September

I can't believe that it is already the end of September! We are back into the swing of school, Paige is busy with track, and Baylor is doing swim lessons twice a week. I feel like I am in the car a lot going back and forth between things and McCall is just along for the ride and gets a nap in whenever she is in the car.

Labor Day weekend the Smith family was in town which is always so much fun. We went to the Black Diamond parade and the girls got lots of candy and had fun with cousins. Everyone came down to see Mikey get ordained to an elder and then we had a big family dinner.

My parents went on a cruise to Alaska and so they spent some time with us when they arrive, and we took them to the port in Seattle on a Saturday. Since we were in Seattle, we used our Get Out Pass and did the Beneath the Streets tour. It is similar to the Underground Tour but doesn't have as much access to the underground parts of Seattle. I would say the Underground Tour is better, but we had a really good tour guide that made it fun. Paige was fascinated by it all since she learned about a lot of the information in her humanities class last year. McCall was not a fan of going underground but made it through. We were the only ones with young kids, but they did great, and the tour guide even commented on how well they behaved were which is always nice to hear as a parent.

The tour guide of course pointed out Smith tower but also the Waterfall Garden which I had never heard of, so we had to stop by and see if before we left the city.

It was so pretty and such a gorgeous little spot for such a busy city!

We spent Sunday in Ellensburg with family and to be part of Blake's ordination to a elder. It has been wonderful to spend so much time with family the first part of this month.

Then I spent the week at home as much as possible with McCall. I attempted to potty train her but let's just say she did not get it. Not one time did she go in the toilet. I spent a lot of time cleaning up accidents and I felt she was starting to kind of understand but it was always too late. This happened with my other two also so I'm just going to take a break and wait a couple of month and then try again and hopefully it will be much easier for her then. So, for now, the Paw Patrol Rocky car will sit on our fridge just waiting for her to go on the toilet....:)

Friday, I took McCall and Baylor, and we went to the drive-in movie put on by the city. We got to see Dad at work and meet Elsa and Anna. McCall was all talk until we got right up to them and then got all shy. It was so nice sitting in the back of the van and cuddled up to my girls, eating popcorn, and enjoying the movie.

We picked my parents up on Saturday and I let them recover on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, once I got the older two girls to school, we went to Issaquah to go see the salmon at the fish hatchery. There were quite a few large salmon to see, and this was the first time that I have ever seen them going up the fish ladder.

Her faces!!!

Then Tuesday we got the dollar tacos for lunch at a nearby taco truck and then went to Lake Sawyer and enjoyed the view of the water for a bit before heading back home. We all went to Paige's track meet before I took them to the airport. It is always nice to have them visit us!

Friday, Nate and I went to the temple with McCall. The flowers were gorgeous and so I had to get some pictures of our gorgeous little girl with them.

She kept singing "I love to see the temple," and it was the cutest thing ever.

Paige was in charge of one of our young women activities and we painted the outside of the copies of the Book of Mormon. It was such a fun activity and they turned out so cute!

Then we also had a ward youth temple trip and only three young women showed up. Oh well! It was a wonderful experience for those that did go and I even got baptized, which was a bonus. I felt pretty close to God and the warm water rushing over me such felt like a hug from heaven.

I love being an art docent at the school but this year Baylor's class had so many people that wanted to teach art to her class, so I am now teaching science lessons this year. I'll do it once a month and I got to do my first lesson. It was a bit chaotic, which is to be expected, and Baylor was home sick. We talked about the states of matter, and we did a dancing corn experiment. We talked about how the solids in the experiement were the cup, a spoon, the corn kernels, and baking soda. The liquids were water and vinegar. Then when you mix is all together you get to see the corn dance and move around in the water because of the gas (carbon dioxide). It was fun to hear their reaction and then we ended with a root beer float which was another fun and delicious way to see a solid, liquid, and gas all in one cup.

The last few weeks we have dealt with lots of sickness, one person right after the other. I feel that Baylor and I have gotten the worst of it all. I am hoping that October is a much healthier month for our family. We are looking forward to lots of fall fun and the fun traditions we do in October.

Letter B

We did lots of fun things for the letter B! I ended up getting pretty sick on Wednesday and was on the couch all day so we skipped that day, but we still got a full week's of fun craft and activities that start with our letter of the week.

Monday, I tried out with her tracing the letter B to see how she would do. It was a bit of struggle, but she did it!

Then I cut butterflies out of coffee filters and we colored them with markers. Coloring for that long was a little too much so we had to take a break and come back to it. McCall colored 3 and I colored 3.

Then she sprayed them to water, and we watched the colors bleed together. It took most of the day to let them dry out and then they were perfect sun catchers in our window for the week.

