September Summary

An attempt at a family picture using the camera's self-timer feature

September has been a fun and busy month. Just about every weekend we have had some fun activity that we have gotten to participate in. I will try to cover the highlights in chronological order so that I don't forget anything.

Jaidyn's Birthday Party
The last weekend in August the kids and I travelled over to Georgia for the weekend to celebrate my adorable niece's first birthday. As usual Jaidyn's parents Leigh and Spencer threw a great party. Her cake was amazing, the food was great, the kids got balloon animals made (Trey has requested that we hire the crazy balloon lady to come to his party), the kids got to swim in the pool and we finished off the day by taking a quick trip to the Lake near their home. You really couldn't pack much more into a day, but we had a great time!

The beautiful birthday girl...she and Kendal could be sisters!

Bayley turning the kneeboard
Kendal was pumped she got up by herself on the kneeboard

We usually don't let Bayley leave the house with her hair this way

Trey was pumped he was brave enough to do the tube by himself
Adison loves dogs, so Grandma "G" is making friends with Buddy!
Adison loved the swing
The amazing birthday cake...we taxied the cake in the van...it was very nerve-racking!

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend we spent the 3 days at Lake Wedowee. Most of the wekend it was just our family, which was fun and relaxing. Saturday we did have an adventure on the lake. We decided to take out just one jet-ski and let the kids all ride on the back of the tube. We were having a great time until about 20 minutes into the fun our jet-ski died...it wouldn't start. We were stranded...all 6 of us a good distance away from the dock. Fortunately we were able to flag down another jet-skier who took Jeff back to the dock to retrieve our other jet-ski so that he could tow us back. While I was there stranded with the four kids, the girls took it upon themselves to see if they could pull the jet-ski through the water. They made decent progress but it probably would have taken at least a day to get back at the speed they were going. It didn't take long for Jeff to come to our rescue and we made it back safe and sound. We think the broken jet ski just had a low battery because when we took it out on Monday we didn't have any further problems. We did talk our good friend's the Dewsnups into joining us on Monday afternoon for some lake fun. It was fun hanging out with them and watching the kids jump back on the tubes over and over again for another beating. Hopefully it isn't the last weekend on the lake, but the way things are going it just might be(sadly).

The kids on the tube

Corrie was brave enough to ride with Brian

Grandma Nancy and Pawpaw Rick Visit

Last weekend Rick and Nancy (Jeff's step-dad and Mom) made the trip from Indiana to spend the weekend with us. My kiddos love having them here, even without Dixie their dog. We kept them busy and sent them home ready for a vacation from their vacation. Last Saturday was Kendal and Trey's first soccer games. It was an extremely hot and long morning, but despite the heat we had a good time. Kendal started out the soccer season by scoring 2 goals and leading her team to a victory. She is definitely one of the more skilled players in the league despite being one of the younger girls (she is the only 1st grader on her team, the rest are 2nd graders) She loves soccer and loves competition. It is fun watching her play. Jeff and I are helping to coach Trey's little soccer team. This is his first experience in organized sports, so our focus is to hopefully create a fun atmosphere that will keep him coming back for more. He is funny to watch. Most of the time he as well as 90% of the other kids in his league, have no idea what is going on. There are always one or two kids on the field that "get it" and seem to dominate. Last week there were 2 brothers who were all-stars. I didn't think Trey really was paying to close of attention, but after the game he commented that he heard one of the good players say that he practiced everyday at home. At that point, he said that he needed to practice everyday to get better. His highlight of the first game had to come when he totally pushed a kid over, bringing oohs and aahs from the parents in the stands. He was ready to cry but after a quick talk from his dad he got right back into the game.

After the games, we ate a quick lunch at home and then took Rick and Nancy to our summer hang out, Alabama Adventures. The park was not crowded at all and we enjoyed a couple of hours there. It was a long hot day, but we had a great time. We really are blessed to have such a great family and we are so glad when they come to visit!

