First Day of School and Such!

Oh man we’ve had a heck of a week! I guess I’ll tell the stories based on what pics I have...and try to be quick cuz it’s late and I’m tired...always. 

First the rest of our #BecauseofHim signs we did for the missionaries. 

And just a little evidence we did cut that cake! 

They each ate one piece and the rest of it is still in the fridge. Hmmm tomorrow will be a week, probably time to get rid of it...and when will I learn to just buy a single cupcake at Walmart a call it good? We’re just not big cake eaters. 

Sunday I don’t remember much...sometimes it’s a day of survival! I know our house was a disaster...”all things are done in cleanliness before the Lord” yeah we have done work to do! My cute friend Hailey (who we call Sister Harris because she was Cannons primary teacher) brought us some delicious homemade bread that the boys devoured. That was awesome! 

Monday...I took all 4 kids -with masks- to the store. why???????? Surely we didn’t need lunch stuff that bad but since school was starting I thought we did. And Tuesday it was back to school! 

Poor Cann we all hate those glasses but they were his only not broken pair day 1 and his new ones hadn’t come. He sure was happy later in the week when Isaac fixed his goggles. 

Tann rode in with dad that morning.

But he thought I would pick him up and take him to school-he didn’t realize he still had to wait until noon-it was a LONG few hours. 

But he survived it! And boys was he ready!!!

Both drop off and pick up were a nightmare but we’re figuring things out. Wednesday the Pettit’s invited over after school and Thursday we crashed their place again during Piano. Wed Cannon had football Thursday Colt did, so it was a busy couple of days. Crazy to go from nothing the last 6 months to so busy! 

Wednesday we hit up waffle cone Wednesday for and after school-back to school treat. 


Tuesday since school was in we hit up LaFuenta for chimichangas and a little lunch date-it’d been 6 months! While the food was delicious Seth was a bit of a handful (always) and I was super distracted with $500 in fraudulent credit card charges. I’d clicked dispute charges and called and canceled that card but they replied we were responsible for the “Lexington law” charges. I was very consumed with getting Isaac the info on that so he could deal with it. 

He put the papers in his pocket and paid and left. I got home and had missed his call-but didn’t realize it was from his work phone. He’d lost his phone. I think it fell out of his pocket because of the bulking paperwork and got ran over (he was on his motorcycle) he thinks maybe it got stolen, I think he just really wants to think or hope there will be a change he’ll get it back. He or greed a new one with 2 day shipping that night. Tonight still no phone (4 days is a long time without one but I like the lack of YouTube watching around here) we check-it’s two day shipping...when it becomes available end of September. Great. What a pain! Hopefully we can get that solved tomorrow. 🤞🏻

Today my helpers and I built a little shoe shelf and Colt was the star of the day at school-he drew the poster of himself. 



Seths just a goof that loves ALL shoes-especially ones that aren’t his. And a few phone pics from football...



Top left was ALMOST a catch-bottom left was a practice the day before he caught the first one and I thought phew he won’t hate it. Top right was Cann playing QB and bottom right is so far away but zoom in that’s the Colt man scoring a touchdown! It was awesome! 

We got a flat tire on they way home but we’ll deal with later. 

Busy week! 

But a good one! 

Happy Birthday Colt!

Holy Cow he’s 7!!!! We’ve had a fun day. Maybe too much fun for one day. Ha. 

We’ve tried to shove as much fun as possible into the last week of summer. We hit the wading pool with friends and the beach. We had a couple slow days when Cann had a stomach bug but we seem to have survived. 

Last Saturday we started fun family day with jumping on the tramp. All was well until Colt and Tanner cracked heads. Whoops. Ouch.

Next plan-rollerblading at the church parking lot. 

You can see from the pics the trip was only marginally successful. 

That evening we had a little family project replacing the ceiling fan in our room. 

It turned out great, we should’ve done it a long time ago. It went well so I think we’re try the boys next. 👍🏻

A few random pics before the birthday onslaught: 

Poor Sethy bit his tongue. Then just playing 



Colt made us a Title of Liberty 😊

My artist making his own art cake. 

Today we had more fun than we had time for! 

Colt put the finishing touches on his cake, we had presents, piano lessons, met teachers and headed to beach Ottumwa with friends! Such a good day capped off with pizza and ice cream! (Truth be told are going to have to cut that birthday cake tomorrow.) 

And we were supposed to do this for the missionaries a while ago-whoops

Better late than never! 



Bout it. Well maybe it’s not it but I’m SUPER tired—so I’m done. 

Oh man—the short version is we made it home! 

I’m not sure what the long version is...but if you’re brave enough to keep reading you’ll find out! 

Hmm

Let’s see, I blogged last Sat so that should take us to Sunday. We took a walk around the temple it was AWESOME! We ran into  the parents of a missionary that had served here. That was cool! The senior missionaries were so fun telling us stories. We’d seen the hawk before (not this time) but Elder Hadley showed us its nest and told us it was a cooper hawk (the boys have since looked them up) I’ve never hiked the sandstone quarry trail-maybe next time it was too hot Sunday. We got to see clear through the temple—it was a great little adventure! 

