Random September

Historically, September is a quiet month for us- No holidays and no birthdays. But we still  managed to have fun! 

Ella took cozy to the next level

She's the cutest. We have 2 mornings a week when it is just the 2 of us- all 3 are "in" school. I try to get things done including yoga but sometimes I just need to put responsibilities aside and pay attention to the things that REALLY matter!

Parker took his STAR 360 assessment exam at the beginning of the school year and the results are in! He's a smarty pants! 9th grade level in math and 10th grade level for Language Arts! So proud of him!

I had to take a picture of this to remind me: Rayleigh poured me a glass of Diet Coke the other day. She is so thoughtful! Apparently she brought it out to the garage for me but maybe I'd already left to go wherever I was going.

My lil beauty playing with our new Halloween decoration!

Parker had an overnighter in Big Bear for Youth Conference and LOVED it! They played games and had a great testimony meeting. And I THINK there may be 1 or 2 girls with crushes on my boy!

Arg! She wore this for a few days and it was the best.

Let me tell you about one Thursday: Woke up and read my scriptures, got ready, got Rayleigh and Jack ready for school, made lunches, took Rayleigh to school, took Jack to school, came home, did chores, ate food, picked up Jack and Sadie, dropped Sadie off, picked up Parker and Ella, picked up Rayleigh, went to Disneyland, took Parker to MCO, had dinner, raced home, put kids to bed, ran to Book Club and ate crawdads! ha ha

We read "Where the Crawdads Sing" for book club and had the most amazing refreshments! Home made blackberry jam, corn fritters, grits, fried green tomatoes, and more!

After our discussion we got to talking to this lovely woman. She told us about her recent expedition to Antarctica for.... military training! SHE trains upper level military personnel negotiation techniques! Needless to say, she is fascinating! I told her about my negotiation fail when we got our hair braided in the Bahamas. She was not too pleased with me but gave me some good advice. What a night!

We took the kids on a bike ride behind the Alicia Building and it was soooo fun! I want to do this again soon! The kids did great!

That night we went to North Hollywood to see Shelley's play, Constellations. It was sooo good!!!! Shelley is such a talented actress!

One night while Parker was at mutual, I had Rayleigh hand deliver the invitations to her birthday party! She loved doing this!

Jack is stoked every time he has preschool. Such a stud.

Courtney, Christine, and I went to see the Downton Abby movie one night so Tanner took the kids out to the hot tub.

Another time Ella was extra cozy.