I don't really know where to start, other than to say, I sure miss this place! Sunshine was working on a school project the other day- she was writing an autobiography piece for English and needed information about her birth and childhood. It brought me so much joy to pull out the printed version of our blog from when she was a baby and let her look through it. She poured over it for the rest of the day, laughing at things she read, oohing and ahhing over photos and asking questions about things I had written. I loved it!

And at the same time, it broke my heart.

She has the story of her life recorded through word and photo. What about the rest of my kiddos? I've done them such a huge disservice by not keeping our blog up. I don't really have the time. A lot of the time I don't even have the desire. But seeing her enjoy the fruits of my labour made me want to really try harder, to be better at recording our family history.

So here I am.

I make no promises.

I will absolutely not be going back to fill in blanks. I can't put that kind of pressure on myself.

But I'm going to try to be here more. To put in the effort of recording our history and our stories.

So here's a little update.

Here we are. This is from last June, but we haven't changed much. The kiddos are all a little taller, but that's about the only difference. I might be slightly skinner! At least I hope :) 

Bruce: Bruce is in his second year of teaching seminary. He still enjoys it, but the early mornings are killer. Especially when followed by 10 hour days at work. By Friday afternoon, he is in need of a nap! Which he usually takes once he is home from Seminary and some time at the driving range. After writing up our family Christmas card last year, and realizing that he didn't have anything exciting to include as his "highlight" for the year, Bruce has decided to run a marathon this year. I'm excited for him. It will be a good challenge, but still encompass something he enjoys doing. He is getting ready to test for a promotion at work. It's a scary promotion in that it will mean a significant pay cut. Kind of backwards, but it is a necessary step to reaching his career goals. We are equal parts excited and nervous. 

Claire: I'm still teaching preschool and plan to teach for one more year before giving it up for good. Photography has taken off in a big way and I am loving it and want to be able to put all my extra energy into that. But I also want one year of teaching Shark Bait. One more year seems like a good compromise. I am starting to see some changes in my health after a long, seemingly treacherous route and it feels so good to be feeling "normal" again. Or at least more normal than I have in a long time. Hormone issues are no joke and mine have been taking a toll for the past two and a half years. It is nice to be feeling more like my old self again. 

Sunshine: Sunshine is in 5th grade and can I just say, 5th grade is hard! There have been some friend issues, so struggles with learning, some difficulties finding where she fits, but she is rocking it! She is such a strong, sweet girl and she makes the best of pretty much every situation. She is super social and loves planning activities for her and her friends. She is currently in the school play which means swimming has taken a back seat, but just last Saturday, she started doing some private coaching with a guy from our stake who is coaching before he leaves on his mission, as a way of making a little more money to go towards his mission. She loved being back in the water and is looking forward to a few more coaching sessions with him before he leaves. Then when the play is over, she'll go back to piano lessons and swim team. She is doing the Mozart program at school which means four days a week, she is getting music education in school. She is playing the flute in the band, taking piano at school and doing choir. I love hearing the sound of music fill our home when she practices. 

Beebs: Beebs is in 2nd grade and she loves it. She has an amazing teacher whom she absolutely adores and she is learning and growing so much. She is also in the school play so swim and piano have been on hold while we pursue that, but this past weekend, she took her first ballet class and oh. my. goodness. I've always known she is built like a dancer, but I had no interest in putting my girls into dance. This past Christmas, for our traditional mother-daughter Christmas show, I took the girls to see one of my Young Women dance in The Nutcracker. Beebs couldn't see from her seat, so she hopped onto my lap and as soon as the first dancer came on stage, I felt her entire body lighten with excitement. She hardly moved through the entire performance and I sat there with a knot in my stomach, knowing exactly what was coming. When the performance ended, Beebs turned to me and said "I want to be a ballerina!". It took me a few weeks to get on board, but we signed her up at a studio and she had her first class yesterday. And hasn't stopped dancing since. She was laying in my room tonight to fall asleep and when I walked past my door, I saw her in the dark, standing in front of my full length mirror, practicing ballet positions. It melted my heart. I think she has found her true love and I am excited to see where it takes her. 

