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.
 

Happy Birthday Monica!

Happy Birthday Monica!!  Friday night we headed to Dos Salsas for dinner.  We had never been before, and it was pretty good.  We're still trying to establish some favorites, and I think there was something here for everyone.  We had a great night out.

Rolling back to the start of the week, Monica and Grayson built a really cool marble run together.  They used all the pieces, which is all Grayson could ever dream of!  He was very happy, and even came and got me from work to show me.

We heard this week that Grayson made it off the wait list and into preschool!  He went with Monica to check it out at their back to school night, and will start next week.  He is really excited to get started.  The school even has a bridge with rainbow colors painted on it, and he's really excited to take the rainbow bridge to the playground.  Also, they had an apple out for pictures, and some kid took a bite out of it...  we're just lucky it wasn't Grayson.

Grayson's gotten a bunch of new clothes lately.  They've all been passed down from Oriah once her boys outgrow them.  These pajamas have the magic pattern that matches his blankie, and he was really excited to be wearing blankie jammies!!

Grayson and Joy went for a drive around town at Goodwill.  Looks like they're having a good time!  This might have been some back to school shopping, because I know Grayson picked up a new backpack from a thrift store with dinosaurs all over.

Grayson had his first dentist appointment this last week.  He did great.  They gave him a stuffed animal to hold and he got to watch a show, and he listened and cooperated completely.  We were given some areas to work on, and he's also started flossing every day since!  Awesome first appointment.

Oh, at dinner I mentioned it was Monica's birthday and they brought out some fried ice cream and sang happy birthday, and she got to wear a really cool sombrero!

When we got back home, we sang happy birthday to Monica, but we were so full we didn't even cut the brownies!  They were just birthday decoration brownies!  Don't worry, they still tasted fantastic day old.

After singing, we also opened presents.  We had to do that a bit later than usual because we were waiting on the Amazon man to show up!  But at least they really did come today.

One of those gifts was some nail polish display things.  The girls were very excited to see them put up, so we put them up right away and got everything on display!

There was a nice sunset that we enjoyed together on Monica's birthday once the kids were in bed.

And here's Grayson flossing his teeth.  He's taken straight to it and has loved it so far.  He loves using the little flossers the dentist gave him, so we'll have to get something like that soon, since he only has 3!

And with that, we'll call it a week.
 

Happy Anniversary!!

Well hello there you two!  What a good looking couple, celebrating 11 years together!  Wahoo!  We actually had a super busy anniversary/Saturday as we'd been out of town the last several weekends, and so had missed some opportunities to take care of the yard.  But come the evening, we cleaned up nice and headed out for a date.  We finished that date off with a walk out on the trail.  It was still pretty hot, and was about to get dark, so we weren't out long, but had a good time.

Rolling back earlier in the week, we had Monday and Tuesday to get ourselves ready for the start of school.  The big effort there was trying to get the girls to go to bed earlier and get up early since there had been some staying up and time changes with all our recent traveling.  Tuesday night we let the kids pick things for dinner to celebrate the new school year.  Grayson enjoyed eating a biscuit, and made sure he used his fork to be proper and fancy in doing so!

The next morning the kids had pictures with the back to school sign before heading off for school.  Winry's excited to start 1st grade and is excited to go back and see everyone again.

Brooke was excited to head back to 3rd grade and give school another try.  She's very excited to be back around her friends and be in a more structured learning environment.  Homeschool was a nice stop gap, but it was largely interrupted by Grayson, and so was difficult through the end of last year, and Brooke definitely loves learning.

The wildcat was out to greet the students for the first day too!

On Thursday when Monica picked the girls up, it was just TOO hot for Grayson to walk back home.  I think Monica even carried him there too, but didn't want to carry him back too.  But he needed assistance, and Brooke was willing to give it!  I hope she didn't actually carry him all the way back, cause it's hot hot hot right now.

I was helping get Grayson ready for bed one evening, and he started singing a getting ready for bed song that he learned from Madeleine at Bear Lake.  I hadn't heard it at all, and thought it was so cute when he started singing it, and he loves it.  Thanks Madeleine!

While on the subject of Grayson, he helped Monica make some homemade tortillas this past week, and even helped roll them out!  Every one was a perfect circle, just like they always are!

As I mentioned, there was a lot of yard work to do Saturday.  The lawn was long enough I had to charge the battery to finish it off, which made it take all day.  The cicada killers seem to be gone, which is a miracle!  It wasn't pest control, they just have a relatively short season of activity, and thank goodness it's finally over.  I spent a lot of time chopping down all the grass and weeds that grew up over here over the summer.  It was at least a foot tall everywhere, but I was able to get it back to visible dirt at least.  I'm sure I didn't get everything, but it's a lot better now.

And Saturday evening Monica and I headed out for some South American food.  I think the restaurant was a blend of several countries, but mostly Venezuelan.  It was a new place to us, and it was super good, but may have given Monica a headache.  We're still trying to find places we love to eat and things we love to do here, so our plans were a bit more random, but we still had a fun evening together.  

I'm so grateful for Monica.  I'm grateful for all the work she does around the house with cooking and cleaning and all the things I don't notice and don't express enough appreciation for!  I'm grateful she takes great care of the kids (and me) and makes sure we're eating and living healthily.  I love you Monica!