Tale of Two Weeks

A little pre story before we get into the split weeks.  One night when Brooke was going to bed, she called Monica up because her finger was kind of numb.  Random places on her hand were kind of numb feeling, and there wasn't really a reason why so we told her to let us know if it got worse and keep trying to go to sleep.  In the morning she told us her hand was feeling worse, and it looked swollen, so I took a look, and under her scrunchy she had like... 7 hair bands that were just TOO tight to be on her wrist.  If you zoom in you could count and see if I got the number right.  So we won't be wearing those anymore, and may be we'll buy some bigger ones, cause I know Brooke loves to have one on for just in case.

The week split on Wednesday, when Monica and the kids left me for Utah.  Looks like the pilots needed help taking off, so good thing we've trained our children for moments like these.

After landing, they stopped to get dinner at Noodles & Co. on their way to Gram and Pop's house, and got in in time for bedtime.  The next day they went to BYU, or as Brooke calls it "my future school."  They had a lot of fun at the book store on the slide, and of course shopped for some new BYU drip.

After, they went to the MOA for lunch, and this seemed the best picture to bring up the fact that Melanie was visiting from India!  That's the real reason why Monica went out on this otherwise random week.  Also, I think the kids have Monday off school, so a 3 day weekend is also a good reason too.

While on campus, they reached out to the most recent Harding cougar, Emilee!  I don't know what all they did together, but I know they walked the pedestrian bridges up by the Marriott Center, and it looks like they were all excited to see each other.

Friday they headed to the aquarium up in Salt Lake City.  It's apparently a super awesome aquarium.  I haven't been to it since it moved several years ago.  The kids all had a lot of fun.  We talked on the phone that night, and they told me all about the animals.  There was a tube you could walk through at the bottom of the shark tank, and a UV light with some jelly fish, and all kinds of other things I'm not remembering.  There was also this cool rope bridge that at least some of the kids crossed.  I asked Winry if she felt like she was in a Magic Tree House story.  She said no...

There was also a Komodo dragon with a sculpture.  There were several animal sculptures, all of which were climbable. 

Turns out that Friday was also Gram's birthday.  This was a pretty good weekend to go out, eh?  Everyone had mint brownies and sang happy birthday!

On Saturday everyone went out for a hike.  Grayson found a very good walking stick, which came in handy mostly to hold in the air from step to step.  Definitely made his hike easier.

They found this nice clearing, and it looks like some of the trees were even changing colors.  Monica said the weather was perfect for the hike as well, so that's lucky, because I was having second summer here in Texas.

They came upon this tree that was bridging the creek.  It took some convincing from Monica that it would be safe, but everyone, including Grayson, crossed it.  Grayson crawled across with Winry.  Once they did it once it was fun, not scary, and they were all VERY excited to tell me about crossing this log. Everyone wished they could stay there all day long.

Saturday night Monica, all the kids, and many others went to the BYU volleyball game.  They were worried beforehand about Grayson getting bored and causing problems, but everyone had an amazing time!  Volleyball is a pretty good one for younger kids, because there's a lot of stops in the action and they play music all the time.  The kids loved getting up and dancing.

Here's Brooke and Audrey watching the game.

And here's Grayson and Winry.  The good thing about sitting up high is that there was free space for running around.  Also, usually the volleyball games are packed, but there was a football game shortly after the volleyball game, so I think that kept the attendance lower at the volleyball game. After the game, Brooke was very excited to walk through the Richards Building, home of the dance department. She hopes to spend a lot of time there someday!

Oh, and does this tree look familiar?  Yup, this is the tree "house" at the church building from when we were all out a few weeks ago.  Looks like Grayson shared the secret with Jett.  Who knows if they ever made it into church...

So after that action packed week, I'm sure you're all dying to know the amazing adventures I went on back at home.  I spent the first few days eating leftovers to try to not let anything go bad, and Friday night I finally had to cook for the first time.  I kinda made pasta in a pot, except I made it in a pan.  It was great!!

On Saturday I had a few things to do on my computer, like get caught up writing blog posts, and work on my lesson for church, etc.  Jelly likes to join me in the office, and a lizard came by too!  I think that's really why Jelly likes to come in here, she usually sits on the windowsill looking out at the bush.

Saturday night was the BYU football game, and since I had the house to myself I got some buddies together to tailgate and watch the game together.  Literal party going on right here.