Man Cub: Man Cub is as rambunctious as ever. He and his best friend, Ike, spend every spare minute possible together. They play almost daily and they are so fun together. When Ike is not around, Man Cub doesn't really know what to do with himself and just wants to play video games ;) He's a big fan of the Lego Jurassic Park game he got for Christmas. Once I can convince him to go outside and play, he loves to dig in the sand and play fetch with Kevin. He is a total homebody and is super sweet, when he wants to be. He is doing well in preschool, but thinks he owns the place, since it is at our house. It causes us to butt heads sometimes, but overall I'm grateful I get to be his teacher. He loves to write his name and do puzzles. He starts soccer with Ike in a few weeks and I'm so excited to see him play. We played kickball tonight at a picnic with friends and he did a great job participating. I think soccer will be a good experience for him. Man Cub is currently doing speech therapy to help get him ready for school in the fall. He is missing several sounds which makes it difficult for those outside our family to understand him. I adore the way he talks and it is sad to think that it will be changing soon. But I know it's the best route for him and I am grateful we have resources to help us. 

Shark Bait: Oh what to say about Shark Bait! He is full of life and always into something and keeps life interesting. He has no fear and regularly injures himself, but jumps right up and says "I'm ok, I'm ok!" He has an extensive vocabulary and uses it regularly. He is way ahead of the curve when it comes to speech and that scares me! He's too smart for his own good! He attends preschool with us most days and can say the Pledge of Allegiance. Mostly. Ü He love Rescue Bots and can identify all his colours, based on the Bot they correspond to. His favourite colour is Bumblebee. Yellow, for those who don't speak Rescue Bot. Shark Bait is currently not a part of any extra curricular activities but he loves to run around and chase his brother and sisters. He loves to play with his best friend, Benny Boo Boo and he thinks his dad is the greatest person in the world. He asks daily to go to the beach and I so wish I could indulge him! But Bruce has 8 more years until he can retire, so we won't be moving to the beach anytime soon! 

I think that about sums up where we all stand right now! I make no promises, but hope to be back soon with more pictures and more stories. 

When Papa Came To Town

I know this may come as a surprise, but I have actually kept up on my blogging! I have all of December documented in words... I just need to add the photos and post! I know, I know. I am shocked too!

The beginning of December didn't start off quite as planned... in mid-November, Bruce Wayne was invited to be a last minute attendant at a special PIO training at the Emergency Management Headquarters in Emmitsburg, Maryland. We had two weeks to make arrangements and Bruce Wayne flew out the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Two days later, my dad flew in to keep me company and help out with the kiddos during what ended up being an eventful week. Clogged toilet, sick boys, and a week of teaching seminary made me really grateful to have someone else around while Bruce Wayne was gone!

For the most part, the week was filled with everyday events like getting the girls to and from school, swim team practice, seminary and preschool, but we fit in a few fun events too. The night he arrived, we picked Papa up from the airport and went to the Mesa temple to look at the Christmas lights. We definitely picked the right time to go! There were only a handful of people on the temple grounds and we didn't have to wait in line at all to see the nativity display. It was awesome! The kiddos had a little more freedom than normal in regards to being allowed to walk around on their own and the weather hadn't gotten too chilly yet. It was practically perfect.

We also visited the girls at school on different days and ate lunch with them. Sunshine wanted us to join her for taco salad bowls and Beebs decided pizza day was a good day to have company for lunch. It was fun to show Papa their school and spend a little extra time with the girls.

The Friday Papa was here, we found a really fun way to pass some time. Beebs' teacher at school shared the details of a local train park that puts on a Christmas event each year. Beebs begged to go and it sounded like it could be fun, so we invited some friends to join us and we bundled up in our warm clothes and headed out. It was better than we could have imagined! We took a 20 minute train ride out in the desert and saw lots of Christmas lights and blow up characters along the way. We met Santa. We had hot chocolate and cookies. Then we spent the rest of the evening in the train house, watching tons and tons of model trains make their way around an elaborate track. Man Cub was in absolute heaven. The men running the event gave him a little step stool and told him to carry it around the room with him. He would run from spot to spot, set his stool down, climb up and watch the trains go by. Then he'd pick up the stool and do it again. I loved watching his face as each train went by.

It was so much fun having my dad here to spend time with us. The kiddos loved having him all to themselves and I slept better knowing I wasn't alone all week. I just hope he had as much fun as we did Ü

The State of This Blog Address

My blog is suffering... that much is obvious. I am about 11 months behind on posting and as much as I like to hope that life will calm down and I will have the time to devote to catching up, the truth is I have less time than ever, with each passing day. I have debated heavily how I want to continue. Sometimes I contemplate throwing in the towel all together. Turning blogs into books has become really difficult and that is discouraging as my ultimate goal has always been to turn this blog into a printed history of our family.