My kids love to go to Grama and Grampa’s house but I assure you it’s the people they are after! The wait for Sunday evening almost killed them. At lunch Colt said “is this lunch or dinner?” I answered “lunch” to which he moaned “I wanted it to be dinner so we didn’t have to wait as long for Grama and Grampa to come!” And Tanner told us we’re not in charge at their house we’re just the “bo-wing ode pa-wents” 🤣

Thanks Tan 

The good news is they made it- the good times were rolling again! 

Monday we went swimming over at Aunt Celia’s- so fun, everyone loved saying “hi” to Captain too and Uncle Jim checked Colts orthotics! 👍🏻 

On the way back Grama took the kids and Isaac and I just had Seth. First thing he said “we better get you some food” let me translate what he meant for you “I’m hungry and I don’t want sandwiches at your moms house” ha! True! He’s so funny he would NEVER say that...but trust me. We would have gotten food way faster by just going home but he we waited it out. Hey Grama had most of our kids-we’ll call it a date! That afternoon Grampa Colt and Tan took a cow and went to Shoal Creek. They got to work in their fort a little. Cannon just gets stubborn and digs his heels in and won’t go. It’s annoying but in a way good for the other boys. Cannons the decision maker and the other boys defer to him so with out him they were stumped. Oh well. I think they had fun. 

We were supposed to go to Paula’s that night because A: I’d been craving it the whole week prior when we were with his side of the family and B: We found out his paper got accepted!!! That’s huge! It doesn’t mean we’ll get Tenure but it at least makes it a possibility now. Anyway Isaac chickened out on taking all the kids to the restaurant so we got takeout instead. Bla! Not the same! Actually later this week we had a little run in but one of the things I learned is by me naturally trying so hard to be a pleaser-because that’s what I like to do- I inadvertently turn him into a little bit of a “tyrant” That might not be the right word but it makes it seem like he has to have his way. I shouldn’t care. What should’ve happened was me tell him to go jump in a lake we were going but he didn’t have to come. But I didn’t and certainly my parents couldn’t say that. So blah whatever dinner was eh but it’s not the end of the world. And maybe eventually I’ll learn to say what I want instead of just try to please him...surely there’s a balance-I just need to figure it out! 

Anyway even though it was late and quickly getting dark we went to the feed yard to shoot. We were trying to squeeze as much fun as possible in. Technically it was a little more but it really only felt like we got a zooming by 24 hours there! 
Tuesday Cannon had an eye appointment that took forever  and Isaac found some disaster with the trailer -bearings or something...not totally surprising, you’ve seen that thing right? It might be held together with a prayer. Huge mess, he (and Seth) Covered head to toe in grease. We were glad he checked it but it took all morning and then some, that left me scrambling to pack and load. We had planned to leave at noon at 2 we were still there. Getting out of there was a mess (the correct term might be fight but let’s just smile and pretend all was well...I can say that since thankfully the dust has settled😉) 

Anyway we hit the road. The drive is Soooo long, we hate that part. And just before I70 we saw a sign that said it was closed in Colorado. We turned on anyway while we looked it up-totally closed cuz of a fire. So we climbed that first hill but then found the first exit possible at head back to I15 to go the northern route. So glad we did!!! The  road stayed closed the whole night and at least part of the next day. To go i80 added a little time but only an hour or so and was kinda nice to have a change of scenery. We stopped in Evanston to grab food (the boys and I were starving by then) and dumped Cannons motorcycle off the trailer. Whoops. We’re kindof just a comedy of errors most of the time. Isaac and I both at different times tried to pacify Seth with a piece of chocolate and he painted himself head to toe with it both times. (Sadly I’m the one that didn’t learn, I gave him the second piece. Whoops) But we made it! And it’s good to be hone. Michaila even invited our  kids over that day so we took her up on it, came home, sort of unpacked, and had naps!!!! We were back among the living! 

Life’s pretty normal here. We were happy to find everything well. 

We finally did our bury our weapons Come Follow Me. We dropped the ball the actual week we studied it so we figure before their sons fought would be a good time to throw it in. And the mosquitoes were eating me alive so we were trying to hide from them digging our hole in the barn. 

A towel and a pillow...probably get different uses at your house. 

I hate it when Walmart pickup doesn’t have my order ready when I’m already in town! ...my boys obviously don’t hate it. 

“Look mom Seth jumped to me” 😳 

They are pretty cute little buddies though! 



Today we had a big ole fight that cost us a trip to the swimming pool in Walt Disney’s hometown. Darn. Hopefully we’ll get to go next week before school starts! Well that’s what the kids think what the mom thinks is hopefully we won’t have any more world wars over stupid stuff 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

A mom can hope right???

And this is my favorite pic this week! ❤️❤️❤️

I was scrambling to get it-delaying the prayer he was ready for- but it’s too perfect! 

Little buddy, whatever this world throws at you, there’s help right there, just like that!!!!