September Recap

September has just flown by. Some of the fun things we did this month were:

I had a date night with just Brooke. She was so excited for this night and wore lip stick. :) She picked out going to Snow Monster for our date, excitedly choose her flavors and then after 2 bites announced that she didn't really like Snow Monster. 

It was a quick date and big brother and sister were thrilled to finish it off for her when she got home. After it was over she said," that was short Mom." It sure was. 

We have been reading so much Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Oh man, Carson reads these for HOURS every day. Aaron and I try to read some with him every night, he really likes that. 

Spencer continues to be a total destroyer. He is such a mess, a beautiful, perfect mess. He really likes to feed himself. 

I took the kids to the dollar theater to see Despicable Me 3. We had so much fun watching it in 3D. Brooke pretty much cuddled with me the whole time and I loved every second of it. 

We are still spending a lot of time in our back yard. Aaron fixed a few leaks in the yard and so we cleaned our rug and dried it all out and now she looks beautiful. 

Spencer loves our back yard afternoons. 

Dancing and jumping on the trampoline. 

Pretty much every day after she gets home from school Camilla takes Spencer to play in the backyard and pushes him on the swing. 

Such a good big sister. 

Carson was Wilbur in his class play. Cutest little piggie I ever saw. 

My Mom made a quick trip to Austin so we could see Sheppard and she picked up Jackson for the weekend. We loved seeing her for a few hours and she took the kids to Chick fil-a. They had a blast. 

Aaron took Carson on a date to rock climbing. Carson is really quite a good rock climber. 

These two love doing everything together. 

Carson made this weight out of a broom stick and a water jug. 

He started a weight lifting class in our backyard, everyone attended. Soon I found flyers all over the house and yard for "Carson's Weight Lifting class."

Camilla's date was with dad and was to Half Price Books, of course. 

We finally got some rain and the kids loved playing in it. 

Busy as always, the end of September meant the beginning of Fall Break!

Lately

Some fun things going on this week. Aaron has been taking the kids to play basketball at the gym on Saturdays after they get their chores done. They really love it. They especially love sliding on the gym floor in their socks. :)

Camilla's teacher, Ms. Erhart had a birthday and we went to help her celebrate with cake and pineapple. I let Camilla pick out the cake and it was beautiful. This is the fourth year in a row that I have a child in Ms. Erhart's class and we get to celebrate with her. We are the luckiest, she is the best teacher. 

I finally got around to refinishing a head board that I found on the side of the road during bulk trash pick up. Spencer was not super helpful. He kept stealing the brush and messing up the paint. I finally had to resign to only working on it when he was sleeping. 

He sure enjoyed it though. 

When I would go out to the driveway to work the kids love to get out their push toys and tricycle to play on. 

Oh man this boy looks just like his big brother! Its like deja vu in so many ways. 

I love the way the boys' room is going. A a few finishing touches and I will be done in there! 

Hurricane Harvey

 So Aaron went to Houston this past weekend to help with the Hurricane Harvey clean up. This has caused so much devastation and destruction. We are so close to Houston. It has been heart wrenching to see so many people loose so much. I have also been amazing at the out reach. Everywhere we go people are making collections and there were over 10 k Mormon helping hands there on Saturday and over 11 k on Sunday. 

Aaron said the houses are just in awful condition. The mold and smell were awful. 

They are just trying to get houses cleaned out and salvage what can be salvaged of the house. So heart breaking for these people to loose everything. 

This was Aaron's team this weekend. A hard working crew. 

And I just have to give a shout out to Camilla who helped me so much while Aaron was gone. I was downstairs cleaning up after breakfast and all the kids were playing upstairs. It is beyond nice when the kids can take Spencer and play with him and give me a break for a bit. All of a sudden I hear Camilla say to Carson, "Carson I need your help, can you hold Spencer still so I can get a new diaper on him." I went upstairs to find Camilla changing Spencer's poopy diaper. She had gotten him all clean and everything. I didn't ask her to do this, that's just how Camilla is. She wants to be helpful and is such a great big sister. I don't know how I would survive without her. 