And here we are at game time.  It was a late night kick off, so we turned the lights off, and there's no way anyone fell asleep before the game ended...  I was awake long enough to see that we were going to win at least, and it was a pleasant surprise in the morning to see we didn't lose our lead!

And now that you've seen what I've been up to, I'm sure you're all grateful that my family is coming back to me tomorrow.  I am too!

Flood of Children

WHOA! 8 KIDS!!  What a weekend!  Our friends, the Ellers, went on a trip to Hawaii, but conveniently forgot their kids.  We helped them out over the weekend and had a pretty full house.  Fortunately, we all had a great time together and the kids loved having friends over all the time.  On Saturday there was even time for haircuts for those who wanted one.

Grayson's school sends us a few pictures each week.  Most of them are random moments.  Sometimes him playing with other kids we don't know, etc.  I liked this picture because the class is all learning together, so I picked it this week.  Also, because I don't have an accompanying picture, I'll stick this video of Grayson teaching us how to use the exercise station at the park right here.

Brooke and Winry's school has been doing their fundraiser the past few weeks, and if their classes earn enough they can unlock various rewards.  Brooke got a crazy hair day and was rockin' Easter eggs!

Grayson conned Monica into buying him this fish one day while grocery shopping at HEB and he absolutely loves it.  He's been taking it all over with him.  They're inseparable best friends.  It's convenient that the fish eats acorns, because Grayson's been collecting them his whole life.  Now we know why.  The fish also ate Grayson's grapes because he didn't want them anymore.

Our bed has pull out drawers under it, and I'll semi-often find mine pulled all the way out against the wall.  I initially thought it was because Jelly sleeps under our bed between them, and maybe someone needed to get her or something.  Nope, Grayson pulls out one of Monica's on the opposite side and crawls under our bed!  What a crazy lad.

Speaking of crazy, he started shoving stuff in his pajamas on Saturday.  One time he got it right so it just looked like he had a HUGE belly!  I wanted to get a picture of him walking around, but things got shuffled before I did, and it didn't look as good, but he seriously looked like the Grinch with his big body and super skinny legs!  This sitting picture is good, but it was even better when he was walking around.

Since we had so many kids in our house, Saturday was a day for manual labor!!  Monica had been wanting me to put up some boards on the wall in the laundry room so we could put up hooks for backpacks.  I used the allure of power tools to attract my helper.  Seth and I measured, cut and nailed up boards.  In this picture we're still trying to figure out the exact design we wanted to do.

It's hard to not have fancy hair parties when there are 5 little girls in the house.  It also helps that all these things are kept in a bin together, though there are definitely some clips from dance recitals that I didn't think were supposed to go in there...  Anyway, once they get started it's easy to get carried away.

Saturday is sports day, or at least it is for the Ellers.  Monica took Lois to her volleyball game in the morning, and then actually picked them all up after that to come to our house.  Megan had a soccer game around noon, and Monica dropped her off, but then I went over and watched the game.

In the afternoon, we all went to the pool and swam.  I think everyone had a great time.  The girls really like floating out on the big dragon floatie, and then I "shark attack" them by swimming under it and bumping it with my head and trying to knock them off.  It was lots of fun.

That evening I made a rushed attempt to cut all the wood before it got dark, and still ended up outside with my headlight on.  But I got the rest of the boards nailed to the wall!  Now just a little caulking and painting and we'll be ready for hooks!  So, just... 2 more months.

Alrighty, that's all I've got for now.  A bit of a crazy weekend, but fun to have friends over with us.  Sunday was a bit crazy because there were too many of us to fit in one car, and I had meetings after church, but we got it all figured out.  We also had crepes for lunch, and they were a huge hit!  That's great news because the Ellers used to live in Europe, so they know a thing or two about crepes.

Oh! and Monica put together a 1 second every day for August!  My thought watching it was I can't believe we did so much in August!  It's been a crazy past 2-ish months with traveling, etc.
 

Jus' Chillin'

Why hello!  Things were pretty laid back this week, and we're definitely getting into the groove of things now.  We enjoyed having Monday off from everything, and had a great time with our visitors.  Here's Grace cuddling up with Brooke.  She was probably trying to hide from me.  She just kept pretending to be nervous the whole time, but I could see through it!

