September 2015

Ok so does anyone know how I can fix so this isn't like 10 feet down from where the header is??! So weird! Whenever I post from my phone it does this. Stupid.

We had a beautiful September, all but one week that was rainy and cold. It still felt like summer! We have such a great backyard and Ashlyn plays out there almost every day. I continued to do a little more canning, I mean if we have free produce you gotta do something with it, right. This month we had a BBQ with our friends the Wrights, I made two trips to Boise, we had both our moms come to visit, and cousins too.  Ashlyn has LOVED being in preschool. She has a great teacher, Mrs. Mortensen. She always comes home with lots of crafts and fun things they've done in class. We carpool with a little boy named Cael who lives in our neighborhood, and every time those two get picked up from preschool they are begging to play together. So we usually let them, like once a week. We've got a few little friends here that Ash loves to play with and it's so nice. She is also doing soccer (more on that further down) and gymnastics. We switched gymnastics places and I really like the new one she's going to. The teacher is super fun and caring, and actually tries to make sure they're learning. It's structured a lot more similar to the preschool gym classes I taught at Gem State years ago which I like. So we have stayed busy! Elan is all over the place, army crawling or running around in the little walker. He is still the sweetest little buddy and I love that I get a little one on one time with him while Ashlyn is out doing activities. We are LOVING the house we're in, it has so much space and is perfect for the kids to play wherever I am. A side note about me, I have gotten in the habit of going to the gym 3 mornings a week at 6 am! Big deal for me! The Jerome rec center doesn't have child care so that's kind of my choice. I really struggle with doing workouts at home, I hate it really. I have a friend who goes at this time too so we've been going together, and that makes me go! I've been going to Crossfit class there twice a week. Crossfit Tonya style, which means easier, obviously! I'm teaching 12 students right now which is just where I want to be with that. Having a front room with doors to use as a studio is AWESOME. We have a babysitter come the two days I teach for a little over an hour right after school until Collin gets home. Speaking of Collin, he is loving his new job. It's still definitely new and challenging to start a new job for the second year in a row, but it is much more the type of admin job he was hoping for, and he really likes the principal he's working with. He loves his job as athletic director as well as v.p. and even though that means supervising at a good amount of the home sporting events, it's a fun extra thing for him to head up as well. He's going to be an assistant wrestling coach at the middle school this year too, for those of you whose next question was going to be "is he planning on coaching?" (not that I ever get that!)

We are so blessed to have all the blessing we have. In spite of the continued heartache and emotional struggles that come on without warnings in continuing grieving the loss of my dad, I am well aware that Heavenly Father is aware of us and is blessing us so much. 

OK, now onto pictures! 

He looks weirdly disproportionate in this but I wanted a pic of this cute onesie Chandra gave him!

One of my Boise trips was for like 3 hours there! I went over to shop at the consignment sale I love participating in. I spent too much money because I didn't plan very well shopping for 2 kids. But well my kids are set on clothes and also, I went to Cafe Ole with Chandra and Lindsay afterwards and look at this appetizer sampler plate!!! Good grief!



Love you my friends

Now I have a kid who will make ugly faces with me!




Reading in the car on the way home from the library.


The Jerome HS homecoming parade was fun! So much candy!


One of Ashlyn's many works of chalk art


Soccer! She was totally shell-shocked at the first game. She just stood on the field and looked a little nervous. By now (4 games in) she's running with the herd and even getting a few kicks in. :)



Have you heard of Magna Tiles? They are the. best. Someone gave us some when Elan was born and they are such a popular thing around here. She is always building new "things" and showing them to me. They usually look something like this. :)



My buddy Lindy came to visit one day! Ashlyn and Miles had SO much fun together.




This guy is usually awake by the time I get home from the gym in the morning (7:00!) so he gets to hang out in my bedroom/bathroom with me while I get ready. He is really getting around.


Ashlyn has discovered the yummy-ness of German pancakes! She requests to have it for breakfast almost every day. If only! But it's a cool big deal when we do make them!




Mom came to visit, and we went to Boise for one night to do the Fit One walk! I am still sad it's not the Womens Fitness Celebration any more, but oh well. Whatever politically-correct Boise. Anyway, we had so much fun eating out (FORK, BOISE FRY COMPANY!) at yummy places and shopping (DOWNTOWN, VILLAGE!) at fun places, it was great!


Also, if you know my mom you know she is a speed walker! I got a sideache keeping up with her on the walk. ha ha. But I creamed her running the last 50 meters! ha ha. ;)


Aw.


