Fall is in the Air

The daylight hours are dwindling. Our family loves to play outside after dinner, and it's become very apparent that the sun sets earlier now! We usually only have about an hour before the mosquitoes  attack.

Most evenings Ella announces a "Monkey Bar Show!" That playset has been worth it's weight in gold.

The mountains are ablaze, especially when the sun sets and the light looks red on the mountains. We live in such a pretty place.

BYU has been fun to watch this year! This is a family squeeze during the game last weekend.
 

We decided some of our pumpkins were ready for picking, so each kid chose one. We have lots more but thought we'd leave them a little longer on the vine.

Ella was the star student in kindergarten last week so she got to bring home Buster Bear for the weekend. He enjoyed picking pumpkins with us.

The mountain leaves were calling to us so we took a drive to Sundance on Sunday. I'm afraid many of the red leaves dropped during a storm that morning. The canyon was still misty and dripping, and there was color but just not as vibrant as I had hoped.

Ty is so sweet. He picks me flowers and tells me I'm pretty all the time... just what a mommy needs!

We couldn't find just the right place to get out and explore until we got to the second parking lot above Sundance. There is a small ski lift and "Jake's Ticket Booth."

There were doing some sort of grading nearby so the kids loved the tractors too. Not really "nature" per se, but pretty fun anyway. 

 We climbed a hill and found some pretty areas with picnic tables tucked into the hillside.

My cute little forest gnomes!

Our little excursion made me think we need to get in the mountains more! It's so serene and peaceful and the kids loved exploring. Fall is such a beautiful season in Utah!

Soccer

Maddie and Ella are playing on NUCS teams this year. They are both with two of their best friends, so they are having a blast.

The "Pink Strikers" Maddie and Paige.

Run, Maddie, run! They definitely get good exercise.

Maddie has gotten some good kicks. She's not the most aggressive but she enjoys the game.

Maddie and Maycee with the same hairdo.

Ella's team is called the "Blue Dragons"! This is her cute friend Ashley. I didn't get a picture with Braxton but they are little buddies too, playing together almost every day and in the same Kindergarten class.

This is a view of the sidelines. It doesn't hurt that the parents are all friends too!
 

Jake is the #1 fan.

We love soccer! It's a great opportunity for the girls to be sporty and learn to work as a team, and doing it with friends makes it pretty awesome.

Now Jake

I couldn't leave out the littlest member of our family. He is becoming a real toddler and can keep up with the big kids most of the time. His little personality is developing and we're starting to see a cute sense of humor. He definitely knows when he is being silly!

Now that both girls are at school this is what our mornings look like. Lots of brother time! They are learning to play together pretty well.

And this is what happened when Ty went to school. For the first time ever Jake and I were home alone. We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves! I needed to do some things in the kitchen, and and Jake is always grabbing at the faucet, so I set him up on a stool and let him play to his heart's content.
 

He loved it!

Jake loves the piano.  With both girls practicing with Mom every day, he thinks he needs a turn too.

Is anything cuter than dangling baby feet?

Jake played dress-up for the first time with Ty. He wasn't sure what to think... the costume was a little big on him and it bugged him, but we sure thought he was a cute Batman!

This is Jakey's favorite spot to sit. He knows how to turn on the TV (much to Ty's chagrin because he also knows how to turn it off at the most annoying times) and then he climbs up on the table to watch. In this picture he was pretty excited about monkey George.

He almost figured out how to do this paddle ball toy and I just thought he was the most clever little guy ever. 

This is where we sit to watch for Ella to come home (when it's not our turn to drive carpool). 

And this is my view most days when I am getting ready. Jake is all gone...

 Peekaboo! He is so much fun and we just love him.

Ty's Turn!

Last week Ty got his turn to go to school! We are doing a mommy preschool with some other kids in the ward. It was at our house first, so I got to be his first teacher. He could not wait!

Even though it was at home, he wanted to wear his back pack like the big kids.

We started with A of course! First we learned "All About Me" and each child did show and tell from home (Ty's was Spiderman), and we made a book about them: name, hair and eye color, hand, foot, height, etc.

Then we talked about A for Alphabet and read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I happened to have a bag of apples from a tree by my parents' house, so we used it to make a big A like in our book.

The kids liked eating their own apples for snack. 

The next time we continued the apple theme with the book "Ten Apples Up on Top" and tried to balance apples on our heads!

Then we went on an Alphabet Walk like Toby the mouse. Each child had a basket and we filled it with things that started with each letter of the alphabet, including some things we had to search outside for, like dandelions, grass, insects, leaves, Queen Anne's Lace, and strawberries. They had so much fun. (Ty's finger in the picture cracks me up!)

Today was his first day at his friend Sophie's house. It was bittersweet to drop him off and leave him, but he was all smiles. When I picked him up he was full of news about B is for Barnyard Animals... he had "chicken feed" for snack (looked like oatmeal, rice krispies, sunflower seeds, and m&ms), played Duck Duck Goose, and read "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly." 

This little boy melts my heart. He is my little buddy and says the cutest things. Here are a few favorites I've written down...

