Color Splash 5K

On Saturday, September 29th Abby participated in the Color Splash run with four of her friends at Fairgrounds Park. She really hadn't done any training for this run except for a 2-mile run on the treadmill earlier in the summer where she just about fainted from exhaustion. But she was excited to do something fun like this with her friends.

Here is Rylie, Avery, Bella, Sydney and Abby right before the start. This was when they were still clean!!

I was able to catch up with Abby at the second color stop. She got coated in some yellow powder here but was looking strong and happy!

Then I headed back down to the finish area so I could see her cross. She was looking really good and ended up passing two women right at the end.

Her clock time was 28:55 for the 5K, pretty amazing especially with no training!

After the race they all had a little color on them...

But it wasn't quite enough for their liking so they went back to the blue color station to roll around in the dust a bit more. Yikes!!

After all the runners/walkers were done, they gathered in a large group and had one final dust explosion happen over their heads.

The girls loved it and it was fun for them to do this race together!

Preschool Walk-a-Thon

Maylie was so excited to do her preschool walk-a-thon on Thursday, September 27th. Here is her cute little class with her teachers Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Mussman. 

One cute little walk-a-thon particpant!!

Thumbs up and ready to get this race started!

She loved running/walking with her good friend Ayda and another little girl she met that morning from one of the other preschools. They would hold hands and form their "team" and worked together to get their cards punched after each completed lap. It was adorable!

They took a short break 30 minutes into the race to eat some oranges.

I was amazed at Maylie's stamina. She was able to walk/run the entire hour and never complained or asked to be carried even once!

Good job girls!!

Painting the Nursery

This last week we moved everything out of the spare room and painted it a light grey in order to start decorating it for the baby's nursery.

We are doing a nautical theme with navy, white and bit of red and I think it's going to be so sweet.

Things are starting to get real over here and we are so excited to meet this little man soon!!

Baby Shower

My neighbor and I threw a baby shower for a woman in our ward who recently had her second baby. We went with a nautical theme since I already had several things for our own baby's nautical-themed nursery.

This was the only picture I got from our "Ahoy It's a Boy" shower. It was a fun one to put together!

Mowing Help

A day Jason has been waiting a long time for finally arrived this last week...Landon can now help mow the lawn! After a little bit of instruction, Landon went to town and mowed our entire back lawn by himself. He did a great job for his first time and had quite the sense of accomplishment afterwards.

There are definitely some bonuses with having older children who can help out around the house and yard!

New Ride

We have really enjoyed our 2006 Honda Odyssey that we bought from some friends a little over 6 years ago. It has taken us across the country numerous times and we've made lots of special memories on different family trips that we have taken with it. Overall, it had very little maintenance issues and was very reliable, but with over 180,000 miles, we knew it wouldn't last forever. It started having a few issues this summer and then when quite a bit more work was needed on it at the beginning of September (3x more work than the car was even worth!!) we decided it was time to start looking for  another car. Since we had such great luck with our last Odyssey, we decided to stick with the same car and purchased a brand-new 2018 Honda Odyssey Touring last Saturday. We picked it up and took it home on Wednesday, September 18th and we are all loving it!!

It is amazing how much the safety and auto technology has changed and improved in the last 12 years. Every day that I drive it, I am finding out even more great features that our new car has and fall even more in love with it. We hope to have many more family adventures together in this car and can only hope that it is as good and reliable as our last Odyssey!

30 Weeks

30 Weeks!!

We are now in the homestretch with just 10ish weeks to go. I am feeling good for the most part, with a bit of nausea and extreme fatigue thrown in there occasionally. I've had a few anxious nights where I can't seem to turn my mind off, but once I can fall asleep, I am able to sleep pretty well. I love feeling this little man move all around, but some of his movements are pretty sharp now and can catch me off guard! We are all so grateful for this new little baby boy and we are excited to meet him soon!

Life in 2nd Grade

One thing I really love about Nolan's 2nd grade teacher is how she will take pictures of her students during their classroom time and send these pictures out to the parents to let them know some of the things that they are working on in class. I love seeing these little updates during their school day!

Here is Nolan in his very favorite classroom seat!

 Working on math...

And playing an intense game of SET!

It's fun to be able to see Nolan and his classmates in their school environment!

New Table

With our growing family, we had been shopping around for a while for a new table. Our current table could technically seat 8 people, but it was pretty tight and with baby #5 coming soon and guests who will be arriving for that occasion, we thought it might be a good time to upgrade. We really liked this table from Bob's Discount Furniture. It actually has seating for at least 10 people and more like 12 if a few of them are kids who can squeeze onto the bench together.

I love how much more space it gives us to be able to have people over for dinner!!

First Day of Preschool

To say Maylie was excited about her first day of preschool on Thursday, September 6th would be quite the understatement. She was so excited when it was finally her time to go to school!!

She is currently enrolled at the Growing Tree Preschool in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania which is about an 8 minute drive from our house and she gets to carpool with her good friend and neighbor, Ayda. They have class every Tuesday and Thursday from 9-11:30 a.m. and Maylie LOVES it!!

Hair Envy

As I was sitting waiting at the doctor's office, I realized that I am totally jealous of Maylie's beautiful natural highlights. People pay a lot of money for hair like this!!

First Day of School!

School started for us on the day after Labor Day...Tuesday, September 4th, 2018.

Abby was the first one to head out the door as she begins 7th grade!!

An hour later it was the boys turn to head off to Paramount Elementary. We now have a 2nd grader...

And a 5th grader!!

Landon gets a locker this year and is excited to have Mrs. Mastronardi as his homeroom teacher. He will also have Mrs. Leap and Mrs. Crane as they move around to three different classrooms to help prepare them for middle school next year.

Not the greatest of pictures and Nolan was not a willing participant as you can probably tell. Despite what is looks like, Nolan is excited to have Ms. Sweeney for 2nd grade. Landon had her for 3rd grade and he LOVED her. She was his favorite teacher of all time so Nolan is lucky to get her too!

Back to School Blessings

For Family Home Evening on the night before school started, we had our annual "Back-to-School Father's Blessings." All the kids enjoyed getting their blessings and all asked for specific blessings like doing well in their classes and making new friends.

Landon will be going into 5th grade, his final year at Paramount Elementary!!

Nolan will be heading to 2nd grade at Paramount Elementary!!

Abby will be in 7th grade, her second year at Western Height Magnet Middle School for the Arts!!

And Maylie got her very first school blessing as she will be starting 3-year-old preschool at the Growing Tree Preschool this year!!

Here's to a great school year for all these wonderful children!!

Swimming Buddies

We enjoyed our very last day of summer break by going to the pool on Labor Day. It was super hot and super packed with people but the kids all got to see some of their friends that day so it was worth it.

It was fun to have these girls get together one more time before they all head off to 7th grade at Northern Middle, Springfield Middle and Western Heights Middle Schools!!

We'll see you again next summer Northwood!!

BYU Fanatic!

I bought this flagpole around the 4th of July to hang up an American flag but it's been sitting in our garage for the last two months. All of a sudden Jason was anxious to get the pole up and I was a bit confused as why today was so important. Now I get it!!!

Now we're officially ready for BYU's opening football game on Saturday, September 1st!!