September 2014

I am so behind on blogging I decided to just give up.  Then just last night I was trying to remember what dress Teslyn wore for Easter when she was Mia's age in 2011 so I knew what I was looking for in our baby girl clothes bins.  I got on the blog to look up that time period and lost track of time looking at these cute kids when they were so little. I realized I couldn't give up on blogging.  It is too much fun and so easy to look back on the good times we have had as a family.  Someday I'll even get this in print.  It's my favorite way to document and journal.

Here we are back in September 2014.  We took a fun family day trip outing on Labor Day to see the Ross Creek Giant Cedars in Montana, just over an hour from us.  Some of the trees in the grove are over 400 years old.  It was a magical forest and we all had a great time exploring. 

 

We continued a ways north to see the Kootenai Falls and swinging bridge near Libby, Montana.  The scenery and falls were beautiful and the bridge was exciting!  It took just about all of Teslyn's bravery to walk across that bridge.  It even made me pretty nervous. I wouldn't let Mia go across that bridge unless she was securely strapped to her daddy. She's not a fan of the baby carriers.

 

Owen started 3rd grade in September. He went to his first day of school with a bandaid on his forehead because he had just recently had a crash on his bike.  Or scooter.  I guess it's been a while since then!  He is in Mr. Price's 3rd/4th grade combo class.  It was a strange concept to me but he is doing great and enjoy it. 

It was his first time riding the school bus as well!  We've always lived too close for the bus and he's always been wanting to ride it so it was a big highlight of each day for a while.

This little lady started her second (and last) year of preschool.  She's so bright and smart, she should have been born 2 months earlier so she could be in kindergarten this year!  I put her in 2 different preschools so that she could go 4 days a week and she loves it.  Her personality is such that she needs to be kept busy and have lots of attention. 

In one of Teslyn's two preschools she is a peer tutor for a special needs class at the elementary school Owen goes to.  She really enjoys it, but partly because she gets to ride the bus home. 

The littlest lady, baby Mia turned 1 year old in September!

She was so tricky to take good one year old pictures of!  This is what we ended up with:

She had one of her favorites for breakfast, baked blueberry and huckleberry oatmeal.

She had a fun day and got some cute gifts, her favorite being this little princess ride.

I made her a giant cupcake to dig into.

But she daintily ate it until we cut a piece off for her.

We also had strawberry lemonade cupcakes.

Sweet sleeping baby.

But that's not all for September, this boy turned 8!  And 8 is super great. We are sure blessed to have Owen in our family, and be the big brother for his two little sisters.  He does a great job being an example and taking care of others.

 

He made the important decision to be baptized!  It was so great.  All grandparents came, and even the grandmas gave talks on baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost.  I just wish I insisted on them going outside so I could get better pictures on his day.  These are a little awkward to me.  But they'll do.  I love these guys.  Owen is sure lucky to have this man for his daddy.

After the baptism we had an open invitation to the ward to come over for desserts.  I prepared a week in advance baking and freezing treats for the big day.  We had quite the spread, and a packed house!

We celebrated Owen's birthday by eating his favorite dinner that he picked.  I can't remember what it was now, but I know we had artichokes with clam dip with it.  He loves that.  He loves Reese's Peanut Butter Cups so I made a giant Reese's cake.  It's a peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting, and it really tasted like a peanut butter cup!  He loved it.

He also wanted to light his own candles.  He's so big and old.

But that's not all!  A week later we had a friend party to celebrate this monumental age.  Owen and some buddies went bowling, had pizza and cake and played in a bouncy house.  It was a Ninjago themed party.  Green ones, to be specific.  That was his favorite one. It was a fun party to prep and plan.

By September our garden was beginning to slow down, all except for the strawberry patch.  It was the never ending strawberry patch and we loved it!  Every few days we would pick a bowl full and had enough to make a few pints of freezer jam.  Nick got really good at making lots of small batches of it.  We've been enjoying it all winter and look forward to doing it again.

We also decided to buy grape vines.  It's the time of year I miss my mom's grapes and have fond memories of her making and bottling juice.  We decided to try our hand at it, or rather, see if they do well in our climate and yard.

The local nursery sold them, so why not?  We bought 3 varieties.  Here is Nick planting them.

Mia started climbing stairs!  I tried and returned several baby gates that didn't work for our stairs, so we gave up and decided to just let her learn to go up and down.  She caught on quick!  And it only takes one tumble down for a baby to decide that they don't want to do that again.

Owen played fall soccer again and actually got pretty good at it.  He's learned to be a bit more assertive in order to make goals.  That was fun to see.

While he had practices I ran errands or hung out in the car with this little lady.

And if the weather was nice we played on the playground.

We kind of on a whim decided to buy a wave runner.  Nick has great memories of growing up with them, and we even used them on some fun dates when we were dating and after we got married.  It was late summer and we haven't actually had a chance to use it yet but we look forward to!

I became an early riser to get in my workout.  I hate getting out of bed in the mornings, so that was a big deal to me.  But once I started I absolutely loved being out when the morning is so fresh and the day so new.  I saw some amazing sunrises on my runs.  This is really a beautiful place.  It's a great feeling to start the day with a good run under my belt and ready to take on whatever adventure is next!