Mom goes to school!

Monday morning, bright and early, Sara and took off for our first day of school. We start the day in MATH 142 together. It was nice way to ease into the day. And she is a fun carpool buddy!

School was great. I am thrilled to be back studying music and it is wonderful to see Sara chasing her dreams too.

 We have been having a ton of internet issues lately. It has been super annoying with Richard needing it for work everyday and with all the students in our house who need it for homework. Our TV nicely tells us when we don't have a connection. Drew was doing dishes shirtless with an apron, such a goofball.

Everybody loves Daddy snuggles at scripture time.

Tuesday, Josh and Leigh had a flight home from Idaho. Unfortunately, the plane was broken and needed to be repaired before they could leave. So instead of arriving in Mesa at 7:30 pm, they arrived at 3:00 am. They sent me these cute pictures of them waiting at the airport. They are the cutest!

Finally in AZ!!!

Leigh's family picked them up from the airport.

Kara, Josh and Leigh

We were THRILLED to have them back in our home!!! We didn't tell the kids they were coming so that Josh and Leigh could surprise them when they came home from school. It was wonderful!

They will be here for a week. YAY!!

Susanna had another surprise when she came home from school. Tracy Kennedy sent her some flowers to wish her a happy new school year. She is one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I know.

They were even her favorite color, purple!

We got to meet Tyler, Leigh's brother. He has been serving his mission in Tonga, but blew out his knee and came home for surgery. He will be going back out in 6 weeks. That's why Josh and Leigh came to visit now, so they could see him while he is home.

The little girls got the Barbies out. They haven't played with toys in a long time, so it was fun to see them being little girls together. Then Andrew sweetly joined the fun when they invited him.

Friday night, we had a gathering for Josh and Leigh. We invited all of the Ely's over, but only Gram and Papa were available. We also invited the Jordans, because they are practically family, and Kara Sasaki came because she is family.

Kallie and Josh were so happy to see each other. It's crazy that they are both married!

Jessi and Sam jumped in front of them and wanted their picture taken too.

It was a super fun night. Lots of talking and eating and then we played a couple of games of Psych. Psych is an app game created by Ellen DeGeneres. It is tons of fun! We laughed a ton!!!

After all the fun, Leigh and Kara went back to the Sasaki's for some girl time and Josh stayed the night with us. We stayed up late talking. I loved every minute! We've missed them since they've been in Idaho.

This was right before we had a family counsel, scriptures and prayer. It was like a dream to have almost everyone home. We were missing our Timmy a lot.

All the loves!

And a bunch of weirdos!

Never too big for Daddy

We played Jungle Uno. It was crazy! Mid-game, Sam put Andrew in the trunk and Freddy and Daniel ran around crazy.

Then Daniel's knee landed on Sam's phone. It cracked the screen. They felt badly about it. Sam was super sweet about it and said it was just a phone.

The game continued!

Then we had Gwen take a picture for us. Daniel insisted on being silly. I was not too happy about it. I just wanted one cute, non-silly picture. Someday, when he has kids he will understand my pain.

I love my Joshy Squashy. I love having him back in my arms for a few days.

There has been much wrestling with Sara lately. Everyone seems to want to do it. It must be a ton of fun! Maybe I'll give it a try someday.

It may look violent, but they were having a wonderful time and laughing hysterically!

He dragged her back and forth down the hallway.

It was a wonderful Saturday. It was such a treat to have the whole day together. Josh and I ran a few errands together and we talked about how great married life is. We even got some weeds pulled and homework done. It was a productive day!

Sunday, there were some good naps...

Freddy and Daniel

... and some fun playing.

Trains, Tickles and Strawberries

Daniel is taking piano lessons from Krista Baker. He babysits for their family a lot and the kids adore him. When he comes over for lessons, the little ones are the only ones home from school. They love to climb all over him!

Jackson, Daniel and Charlotte

Sara had a day time date with Jonathan Price. He is a cousin to our friends the Flemings and he lives in Georgia. He was in town to visit his family before his mission. He will be serving in the Arizona Phoenix Mission, which is funny because most of his extended family lives here.

He and Sara went to the temple and then came back the house. She made pancakes for him and then they played lots of games including Battleship and Foosball. She clobbered him in Foosball. Sara is a pro!

Jonathan was camera shy, but he was a ton of fun for Sara to spend the day with!

I finally got a picture of Freddy in his WestMec scrubs. He looks so adorable!

Wednesday night was a Court of Honor. Freddy, Andrew and Daniel all advanced in rank

Andrew and Freddy had to go to the doctor's office to get some immunizations. They were both so brave while getting their 3 shots each, that I let them buy themselves some ice cream cones on the way home. They were cute in the office while waiting.

On our way out of the office, they had the nurse measure how tall they are and Andrew is 1/2" taller than Freddy. It didn't go over well and there may have been some running around and wrestling in the lobby. It was pretty hilarious!

Friday night, Freddy went with the Jordans to the Panic at the Disco concert!!!! He had an incredible time. He said they were even better in concert.

Saturday morning Daniel said we were almost out of frozen strawberries, so I checked the prices at my favorite produce place and they had them on sale 5 flats (8- 16 oz cartons per flat) for $20. So I bought 10 flats, 80 lbs of strawberries! We washed them, removed the stems, bagged them and got them in the freezer in 2 hours. We raced, Sara and I against the boys, Freddy, Daniel and Josh Jordan. Sara and I won, but it was a close contest.

The champions!

The empty cartons

Then the boys had fun seeing how limber Sara was. They crossed her arms behind her back as far as they could. This was not at the furthest point. I missed it.

Then they tested to see how far they could stretch her legs up as she was in the splits.

She leaned forward to make it even harder.

During church, Trevor Watkins was ordained a priest. Here is the new priests quorum.

Josh Jordan, Freddy, Andrew, Noah Fechter, Trevor Watkins, Sam Buhanan and Nick Mitchell

Sara had gotten the trains out for a little boy she was watching at our house. They got left out. It was fun to see how much fun our older kids still had with them. It's such a great old set! Go Playmobil!

Daniel sat with me for a while after church. He just wanted some love. It is so wonderful to have such affectionate, sweet kids!

Freddy and Susie had fun playing around together.

He was tickling her and she was squealing with delight!

Then she asked if she could practice French braiding my hair.

This was her first attempt after I showed her how to do it. She did a pretty good job!

Laney practiced doing Dutch braids on Susanna. She's getting really good at them!

Then for dinner, we had tortellini stew. It was pretty delicious!

We had a family game of Jungle Uno. It was a ton of fun until the fighting started. After is happened a few times, we decided to end the game. It was ok though, because Gram and Papa had just come in for a Sunday visit. I love that they come by most Sundays just to say hi and talk.

Freddy found the trains too.

Life is far from perfect at the Alger house, but it is a lot of fun and full of lots of love and snuggles!