But when it comes down to it, I can't let go. Between this and the private blog I wrote on from 2006 until 2013, I have over 1000 posts, countless number of photos, and so many recorded memories. I hate the thought of not continuing on. But something has to change. I cannot keep dreading logging in because I know I am so far behind. So, I'm letting myself off the hook. It pains me to not have the past 11 months recorded in great detail, but I want to be able to move forward and blog in the present. Perhaps a day will come when I can go back and fill in the holes. But, if not, I need to be ok with that as well, and I think I am!

So here goes, a brief recap of the past 11 months, in words only, no photos, and from here on out, I am blogging in real time. Hopefully this space can once again be a place I enjoy spending time, rather than one more thing on my to do list that stresses me out.


February- The main highlight of February was our trip to Disneyland. We surprised the kiddos with the trip at Christmas and then anxiously counted down the days until our trip. It was magical. We had a few days to ourselves and a few days with Bruce's brother's family, his dad and aunt. The girls dreams came true when Grandpa gifted them an afternoon at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, where Sunshine was transformed into Jasmine and Beebs was transformed into Anna. The girls also became Jedis and fought Darth Vader and The Seventh Sister. Shark Bait wore a different Disney onesie each day and got stopped everywhere we went so people could oh and ah over him. And Man Cub was just in heaven overall, especially when the night parade opened with his favourite character, Mack from Cars, leading the way.

After Disney, we headed down to San Diego for a few days with our friends from Bruce's academy days. It was wonderful to spend time with them. And after we returned home, the rest of February seemed pretty low key. We did take the kiddos to a Coyotes hockey game which was so much fun. I forgot how much I enjoy watching hockey! And then I turned 31, which was pretty dull... turns out, after all the hoopla of turning 30, it all goes downhill. Ü Especially when you spend your 31st birthday speaking in church. Not cool!

March- In March, we started attending a lot of mission paper parties. Many of the youth we have grown close to through Trek and teaching Sunday School and Bruce's years in Young Mens left on missions this year. We got to attend a lot of gatherings where the boys opened their calls and later in the year, we were able to go through the temple with many of the boys and hear their farewell talks. It was an exciting time! In March, we found out that the trek son we are very close to would be serving in the England Leeds Mission, speaking Slovak. I totally called it... the England part. Not the Slovak part!

Mid-March, we bid farewell to our trusty Blazer. She was 20 years old, we had driven her for 10.5 of those years and she was on the way out. She is the car we brought Sunshine home from the hospital in and it was really sad to say goodbye... but our new fancy pants minivan helped ease the pain. Well, other than the part where we took on a car payment for the first time in our marriage. Luckily, we've almost got that sucker paid off already. We could actually pay it off right now, but were told that it was better for our credit to pay on it for a year? I hope that's actually true or I'll be mad that we keep holding off on making the full and final payment!

April- April was pretty low key... Sunshine took a sewing class and learned to make pillowcases. She's been her own little pillowcase sweat shop ever since. Pretty much everyone who is near and dear to her has a Sunshine-made pillowcase. And if they don't, they are probably getting one for Christmas! My best friend KJ was in town from Hawaii for her brother's wedding. Unfortunately, we didn't get much time together at all and it broke my heart to know she was just an hour away but not able to spend time with me. But she did bring me some POG (passion fruit-orange-guava juice) that eased my pains marginally.

May- May brought the end of a great school year. Sunshine and Beebs both loved their teachers and their classes. Man Cub rocked his first year of preschool, which was technically a one day a week tot class. Kindergarten graduation made me cry and we held our second annual Memorial Day BBQ with our favourite friends from the girls school.

June- This is when life started to get crazy! June was the month of swimming for us. Both girls were heavily involved in competitive swimming, with an hour long practice for each of them 4-5 mornings a week and swim meets two nights a week. We eventually got into a good routine with it, but it was a hard month! Especially since right after we signed the girls up, Bruce got a promotion at work that changed his schedule, making him unavailable to help with getting the girls to practice and meets. I'm not sure I would've committed to swimming had we known about the job change any sooner, so it is probably good that it worked out as it did. I am glad both girls got to compete all summer, even though it was difficult to spend that much time at the pool with four kiddos. It was amazing to watch them both progress and grow so much in their sport.