Adison and Rick hanging out at the game

The girls hanging in the shade in between games

Trey and Daddy on the soccer field

Kendal waiting for the next big play

Bayley's way of enjoying the games
Adison and I at Alabama Adventures...still smiling after a long day!
Trey's broken butterfly....he loves bugs right now!
Kendal and Jeff skying high on the tube
> Adison and Bayley enjoying the cool water

This Weekend

We had plenty that went on the last couple of days as well. On Friday, Trey, Adison and I went and ate lunch with Bayley at school. She had her first big project of the year due on Friday so her teacher allowed us up to the room to take a peek at all of the completed projects. Bayley was of course my favorite. The assignment was to make a 3d replication of the animal she had been assigned to research, in this case a blood star. After talking about several different alternatives, I suggested that she decorate a cake to look like the blood star. She immediately fell in love with the idea and in the end did a great job decorating the cake. The class not 0nly loved looking at the unique project, but also they enjoyed eating the project as well.

Saturday was another morning filled with soccer games. Kendal again scored and continues to love everything about soccer. Trey continues to learn and vowed to practice more this week at home. After soccer, we met Grandma and Grandpa "G" at the Oxford Olive Garden for a early dinner to celebrate Grandpa's upcoming birthday. We had a great time eating with them and were glad that we got to see them even if it was only for a couple of hours. Jeff and I had stake conference on Saturday night, so we left the tired kids home with a sitter and enjoyed a nice evening together.
The beginning of the blood star decorating

1/2 of 18=9

9 years old

8 years old
7 years old

Bayley loves the water (6 years old)


5 years old

4 years old

2 years old

1 year old

I can't believe that Bayley turned 9 yesterday. She already acts a lot older than her age, but as someone kindly (or unkindly) pointed out the other day, with her turning 9 it means she has reached the 1/2 way point to what some consider adulthood. She is at the age where she wants to be older than she really is and Jeff and I keep telling her to enjoy her childhood and all of the great things about being a kid....hard to do when you spend the majority of your time focused on all the things you can't do because you are a kid. (I remember being that way too)

We celebrated Bayley's birthday this year by having a party for her friends on Friday night. Bayley loves to cook, so we decided to have a cooking party. She planned the menu of Lasagna, french bread, fruit kabobs, Oreo truffles and cupcakes. Each of the girls at the party made their own individual lasagnas, rolled out their own individual loaves of french bread, put together their own kabobs, rolled truffles and decorated their own large cupcakes. It was a busy evening, but I think all left very full and had a good time. We also played a couple of games including, chocoholic, taste testers, memory, and pop the balloon. It was an exhausting evening, but fortunately everything turned out.

Yesterday, for Bayley's actual birthday, we had a pretty relaxing day. She wanted Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast so we headed over to the local Krispy Kreme to watch donuts be made and indulge in my husband and kiddo's favorite breakfast treat. Grandma and Grandpa "G" made the trip from Georgia to spend the day with Bayley and us. We played an exciting game of Monopoly (the full version...only because it was Bayley's birthday), opened presents, and then went to Chick-fil-a for dinner. It was nice not having anything we had to do yesterday other than celebrate Bayley's birthday.Bayley blowing out the candles on the decorated cupcakes

The girls eating dinner

Decorating cupcakes




Here are a few things about Bayley at 9 years old:

• Bayley is in the 99th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight...she most likely will be a pretty tall girl. She continues to have beautiful blond hair that she insists that we keep long.


• Bayley just started the 4th grade and has loved the first few days of school. She really is a very responsible student and I love that she truly enjoys learning. She loves to read and never leaves home without a book or two in hand, just in case there will be some extra time to read.


• Bayley is very creative and uses her dancing, crafts, and designing as creative outlets. She is taking jazz and tap again this year and is excited about her new teachers. She also will start back with piano in September and will hopefully learn some more church hymns. She also loves to design clothing and got a very cool new design kit for her birthday.