"I want a lot of some."
"Is it wakey wakey time?"
"Tummus" (instead of hummus... drives the girls crazy but I think it's cute!)
"You're pretty Mommy."

He is preoccupied with the idea of Jesus in heaven right now. His favorite song is 'Gethsemane" on our Primary CD and he asks for it over and over.

"This is my favorite song. I want to listen to it all day."
"I don't want Jesus to die."
"When is Jesus going to come down? I want him to."
"Jesus has tears... Jesus has love."
"How did Jesus get to heaven? I want to go to heaven. It's in the sky... in the clouds... but I might fall..."
"How does Jesus make it rain? I think he pour, pour, pours it on us."

He says the best prayers and always wants it to be his turn to pray. He carries around his favorite toys, which are usually cars, trains, tractors, phones, and stuffed animals. He loves help me bake, play dress up, wrestle Jakey (not always nicely), and play with playdough. He gives good hugs and is trying hard to be kind to his siblings.

Every night when I tuck him in, I tell him "You're my favorite Ty in the whole world!"

Labor Day Trip

Our family went on one last summer trip over Labor Day weekend. We took half day off Friday and went to the Ogden Temple open house. The kids were so excited to be able to go inside. They sang "I love to see the temple, I'll go inside TODAY!"

Everything about it is just beautiful. The cream colored rock on the edifice, the new landscaping, the renovated tabernacle (with turquoise plush seats!), the muted blues all throughout, the breathtaking paintings, the floral arrangements, and of course the rooms themselves. Ella's favorite was the sealing rooms (she says the 'wedding rooms') and Maddie's was the Celestial Room. I explained to her how it is the place most like Heaven on the Earth, and she was in awe. Ty tried to touch the baptismal font and I had visions of him falling in... but for the most part the kids were quiet and reverent.

This is the real view of the family... they spent a whole lot of time trying to get wet!

Then we headed onto Grandma and Grandpa's. Ella was excited to see the big sprinklers, because that meant we were in Idaho!

We spent most of our time playing and lounging around the house and back yard. The tire swing is always a hit. 

My mom took me shopping in her little Mercedes, and then the kids wanted a turn too so Mike took them for a spin around the block.

Ella begged to pick a rose, so Grandma let her choose a vase and filled it with pungent posies. I was again convinced that I need to put roses in my yard! They smell like heaven to me (although Mike associates it with old ladies).

Grandpa treated us to a fun-filled day at the Twin Falls County Fair and Rodeo. Everything was exactly as I remember it about 15 years ago! It felt like I stepped into a time machine.

 We started with the 4-H animal barns.

 Cows and Big Horned cows...

Llamas... there were also bunnies, turkeys, chickens, emus, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs.

Ty especially enjoyed the train barn. I remember this from when I was little!

These animals and veggies looked oddly familiar to me.

Farmer Maddie with her bushels of children!

We had to eat fair food while there (although I regretted it later!). In high school I worked at the Party Pup booth, so that was the winner. I still recognized one of the guys, all these years later!

We also had elephant ears and cotton candy... wow, and no wonder we had heartburn!

Rides were next! 

Maddie wanted to try the big slide while Ella and Ty did the airplanes.

The cars were a hit--they jerked hard around every corner and the girls thought it was hilarious to slide from side to side.

We saw animals again at the petting zoo, and this time got to feed them.

 As the sun went down we headed over to the rodeo arena to get our seats.

It was a great show, although Jake was seriously a bucking bronco. He wanted so badly to get down and run around, and it got worse the later and darker it became. The people around us were patient and he survived. The family favorite was the mutton busting. 

Sunday was nice and relaxed. My mom made a roasted chicken and mashed potatoes and broccoli, and I walked into the house after church and felt like I was 10 again. While the boys napped in the afternoon, Grandma generously let the girls choose from her hoards of fabric, and we used printable patterns to make clothes for their dollies. I say "we", but I mean I cut fabric and she sewed it! I tried to watch closely and learn a few things, but she's the master!

She also whipped up a fitted sheet, pillows, pillowcases, and a quilt for this doll bed. It was in my playroom as a girl, but it was her's when she was little, and her mom's before that! What lucky little girls I have. 

Much time was spent playing with Ozzie and Tank (I can't help saying Tankini the Weenie.)

On Labor Day we took the kayaks down to the Snake River and took turns paddling out to the Perrine Bridge and back. Ty rode with Daddy, Maddie with Grandma, and Ella with me. It was pretty cool to get in the shadow of the bridge and watch the BASE jumpers fly off with their parachutes.

Grandpa couldn't go yet because he is still recovering from his shoulder replacement surgery, so he stayed back with the pup and kids.

Jake was a dirt magnet, as his shirt fittingly says. He tried getting on the kayak for a minute but didn't like it one bit.

I can't think of a better way to spend the holiday weekend. The weather was cooler (60's-70's) but gorgeous and sunny. This trip was very nostalgic for me--everywhere I turned I ran into happy memories (sleeping under the stars in the back yard, slip n' sliding, night games, talking on the phone as I wandered all over the place... and on and on...) but glad we made some more! Everyone had a hard time leaving and wished we could just live at Grandma & Grandpa's house!