We also got ourselves a family pass to our community pool for the summer, so most nights of the week, we would eat dinner, then head over to the pool and swim for a few hours more. There were days when I spent 5-6 hours sitting in or at a pool. But it helped us to stay busy and mostly beat the heat during the first part of the summer.

July- Things really picked up in July. Along with the end of the swim season, we also had Shark Bait's first birthday and our two week road trip to Utah. It was a crazy, hectic month, but oh so fun. We had a blast in Utah. We touched lots of temples, ate lots of donuts, and spent as much time as possible outside enjoying the beautiful cool evenings. We fell in love with Swig cookies and sodas, ran a temple to temple 5k and celebrated Pioneer Day, Utah style. We ended the visit with a day in the mountains with all of my family before heading home to Arizona where Bruce and I had to decide which school our girls would attend... the one they had gone to since Sunshine was in Kindergarten, or a new school that opened in our area that I felt really strongly about...

August- In August, we headed back home to the sweltering heat. Bruce turned 33 and the girls got ready to start school. We debated heavily until the very last moment, at which point it became clear to us that they were suppose to attend the new school in our area. It was scary beyond belief to make the change, but it has been a wonderful experience. We are so happy with their new school. The curriculum is wonderful, the campus is beautiful and both girls are absolutely thriving there. We just really miss our friends from the old school and wish they would have all moved with us Ü Bruce and I hit a relationship high when together, we won the jackpot playing the basketball game at Chuck E Cheese, and we took a quick day trip up to Prescott to visit with some friends and enjoy the cooler mountain air.

September- Always a big month, September brought the beginning of my fourth year of teaching preschool. Bruce and I were given some amazing tickets to a Cardinals pre-season game and took Shark Bait with us. We were also invited to join some friends for a day at Wet N Wild water park. We celebrated Man Cub's 4th birthday by projecting a movie onto the side of our house and inviting all his friends and their families to join us in watching and we did all these things without spending an extra penny outside our regularly scheduled bills and food budget! No Spend September for the win! We saved a bucket load of money by really watching our spending, and were able to pay off a huge chunk of the new car as well as gear up for the expensive and fast approaching holiday season.

October- In October we added a new member to our family- Harvey Bones, the 5 foot tall plastic skeleton. He mostly hung out on our piano bench, but occasionally he could be found in miscellaneous places around the house. He was fun and we look forward to his return next October. The girls got their official Hogwarts acceptance letters and donned their wizard robes to attend Halloween at Hogwarts, presented by the Phoenix Symphony. Bruce and I hosted our first annual adult Halloween Party and it was amazing. Can't wait to do it again next year and we celebrated my nephew's birthday at Touch a Truck... aka, little boy heaven. Though Man Cub did not like all the honking horns at the event, he did love getting to touch and sit in the excavator. We finished off October with family photos at the Phoenix Temple, and for the first time in years someone other than myself took our pictures! It was fun to have someone else be in control and get the kiddos to all look at the camera and we ended up with some beautiful photos where everyone is looking and smiling!

November- November brought about our 5th annual Planksgiving celebration. Crab legs and melt-in-your-mouth ribeye, desserts galore and a trip to the movie theatre to see Moana. It was a spectacular day. I even started the day out by running a 5k with some friends at church. I did the race at a 10:25 mile pace which is huge for me, especially considering I hadn't been running regularly. My typical pace is 11:30-12:00 a mile, and that was when I was running 3 times a week and training for half marathons. It was exciting to see that I am not completely weak and useless when it comes to physical activity. Hopefully soon I can get back into a good running and exercise routine... as soon as I get my health back on track. Post with more info on that, coming soon! November ended with Bruce flying out to Maryland for a week long training at the Emergency Management Institution headquarters. My dad flew out to stay with us and that was such a blessing since it was one of those weeks where lots of little things happened that could have made for a difficult week had I not had some help... everything from Sunshine sewing through her finger while making pillowcases to a backed up toilet and two sick boys. It was nice to have my dad's company and help while Bruce was away.

And that leads us to December... the here and now! Blogging in the present for the first time since Shark Bait was born! Woohoo!