• Bayley loves jewelry and earrings. She loves to accessorize and got some great new clothes for her birthday that she has already picked out "just the earrings" to go with them.
  
• Bayley is a good big sister. Her sisters and brother sure do look up to her and she does a pretty good job of including them in her play. Like all of us she needs some alone time, and so she loves having her own little hideaway in her bedroom.

We love Bayley and we are so glad that she is a part of our family!

A week of FIRSTS

We had a busy week filled with a lot of FIRSTS. In fact, everyone in our family had a FIRST something this week.

• Jeff experienced his first time at Alabama Adventures. The kids and I have enjoyed this amusement/water park all summer long. We had season passes and usually went a couple of times during the week throughout the summer. Jeff did not have a pass, so he just got to hear about all of the fun. Well, with our season passes we did get a couple of free passes that we could use during the months of August-October, so yesterday despite a drizzly morning we spent the afternoon at the amusement park. The kids loved showing their Dad all of the cool rides and taking him on all of the waterslides. I think we wore him out, but we had a great time. Because of the rain the park was not crowded at all, which made it even more enjoyable.




Bayley had her first day of 4th grade last week. She loves school and for the last month has complained that summer is too long....we told her that we were going to remind her that she said that in a couple of years. She has a great teacher, Mrs. Crowley, who is a fellow BYU grad and member of the church. Besides those great attributes, she is also known as a great teacher. Bayley loved the first 3 days of school and is looking forward to a great year.






Kendal had her first day of 1st grade last week. Her teacher is Mrs. Pirkle, who is one of her friend's mom. She was excited that she already knew her teacher and is excited about having a great school year. Kendal gave a talk in primary today at church. She is such a funny girl. We started practicing yesterday morning because she wanted to read the talk this time around. Well, she did a good job, but decided it was too long and she didn't want to read it. So this morning we decided that she would tell the story of Lazarus from memory for her talk. She wanted Jeff to stand by her in case she needed him, but other than that she seemed ready to go. Well, we get there to watch her give her talk and the first thing she says to Jeff is do you have the paper with the typed out story. She then proceeded to read the story, with the help of her dad. So much for planning!




Trey had his first 4th birthday this week (so maybe a stretch on the firsts, but we had to make it work with the theme). We had his party last weekend at the lake so we had already opened most of the presents before his birthday, but we did do some fun things on his actual birthday. His first request was Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast. Then we went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner that night. He had a great time with his family and a fun birthday. The rest of this week he has made sure to let everyone he sees know that he is now 4 years old. He is still such a fun kid who keeps us all laughing.














Adison finally got her first two teeth this week. I think she is my latest teether, waiting until 10 1/2 months to get her first tooth. She hasn't really complained at all about teething. It is funny that when we try to brush them or feel them she sticks her tongue out and covers them. She definitely hasn't let the lack of teeth slow her down from eating table food. She can gnaw just about anything we put in front of her. Tonight the kids were excited that they taught Adison a new trick (they are loving teaching her new things). We were eating cookies, which Adison of course liked, but before we would give her another bite we made her sign "more". It didn't take her long to figure it out and not only was she signing "more" but she was also saying it! She was loving her cookie and the kids were loving her new trick!


Finally, my first really starts tomorrow as I begin the journey of training for my first FULL marathon. Leigh, my sister-in-law, has talked me in to attempting to run the Memphis Marathon in December. I am excited about it and am ready to check running a full marathon off of my list of "thing to do". We found a training schedule where we only will have to run 4 days a week, with Saturdays being our long days. I'm sure the training will get old quickly, but crossing that finish line totally makes it worth it (at least I am hoping).

Adison is 10 months

Crawling
Being funny

So maybe I'm a couple of weeks late but before I miss the opportunity altogether I thought I would post about what Adison is doing is 10 months. About 3 weeks ago Adison started the move. At first you couldn't really call it crawling, but more of a sitting push, but she has now graduated into a full crawl and is getting faster everyday. She loves her new found freedom and I am now constantly scanning the floor for small items she could put in her mouth. She can pull up on furniture and will straighten her legs out while crawling into a push up position.

