Rest of September

I think it's funny that now we have a play room yet the girls bring toys downstairs to play near me.

Chelsea is obsessed with babies and diapers so she loves this cabbage patch doll where you can take it's diaper on and off. She also likes pacifiers even though she never used one when she was a baby. I tried and tried, but she didn't want it. 

I'm trying to decorate and paint more in the house to make it more homey. I got the kids' pictures up and that made me happy. 

I painted the bookshelf black to go along with the other furniture we have. I like it a lot better. Other than it was stressful while painting because it was leaving spots and weird spray marks. I was using the Rustoleum double coverage even. I googled ways to make the spots go away, but the things I tried didn't seem to help. I said "oh well" and dragged it inside anyway. Well, once it was inside you couldn't see the spots so I'm glad I didn't spend more time figuring that out.

This happened. She's been interested in potty training for a while now, but with me working part time in the summer it wasn't possible. I needed to wait until I was home for a week. She caught on pretty good and by the end of the week had it down. She still has a few accidents here and there when we are in the car and don't get home in time, but overall she's doing good. Now we need to get her dry through nap time and bed time. 

I hate fruit flies. They multiply and come out of nowhere. I was struggling trying to catch them. This looked good, but then they wouldn't go down into the glass. It was annoying. 

I found gold spray paint and fell in love. I had fun spray painting a few things gold to change it up a bit. 

Lindsey knocked over a big tall stool and it landed on Chelsea's big toe and smashed it. I was debating if I should take her to the doctor, but I figured they wouldn't do anything for a broken toe anyway. It took a while to heal, but man she was in pain. Poor girl. I tried super gluing it shut, but it still bled off and on. It was a hard one to glue shut. Usually, that's my go to and works good. 

Yes, this is poo. And no I don't like potty training! Good thing they were easy to pick up, but ewww. It could be worse...like when Kate ate her poo when she was a baby! Now that's ewww!

Lindsey started a co-op preschool I'm doing with 5 other moms. She is super excited. We are doing it Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours each. Chelsea of course wants to copy everything the older kids do so she had to get a backpack on too.

I have been searching for new rugs since we moved in. I bought some then returned them. One night while looking online I found these from Target and fell in love. I like black and white stuff. 

I've been on the hunt for a good used piano since we moved in and have room. I saw several on Craigslist and even went and checked out a few. One as far away as Mercer Island. I told them I would buy it, but then got home and changed my mind because I wanted to look at another one. I had to wait until later in the week to look at the other one because the owner wouldn't be back until then, but in the meantime I found this one on Craigslist and it was from a piano store. After I looked at the one I was waiting for, I decided against it because they said it was a Kimball brand, but it wasn't. I googled the name of it and it said it was one of the two worst pianos ever made. Umm, no thank you. Plus, the owner was asking a lot for it. So I looked up the piano from the piano store and they had dropped the price by $200!! I immediately called on it and then met Kyle after work (the store was by his work) and we went and looked at it. I decided I wanted it then. The bench had a hideous worn cover on it and they said they would recover it for me if I brought them material. So I asked my Mom what to get and found some at Hancock fabrics for under $2! What a steal! We had the piano delivered because Kyle wanted it, he said it would be easier. Yeah easier and expensive! It really was super nice to have it delivered though. But good thing we got such a great deal for it. It came tuned and cleaned up so that's good. We like it and I started teaching Kate piano lessons. One of the pedals makes a creaking sounds so I had the piano store owner come out to look at it, but he said it's a bigger repair so next time I have him tune it he would fix it for free. That's so nice of him!

Kyle and I got to go to a UW football game courtesy of our friends the Fullmer's. Bart works for UW as the equipment manager. They are so generous to share with us. It was a gorgeous day. We melted in the sun, but then when we finally got shade it was perfect. They didn't win, but the part of the game we saw was fun. We had to leave early because it was the day of the Women's broadcast so I had to get home so the babysitter could go and so I could take Kate to it. The broadcast was good and then the Stake RS did a dinner afterwards. They did such a good job. It was so nicely decorated and presented. Then I went to the movie, The Giver, with some other girls from my ward. It was an interesting show. I hadn't read the book, but I liked the movie.

First Day of School at a NEW School!

School has started! They are at a new elementary school this year. Preston is excited and Kate is a little nervous. She hopes she likes her teacher and the new school. I hope so too. We really liked our old school and the principal there. 

Grace and Catherine are neighbors and they are the same age as Kate. Grace and Kate ended up with the same teacher! Catherine has a different one though. 

Preston in 1st grade with Ms Daniels

Kate in 4th grade with Ms Dyer (who found out the night before back to school night, which was last night, that she was even teaching! That's not good!)

Walking the kids to the bus stop which is just the street to our development. I like this bus riding bit! Before we lived too close to the school so I had to either walk them or drive them to school. That meant loading and buckling everyone up just for a quick drive. Now I can send them out the door. Love it!!!

Preston and Kate are in the windows waving, but you can't really see them. The bus driver seems nice. The other neighbors said she's been driving their bus for a while now. The first week was a little rough for Preston on the bus. He bit a kids finger because the kid had his finger in Preston's face and wouldn't move it. Oh geez! I got mad at Preston because he cannot bite! Ugh! I guess the bus driver stopped the bus and had Kate move and sit with him for the rest of the way home. She came home bawling and was so embarrassed. I would be too! I understand the bus driver had to stop and do that, but I felt bad for Kate. Then the next day Kate came home annoyed because she couldn't sit with her friends. The bus driver was making her sit with Preston. I knew Preston would do better and knew Kate wanted to sit with her friends so I talked to the bus driver the next morning asking her to give Preston another chance. She luckily did and so far things have settled down and he's actually still friends with the kid whose finger he bit! 

The kids bring home SO much paper and handouts. This is after the first day and I was a bit overwhelmed with it all. They had a good first day. Preston loves school so he was fine. Kate said her teacher was SUPER strict and she doesn't like her. Since then it's gotten better, but in Kate's defense her teacher is weird. She's not sappy and overly nice when you talk to her. It's different. But we are learning to adjust to all the change. 

Ice Cave Hike

On Labor Day, Marci came up and we went on a little hike to the Ice Caves. It's a nice easy walk/hike so it's perfect for little kids and families.Marci had never been. She's used to hiking harder trails so this was a piece of cake for her.  As we were walking to the trail head we saw Brad and Kim Asay and their family! They used to live in the Beverly Park ward with us and now they live in the Mays Pond Ward which is the ward near our new house. It was fun to see them and to visit a bit. They were doing the hike with 4 other families from their ward. On the way back down from the ice caves one of the family's older kids were jumping off this bridge into a little stream/river. They were crazy! 

Starting off the hike doing good. By the end Lindsey was whining and saying her legs hurt, Preston was wanting to be done as well and Chelsea was falling asleep. When we got in the car Chelsea perked up and didn't fall asleep the whole 40 minutes home! 

At the bent elbow tree. Kate remembered it from last year so we had to get another picture this year. 

Almost there!

The caves weren't as big as they were last year, but we also went earlier in the summer. It's so amazing to see how they can form like this.

This arch was a sliver of ice and it looked so cool. As I was taking this picture, Brad was walking up with his kids. Good timing. :) As we were leaving the ice caves this arch collapsed. People around weren't hurt, but it made a loud crashing sound. A girl died up here several years ago, so you do have to be careful walking in and around the ice caves. 

Cute kiddos and beautiful scenery. The mountains and everything is so pretty up there. 

We were glad Marci came up to hang out with us. She makes things more exciting!