5th Grade Tears and Huddles

Despite my best efforts at slowing the time down, Keagan and Riley have started 5th grade. I am super excited for them and I’m looking forward to all the adventures this last year in elementary school will bring us!

But at the same time, it’s been a little bit of an emotional week and a half, mostly for me but some what for the little munchkins too. We are all pretty exhausted with trying to get back into the school schedule after a great summer so that doesn’t help much. But along with the pit in my stomach that this is the last year the girls and I will be at the same school, it was also the 12th anniversary of Pakka passing away which was definitely a hard one for me, the last time Todd will give the girls our traditional back to school blessings because they are moving, and a sweet little friend passed away who has polymicrogyria like Riley. Plus we dealt with frustrating car repairs that I really can not afford, the AC going out during a heat advisory, an inconveniently timed flooded bathroom, and discussions of stressful life changes around here. So there have been lots more tears in the last 10 days then there was all summer! Add too that a serious spike in tantrums from Miss Riley who never wants to change her clothes, eat anything healthy or leave the house and Keagans frustration with that, it sure has been interesting! 

But despite all of that, or maybe as a result of all that,  the girls and I got together and formed TEAM KIKUCHI! Our team consists of me, Keagan, Riley and Heavenly Father and we purposefully decided our team is going to have an incredible year! We picked a focus scripture and have “team huddles” every morning and every night when we say our family prayer. Best team I have ever been on in my entire life! Together we can not lose! 

5th grade started out with Meet the Teacher on Thursday before school. Keagan has 3 great teachers this year including her home room teacher Mrs Olivo, Mrs Fields and Mrs Espinoza. Riley has the same amazing teacher this year, Mrs Acosta and great aides Miss Tonna and Miss Allison. But Riley will probably get more aides soon as her class doubled in size and they have their hands full! 

On the night before school we had such a fun family dinner at the French’s with the Fosters. Sweet Keagan made the funeral potato’s, one of our family’s favorites! We laughed thru dinner and then had our traditional Todd giving all the kids back to school priesthood blessings. The blessings were wonderful of course but this year they were hard for me because they were the last as the Fosters are moving. I will miss this tradition so much but I’m so grateful for the many times Todd blessed us in this way! That same night we finished the last of our school prep with mani/pedis at home and then frantically dealt with the worst timing bathroom flood that came thru Nanas ceiling! We survived! 

The first day of school went great! Both girls were SO excited in the morning and just as thrilled by 3:30pm. We woke up early to curl Keagans hair and she was decked out in her favorite color turquoise! She had a turquoise dress, back pack, lunch kit, water bottle, pencil box, binder, finger nails and toes! Miss Riley also looked gorgeous in the dress she picked and the best smile at that school! She absolutely loved and is now obsessed with her new booties and ended up wearing a dress the first 3 days of school so she could wear them! Her back pack and lunch kit are Anna and Elsa themed this year. 

With one of our faves! Coach Fox 


Rare family photo that I LOVE! 


Had to make sure to get a pic with her homeroom teacher Mrs Olivo since we forgot at Meet the Teacher! 


With more of our faves! Noah and Phoebe




These girls are getting so old! 


She is SO happy to be in class with Avery for the 4th year in a row! 



Keagan wrote a cute journal entry in the first day and we did our surveys to put in our school book like always! I love seeing what the girls pick to record and even their cute handwriting and Keagans spelling due to her dyslexia. 

And finally, just look at this comparison of their first day of Kindergarten versus their first day of 5th grade! It happened so fast but I was SO blessed to have a front row seat to all of it! And blessed to celebrate another milestone with the two most amazing little humans! 


I’m not thrilled that this last year of the three of us being at the same school is here. But I really am looking forward to enjoying all the fun ahead! I just know TEAM KIKUCHI is going to have a fantastic year! We’ve had a few tears and lots of huddles about it already. So now let’s do it! 

Go TEAM KIKUCHI go! 

I Hope You Remember

To Keagan and Riley,

As your mom I have a long list of hopes for each of you. On this day, as I sit here trying to accept that our summer has come to an end, one of those many hopes is that you remember this time in all of our lives. I hope you remember what an incredibly blessed and magically special time our summer 2019 was. 

