September

Although the primary reason for this blog is for my own record keeping as I attempt to document some of our family's comings and goings, it's also to share fun memories with family and friends that we do not get to see on a regular basis.  Some of you have been requesting more pictures of Ada, so I have mixed a few pictures of her in with our other adventures this month so you can see how she has grown.

Labor Day Hike around Silver Lake
As a last farewell to summer we grabbed a few sandwiches and headed up the canyon for one more outing for family home evening.  We had a picnic dinner and short hike around Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  Although short, and pretty busy because of the holiday, it was refreshing to get up and breath the clean mountain air and stretch out the old legs. Of course with every trip there must be a hiccup, and this trip was little Sam having to go an emergency #2 in the woods for the first time.  Mike was a champ at helping him through it.

Dennison Starts Kindergarten!
We hit another milestone with our oldest starting kindergarten   I know I am totally a biased mother, but he was so cute and charming.  Dennison's teacher is Mrs. Tomlinson and he is in class with several kids from the neighborhood, some I didn't even know were around.  Its been fun to meet some of the other children and parents.

Here is Dennison with a couple of his friends.  (They all get together act like a pack of puppies running around, wrestling, and play fighting.)

 All ready to go!  (He doesn't even seem to notice that he is a good head shorter than most of the other kids.)

We weren't quite sure what to do when many of the other parents followed the kids inside after the bell so I sent Mike in to make sure we weren't needed inside.  He just ran in and snapped a quick picture and exited. The report he brought back was that it was a little odd inside because the kids were all circled up ready to go and the parents were standing around crying.  I have to say, I wanted to cry, but didn't.  I figured it might send the wrong message for him to see me crying as I watched him march inside.

He is doing great in school, and is super excited about learning to read; everywhere we go he notices words and is sounding them out.  He was also excited when he learned to count by tens, and figured out on his own how to count by two's and three's.  One area he could work on though is working a little faster.  He seems to have acquired the "move at your own leisurely pace, regardless of everyone else waiting for you" gene that can been seen in some members on both sides of the family.  He is also very thorough with his classwork, so he is often one of the last ones out at the end of the day because he is taking his time finishing projects and packing his backpack just so. I'm glad he is excited to learn :)

We have fun getting out and walking with him to and from school; Ada usually ends up snoozing.

Provo Canyon Adventure
Mike purchased a zip-line adventure up Provo canyon earlier this summer with a groupon deal, and had scheduled to go before Ada was born. But she came the day before he got to go, so the trip was postponed.   We figured that we might as well take the boat out for a couple of runs, since we were in the area.  Mike invited our brother-in-law, Aaron, to go on the zip line with him, and Aaron was then nice enough to watch Dennison and Ada so I could take a turn in the boat.  We didn't get any pictures of zip lining, but took a few in the boat. It was beautiful in the canyon as the leaves were starting to change with the first signs of fall.

The Circus
 If I want to see a circus, all I need to do is be at my house at 5 o'clock every night. Still, we decided it would be fun to take the kids to a real circus.  It was a fun night out, but in the future it my be worth getting  tickets earlier and pay a little more money to get better seats, we still had a lot of fun, and parts of the show were definitely entertaining.  Once again, Sammy had impeccable timing and needed to go potty during the big finale so he and I missed the "big ending" for a grand finale of his own.  Oh well, better miss the circus finale than clean up a big mess and a sad kid.

Here are a few pictures of Adaline around the same time that we took her to the circus.

We also blessed her at the end of the month, but I will do a separate post of that when I get a few minutes, but right now, I need to get back to the circus that is my life.  No wonder she is making a face like this all the time, she can't believe she was sent to a house that is such a zoo:)