fall 2016

SCHOOL time! Cal started Pre-K and is doing so great, it was for sure the right choice to let him be the oldest versus sending him as the youngest to kindergarten. His teachers love him and his classmates are always so excited to see him when I drop him off (late usually, eye roll.) There's a kid named Dreagon (like Dragon but Dray-gon) and he's obsessed with him. Of course Cal plays it cool and says he's creepy. "What's creepy about him?" "His face." He makes up elaborate tall tales about how Dreagon has died, come back to life, died again. He enforces our "best and worst" tradition at dinner time where we all share the best and worst part of the day. He refuses to go first but instead listens to what we say and copies, elaborates, embellishes, spices it up for his own use. Like, Hayes got 12 right on his spelling test, so Cal got 1200 right.

Hayes is in first grade and loves spelling, using his vocab words in a sentence (you are astonishing at being a mom, mom. // I will tolerate it. // I rely on you // He is crazy smart, in the top group of his class for reading, I think there's one kid that reads better than him. He is super interested in math and always asking Russ or I for equations. I had to teach him to carry the one before his class got to it because he wanted bigger and bigger numbers. Common core math is nuts and will probably teach him something insane anyway. Of course he comes home so tired after full days of school but is still so social and wants to play more even after he's beat, so his moods after school have been our only negative side to school. When Hayes is tired he gets mean, its the saddest because he is always so sweet otherwise.

We had a staycation in Park City for my work, A fun pumpkin patch for Halloween, Russ and I went to Vegas for our anniversary, we found our favorite park and went there weekly sometimes twice a day. Threw a big party Halloween for the community in Provo, went as Pokemon (Jigglypuff, Pikachu, Ash Ketchum, Diggersby and a Pokeball.) Of course Cal picked a total lesser known, no namer Pikachu. It was fun trying to make that costume, I think one older kid at his school knew he who he was. Went dress shopping for Bethany's wedding coming up in February. Did Thanksgiving at the Waldorf Astoria with my mom and brother.

This year has been so intense, just more on our plates than ever before. You know when you get cold and you instinctively bring your arms to your chest to try and retain some heat. I feel like I've done that figuratively. I have simplified in every way possible without dropping balls. I find myself caring a lot less about the things I used to dwell on which I feel grateful for because so many of those things just didn't matter. This new year will be about making more of a intentional effort to construct new things to invest my time and energy into. Right now its just taking care of kids and getting my to-do list done and of course I would like to care about other things than that. ;)

First day of first grade! Hayes with August and Porter:

 First day lunch! I went and met him at school and he was so big sitting there already eating.

Walking in- Liz snapped this since he said he didn't need me to come, he hopped on the bus and that was it!

His class!

Miss Hull - SUCH a sweetheart. She has been so great for him. He is super smart but she doesn't let him get away with simple mistakes she's always pushing him to be better which I love!

Still got lots of swimming in until it closed on Memorial Day!

Hike to Battlecreek

Cal's first day! Pre K!

Weekend getaway to Zermatt!

 OCTOBER
sleepy babe

Halloween fun 

 We did a TMNT shoot for Small Fry - this one of Raleigh kills me!

 Priesthood session beauty night with hayes ;) // Ikea to meet Anna and her kids. Love them all!

 We found a park in Orem called Cascade with a zipline and crazy features. We went sometimes twice a day, they LOVE it!

 Anniversary dinner with the fam! Tucanos was a new fave for the boys // Looked back at Cal and he was wearing these and had cleaned them with about 6 armor all wipes.

Pumpkin patch // Get out games with the buddies. It was hilarious 

 More cascade. It was the prettiest most warm Fall ever. We were outside late into November.

Halloween Parades! They go to different schools and the parades were within 20 minutes of each other. STRESS! Caught them both though. Hayes was Ash Ketchum and Cal picked Diggersby and Pokemon no one has ever heard of. ;)

 Halloween! We threw a party for Small Fry with 200 kids, it was CRAZY but fun. We also had a casino night with friends. Russ' fave!

More Raleigh. I have like thirty photos of the same poses and I love all his faces so much. I need flip books.

Dress shopping with Bethany! So much fun // Hayes reading to Raleigh. They're such good little buddies

Another park. We started going to parks Sunday mornings because 1 pm church is THE WORST. Made my Sundays so much better. They discovered rock paper scissors and do it for any reason and both cheat.

Alison's birthday dance party - I made a table for myself to lay on Alison style. // The boys pumpkins. Bet you could've guessed whose was who. ;) 

Thanksgiving! Russ has wanted to do this forever and I finally caved. Dinner out! We went to the waldorf astoria in park city it was way good! It's weird to not eat the traditional meal my mom's side makes but it was so stress free! Perfect since we knew we were putting our house on the market the next week.

Raleigh eating literally anything he can get his hands on. He LOVES food. We do lots of table food and some purees too. He doesn't discriminate.

Post dinner! It was a beautiful wonderful Fall! Next up stressful Winter! As of today (12.26) we have a couple offers on the house hopefully we'll be heading somewhere to rent while Russ builds our HOUSE!! Fingers crossed.

Just something awful that I figured I might want to remember -- two punks broke into Bijou at 2:30 am Friday night. It was so devastating. Telling the vendors, seeing their crestfallen (hyperventilating) faces when they realized they had lost merchandise to a couple drug dealing idiots. They came for our cash and iPads but those weren't on the property luckily. A few weeks ago though the cop let us know they caught BOTH of them! They had traded our merch for drugs he said, so we could only recover a few items but justice felt nice at least!