The Bike Rodeo

At the very end of January, we were able to attend a bike rodeo at our neighborhood park. We've attended bike rodeos in the past, but they've always been large scale events at one of the huge parks and the entire city was invited to attend at once. This year, the city held smaller bike rodeos at the various parks throughout the city and invited the surrounding neighborhoods to attend. 

We love the bike rodeos. Free food, live band and the local PD fitting the kiddos for helmets and teaching them bike safety. And at the end, they do a drawing for some free bikes. In the past, the events have been so large that we didn't really have a chance at winning a free bike. This time around, I felt like our chances were a little bit better with the smaller crowd, so we stuck around for the whole event, just in case one of our tickets was a lucky one. 

We enjoyed some free hot dogs, sodas, chips and ice cream for lunch. The kiddos each took a turn doing the bike course with the PD and the girls got new helmets. We walked through the sponsor tents and played on the blow up slide and bounce houses. Then it was time for the bike raffle. We gathered round, tickets in hand and the first number drawn was Man Cub's. He was so excited and ran right up and hopped on the brightest coloured bike up there. It was a little big for him, but I couldn't convince him to take the smaller one and the police officer running the raffle just shrugged and laughed. 

Ticket number two was drawn... and matched the numbers on Beebs' ticket. She picked a pink and purple bike. Sunshine mentioned how funny it would be if she won a bike, but as she had gotten her dream bike just a year ago, she knew she didn't need a new one. We stuck around for the end of the drawing so the kiddos could be in a group photo with the other winners, and wouldn't you know it, Sunshine's ticket number was the last one drawn. We won bikes 1, 2, and 6. Sunshine thanked the man drawing tickets, but told him she had a great bike and asked him to pick a new ticket so another child would have a chance at winning. That girl... she is one of the sweetest children I know. She was just excited that her ticket was drawn, even if she didn't go home with a new bike. 

The walk home was an adventure. We only live 3/4 miles from the park, but with the stroller and two bikes more than we walked there with, it was tricky! But we made it home and we were all grins for the rest of the day at having won three bikes. Unfortunately it was too late to buy a Powerball ticket... I was feeling pretty lucky! 

Our Planksgiving-Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Thanksgiving weekend was a good one, though less traditional than ever! T and I arrived in town early, early Tuesday morning, with my parents, Tressie and Matt arriving about 24 hours later. We spent Wednesday preparing for our "Planksgiving" feast that would take place later Wednesday evening in order to accommodate my brother in law's work schedule. A trip to Costco was in order for a few last minute items and we stopped to try on cute sweaters while we were there.

Wednesday evening we gathered. My family, Bruce's family, some friends from Bruce's department and our next door neighbors. We feasted on ribs (smoked by our neighbor), crab, shrimp, biscuits, salad and potatoes, not to mention a plethora of desserts. Everything was absolutely amazing and we ate until we were beyond stuffed. My favourite part of the meal was the adorable turkey place cards the girls had made to decorate the table. 

We all woke bright and early on actual Thanksgiving morning to watch Bruce and his friends from the PD play their annual Thanksgiving football game. We brought the puppies along and they had a great time playing while the rest of us watched the game and socialized. 

After the game, we went to Roy & Amy's house for brunch. While we were there, Tressie and the girls tried out some living room AcroYoga and Baby Shark Bait got festive with his headwear. 

Thanksgiving night, my family and Bruce's family (minus my brother in law) gathered once again for dutch oven beef stew, cooked in our fire pit. Another amazing meal, after which we had a little impromptu birthday celebration for Uncle Matt-Stache. Complete with fake mustaches all around. 

On Friday, we all went to see The Good Dinosaur, then browsed the shops at the mall. When we got home, we had just enough time to run over to my favourite waterfall so I could snap a few pictures of Tressie and Matt. As we were climbing into the car to head to the waterfall, my parents were just pulling in from the mall. I made them pose together for a quick photo and got my most favourite picture of them ever! Definitely a photo I will treasure always. 

Saturday morning my family all headed out. T and Horatio had a long drive back home and Matt had to be back in SLC for work on Sunday. We said our goodbyes then spent the rest of our weekend adjusting to our new family member... though honestly, it wasn't much of an adjustment at all. Other than remembering not to leave toys out where she could chew them... 