To finish off our butterfly themed day, we did a butterfly matching game. I had things that started with the letter B on the butterflies, and she had to find the match. Then we played memory with them.

It was a beautiful day, so we decided to go on a walk on the Soos Creek Trail to see if we could find a butterfly. We never found one, but we did find bees, birds, a bridge, bikes, and a beetle.

Tuesday she made a bear out of the uppercase B. 

Then she played with a bean and button sensory bag that had bugs in it.

Thursday, she glued buttons on the lowercase letter B.

Then I had a pile of beads, and she sorted them by color into matching bowls. Next, I got a pipe cleaner so she could make a bracelet with the beads.

Then in the afternoon we made some banana bread. She loves helping me cook and be my taste tester.

Friday, we made a handprint and footprint bat. Baylor was home sick and made one too and so we will have two cute bats in our window for Halloween decorations.

Our Track Star

Paige started her final year of middle school track. I love seeing how much more confident she is this year compared to years past. She wants to try more things and improve on the things that she did last year. 

Nate took her out for a little photo shoot at the track and the pictures turned out so good!

She had her first track meet and did three events. My parents moved their flight so that they could see her compete, which was super nice. First up was long jump and she got a PR at 11 feet. It is always fun to watch her, and she has improved so much over the years.

Then she did hurdles. She has great form and pushed herself.

Then she did a 4X1 relay for the first time. She was super nervous for it because she was the last leg, but she did great.

Then this last week and just did long jump. She has been dealing with some shin splints, and her couch told her to take it easy for this meet. She did great!

I love watching her interact with her teammates and just enjoy the team part of track.

I also love how she gets into cheering for her teammates that are competing while she is waiting for her turn at the long jump. She is an awesome teammate and loves to cheer them on.

Baylor and McCall had fun playing in the dirt and keeping themselves entertained and of course I had to get some pictures of McCall and her faces. This little one and her facial expressions are the funniest!

We are looking forward to the rest of the track season and cheering on our favorite track star!

Letter A

 I started doing at home preschool with McCall. This is something that I did with Paige and Baylor and really love it. I love the preschool age, and you can do so many fun things. I am doing a letter a week and each day we will do crafts and activities for that letter. I looked back at what I did with the other two and looked online and I got it all planned out through the end of year, to letter M. I'm looking forward to this one on one time with McCall where I am focusing solely on teaching her, learning with her, and helping her learn her letters, skills like coloring, cutting, and glueing, and just sweet moments together.

Monday, we started with glueing apple jacks on the uppercase and lowercase A. This way she knew what both of them looked like and it was hung up for the week so that I could ask her every day what letter we were learning about this week. Then I printed out a whole bunch of apples with uppercase and lower case A's. I had two baskets, one with the uppercase A and one with the lowercase A and then she had to match the apples to the right basket. The first time she did this, she line all the apples on the table and then put them in the right baskets. It was fun to watch her figure it out and this activity is something she wanted to do every day this week.

Tuesday, she created an apple out of the lowercase a. I cut out the A and then she helped glue it on. I had her cut out the leaves from a small piece of green paper and then she drew a seed in the middle. Then we got some chocolate chips and pretended they were ants, and they ate the apple. Then last we sang, "The Ants Go Marching."

Wednesday our focus was airplanes. She created an airplane. I cut out of the pieces and then I had her help me tape it together. I had her color in the window and the nose of the plane and then she drew the circles for the window. She needs to work on her coloring and how she holds her pen/marker so it will be fun to see how she progresses while we do this. We taped the airplane to a popsicle stick so she could run around and make it fly. She even went on her spinning toy and made the airplane fly around and around.

Then she did an airplane matching activity. She loves things like this and puzzles, so this was right up her alley.

Thursday, she started off doing apple stamping. I first cut an apple in half, and I showed her the seeds and the stem. Then she painted and stamped it all over her paper. It was fun listening to her because she always associated color with Paw Patrol character. "I'm going to paint red like Marshall or Orange like Zuma." It was so cute to listen to!

Her masterpiece!

Then we made some homemade applesauce. I cut the apples and the skin off and then she would lay them in the pot. Then she helped add in the extra ingredients and we made some really delicious applesauce to enjoy with our dinner that night.

Friday, she made an alligator out of the uppercase A. I glued on the A and cut out the circle eyes. Then she drew on the pupils in the eyes and I drew the lines on paper for the teeth and then she cut them out and glued them on with some guidance and help.

Our last activity, for our letter A, was counting animal crackers. I gave her a handful and myself some and I would have her count each pile. Then we ate some and would count some more. We were having fun pretending and playing with the animals and they were friends. It was fun to sit and chat with her while eating our little snack.