September 2017

September was another rough month for me, and Mom and Dad came down again to help us out. What would we do without them?!

Dave and Dad spent several days welding and building some metal shelving for our storage room in our basement. We have a curved wall down there, making things complicated, but the shelving turned out great. Thanks Dad for the help!

We also got to celebrate Grandpa's birthday while he was here. I didn't have the right numbers for his candles, so he got a 42 + 17 single candles. ;-)

Cole is still busy with karate.

Lexi started soccer in September for the first time. She is still working on building up her running stamina, but she loves playing and is getting better each week. This girl is up for anything.

Grandma brought play-dough molds this time, keeping everyone happy and busy.

Painting rocks outside was also a favorite activity this month.

We had lots more zucchini from our garden in September, so we tried a new zucchini cookie recipe (basically frosted oatmeal cookies with zucchini). They were a hit!

Cole's first grade school picture:

Lexi's Pre-K school picture:

August 2017

August is a beautiful time of year here in Colorado. Sunflowers and other wild flowers were blooming all over our property and the kids had a blast making bouquets for me. I made Dave hold off on mowing the grass until they were done blooming -I couldn't stand the idea of cutting them down!

I am pregnant with baby #4, and August was a tough month for me. My mom came down to help out with the kids for a couple weeks during the worst of it. She is a saint! As always, they had a blast together, and even squeezed in one last zoo trip before school started.

Grandma came with a bag full of  fun craft ideas, including these cute puffer fish.

Dress-up never gets old.

This is how I spent most of my month - cuddling with Clara in my bed. She is like a little puppy dog, never leaving my side when I don't feel well.

Our make-shift garden actually started producing! After the late snow this spring (which killed all of our original garden), we replanted the few seeds we had left. We harvested quite a few peas, cherry tomatoes and squash. Dave even got a few raspberries off of his plants this year!

Cole was excited for school to start. He lost two teeth at school on his first day of first grade!

Lexi was excited to start preschool too, although we had a couple false starts. I was given some misinformation and we went to school twice on the wrong day. Third time was a charm though! Of course Clara wanted her picture taken with big sister.

Lexi has been doing a gymnastics class for the last while, and she loves it. She's one strong girl! Bar is her favorite so far.

Daddy took the kids to the primary carnival, and they had a blast painting rocks, playing games, getting their face painted and eating lots of treats.

We also celebrated Dave's 37th birthday the end of August.

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and father!

Cole was particularly proud to gift him a collection of original art work crafted especially for him.