We also took a few very long walks to enjoy the cooler weather...finally! The kids love playing on the bars in our neighborhood. 

Brookey's Turn

It was finally Brooke's turn to start school this week. Oh man she was so excited but oh man I was so sad. I will miss my brown eyed girl so much. Thankfully its just a few hours, twice a week. :) 

First day, Dad went in late to work so he could go with us to drop her off. She was thrilled that Dad came to bring her to school since he takes Carson and Camilla every day. 

She sure loves her new class room. This is our 3rd straight year to have a child at this preschool and we sure love it. 

Meanwhile back at the house, the destroyer is in full destruction mode. He gets into everything and destroys it, but he takes a nap while Brooke is at school and I get the whole house to myself, peace and quiet! 

These two sure love each other. After Spencer wakes up from his nap and Brooke is home from school we have the afternoons to just play and have fun. I cherish these afternoons. 

We spend lots of time on the trampoline. We have so many games we like to play. 

Steam roller and gymnastics. 

Dead man, dead man come alive and duck, duck goose. 

Ring around the rosey and crack the egg and lots of swinging on the swing. 

Brooke loves playing with her toys lately. She can play with them for HOURS. She has an amazing imagination. 

She asks me to please shut the door so Spencer can't get in and mess up her toys. Her pile of toys grows each day. She likes to have equal numbers of boys and girls to go to the ball together. I love her. 

Labor Day Weekend

We had a jam packed, super - fun Labor Day weekend. Aaron worked a ton the week leading up to Labor Day and had a big meeting on Friday and as soon as it was over he started the long weekend early. 

Brookey has a best friend, its Cadence and she is so much fun. We do some trading off with the girls for playdates and when Cadey was here it was cool enough to take a walk together to see the guinea hens. Cadey is so sweet. 

We my kids got invited to a Harry Potter party. We got a hand delivered invitation by an "owl". The invite was unbelievable and even though our kids have never read or seen Harry Potter, they still thought it was pretty cool. 

Brooke and Spencer are loving playing together. Brooke likes to dress up like a princess and marry Spencer. 

You have to twirl to get married. :)

Aaron decided to surprise the kids for lunch since he took off early. They were so excited. 

Saturday morning we had birthday party #1. It was Camilla's best friend, Jane. Oh man my girls were so excited for this. She invited Brookey to come along as well. They watched a movie, ate popcorn and played. The girls were thrilled with it. They talked about it for days after. 

Then we went straight to party #2. 

The Harry Potter party was unbelievable. (Some day my kids are going to realize they don't get very fun parties :) 

The head magician taught them how to use their magic wands. 

Carson cast the spell perfectly. 

There were invisible walls, mermaid eggs, slime making and they each got sorted by taking a bite into cupcakes. It was a really fun party. They came home with bags full of goodies. 

We found our old soccer goal and got it out so Camilla could get ready for her soccer season to start. 

Camilla, of course, taking care of Spencer while they play. 

On Sunday I got the girls all ready. I blow dried their hair and put on their matching dresses and got everyone to church on time. Bam! 

Oh how I love this face. 

I so love this hair. 

Carson and Camilla were playing a game together and Camilla got hurt. Carson immediately took care of her and got her settled on the couch. Camilla told Carson to keep playing and she would just watch him. Then Carson said, "or I could just lay down with you until you feel better." It was a tender moment and I had to document it. 

Labor Day was a blast. Aaron and I went for runs, Aaron took the kids to play tennis and he got to play tennis as well. I went to the gym and did a kick boxing class that I haven't done in forever. We got the back yard all ready and then had friends over to swim and cook out. It was a blast, yummy food, snow cones, the fire pit and the kids swam the whole time. It was such a fun night. 

And ta - da! Our Labor Day weekend project was getting our new garage shelf up and getting our garage organized. It looks so beautiful. I am so happy to have this project done. We got our shed all cleaned out and now I can get started on redoing the shed!