Happy Birthday Mason and Welcome Home Elder Young!

August 31 was a big day for our family! Not only did Mason turn 1, we also got to welcome TJ home from the Taichung Taiwan Mission (a.k.a. "The" mission). We love you boys!

Hula Hooping

Hallie is a hard worker. When she sets her mind to learning something she can be very determined until she figures it out. She recently set her sights on hoola-hooping, she put the time in and she is now a champion Hula-Hooper! At least in our minds. I'm especially impressed by this new talent as hula hooping is something I've never quite been able to figure out... She has also been determined to learn all of the Articles of Faith and is now working on #12!

Budding Photographer

Jake is impressivly good at using our camera. The pictures he takes are, well, artistic. I literally have hundreds of pictures of his toys, our furniture, and his hands now saved on my computer. This is him insisting on taking the camera from me, and then a little sample of his work--

Sports

Kyle, Trisha and I did the Jordanelle Triathlon together at the end of August. This first one is a self-portrait of Trish & I in the car on the way up to the race. The answer is no, we didn't coordinate the cheesy grin--it just happened. Yes, we're definitely sisters.

And here is Kyle crossing the finish line--Chariots of Fire music should be playing in your head. I enjoy the challenge and sense of accomplishment I feel competing in these races, but I really really love that its something Kyle and I (and Trisha, of course) do together.



Hallie had her first taste of organized sports this past month. Her team name was the Stars and we had a lot of fun watching them play. I was amazed by how aggresive some of those girls were! Future Real stars, right here in Spanish Fork. Hallie was darling to watch and never got tired of running. Occasionally she would get distracted watching her hair swish back and forth in her shadow and forget to follow the pack around, but for the most part she did great and had a lot of fun. I particularly like the second picture. Her coach is trying to give the team a pep-talk but Hallie is too busy twirling. I love her!



And the highlight of any good soccer game is the treat at the end. We learned very quickly to pack an extra Capri Sun for Jake in order to avoid a scene.

First Day of School!!!

Here's Hallie on her very first day of Kindergarten!!!! Dropping her off that first day was definitely a bittersweet moment. But it was hard to stay too sad seeing how much she loved being there and how excited she is to go every day.

Jake still insists on taking Hallie to school and walking her all the way into her classroom every single day. He wears his own backpack (full of cars) and then comes home pulls out all of his cars and watches the movie Cars. He has done this every single day since school started. He's quite a character.

Hallie is very excited about having two of her best friends, Bethany and Ellie in her class.

Family Home Evening

A few days before school and soccer started we went over to Hallie's new playground to play and to practice soccer. Here are a few highlights...

When I was in Elementary School I loved playing soccer and playing on the bars at recess. As her mom I felt I had a responsibility to show Hallie how it was done. Yeah, I still got it....sort of :)

Taking the training wheels off!

Here's Hallie and Kyle working on riding her 2-wheeler. She hasn't quite mastered it yet but we're getting there!

Welcome to the world Brenna!

Jeff and Alisha had little baby Brenna on August 1!! They are slowly adjusting to the world of dresses, pink onesies, and glued-on bows. And Kevin and Ryan seem thrilled to be big brothers.

Summer Highlights

Here are a few more pics taken this summer that were too fun not to post...like Princess Hallie all dressed up and ready to go to McKinley's princess birthday party!One of the kid's favorite summer activities is invading Jeff & Alisha's kiddie pool at least once a week. Jake and Ryan had matching swim shirts this year. Mason preferred sitting under the shower to splashing in the pool.

Swim Lessons

I taught swim lessons this summer one day a week. The best part of my day was always swimming with my kids at the end.

Fiesta Days!

Hallie, Jake & Mason watching the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days parade:

"Camping"

We loved getting a chance to go camping with the Goos, Haggards & Glahns this year. The accomodations were deluxe but we did sleep in tents so I guess that can still be considered camping. The little kids had fun on the playground and the paddle boats and the big kids enjoyed the zip line and the gourmet kitchen. Mostly though we all enjoyed getting a chance to spend time with good friends!

Happy Birthday Hallie!!!

Hallie turned 5 this year!!! As usual her birthday was an all out Birthday-Marathon-Extravaganza. Who's idea was it to have her on the 4th of July anyway?? After getting her chocolate chip pancake in bed (courtesy of her Daddy) we loaded up and went boating with my family. After that we went to my parents for a huge 4th of July BBQ lunch/Hallie's birthday party. The kids got a couple hours of down time and then we went up to BYU to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. It was a fun day but when we finally rolled into our garage at 1 am we wondered what in the world we were thinking...

Here are a few of the picture highlights...

Helping Mommy with the dishes

This can't be good for the dishwasher...

Just chillin'

I took my car into the shop for an oil change the other day, this is the kiddies waiting in front of the shop for a ride.

Family Foto

I was trying to find a recent pic of all three kids the other day to put in a frame and realized that I didn't have any. So, Kyle & I set out to try and capture one. We set them up on our neighbors lawn and got off to a rough start...In Jake's defense, he was really sick that day.Finally we decided that by putting them on the couch and turning on a Baby Einstein we could at least get them all sitting together and looking in the same direction. We gave them a couple of days off and some new 4th of July clothes and decided to try again! Once again, it didn't start well.We finally got one! I think they just realized they weren't going to get out of this until I got some smiles. And hey, 2/3 aint bad!