We went to the park, and had a great time there.  It was supposed to rain in the afternoon, and I believe rained over night before, so it was a little cloudy and MUCH cooler than it's been recently!  May this, PLEASE, be the start of fall.  Anyway, the kids all had a lot of fun playing together at the park.

A fun idea Jessica brought was to go get some cheap pictures/paintings at Goodwill and then paint on them to make them Halloween-y.  Winry really wanted to pain this castle, and did a really good job!

Grayson's been not wanting to sleep by himself in his room lately, and has started asking to sleep in Winry's room.  He's been sleeping on the bottom bunk, so that works pretty well, though it makes getting only Winry up for school trickier.  It's been going alright though.  Anyway, Grayson's enjoyed finding blankets, etc. and getting cozy.

I went into work on Tuesday and... the door was broken.  I was able to get in still and they came and fixed the door same day, so that's good too.

Grayson got a taste of Bledsoe park, and he's dying to go back now.  I think he's wanted to go every day.  Monica took him first, and I took him another day after dinner.  He really likes this slide, and I feel like it's the big talking point, but I can't blame him because it looks pretty fun.

I thought dance started last week, but maybe it started this week... :)  Here's Winry with the 1st day of dance sign.  Brooke's class specifically asked for us to just drop her off and not come in to help with traffic flow, so I think that's why she's missing a similar picture.

Jelly found a new friend this past week.  This grasshopper stayed there all afternoon as well, so Jelly had a lot of time to introduce herself.

On Sunday morning while I was at ward council, the kids and Monica found an inch worm!  Actually, they found 2.  We were talking about it, and think they came from our tomato plants, which Monica was out in that morning.  I had one on me after helping her get some tomatoes one day, so that's how we made the connection.

And Monica was feeling kinda sick as well.  She didn't go to church, and I had meetings right after, so I dropped off the kids, and while I was gone they made her lunch!  What an amazing bunch of kiddos we've got!

And that's our week.  Hopefully Monica will be back on her feet and feeling great soon.
 

First Day of Preschool!

Grayson had his first day of Preschool this week!!  He was so excited to get to go, and he's been absolutely loving it so far.  Here he is, all ready to go, and look at that, he wants to be a dad when he grows up!

Here's the rainbow bridge he loves so much!  I think I mentioned it last week from when they did their tour, but here he is taking it on his way into school.

It looks like the school takes pictures, and we got some on the app we use.  There he is hanging out in his classroom.

After school, he needed a little relaxation as baby Yoda.  He looks very comfortable. 

I went to pick up the girls from school as Monica had a doctor's appointment.  It was raining very hard at the time, and Grayson can be VERY adverse to going out in the rain right now.  We drove over as close as we could to pick the girls up, and then I just kinda had to wait until they got across the street and into our neighborhood.  I tried texting Brooke on her watch, but it was dead.  One of the other parents that knew Brooke asked if she wanted to call her parents, but she accidentally called Monica instead of me, and just as I was forcing Grayson out of the car to go find them, they walked around the corner.  Phew!

Brooke has finally gotten to the age where her peer group can greatly influence her choices.  Despite having several serviceable water bottles, she NEEDED a Stanley.  She went with Monica to check some thrift stores and see if they could get lucky, and ended up getting a used, like-new one from Amazon with her allowance money.  Ooh la la!

Grayson continues to be a rock star at flossing.  I've been very impressed.  He was asked to start flossing, and he's just taken straight to it, every night.

Monica found our friendly toad out in the garden again!  I guess it lives in there, and that's probably good.  We have lots of bugs in there.

Monica took Grayson out to Chick-fil-a for lunch, and he got to enjoy some ice cream as well.

Looks like Monica needed to do some Cricut work, and Grayson was there to help her out.

The girls have been working on their own dances lately, and it's been infectious.  Grayson's catching the fever, and came up with his own dance.  He even got dressed up to perform.

On Saturday when I was out mowing the lawn I saw this lizard out on the shed.  Looks like it lost it's tail recently, so it was really cool to see it coming back.

Our friends that we knew back in Colorado, the Whites, are living down here in TX and came by to visit for the weekend.  We went swimming in the afternoon with them and all had a very fun time.  We brought some pool floaties and had a lot of fun with that too, including Brooke's new dragon from bingo at Bear Lake.  Sadly, we don't have a picture of that though...

And that's all for this week.