I hope you remember how lucky you were to have quality time with all 10 of your cousins this summer! I hope you remember our over the top fun trips to Dallas and Chicago. I hope you remember our meals and laughs with the Fosters and adventures and silliness with the French’s. I hope you remember the many play dates with such amazing friends, the many trips to the pool, the camps and VBS’s. Its totally fine if you forget any of our grumpiness, your fighting or mommy’s snapping and frustration. Actually I would really prefer you did forget that! But without question, most importantly I hope that you remember the three of us making memories together, our craziness, our shenanigans, our cuddles, our teasing and scarring eachother, our laughter and our love.  If you forget everything else, at the very very least, please remember that! 

So much fun has happened since we got home from Chicago! We went from one set of Ginn cousins in Chicago to another with our Texas Ginn cousins staying with us for an amazing weekend celebrating Kennedy graduating a whole year early from high school! 

We had such a great family dinner at Fogo de Chão, Keagan and Campbell built a giant fort to sleep in for the 3 nights and one day Aunt Kari took the three girls and Bubba roller skating! So much fun with family! 

We were also SO blessed to have quality time with our oldest cousin Sami who was home for 2 weeks before heading off to an internship on Washington DC! We absolutely adore her and she definitely got her cuddle fix from Riley while she was here! 



We had an amazing day at the water park Grand Texas with Miss Heather and Calli! Such fun slides, some that Riley even went on, a fantastic lazy river and wave pool, giant splash pad, and even alligators and a petting zoo! Oh and a maze and Keagans favorite which was the floating blow up obstacle course on the lake! It was a long, full day of so much fun with the cutest girlies! 











We definitely had two important components of a great summer which is down time laziness and late night silliness. The silliness was mostly with the French’s and here we are filming “the whoa” and playing games. 

Keagan surprised everyone by cutting her hair! She recently told her friends she would rather cut off her toe then her hair! We went in for a back to school trim but she cut off 8 inches in order to be able to donate it! I am super proud of her for doing that eventhough she is struggling a little bit to adjust to mediumly long hair now. 






One night we went to the Toyota Center to see some of  our very favorite stars Dude Perfect! The girls watch them on tv and YouTube and screamed when I told them we were going to see them on tour! What a fun and exciting show and we had a phenomenal time together! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Riley more engaged and mezmorized and afterwards Keagan said it was one of the best nights of her life! 

Keagan went to and loved a pool party for the girls primary class that Miss Riley refused to go to, and swimming at Claire’s that Riley refused to go to. That silly girl! But there were other play dates with Calli and with Claire, and we have played a ton of board games especially the ones Sa handed down to Keagan as they prepare to move. By far the funniest was when we were playing Life and my game piece mom had two twin daughters and the blue boy husband piece kept falling out of the car every time I touched it. Ironically hilarious! 






The other day we went roller skating with Calli and I am SO thankful Keags can be SO helpful with Riley and that Riley no longer needs her wheelchair even though it comes in handy sometimes! Calli was helpful with Riley too! We had a ton of fun but poor Keagan ended up with a nasty bruise from falling!!

In the last week and a half I have had to work 4 days to help prepare for the first day of school tomorrow. I am unbelievably thankful to have a job where I get the summer off with the girls but its still always hard to go back to work. The hardest part may be trying to figure out what to do with the girls while I’m at work. This year Taryn and Reagan were SO helpful and offered to have them! So Keags and Rys went to the French’s every morning until after lunch and then 3 of the days to a different friends house in the afternoon to play until I got off work. They went to Calli’s house, Claire’s house and Audrey’s house. I’m SO thankful the girls had so much fun! They played games, did crafts, watched movies, went out to lunch and cooked with the French’s. Plus Keagan and Reagan went on bike rides! At Calli’s they did major crafts and painting. At Claire’s they made a bunch of fun music videos and at Audrey’s they made muffins and get well packages for the Lakes who have been sick. We are SO blessed with amazing friends!! 









And that is the close of fantastic summer! Oh we have been SO incredibly blessed these last 11 weeks! I am so thankful and hope none of the three of us ever forget it! Maybe this blog will help a little with that. 

Keagan and Riley I hope you remember summer 2019!