Playing in the Rain

Torrential downpour = mud, slippery slides, and lots of fun.

10 months

Bryson is not a big fan of these pictures anymore!

Look at what a big boy he is!

I'm starting to increase my mileage that I run on Saturday mornings which means I'm starting earlier in the morning before Bryson wakes up, so I have to make sure I have a bottle of pumped milk ready for him. The boys enjoyed feeding Bryson this morning!

Look at how big Bryson is compared to Carter! 

Caleb's bed head and Bryson's look of "Leave me in peace, I'm trying to eat here."

Bryson loved holding his own bottle.

Bryson now crawls and gets into everything. He enjoys walking around the house while holding my fingers and also walking along the furniture. He says, "ma ma ma ma ma ma" frequently. And he's starting to eat more table foods rather than baby food. With preschool starting a few weeks ago, Bryson has been a great sport. He naps from 9:15 am to 10:45-ish (a few days he's gone till 11:30!), which helps a lot for the 3 hours I teach.

Month 11: Food Storage

For the month of August, I enlisted my husband's help and we worked on the goal of improving our food storage. Since I knew we were moving, the 6 months prior to moving, I didn't worry about replenishing anything that we used. It would be less to move! Now that we're moved in, it was time to take stock of what we had and figure out what we needed to fill in any gaps. There is definitely a large measure of peace that comes with working on your food storage. And I love that I have a small room in the house devoted only to food storage!

One aspect of this goal that I will carry over to the month of September is 72 hour kits. Matt ordered some items to improve our 72 hour kits, but we haven't reassembled them yet. (It's been a few years since we've updated them, and you're supposed to do it every 6 months!) So we'll do that for FHE one Monday this month. August was also a super busy month getting ready for preschool, so it was difficult to work on anything else!

September is my last month in my Happiness Project, and as I looked at my initial month where I talked about all the things I wanted to work on, I've realized that I'm down to one month and didn't do everything I wanted to do! I didn't do a craft month or a family service month. For the service month, I wanted to organize a family service project so my boys could realize the importance of service and its value in helping others as well as the benefits in our lives. We'll have to set it as a goal in the future.

One other thing that I didn't do that I wanted to was to spend a month stimulating the mind in a new way...reading books I normally wouldn't read, taking time to learn new things. Throughout the year, I've read a few books that were outside of my normal genres including Killing Lincoln, a fascinating book about the death of Lincoln and the events that surrounded it. History was always a subject I did not enjoy in school, so I usually steer clear of historical fiction/nonfiction. The way I've decided to meet this goal of stimulating my mind in a new way is fairly simple and something that I think most people do already (but I don't!). I'm going to spend at least 30 minutes reading/watching the news each day. I am embarrassingly naive about what is going on in the world, so this month I'm going to work on that weakness and hopefully establish a habit!

1st Day

1st Grade here I come!

Birthday Boy!

Caleb's birthday comes at a busy time every year because it's the week before school starts! Lots of meetings and things to do. We still managed to make it a fun birthday weekend.

Caleb's birthday started out with waffles for breakfast.

After Bryson's nap, he got a kids' meal for lunch and then we went to Pump It Up.

Matt got off work early and took Caleb and Carter to a water park for the rest of the afternoon! This was something Caleb and Carter earned all summer long for good behavior, helping around the house, and Carter accepting a 'no' answer. Although it was unassociated with Caleb's birthday, we thought going on his birthday would make it extra fun!

When they got home from the water park, I had Caleb's birthday dinner waiting for him. This year he requested a chicken rice casserole that I called "Yellow Rice" growing up (due to the cheese).

 Friday we went swimming all afternoon at Ariane's new neighborhood's swimming pool. The boys rode these cool water slides over and over again.

Carter coming out of the slide.

Caleb's on the left slide.

That night we had a celebration with my family. Caleb was really excited about Lego presents this year.

New school clothes. Caleb's a great smiler. I love his smile.