Adison continues to show us cute parts of her personality. She can be quite the ham. She feeds off her siblings and they are now excited that she is now mimicking some of their actions. She can bop it (dance), shake her head no, and do the "I don't know" with her hands. They all love playing with her...sometimes too much. But she definitely lets them know when she has had enough.

I am still nursing her, but she is becoming less reliant on me and almost too busy sometimes to really get anything out of it. She remains a great sleeper, just an early riser. She rarely sleeps past 6 am. She still needs two naps a day, but can sometimes skip one if we are busy without becoming too much of a bear. She is often forced to go with the flow with our busy schedule and sometimes will have to make do with a 20 minute nap in the car while we drive home. Thank goodness she is pretty flexible.

She enjoys table food much more than her baby food, but will tolerate it occasionally. The only thing slowing her down is that she still has ZERO teeth. The bottom two look like they could pop through anytime, but still no show as of 10 1/2 months. She is a good little eater and so far eats a good variety of foods. She kicks her feet to let you know if she wants what you are eating or drinking and if that doesn't work than she will resort to screaming.

We love our Adison at 10 months and are both sad and excited that she is getting older.

Hoosier State Fun!

Nancy and the kids

Last week we had the opportunity to visit Jeff's family in Indiana. We had a great time as usual spending time with his great family. The first couple of days we spent with Nancy and Rick. While we were there the kids rode bikes, did some crafts, played with their cousins Sydney and Jordan, and swam. They loved every minute. It was great to spend time relaxing with family and enjoying their great company. We also got to see Grandma Sara, Joanne, Michelle, Alex, Natalie, Jake, Jody, Marty, Lucille, Scotty and Jason. We always leave wishing we got to see them all more often. Probably the best way to really show everything we did is through pictures...here are a few! Thank goodness I meant to blog about this earlier this week, so my pictures from the trip were uploaded before I lost my camera yesterday. (see the post below)

Adison is another grandchild that loves the swing

Kendal was excited to be riding Sydney's big bike

This is how you keep a 10 month old happy after 7 hours in the car

The kids love the pool in Rising Sun

The babies are growing up

All of us at the pool...Jeff was out golfing with Marty

The last couple of days in Indiana we spent with Daryl, Terri, Erin, Grandpa Thornton, Grandma Thornton, Cheryl, Barry and Kelly. Once again the kids had a great time and wished they got to see everybody more often. The kids travelled pretty well both ways of the 8 hour ride to and from home. They watched lots of movies, ate lots of snacks, and rarely slept. It was a great trip and we hopefully will get to make another one up there during the holidays.

The kids loved playing with Champ

After eating with Grandpa Thornton

With Grandma Thornton at the Nursing Home

Not so Zoomerang

Tonight me and the three older kids headed out to Alabama Adventures to see a concert. We got there a little early so we decided to ride a couple of the amusement park rides. They have a couple of high thrill rides that we still haven't gone on this summer, so I decided to show my kids just how tough their mom was by jumping on the Zoomerang roller coaster. This coaster takes you upside down twice going forward, then reverses back taking you upside down twice going backwards. The good news: I survived the ride. The bad news: not only did I lose my camera, but I almost lost my dinner. I'm not quite as tough as I used to be. I am totally bummed about the camera. It must have slipped out of my pocket on one of the 4 loopty loops. However, I am still keeping my fingers crossed that maybe it slipped out on one of the earlier rides and maybe just maybe it will show up in the lost and found when I return on Monday. My camera has been a good camera...we've been together for over 2 years. There are a bunch of milestones and events coming up in the next couple of weeks where I will definitely need a camera, so if there is no camera on Monday I will be looking for a replacement next week. Definitely, not so zoomerang!