Saturday night we finished off our Planksgiving-Thanksgiving celebration with our annual holiday show. We took the kiddos to see the Phoenix Symphony's Pixar in Concert. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but knew there would be music from the scores of various Pixar films, with images projected onto a screen. We hoped it would be a bit like the Animation Academy at Disneyland. Well, the performance far exceeded any expectations we had. It was phenomenal. The music was amazing, the video clips were spot on with the music and my four hooligans were on their best behaviour. Even Man Cub was completely captivated. It wasn't our traditional Christmas themed performance, but it was amazing and I am so glad we went! I always love attending the Symphony.

Supermoon Lunar Eclipse

Tonight was a Supermoon Full Lunar Eclipse. The space camp nerd in me was pretty excited! Three things happened all at once, creating an incredible show in the sky, which for us occurred from about 7:11-8:23 this evening.

First, tonight was a full moon and the moon was at the closest possible point to the earth in its orbit. This causes the moon to appear bigger and brighter than normal. Typically there are 4-6 supermoons a year, so while cool, they are definitely not anything overly extraordinary. What made tonight so special is the addition of a full lunar eclipse. The sun, earth and moon lined up perfectly, causing the earth to block the sun's rays, thus casting its shadow onto the moon. It made for an eery reddish orange moon, often called a blood moon.

A friend from church who happens to be a scientist invited us over and see the supermoon lunar eclipse. She got out her telescope, made some moon and star shaped sugar cookies and we had a little party in the driveway, all while taking turns viewing the moon. It was so much fun! We decided to try taking a photo of the moon through her telescope. With a steady hand and his cell phone, Bruce captured the image above. Perhaps not the most magnificent supermoon lunar eclipse photo I have seen, but we are pretty darn impressed with it!

I am so glad my kiddos got to see such an amazing sight. It really was beautiful to watch.

And in other news- Shark Bait learned how to roll over. Despite my best efforts to thwart his attempts at growing up, he figured it out. He rolled back to tummy several times over this evening and I managed to catch half of one roll on video.

The End of Summer

Our summer seemed to end pretty quickly after Shark Bait arrived. We had spent so long waiting for him, and then suddenly it was time to send the girls off to school. But we had a lot of fun in those final days. We tried to cram in every last minute of fun that we could!

For Bruce's birthday, we took the kiddos over to "Big Red's House" for a Cardinals open practice. We started with lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Yum! Then at the practice we met the cheerleaders and Big Red (though Man Cub wouldn't go near Big Red as Big Red was kind of rowdy and kept banging on the nearby table. Scared Man Cub half to death. But he liked the cheerleaders) Sunshine participated in an obstacle course which she loved. Then we enjoyed some snacks in the stands while Bruce explained the intricacies of football to the wee ones. It was a really fun day. A great way to celebrate Bruce's birthday and a good way to beat the record breaking heat that had the whole valley under heat advisory warnings.

Shark Bait spent the last days of summer vacation doing what he does best... sleeping. He's so cute when he sleeps, I can't help but take a million pictures of him napping. 

The girls had back to school night a few nights before school started. Beebs was definitely nervous, but thought it was exciting to see her new classroom and find her seat and name tag. Sunshine was ecstatic to be reunited with her two best friends as they were in different classes for 2nd grade. 

We decided to spend our last Saturday of summer doing our favourite summer activity- swimming with Bruce's family. His brother and grandma both live in the same housing development which has an awesome community pool. The wee ones love to go to "Gigi's pool" and swim with their cousin. We spent an hour or so swimming (while Shark Bait sat with Gigi in the air conditioning at her house) Then we all gathered back at Gigi's house for pizza. As always, it was such a blast. Summers here are rough... they are often very hot and can be very miserable, but swimming at Gigi's always makes them more bearable. And next year, Shark Bait will be old enough to join in the fun. 

School started on a Monday this year, so Sunday night we had our annual "Back to School" family night. Bruce gave each of the wee ones and me a blessing to help us be prepared for the school year. We also gave each of the kiddos a little back to school gift. Beebs and Sunshine each got new hand sanitizers for their lunch boxes and Beebs also got a little Shopkins set (which she jumped around, screaming in excitement over for a good five minutes before she could manage to calm down and open it). Sunshine got a new water bottle to take to swim practice and Man Cub got a new car. They all loved their little gifts and their special blessings from dad. Then, just like that, summer was officially over and it was time to get back to homework and schedules and the busyness of life.