Summing up September

A few fun things and not so fun things happened in September.  

Abby still takes one good long nap a day.  And she still loves to snuggle.  Or "get loves".  She loves to sit out on the grass and say hello to our neighbor the horse.  

Ella and I are working on having cute hair every day. I think it is so important to have hair done very day.  Ella also got bit by a spider.  This picture doesn't even look bad.  IT WAS BAD!  It got super infected. We went to the doctor. They had to cut it open and get all the puss out.  I didn't like having my daughter scream and cry.  we had three of us holding her down.  The fever was intense but the medicine helped almost immediately.  

Tyler started mowing one section of our grass.  He needs a new propelled mower if he is going to do more.  Its a very heavy mower!  And I loved this picture.  All three kids helping do the dishwasher.  YEAH!  Abby wants to do anything and everything that Tyler and Ella are doing.  

Abby is my stay at home buy. This picture made me smiles.  She got her baby wipes, a diaper and some Desitin.  Along with a bib.  She wanted to be a mommy!

Tyler turns 9 years old!

We haven't figured out yet how to celebrate birthdays.  Do you have a birthday party every year.  Do you only invite so many friends.  It gets hard when you have church friends, new house friends, old house friends, school friends and cousins.  

So we kept it simple.  

Hot dog roast in the back yard.  Lots of cheese balls which I totally love! and some soft toy fighting.  We had some rain so no out door movie, but we played outside glow stick night games between the rain showers.  Then all the kids went downstairs and watched the Lego movie in the unfinished basement.  The night was simple and a success.  You only have  birthday once a year, so make them feel special.

My mom came over the night before and brought Tyler a huge donut.  It was delicious.  I mean... He loved it!  Happy Birthday to our smart, thinking, reading, lego loving active 9 year old.  We love you Tyler.  

City of Rocks

Me and my stay at home buddy- Abby, packed up for a nice weekend in City of Rocks.  (Every time Abby sees a bug she lays down on the ground and looks at it really close and says BUG!)  We packed up Darrens truck and picked up the kids from school and headed out.  Darren had to work Friday so we left him behind.  (Ang brought him up the next day)  But I felt pretty good setting up the tent with my kids.  (especially knowing the rain storm was going to come back).  We had Little Caesars (cold) pizza for dinner because I knew I couldn't do three kids and set up a tent AND dinner.  Great experience on ... yes I can do it!

We drove through some major dust storms, rain storms, thunderstorms and saw some terrible accidents.  BUT we said a prayer and made it safely.  We left the storm behind us and drove into the hidden valley of City of Rocks.  The sun was shining and everything was cloudy and misty.  (the camera just couldn't capture it!)  This hidden gem is so amazing.  A kids paradise for climbing around on rocks all day long. 

These two are upside down in a rock.  And I was lying on the ground under them.  

There was great climbing by all the kids.  Some by adults but more so by kids.  They all left feeling a little more excited about climbing.

Steve and Ang were our master chefs.  We had so much good food.  The LaRivieres, the Hyldahls, the Howells, the Ang and Steve crew, and us.  Good times.

Trip to Cross Vegas with Darren... FINALLY!

Darren went to Cross Vegas-  (a weekend full of bikes, retailers and riding/seeing all the bike gear) many years ago.  Since then we have tried to make it down.  Two years ago he had to fly home from it  immediately because we had a family scare.  The year after that he was hit by a driver who was on her phone ... so we had to cancel that trip. SOOOO this year was our year.  We were going to make it no matter what.  

THEN!!!

The freeway washed out.  Yep.  Seriously!  Heavy rains, mass flooding and when we were two hours away from Las Vegas they detoured us 7 hours, but at least they let us through.  The trip was so long and so slow because it was the ONLY road that went to Las Vegas that at one point I even got out and ran for a few miles.  The cars were moving slow enough! Semi trucks were pulled over and parked on the roads for several days.  Just waiting to get through.  

But we made it .. to most of the event anyway.  No kids. Bikes. Husband. Warm weather.  We had a great time.  We were just glad we weren't these folks who had about 8 miles of stopped traffic trying to get through the one open road!