Summer in September

September has been unseasonably HOT. It has been a little miserable being pregnant in the heat/humidity and I am so ready for cold weather. BUT, we tried to make the most of it. The pool is closed now, but we were able to set up the slip and slide, which was really fun. We never got a chance to do that this summer, so it worked out.

Daddy Daughter Campout

Jeremy took the girls to our ward Daddy Daughter camp-out two weekends ago. He had decided beforehand not to stay over, since we had a soccer game fairly early the next morning, and the girls are young and would be exhausted and cranky if they stayed up really late with a bunch of older girls (he would have just taken Anna if they stayed over). This ended up being a great choice since our mold fiasco happened that same weekend! So instead, he took the girls to Wendy's for dinner for a date - high class - and then over to the camp, since it didn't start until 6:30. It was at a couple's house in our ward that has a really big property with several ponds and woods. Apparently they had a great time! Anna took off with a bunch of other girls and Grace poked around outside - her happy place - with lots of older girls giving her attention. They came home around 8:30 and got to bed at a semi-decent hour.

Since I usually do something fun with the girls when the boys go on the Father Son campout, I wanted to do the same thing with the boys. We ended up trying out a pizza place that has gluten free pizzas (score!!!) and it was delicious! It was fun to spend some time with them. They especially liked the paper tablecloths we could draw on. We all got our own little individual pizzas and they were super tasty. Connor got pepperoni and pineapple, Eli got pepperoni, pineapple and jalapenos, and I got a yummy veggie one with spinach, garlic, artichokes and feta. Yum!

 After, we came home and had some ice cream and then they killed me in Battleship. Seriously. I barely had two of their ships when they won. It was a bit embarrassing, and they loved it of course. :) It was a fun night for everyone!

Grace is 18 months!

Oh Grace. She sure has us all wrapped around her little finger. With three siblings 3 years and more older than her, she has lots of attention and admirers.

Grace is really growing up lately. She is communicating more and more, though still not saying very much. She does say "Mama", "Dada", "baby", "all done", and lots of other things we can't understand. She also does signs for more, all done, birdie, and eat.

Grace has been loving all the baby dolls lately. She snuggles them and holds them and it's totally adorable. Occasionally she'll bring one with her to bed too. It's very sweet.

Grace is slowly getting out of the destructive phase. She doesn't empty cupboards and drawers just for fun as often as she used to (although she still does, and she loves the dishwasher contents), so we are enjoying that.

Grace loves to eat but has recently become very picky, which is frustrating. She still wants to eat a lot, but she often doesn't want what we offer her, so it's a fun little guessing game!

She is a total ham and knows to smile whenever we pull the camera out! She also loves to run and be chased. One of her favorite things is to line up with the other kids and have me say, "1,2,3, Go!" and have them all race. She thinks that's the best.

Grace's hair is finally growing! I can put it in one or two little piggies now (although she often pulls one out if I do two) and she looks so much older with her hair done! She's not sure how she feels about flower clips in her hair, but we're getting there.

Grace is also quite the fashionista. She is often wearing someone else's shoes and finds great enjoyment in that, along with trying on sunglasses. Here she is wearing both Anna's shoes and sunglasses.

Grace went to nursery all by herself for the full time on Sunday and it was awesome! She ran right in and was excited to go play. I'd taken her in a couple time before with me staying, so I wasn't sure how she'd do, but she was fine! As you can see, Grace is a happy girl most of the time. She loves her siblings and they all love her. We love you Gracie!

New Carpet!

We decided awhile back to get new carpet in our family room. Our house is about 13 years old now, and the family room is obviously the most used. The owners before us also had a dog and there were a lot of carpet stains in the family room that wouldn't come up (even with professional cleaning), not to mention it was just really thin and worn. Going to my parents' and sister's new homes and feeling their soft new carpet sealed the deal and made me finally start looking into it more seriously. We knew if we eventually move it will be a good thing to have done anyway, so we might as well get to enjoy it now! After shopping around, we found a good place that had the carpet we liked with a few colors in stock, so we went ahead and scheduled the installation. They came last Friday and moved the furniture and started ripping up the carpet when they found this:

 The dreaded black mold! They said we should probably get it taken care of before they put in the new carpet, so I called Jeremy in a panic (this was Friday morning around 10am), and he said he'd leave soon and stop at Lowe's on his way home and get it taken care of. The guys were super nice and said they would clear out all the tack strips, clean up the room and put the couches back for the weekend and come back Monday morning. We thought it would be a quick fix, but we were mistaken...

