September Catchup!

In no particular order, here is a recap of September!

We finished off the swimming season Labor Day weekend with a few hours with friends at the pool. Sad those days are behind us!

Miss Millie turned 5! She shares an exact birthday with our now 5 year old neighbor Kyclee so we had to get a picture of the birthday buddies!

We ran down to grandmas for a quick visit for something and my kids were obsessed with water balloons that week. We had some from last year and grandma apparently did too so they had fun all week with those things!

Every couple of weeks I take the boys to the library to change out our books. There is a fun park next to it and the splash pad. We decided right before it closed, and while kids were still in school to go a few more times. Once was a random stop in their clothes and the other more planned out with a friend. Why does it have to get cold???

Levi played in the Strikers cup followed by the Mayor's Cup over Labor Day weekend. His team did really well and gave a good fight in the final. They held them off till the bitter end and just couldn't quite hold it. So they landed the silver. It was fun to watch and his team is definitely getting better and meshing so much better since the beginning of summer. He has some fun boys and the coaches are great. It was a hard switch, but it has been good!

Turns out my friend Stephanie Garner I grew up playing soccer with from 7-12th grade and who was a great friend's mama came to one of Levi's games. Apparently her grandson plays on Levi's team! Its been fun to see Steph's sister at games.

Levi texted me during lunch one day at school, so I sent him a picture of us at lunch too. It is kind of fun to get texts from him. He had a lonely lunch or two before getting to know some more 7th graders at the junior high since his friends weren't in his lunch block. We were happy to entertain him! Now he seems to only text me if he needs something! Ha!

This day was a huge deal for me. I hadn't ran for over a month. My knee was and is still causing problems. However, I had gone from barely being able to hobble around to a mile. It was slow and I was sore later, but I did it. It was a milestone for me. It's been a long up hill slope and it is still going, but it is always nice when I can look back and see the tiny steps of progress. I am still not even sure what is wrong with my knee, the docs were not super helpful. I am thinking an IT band injury and just lots of swelling and catching when I walk. Hopefully someday I will get back to where I can keep up with my kiddos and feel back to the shape I was in before. For now, I would just take less pain at the end of the day. 

Last time for swimming at the Stevenson's on Labor Day weekend. My kids love their cousins, who are just the sweetest with them, and it is always a blast!

My kids are slow teeth losers, but Makayla started to pick up the pace! She lost her second bottom tooth and one of her top teeth. She let me flick them both out! Brave girl! I always get sad when they lose their top front teeth. It makes them look too old!

Pictures from our Friday fun night with aunt Krista playing Just Dance on the projector

Makayla has a few neighbor girls to play with, which has been a blessing. And a curse sometimes. She loves to have girls to play with and this has been so good for her to do the girly things. These girls all dive into the crafts and have so much fun together. We have gone through perler beads, rubber band bracelets, kids art hub, tie dye shirts, and more. The curse is the constant knocking on the door:) We are learning to create boundaries now that our street is chalk full of kids these days. 

Luckily the kids only do school home on Fridays. It is kind of a battle to get through all the assignments for the kids each Friday along with the Zoom calls and Graham running around wanting someone to play with. We make it, but I am not sure we do it well!!! I also was smart and put piano on that day along with Makayla's usual gymnastics so we don't have too much time to get it done. These kids are troopers and have really come a long ways since they started school. They have even learned to navigate a lot of this themselves. They are sure learning to be more flexible and resilient! 

My boys for their bedtime story. 

The kids had so much fun at their cousins with Crossnet that we watched it for awhile and bought it when we found a decent deal on it. It was up for a solid week and was played constantly. We took it down to prevent rust, but now they have a fun game to play with their friends and game nights!

We all ran to the school and got our Flu shots for the year. The kids were NOT excited, but they all did pretty good and we only had a few tears.

School Pictures

Makayla 2nd Grade

Zackary- 5th Grade

Nathan- Kindergarten

Zack had a state float project. He got assigned Nevada. We decided to go with the Vegas theme. He has rocked his state test and capitols tests and has gotten a perfect score on every section. He sure had fun with his Vegas strip float!

More water balloon fun

These two boys are two peas in a pod. They like to dress the same, play the same things, and giggle constantly. They fight good too, but they have to do and go everywhere together. It is just the cutest!

We were finishing up home church and Graham put on Dan's shoes. I just kept thinking he has some big shoes to fill! Glad he has that example to look up to and he is one determined kid so I have no doubt that he will go far in life.

Makayla's teachers had the kids write 100 numbers everyday till they got to 1000. She got so competitive she was the first to finish!

On a rainy Saturday half of the kids didn't show up to play. The other team was short in numbers so with some shifting of players and one not willing to play at all, Nate's team was down one. We offered for Graham to play and the coach gladly let him help the team. He ran on with a giant grin on his face. He was pure determination and played better than most of the kids on the field. They even had a Graham to Nate combo for a goal. He only play for like 7 minutes, but they both played so well. This was by far Nate's best game. He was a beast! He plays defense like a boss, but this game he was all over. It was a funny and great game to watch with these two. It will be a tough one to beat!

Moments like these make my mama heart happy. We had hurricane type winds up here. Like 65-90 in some areas. Levi got out and helped walk/push Nate into school one day since he is home still doing remote learning a couple days a week. It was cute!

If you can even tell, this is Levi rolling his percussion kit into school one morning. I had the hardest time letting him go with this weird year, the hard schedules, the one way hallways, the blocked of chairs at lunch, half the kids in class as normal, and no lockers. He has handled it so well, but I had a constant prayer in my heart for him every day watching him walk in for the first few weeks. He now spends most remote days with his friend dowing their homework. He has made some more friends in his classes and lunch hours to make it a little less new. And he started the Robotics competition team thanks to his history of robotics in elementary. So, just like Levi does, he jumps right in and does so well! I still can't believe he is in 7th grade!!!

State capitols test practice on our lovely Fridays!!!

Sometimes you forget the garden and you come out to a GIANT zucchini!

Dot day at school

For Young Mens the boys did a woodworking project and built bird houses. 

Heading to the Anderson's for a campfire. Tyson is so sweet to these little boys and they just LOVE him. Their kids are my favorite neighbor kids and our kids have sure grown close. I love how well our older boys get along too. They have so much fun together. 

Dan started a mudroom project after I complained enough about all the backpacks, shoes, and jackets all over. We decided to provide a home for all of it. Now hopefully our kids will use it sometimes!!! Still not done, but it is coming!