Elan is loving solids. These little rice rusk things are so great, they keep him busy and he thinks they're so fun.


LOVE these two playing together. Ashlyn is so good to him and generally nice to him! We have had a little more sibling rivalry now that he can access her toys, that is tough for her! But she's doing pretty well.



Oh my GOSH he is to die for.


We went for a run during preschool one day! So fun!


And here is Collin's school picture this year! He didn't mean to but he seriously looks like my brother in law Paul. Ha ha. Beard, glasses.... way to go Collin! He didn't want to be too over the top with being the new guy and all. ;)



Craft from a craft night! And thanks Collin for that too.



This kid!


And this kid! I can't even.



We went to JACKPOT for our 10th anniversary! ha ha! Year 10 means.... the letter J! It's not even an hour away, and someone Collin works with got us a free room. Nice! So Cactus Pete's it was. Well that was my first time spending more than like 30 seconds in a casino and it's definitely not my favorite! But after dinner we wandered around for a bit and thought we'd each gamble away $5. I was getting ticked because I hadn't won anything and Collin had won like $6, when I won $80!! HA HA HA! We died. So funny. And awesome!

Me by the lucky slot that I won $80 on!



Lots of failed attempts of this one!




10 years! wow!


Collin's mom came up to visit that weekend and watched our kids while we went to Jackpot. She is SO nice and it was awesome of her to do that. This is a pic my friend sent me of Ash at her soccer game, her son is next to Ash and on her team. Looks like they were enjoying their treats just a little bit.

Having some quality Nana time

We surprised Nana with Morgan's family all coming up to visit on Sunday. It was great! We all watched conference and ate and played together, Ashlyn of course was in heaven having cousins here to play with.


Elan was enjoying himself too!









Field Trip to the fire station!


You can't see it very well but Ashlyn is the one "stop drop and rolling" literally rolling over the top of other kids. ha ha ha ha ha



So stinkin' cute



Oh man. We laugh at this all the time. This is his little "pose" he stops and looks around in when he's crawling around. He's like a chubby little calendar model.



I finally got "released" from my "calling but not an official calling" of being on the Enrichment night committee! It was getting tough since both me and the girl in charge of the committee (it ended up just being the 2 of us the last few months, ha ha) have husbands who have to be at bishopric meeting at the exact same time as the RS meetings, and we both have kids, even our babies are the same age. Not very fun. But we powered through! Our last activity was a "witches night out" where she gave a talk about being  a good witch (not a bad one!) and we had some fun Halloween treats. Oh and everyone decorated a witch hat and wore it. Not every day you see this in the Relief Society room!





My other Boise trip (so did I make 3 trips there this month? Maybe I did. Good grief.) was for my old ward's Midnight Madness crafting activity. These are a couple of things I made. It was originally supposed to be a family trip over there, but we didn't plan well and I ended up just going alone. Which is also cool! Although I've had enough of driving back home in the middle of the night, that's for sure.

While I was in Boise I guess Collin bravely took both kids (Elan was sick with a cold as well) to the high school football game. Crazy if you ask me! Looks like they had fun though!

Ashlyn has gotten to hang out with Collin at a few of the soccer games, which is fun. I guess there's a mom who dresses up in this just for the soccer games!


Our applesauce yield! Yikes! Applesauce is SO good homemade but really such a pain! Anyway I think I'll be making a little bit more. We got free apples so what else could we do?


I ended up getting a lot of pictures I liked right after church last week, as you can probably tell from the next few! It was Ashlyn's first time participating in the primary program in sacrament meeting! She had memorized her part so well: "The Holy Ghost speaks in a still small voice." and she said it perfectly. It was so cute! She was decently reverent through the whole thing too. They did a smart thing and split all the young kids up and had them sit by an older kid "helper", and Ashlyn did really well with that, she had a great helper! Ashlyn sang her heart out on a few parts of the songs...mostly the last word of a phrase she would SHOUT and HOLD out longer than anyone else kept holding it. Nice. I mean, everyone was chuckling. I was laughing and also hoping she'd knock it off! But I think she brought some nice amusement to everyone! Someone's gotta be the loud shouting singer! It was my kid this year!









This one is especially my favorite--holy cow Ashlyn!! ha ha ha!!



And here's the little goalie. SO cute. When she told me she got to be goalie, she followed that by saying, in a sad voice, with her shoulders drooping, "but they scored a goal." I had to keep from smiling. At least she gets how the game works!! She is so cute and really loves running around in soccer.