September 2018

September skips right along.  Things have gotten into full swing with school and sports under way.  We  have stayed busy and had lots of fun!

We spent Memorial day on the lake.  It was a beautiful day!

We still love the cats!  Here is Sheri with Rascal.  They are a happy sight after school!

On mornings at home before kindergarten starts Christian and I get one on one time to learn and have fun.  Here he was experimenting with food dye to create secondary colors from primary colors.

However, Christian often gets bored in the mornings so I decided to start tending Tanner and Joey Little for a few hours on just a few days a week.  Tanner is a fun, energetic boy and Joey is a sweet little cutie that needs full time supervision (exploring everything)!  We have gone on walks/bike rides, played toys, and even decorated cup cakes for a school carnival.  Sometimes Christian is impatient so this has been good for him to learn to cooperate with others.

We even got to go to the zoo with the Littles when Megan had the day off.  :)

I continue to run and lift weights with Katie Buskin in the early mornings.  We are starting to train for a half marathon.

Often the kids create little notes of kindness and love for others.  They melt my heart.

Eve has started cheering at the freshman football games.  She has lots of cute uniforms.

Here she is with the little cheer campers at an evening game.

And here she is after a game.  The energy at football games is so fun!

Soccer is in full swing.  Here is Christian as goalie.  Sometimes he does more dance moves than soccer moves, but he knows which direction the ball should go now. :)

We were pretty disappointed when Sheri's previous team got split up due to a coaching mix up and the joining of U11 & U12.  Despite this, Sheri was happy to still be with a few friends.  Sheri and Lana have been especially good friends and have also really enjoyed being in the same class at school and church.

Sterling's soccer team is part of a larger division and he has more games per week.  He travels a bit farther for the games as well.  He has been a real trooper since many games/practices have followed 2 hours of cross country practice.  He still plays hard and is a great strength to his team. 

We are so glad we have the Kleins with us again this season.  They are a great support to us and we love to see them at the games and carpool for practice.

Speaking of cross country,  Sterling has been working hard and consistently improving his times.   Here he is after a race. 

Another race.

Eve decided to go to the Homecoming dance with a group of friends from school.  Sometimes she has to deal with a few less than loyal friends and that can be challenging, but it is teaching her how to navigate life and be a good friend to others. She went to the park for pictures with the group and then went to dinner with Matt.  It was a sweet experience for them both.  Then she hung out at the dance with friends.  Everything went smoothly and she had a great time.  The dress we ordered for her didn't make it in time, so we made do with the one we had on hand.  Live and learn-Order early!  She looked beautiful! 

 Eve and Faith

Eve and Allie

Eve and Abigail

Some thoughtful young man and his mother included Eve in the corsages even though Eve was left out of the rest of the group plans.  I was pretty grateful!

Christian's birthday fell on a Sunday.  With Homecoming the night before, his party was postponed to the following weekend.  Here he is on his actually birthday.

As I prepared for Christian's party Sheri was a great helper to me!  Here we were decorating his cake.  He REALLY wanted a Ghostbusters theme and so all the decorations had to be created using templates I found online.

Again, Sheri was a great helper!

When all the kids arrived they started the fun by jumping on the trampoline that our neighbors recently gave us.  We have really enjoyed having this!

Then we went inside to make our own Stay Puffed Marsh Mellow men, "slime" Jigglers, and have snacks.

Then it was on to musical chairs (Christian loves this game) using the Ghost Busters theme music "Who you Gonna Call? Ghost Busters!"

Then it was on to the pinata that I made with Christian's help.

 

The pinata didn't want to break and so they took it onto the trampoline and had a great time breaking it open.

Then they fought the ghosts (Sterling and Sheri) with silly string.  

Finally, we ended with cake.

We sure adore this boy!  We enjoyed celebrating his 6th birthday and were happy to end the month in such a fun way!    What a fun and busy month it has been! 

August 2018

August is always a great month!  You get to enjoy the last bit of summer break, but also get back into consistent routines.  One thing I forgot to blog about in July is that I started a push up challenge with my Cross fit group.  The challenge was to do 100 push ups each day for 30 days.  This was a challenge I wanted to take on because my upper body is weaker than my lower body.  I certainly couldn't do 10 regular push ups in a row when the challenge began.  However I started on an incline (4th stair) and broke up the 100 into doable sets.  Over time I increased my strength until I was able to do 100 push ups each day with no incline at about 15-20 in each set.  I was pretty sore at the beginning and had to take 1 or 2 rest days (I always took Sunday off), but I really loved seeing my strength grow.  This is my before picture.  If I can find the after picture, I will add it later :)

In early August I was able to take the girls to a Charlie Puth concert (a gift from their last birthdays.)  We had so much fun!  We already loved his music, but this took our appreciation to another level.  He is pretty talented in his writing and compilation of music.  He also plays the piano.  He seemed to be grateful to his fans and overall down to earth.  You can see we had pretty good seats.  The girls were a bit smitten with him. :)  It was a really cool way to spend time together.  It was a fun and electrifying evening.

One day we had the chance to go miniature golfing.  It was quite hot and we had just a small window, but we tried to fit in as much fun as possible before school started.

Oh, we also took a quick trip to the lake with the Kleins one Saturday afternoon.  We sure love them! 

Also before school began, the kids started to practice with their athletic teams.

Sterling started officially training with his middle school cross country team.  Running isn't his favorite sport, but he wanted to be involved in a school fall sport and enjoyed seeing progress throughout the season.  It was quite exhausting, especially in the beginning as his body was adapting to the long practices.  Here he is one day after he got home.  I guess he didn't realize how tired he was.

Here are some pictures from the beginning of his season.  I was really proud of how hard he worked.  He gave his best effort and his coaches recognized that.  He was one of the top 15 fastest runners on his team.

Here is Eve at a picnic before school started with her cheer team and with her friends, Ali, Abigail, and Maya.

Here she is with her team after school started.  She has really enjoyed the challenge of learning all the different routines.  It has been a new experience to work with a team.  Most of the time it is fun and uplifting, but sometimes it is a learning experience as she has had to work with different personalities and backgrounds.  I love that she gets more social time at football games and after school.

August 15th was the first day of school for everyone except Christian who started the following day.  Eve is a FRESHMAN!  I can't believe it.  Sterling is in 7th grade, Sheri in 5th, and Christian is in half day kindergarten.

The rest of the month rolled right along, busy, beautiful, and bounteous!

Here is our garden and fruit tree harvest one day (minus the watermelon).

Christian has transitioned to kindergarten like a pro!  He knows the school, and knows the routines.  Here he is on pajama day (they all earned for good behavior.)  He likes be a bit silly and crazy sometimes. :)

 Here is a snap shot that his teacher took.  I sure enjoy my cutie pie and am glad I get a bit more time with him in the mornings before he goes to school.

Here is Sterling at a Young Men's activity where they learned about landscaping/pruning.  We have stellar youth leaders and can't adequately express our love for them!

Well, that about sums up our month.  We hope you had a great August too!