September!

First of all, we celebrated Kenny's 32nd Birthday!! On the 7th, (labor day) we had Andy and Shalee and kids over for a little get together/party. We just had lunch together and cake and ice cream, pretty low key. Then the next day, his real birthday we had another little family party that night. I was literally blowing up balloons while I was driving in the car, and making his candy poster in the car while waiting for Bryn's dance class. It was a busy day, but we did it. That night we had all his favorite foods for dinner: steak, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and pretzel rolls. And of course brownies and ice cream for dessert. (2 nights in a row of dessert!! ) I gave up on buying this guy gifts long ago. So he went and picked himself up a remote control helicopter the night before, and the kids helped me wrap it and he pretended to be surprised when he opened it that night. :) He's a hard one to please, and very particular, so he gets to pick out his own gifts. It doesn't sound very romantic, but after almost 10 years of dreading holidays, trust me this is the best situation. We sure love this guy and all he does for us. I hope he knows how much he means to all of us.

I ended up having to buy each of them 2 pairs of shoes for their one dance class, which made me so mad I nearly withdrew them! I was certainly not planning on that cost when I signed them up. Lesson learned. But they sure do have fun click-clacking around the house in their little tap shoes and mismatched socks. These two are quite a pair. :)

New instruments!! Brynlee has started taking violin lessons, and Tyler has started on the cello. I'm very excited to watch them learn and develop their talents in music. Hopefully it'll help Brynlee with her ability to focus too :).

Our chickens are laying an average of 8 eggs a day, which is a lot! We've sold about 4 dozen, and hope to find some regular customers because it's more than we can do. We often have eggs for breakfast, or german pancakes, or a frittata for an easy Sunday dinner.

One Friday morning this was taking place...Tyler was dissecting owl pellets, leftover from CC. They all did it in their class, but they had some extras and Tyler was more than willing to bring them home! It was awfully gross, but pretty cool too as they were able to identify lots of different bones and even found some whole skulls! Bryn loved it too, of course. Speaking of Brynlee, below she is building a rabbit "trap". There were 3 little rabbits always hopping around in the bushes at the end of our street. Brynlee really wanted to catch them because she was worried they wouldn't survive the winter. So she worked hard making this little trap (complete with a window covered in saran wrap) and even put in lettuce and carrots inside. Daddy was nice enough to walk down the street with her to help her set it up. He decided to check with the neighbors just to be sure, and lo and behold it's their bunny rabbits! So we weren't able to catch them after all. Not that I thought it was going to work, but Bryn as pretty deflated. We were wondering why they just let them roam free, always hopping back and forth across that road. I had to stop multiple times to avoid hitting them. The other day one of the black ones was dead on the road, so that serves them right for not taking care of them. Bryn would have done a much better job. :)

Tyler's been in soccer. Practice every Thursday night, which I do because Kenny's gone doing visits, and games on Saturdays. He loves it. It's literally raining almost every single time they play. So in some of the pictures I have him wearing his coat underneath his jersey. It's just so cold. A lot of the kids don't even wear under armor and they're freezing! He's having a great time though and improving. He really loves this sport.

 Raking leaves as a family. Bryn and Madi were really getting into it, they thought it was the best job ever!

 Above: We go on a walk every Sunday unless it's pouring rain. They're putting in new roads and selling off all the lots just down the street from us so there will be lots of new construction soon!
Below: Every day I read a chapter from our family read aloud. Right now we're reading Caddie Woodlawn. It's a fabulous book! Bryn likes to practice braids and twists and what not in my hair while I read.

I was released from my calling in Cub Scouts as the Wolf Den leader, and put in as the Secretary in primary. But because they haven't filled this calling, I'm doing both. I don't dislike scouts, but I will be glad when they find a replacement :).

One last thing: this past Friday, the 25th, Kenny and I had planned all week on going to the temple. We had arranged with Andy and Shalee to watch our kids so we could go. I rearranged Tyler's popcorn selling (a fundraiser for cub scouts) and had someone fill in for him, etc. We worked our whole day around it. I took the kids in a little early to Anchorage so we could go to the library for a bit. Then we picked up Kenny from work, grabbed some pizzas for everyone to eat, dropped the kids and pizza off and drove down to the temple, scarfing Subway down quickly. Then we got there and it was CLOSED. This is not the first time this has happened to me. It made me so mad! I should've learned my lesson the first time and always check online before working my whole week around a temple trip. It's very frustrating how few sessions there are to choose from anyway, and then all the dang maintenance days make it that much harder to attend. Anyway. We ended up going right back to the Weston's and hanging out with them for the evening. While we were there, Kenny and Andy were working with Briggs to walk using mini M&M's and he took his FIRST STEPS! Everyone was there cheering for him and we were all so excited. It was so cute. Hopefully he'll pick it up quickly. On the way home we very nearly hit a moose. It was quite scary how close it came, actually. Thankfully Kenny saw it coming out of the corner of his eye and slammed hard on his brakes. It was a huge male moose with very big antlers and would've been quite a collision. He just kept running straight across and up the other side of the road. It was scary but I'm so grateful that nothing happened. We felt very blessed. Plus the kids thought it was awesome :).
I'm sure there's lots more I'm forgetting, but I'd better stop there. September's been good to us. Except for all the rain, but I guess we've had it coming...