 Jeremy ripped off the window sill where we now noticed some signs of leakage and then started taking off the sheet rock to see the extent of the mold.

 He had to keep going quite a ways to find the end of it...

All the way up the side of the window to the top.

 Our family room became a war zone. He ended up having to cut out the 2x4s all along the side of the window and underneath and then replace them, along with the insulation and sheet rock. It was quite the ordeal! Jeremy was a champion and worked endlessly most of Friday and Saturday. Our ward had a Daddy Daughter campout Friday night, so he still went to that with the girls (they didn't stay over) and then we had a soccer game on Saturday, but other than that he was working! I even mowed the whole lawn on Saturday since he needed to be doing this. He luckily only had a little bit to do Sunday night, since we are big on keeping the Sabbath Day holy. The kids were really concerned about him working on Sunday, so we read them the scripture in Matthew 12 about the sheep in the pit, and explained that this was a unique circumstance that needed to get taken care of. It's not healthy for us to breathe in that black mold and we wanted to get it all taken care of before the carpet guys came back and the rain came back in a couple days.

 We got up really early Monday morning to discover that the paint I got late Saturday night did not match. I got the right color but I got a different brand, hoping to save time by going to a closer store, but it backfired. I decided I would get the boys off to school and then run to Ace Hardware to get the right paint, come back, and finish it up in time for the carpet guys to come at 9:30. Well, then I went to get Connor up and found him throwing up...

 There's always something, right? Haha. Well, being the awesome mother that I am, I stuck to my original plan and Connor and the girls and Connor's barf bowl came with me to the store. He threw up on the way there and on the way back (I let he and Anna stay in the car while I ran in - it's a really small store in a small area) and then I promised him he could lay down the rest of the day. He continue throwing up every 15 minutes or so for the next few hours and I got the painting done! Poor baby. He was a good sport. I finished it up and hammered the baseboard back in place about 15 minutes before the guys showed up. Whew!

 At one point I couldn't find Grace and then discovered her hijacking Connor's spot. Haha! She was just laying there quietly just like Connor had been. Silly goose.

 The kids were entertained watching them install the new carpet.

 And now it's done! Woohoo! It's a similar color to our last carpet. I probably would have liked something a little darker, but they only had three colors in stock - two light and one really dark brown, so being the cheapskate I am I picked one instead of special ordering. We're happy it blends with the rest of the carpet in the house though so it doesn't look too different. It has two colors in it too so it hides dirt really well and it's super soft and longer (all hard things to tell in this picture). We love it! Everyone has been on the floor much more lately and every time we walk onto it we are so happy we did it. And so glad our wall is taken care of!

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was an odd mix of weather. Friday and Saturday were chilly - like 50s and 60s chilly and raining, and then Sunday and Monday were warm and sunny. So we did a variety of things! Jeremy had Friday off, so we ran all over town looking at carpet, going to Costco, etc. and then I can't remember what we did that night...but then Saturday we did our usual chores and then had a fire in the firepit that night and roasted marshmallows. It was still a little drizzly but it was fun.

 Anna doesn't like the smoke so she sat waaay far away.

 Mmmm, perfection.

 Sunday we ended up having the missionaries over last minute. They texted me asking how to bake potatoes in the oven, so I told them and then just invited them to come over and they were more than happy to accept! That was our third time in a week having them! They are great though and stayed quite awhile and shared a nice message with us.

 Monday we were extremely lazy. Jeremy's mom sent him this awful puzzle for his birthday, and the kids had been begging for us to do it, so we finally busted it out on Monday morning and spent way too much time working on it!

 Anna worked on gathering the "letters" and she took all these next pics...

 She's a pretty good photographer!

 That afternoon we went to the pool for the last time! And then Jeremy grilled us up some seriously delicious turkey and veggie burgers. They were so tasty! It was a great relaxing weekend!