The Best September

Lots of September things are happening around here. 

Oh would you look at that, it's actually October. The months fly by. 

I met up with Evan for the annual walk a thon. I love seeing my kids get stoked when I show up. Surely that won't last much longer. haha. He told me he was happy I came because his other friends just wanted to walk, and he wanted to run. 

Every Thursday for three straight weeks in September there was an open house. 

Three different schools, so three different open houses. 

Here is some sampling of Andrew's journaling. I love it. I love all our stick figure costumes.

There was this "class book" where they each had a page about the color of their clothes from the song "Mary wore her red dress, red dress, red dress".

I was surprised/not surprised to find Andrew's page - "Andrew wore his green underwear".

lol

Captain Underpants

Here's a big thing that has been going on around here all month.

 Jim painted the cabinets white and added better trim around the bar. 

He actually spent all entire day today installing the hardware and putting the doors back on. 

drum roll.....

Ta da! 

It looks so beautiful! I love it. It took weeks of hard work. Painting is no joke. I do not have the perfectionist touch to do such a thing. 

Jim does. He is so good at this stuff. 

We don't have a dining table or couches in our living room because we got rid of our old ones, and haven't yet found the perfect replacements. So we just have a nice empty house. It feels so clean and open. When our friends come over, we just sit criss cross applesauce in a circle. 

Soccer Saturdays are a big part of September. 

We have three games to play, so sometimes we are there all day. I don't totally mind it. We are with friends on the sidelines.

 Jim has been on reserve this month, so if the sun is shining and he's not working on the cabinets, we go to Galbraith. 

Sometimes I run and sometimes I bike.

Last Wednesday I ventured over to some other trails that I don't usually dare take my bike.  

I was coming out of Pony Express, and Jim climbed up out of The Three Pigs, and I yelled with joy! Hey you! 

It was so fun to "bump" into him. 

He said "come with me!" 

and I forgot the rule that says "don't go with Jim",

 so I climbed up another Pig with him, then he said "come on Atomic Dog with me. You can do it. You won't die."

So I went on it, and I practically did die. It was a lot above my level. He just blasted down it, and I took ten years to pick my way down. 

It was so fun and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. 

 I love being his mountain bike side chick (Joe is his mountain bike main chick).

Avery and her friends at Bea's birthday party. They are such great girls. 

Conference weekend! 

So many new things. I love the most that we have got rid of all the Young Women class names. I have ALWAYS hated those silly names. 

The kids were SO excited when the calendar turned October so that we could get serious about Halloween. 

Evan is going to be a clown. 

This here is a game Andrew made up. He would ask me trivia questions about the witches on "Hocus Pocus" and then he would write stuff when I gave an answer. 

Today he asked me "what's a misfit?" and I said "exactly you, Andrew. You are a misfit."

And another day he was reading DogMan and he pointed and asked "what does dot dot dot mean?"

Me and Avery tried explaining: 

"when you trail off"

or 

"when you pause"

and then Andrew helped answer his own question with the best explanation:

"It means the story's not finished".

dot dot dot

Home Tour?

Anyone want to have a little home tour? It's more like we are house sitting, so I don't feel a huge sense of ownership here. 

If you see a decoration that you like - 90% chance it's Valerie's. 

I love the floor plan. Nice and open. Rambler. Lots of room.

Love the bar. Love the chairs that I painted red.

Excited about getting warm by the fire in the winter. 

 I do NOT like the dark wood floors. 

Go ahead and try to hide crumbs and water spots. Go ahead. Try. You can't, can you? 

Now try and have three of the messiest kids in the whole wide world live here. 

Go ahead. 

This half of the house is north facing. You can tell the difference in the lighting compared to....

...this south facing half of the house.

This is where we gather round the tv and/or do crafts.

The view out these windows is awesome. There's a forest and a field of cows back there.

Entry way.

Then to the left is a hallway full of rooms and bathrooms. Boring.

It's bigger than it looks from the outside.

There's a whole downstairs, but we never go down there because I'm afraid of zombies eating dead horse carcasses. (jimi painted that metaphoric picture for me, so it's as good as truth.)

We can't figure out how to take down those flags. 

This is the road I look down when I'm searching for the bus.

the end

Our Tree

What was once a Bicycle magazine is now our Christmas Tree,

and we are bumpin' the Pandora Christmas music chanel (good idea Jamie),

and we went to a tree lighting in Georgetown on Friday.

(side rant: Georgetown is a fantastic little town. It was built in 1840 and has cool old buildings and shops)

Though we were underwhelmed by the lighting, this used book store was a dream.

Kids books upstairs...

Even without our usual decor and routines, it feels like Christmas.

 I can't wait to play santa...

Hodgepodge

In honor of the book I am reading by the Jeopardy! king, this post is a hodgepodge of trivial goings on in my home.

(isn't it always?)

Avery is getting the hang of walking (with the toy).

She was like,

"whatevas mom...I can walk if I wanna".

Sunday she was really bored...

...so we got out the finger paints. It wasn't much different than when she swirls food around on her high chair platter, but at least she didn't try to eat it.

Her bath water was really pretty.

I am trying to grow tomatoes, Basil, and flowers,

a little something green and non-synthetic in my backyard.

And the big reveal...

this project turned out to be way more labor intensive than we thought it would be.

We lived like this for a few months...

and then,

TA DA!

A crisp, clean, beautiful kitchen.

One Man's Trash

"Tales Beneath Timpanogos"

James Christensen

This magical little gem hangs in Avery's room.

A couple of summers ago, we were at Robbie and Mary's house when Nettie and Jeff were adopting Calvin.

(for fun, here's a picture of the sweet little family)

I was "snooping" through a pile of pictures in frames that were leaned up against a wall, and I came across that print and shrieked with joy. I had a measly 8x10 flier of this exact picture hanging on my classroom wall, but this was giant and beautifully matted and framed.

I asked Mary where she got it?

She said it was hanging in the building where she worked and they were going to throw it away! Can you imagine?

Then I somehow finagled it into my ownership. I think I slapped them a check of puny proportions to solidify the transaction. Thank you thank you thank you!

Lately Avery has been staring at it. It's just so beautiful.

One man's trash is another mom and baby's treasure.

Whatcha Gonna Get?

Our first year of marriage, we lived in Spanish Fork Utah. Down the street some guy had an old, brown pop machine outside of his garage. There was Pepsi, Sprite, the orange stuff, and a button labeled in sharpie, "whatcha gonna get?". So that was the one we always went for. You just never knew what kind of pop would come rolling out. I'd like to dedicate this post to that pop machine.

Often times in the middle of the night we hear the sound of toenails scraping the wall. No, mom, it's not mice. It's Piper's claws, running in her sleep, stretching, or what have you. The result is pictured below, paint scraped off the wall. Her favorite position (on her back with her "arms" stretched upward) shows two places of wearing:

here

and here

(I know Nettie, that's so gross to let Avery crawl around in Piper's bed)

(asleep in my arms)

An update on the butterflies: did they or did they not help Avery sleep better? Well, I've never actually seen her looking at them, but we are not having the "stand up and cry every ten minutes" issues anymore. So the answer is yes!

note to self: everything is a phase with babies

I know it is way too early to tell, but I think Avery is going to be a lefty like her mom and Grandpa Sorensen. See that graham in her left hand there (you really have to look close)? She eats almost exclusively with that hand.

And finally, we are really really close to being done with painting the cupboards. In the mean time: easy access to all pots, pans, bowls, and dishwasher soap.