Brennen's First Day of Jr. High

It's official Brennen is a middle-schooler. He was really excited to start Jr. High. I however was terrified and a little nauseous.  My Jr. High years were the worst! So I kept smiling and telling Brennen it was going to be awesome. He is a lot different from me though. He is very confident and can easily make friends with anyone. He is a really good at including everyone and is a natural leader with his friends. He had a great first day and is loving not sitting in one room all day and learning lots of different subjects. He especially likes orchestra, where he is playing the Bass. He is doing really well and his teacher says he is a natural. He is the only bass player and convinced us to let him switch from playing the violin. He also loves his tech and wood-shop class. Brennen, we are so proud of you!

Just Being a Kid

Here are a few pictures of the kids having fun and being silly.  Kiara got tired of waiting for us at the store and found a comfy spot to wait.

The kids love playing at the splash park.  It is so much fun!

We also spent a lot of time playing in our little pool and the sprinklers in the backyard.   Delma and TJ love to lay out their towels in the sun to warm up on.  We go through a lot of sun screen in the summer!!

Brennen went on a week long scout camp.  He caught over 70 fish and spent a lot of time helping other kids catch fish that weren't as experienced.  He worked on a ton of merit badges and had a great time.  He cam home looking like  a crispy critter despite that I sent him up with tons of chap-stick and sunscreen.  I'm so glad he had such a good time.

I went to bed one night and found this silly little dog on my bed.  She definitely thinks she is one of the kids and is always trying to sneak into my bed.

Summer Sports Fun

We had a pretty busy summer this year.  Brennen ended up playing in two summer baseball tournaments and the girls wanted to try out soccer.  I was able to get them on the same soccer team but was somehow tricked into being the coach.  I don't know much about soccer but we ended up only losing one game.  Our team was about half girls and most of the other teams only had one or two girls.  I thought it went pretty well and I got a free picture out of it.  :)

The baseball tournaments went really well.  Brennen played so hard!  We were playing in an elimination game in Payson against an undefeated team and we were winning by two points.  The boys were so excited!  Brennen had pitched the first 3 innings and had done an awesome job and barely let them score.  It was the bottom of the final inning and the opposing team was up to bat, with bases loaded two outs and two strikes on the batter.  One more strike and we win the game!  Then what happened next was like a scene from the movies.  The batter hit the ball over the fence, a grand slam scoring them 4 runs!! We lost.  It was a really hard loss.  Brennen got a little teary.  He had played so hard and gave it his all, we are so proud of him. 

We had two weeks off from baseball then Brennen opted to play on a fall league.  He is now moving up a league to the Pony division, which is 7th-9th graders.  It's always hard when you move up and are now the young kid on the team.  The fall league was short only 5 weeks.  But it was a good chance to get some practice in the upper league with the bigger kids (most of the kids they played against were 14-15 yr olds) before the spring season.  Pitching is now five feet farther back which will take some getting used to.  It is a lot of fun watching our kids develop new talents and discover what they enjoy and are good at. 

Brennen's Ordination

Brennen's 12th birthday was very exciting for our family, we now have two priesthood holders in home.  Brennen was ordained a Deacon by his dad the Sunday after his birthday.  I'm very proud of Brennen he is such a good kid and turning out to be a very fine young man.  We were so thankful for all the family support that we had.  My parents drove all the way from California Saturday night to be here Sunday morning.  It was a really great day!  Love you Brennen!

My mom took these pictures of the kids while she was here.  I'm glad she did because I didn't even think about pictures.

Fourteen Kids and Counting...

During the party to celebrate the August Birthdays we were able to get all the "Workman" cousins together for a picture.  We are up to 14 now.  What a cute bunch of kids!

Brennen's 12th Birthday

Brennen is officially 12 and as I keep reminding him NOT officially a teenager yet. I still have one more year of him being a kid!

Brennen loves fishing, baseball, reading, music and doing tricks on his scooter.  He plays the violin, the piano and is now learning to play the bass.  He has a lot of friends and is really good and including everyone and being a good example to his group of friends.

This year for his birthday he wanted a skate park cake and we surprised him with planning a party to an indoor skate park for him and his friends.

We rented out the skatepark for about 3 hours.  It was a ton of fun!

Playing dressup

Silly girls, they love to dress up in weird outfits!