’s hard to imagine it’s been a week since I was last updating, yet at the same time, it seems like eons since the activities we engaged in on Monday.  That chaos is a perfect example of Nutt House lives.

We started our week with Martin Luther King Jr Day on Monday where the holiday provided a welcomed day off school.  The Nutt House jumped at the chance to enjoy some good weather, get outdoors, be together as a family, and spend time with friends.  The zoo provided the perfect avenue for this.  Errands and lessons didn’t allow for us to stay as long as we would have liked, but the completely full parking lot and swarms of people at each exhibit helped to make the few hours we did stay at the zoo feel like the perfect amount of zoo time for the day.  We were excited to have some friends that haven’t been to the Phoenix zoo join us and together we explored the Arizona trails area, took a train ride around the basic zoo loop, and ventured to a few of our favorite exhibits (monkey village, orangutan and tiger exhibits were a few of these).

These two little monkeys love the zoo!

I treasure these two and the moments we can 

It was hard to do dance tricks in sneakers and clothes

Stork stands for anywhere, anytime!

Roooaaaarrr!

Our favorite places are always more fun with friends!

Kara proudly took this picture from the train

Reach, reach, reaching higher!

Selfie picture by Kara with one of her best friends

So many reptiles!

The Nutt House felt grateful to have Grammy here with us for a few more days at the beginning of the week.  At one point when driving home Monday Kaden asked if Grammy would still be at our house, I explained she’d be there after she was done with volleyball for the day and Kaden responded, “good, I like having Grammy at my house”.  The love that’s felt by our little Nutts for their relatives is so strong it is almost tangible.  Kara was equally elated to have Grammy in our home, insisted that Grammy drive her to dance class Monday, and excited when Grammy was able to watch some of her dance class.

Stories shared with Grammy were a huge hit!

Saying goodbye was hard to do

Watching planes is a must when going to the airport

 No Nutt-y week would be complete without dance, My Gym and swim lessons.  During Kara’s solo practice she has been picking apart her dance and fine tuning different areas, as I watch her I find myself beaming with pride at the talent she possess and in awe of her skills.  When I see how beautiful she dances, it makes the reminders and too frequent nagging to practice all worthwhile.  At swim lessons this week Kaden proudly wore his new swim cap, one that he was told he’d earn after graduating from the first level of swim lessons.  Well, life got busy and we just now got the cap ordered and he was so pleased to walk into the pool and over to his teacher with his little blue shark on his head. 

Her practices are painful for me!

 

I love this little shark

Her swimming talents almost rival
those on the dance floor

My Gym and bridges... crazy to think he's learning skills Kara
has learned at dance!

This was an eventful week at school as well.  For Kara, she celebrated the 100^th day of school!  For this, she decorated a cut out 100 and in true Kara fashion decorated it in multi colored jewels.  The highlight of the celebration came when she got to dress up as if she was a grandma.  After a trip searching the XS racks at Goodwill the perfect “grandma” costume was, found and with a little, okay a lot of platinum colored hair spray, a bun and some glasses her outfit was complete!  Kara was the cutest grandma I have ever seen and this was one kindergarten project I felt really proud of the results on!

The perfect and most adorable grandma!

 

Kaden had an equally exciting week at school with all letter Z activities culminating around a field trip to the zoo.  Thursday when he went the weather had turned colder and rain drizzled off and on in the valley.  This led to the zoo being relatively empty which was nice for the kiddos though I found myself trying to warm my hands up more than once as I planned better for Kaden’s attire than my own.  I felt so lucky and appreciative that our Nutt-y lives allow me to be so involved in the activities and schooling of our little Nutt’s.  Kaden’s preschool traveled along one of my favorite paths of the zoo – around the giraffes, up to the lions and hyenas, down to the rhinoceros and over to the mandrills and baboons.  We haven’t walked this path in what seems like ages as it is the same route the train takes and our little Nutts don’t want to walk the same path as the train goes and well… they’d rather ride the train and walk other paths at the zoo.  Us walking this path allowed for a long plaguing question I’d had of why I hadn’t seen the rhino in a while to be answered, sadly, in November the rhino passed away.  On a happier note, by walking this path Kaden got to see his favorite animal, the cheetah up close and personal!  I don’t know why he completely loves the cheetah, but he sure does!

Kaden his favorite Ms. Teddie and the rest of his preschool class
(minus one who was out sick)

Kaden with the cheetah

Snack break!

Cheetah!!

Hanging with the hyena

Bobbin' with the baboon

Kaden will seek out any opportunity to sit on the statues that he can!

This tortoise was huge!!

Best of friends

Kaden had his kindergarten roundup this week at Sierra elementary.  This is where they invite all incoming kindergartners to hear a presentation from the principal and kindergarten teachers as well as tour the kindergarten classrooms to get an idea for the world they are about to enter.  I joked I wasn’t going to enroll him in kindergarten, go to the roundup, or let Kara graduate onto the first grade.  Neither little Nutt found these statements at all funny.  Of course, I didn’t mean them, but there is a fraction of my heart that wishes I could and would follow through on these statements.  When did my kiddos start growing up so much?  Who said they are ready for this world?  Who says I am ready for them to continue progressing further into the world?  I know these are the questions of most parents and that these two little Nutts will be just fine, that doesn’t mean I’m ready for it or completely on board with them growing up. 

So excited for kindergarten round up to start

It does not seem at all possible that he is going
to be a kindergartener!

Name writing station at kindergarten round up

One of my new years resolutions was to plan and make sure Brent and I have at least one date night a month.  One a month may not seem like a lot, and hopefully in the future when I read back over this I’ll chuckle that we were working to find time for just one date a month as we are able to enjoy one a week.  That said, for now, making the time in our schedules for one date a month can be a challenge, fortunately, Saturday night we made the time and enjoyed some time away.  I vowed that our conversation would not revolve around the kids and luckily, they only came up as passing comments a couple of times.  We went to dinner at a small drive-thru hamburger joint called The Stand up close to the Phoenix/Scottsdale border.  The exterior was nothing impressive and the place was small but the burgers... oh so good!  After dinner, we went over to the Biltmore for a bit of window-shopping followed by more window-shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square.  While the activities of the evening were nothing too exciting or memorable the time with each other, holding of hands, and conversation that weaved back and forth from casual talk to more serious subjects made for a perfect evening.  Now, on to the next month’s date… time to start planning!

In primary today as a presidency we kicked off our year with the theme of Choose the Right.  Our theme is going to revolve around us taking the primary children on a road trip with returning to our Heavenly Father as our end goal.   Along our road trip we will make pit stops and have smaller destinations we’ll visit, we’ll have baptism and then entering the temple as stops and we’ll visit people along the way who have had to make choices in their lives and how they were affected by that.  This is going to be such a fun year; I am so excited to be a part of it!  So, anyway, for our kick off, we provided each of the primary kiddos with a root beer big gulp type drink like you’d get on a road trip and sunglasses to wear for our journey.  While the day was chaotic, so many of the kiddos and hopefully adults as well were and are excited and the year will be as amazing as we intend for it to be!  Not to be overshadowed, in primary today Kara gave a talk on agency.  She chose Brent to help her and after he did he commented that this is probably the last time she'll need our help in giving a talk.  Ugh!  

Stylin' little man

One perfect little princess!

This picture warms my heart

 As the Nutt House closes out another week in 2017 we are eagerly looking forward to what the next week and remainder of the year will have to offer us!

We were an excited group of Nutts to see this gorgeous rainbow
span the sky on our way home from school pick up this week.
The promises and love that the rainbow symbolize provide me
with a calming peace that energizes my soul