Blowing out some candles. Gavin thought it was his birthday and couldn't understand why Caleb's name was sung instead of his and why he wasn't blowing out candles. So after Caleb had his turn, then we sang to Gavin and let him blow out some candles too. :o)

We've decided on a friends party every other year, so this was the year for friends. We had a carnival theme in our backyard with a soccer kick, basketball goal, bean bag toss, duck pond, water balloon relay, and water balloon toss. The kids had tickets to spend and could earn prizes.

Elijah at the soccer kick

Caleb and Caitlyn at the duck pond

Water balloon relay

Water balloon toss

Caleb received games and Legos from his friends.

He requested a rocket ship cake this year.

From us, Caleb received a new bicycle to ride to school. I'll post a picture of him riding it for his first day of school tomorrow!

Some fun things about Caleb at age 6:
His favorite color is green. Favorite food: pancakes. His favorite books to read are Nate the Great books. His favorite activity is playing games. Right now we play Settlers of Catan a lot. His favorite super hero is Spiderman. He's always been a very obedient boy, although over the summer he and I butted heads a lot during piano lessons, school work, and reading practice. An obstinate streak came out that I've never seen before! He is generally very kind-hearted and sweet. He and Carter can get along really well, but right now Carter antagonizes him often and fighting ensues. He's very responsible and a great helper at home. Matt and I tell him all the time how lucky we are that he's a part of our family!

Heading Home

No new victims of pinkeye the rest of the trip, although Lindsey said she woke up to it a day into her long drive home. So Matt and Bryson avoided getting it in our family. A cold spread around amongst all of us as well, which I caught. (I usually have a hearty immune system!) For 2 1/2 days of the vacation, I was not able taste due to the loss of my sense of smell. It was a bit depressing as I really look forward to our yummy meals on vacation. It was probably my first vacation ever to lose weight! We were passing around Ariane's natural oils like crazy to try to prevent the spreading and catching of the two diseases. It was pretty funny.

To break up the drive home, we decided to stop off at Krause Springs.

The water was so chilly!

Bathing beauties with the babies

A beautiful waterfall

Zane cliff jumping

My dad rope swinging

Matt, Zane, and Dallin did it as well!

Checking out the campground before leaving

A fun hole in the tree.

So many fun and happy memories. I love my family! We missed having Jared and Kari's family there with us. Hopefully next year!

Vacation Part II

Saturday morning, Carter woke up with pinkeye. I guess I passed it on to him prior to us leaving on vacation? I didn't read this on any of the sites I looked at, but it must have taken a day or two to manifest. I'm really surprised that it was Carter who caught it from me and not Bryson since I touch and handle Bryson a lot more during the day. It was also so frustrating that he caught it because I was super careful about washing my hands if I ever touched my eyes, which was rare. I was so concerned about any of my boys catching it that I used my willpower to not touch my eyes at all unless I was standing right next to a sink ready to wash my hands (twice). Matt and I considered going home to try to contain the spreading, but Carter had touched pretty much everyone the day before when we were in the caves. So everyone was kind to let us stay with our infection.

After an omelet breakfast, Saturday we visited Lyndon B. Johnson's farm that he grew up on.

Walking to the farm

Saturday afternoon, my dad was showing symptoms of pinkeye, and Sunday morning both Caleb and cousin Ellery woke up with pinkeye. Caleb was so angry and frustrated! So all the pinkeye people stayed home from church. Matt and I enjoyed attending church with only having to worry about Bryson.

Caleb loves games and has recently discovered games on the ipad. So he was constantly asking to borrow Lindsey's ipad in order to play a game she taught him, much to her annoyance. Here's Dallin and Carter watching on.

Monday morning started out with a vigorous workout. (Who works out on vacation? The Shurtliffs do.) This workout was too funny because Caleb did the whole thing with us!

All day Monday we rented a ski boat

Bryson and Daddy waiting for a turn

This is what Caleb did while he waited.

 Carter on the tube with Aunt Lindsey. He was very brave and wanted to ride the tube each time he got on the boat. But a few minutes into the ride each time he said he was done.

Caleb didn't seem to enjoy the boat very much at all this time. He got on the boat once and tried the tube once then was done for the day. 

I got up on the wakeboard for the first time. I still need lots more practice.

 Matt and Caleb jumping off the dock together. It made Mommy nervous.