Owen - 17 months

Owen.  Baby O.  Owie.  Owers.

Loves to climb - on toys, stairs, chairs, and even the table!

LOVES to take baths ("ba") and will start taking his clothes off if he hears the water.

Likes playing with cars, cuddling stuffed animals, sorting things, putting things in bags or containers...

Likes to color, and not always in the best places...

Makes "pow" noises when he finds a toy gun.

Still loves to cuddle and pats us on the back.

Loves to drive things - cars, tractors, shopping carts...

Likes playing in the bathroom. :/

Loves his brothers and sisters and always wants in on the action.

Giggles when he plays with my phone

Makes huge messes when he eats!

Still puts his hand on the back of his head when he's tired or wants comfort. :)

Loves having a blanky ("banky") in bed.
Still ducks his head when someone says hi to him. :)

Says "Daaaaad" when he hears someone coming in the back door.

Says "nigh-nigh" happily when it's time to go to bed.

Talks and giggles to himself in the car, repeating the same thing over and over.

Says "meeee" when he sees something he wants to eat.

Likes holding his baby doll ("babeee").

Says "pee-yooo" and waves his hand in front of his face when we change his diaper.

Bobs his head and bounces up and down when he hears a song he likes.

Says "bow" when he gives you knuckles. 

Gives juicy besitos on demand.

Always drags/pushes the broom around the kitchen.

Yells down the stairs after he hears me yelling for the kids.

Gets super excited anytime he gets to go downstairs.

Enjoys pushing toy walkers, strollers, lawn mowers, scooters.
Gets behind me and pushes my legs when he wants me to go somewhere.

LOVES to ride on the tractor with daddy and gets excited as soon as he hears it.

Makes a "rawr" sound when he sees any animal, bird, bug, etc.

Calls his paci a "bapi" and wants it anytime one is in sight.
Lights up our lives with his smiles. :)

Love!

New beginnings

It's that time of year again!  New clothes (uniforms this time), new shoes, backpacks ready, eager to learn... or at least eager to make new friends and have some fun. :)  This year we decided to send the boys to Odyssey Charter School in American Fork.  I'd wanted to do homeschooling, but then I got too anxious about it and decided to look into some other alternatives.  We applied to three different schools' lotteries and ended up getting into all three, but I decided Odyssey was the best fit.  The director used to homeschool his kids and they use a lot of the same curricula I'd looked into for homeschooling, namely the Core Knowledge Sequence, Saxon math, and the Spalding phonics method.  Also, they have more opportunities for kids to learn at the level they're at, which will be good to push Bryan a little in his reading and math especially.  He always felt like he already knew most of what he learned in his class last year.  So while they weren't thrilled with the idea of uniforms, they were excited to try this new school with the promise of better learning opportunities (we hope).  I think they look great in their uniforms, and actually Bryan thought he was pretty cool stuff by the time he had it all on. :)

 3rd Grade - Mrs. Daley's class

1st Grade - Mrs. Hill's class

 Ari was super excited for her new preschool class at Learning Dynamics preschool in Saratoga Springs.  She started a couple days after the boys started and was more than ready to go!  There are a couple other girls in our neighborhood at the same school so we'll be able to carpool with them, which will be really nice.  She goes three days a week now - one step closer to kindergarten.

 She's in Mrs. Shawgo's class.

 I had to take a couple pics with the sunflowers on our way home from her first day, just like we did last year this time. :)

Last year... she looks so much older now!

 Ari also got to start her very first dance class!  I really wanted to put her in music or gymnastics or dance, and this decided like the best option for now, or at least the one I thought she'd enjoy the most.  One of her favorite things to do around the house is put on a dress and dance to her princess music!  So here she is in her first real dance outfit, ready to go to her class with Ms. Kim. :)  She does a little bit of jazz, ballet, tap, and tumbling in each class and so far she loves it!

The boys also started their Fall soccer season!  Bryan has been practicing with his Arsenal team all summer getting ready for the season and he had his first game a week ago.  They didn't win, but they did well considering they were up against tough competition.  We're looking forward to lots of fun games in the next couple months!  Matthew also had his first practice last week and is excited for his games as well.  We'll certainly be busy with their practices and games, so it's a good thing we're such soccer fans!  And I'm the team mom of one team and team manager of the other, so I can REALLY say now that I'm a true soccer mom! :)

Summer's end

It's always sad when the the last weeks of summer roll around and we know our care-free days will soon come to an end.  So this year we tried to make the most of our summertime left, especially while Mom and Dad were still here.  After Island Park, we had about a week before they headed back to PA. One night, we took Mom to our favorite pool in Lindon.  It was in the evening so we practically had the pools to ourselves.  We loved it!

Doing a curtsy. :)

Another night, we went with Heather and her girls to see The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Scera.  It was a little crazy with all our kids, and in fact I took mine home at the intermission.  But while we lasted it was nice to hang out under the stars and see a good show.

We also hit the Parade of Homes with Mom and Heather, which we loved.  The houses were so cute!

While we were at the Parade of Homes, David, Dad, Jake and the boys had some good guy bonding time at the Miller Motorsports Park.

They got to watch a race and here's Bryan with the #1 racer in the country.

 They got to go on a zipline...

 And they even had military vehicles there on display.  This is actually one my dad helped manufacture!  So cool!  All the military guys there thanked him for making such a good vehicle. :)

Saying goodbye to them was the worst!  We had one last family get together with dinner and games at our house, and then they left the next morning. :(  These pictures are so bittersweet.

We managed to stay pretty busy even after they left, playing and getting ready for school.  We met up with Heather and her girls to do some school shopping one morning and play at the mall a little bit.  Owen's getting big enough now to keep up with the big kids, and he couldn't be happier.

We had Cami come spend the night at our house one night, something we really need to do more often!  It's good for Ari to have another girl around for a change. :)  We hit the splash pad in Highland and made zucchini bread while she was with us.

Cute little brother pic.

Silly girls.

Matthew lost another tooth - so now both of his top teeth are missing - and we had check-ups at the dentist.

The kids did great!

Bryan had some fun scouting activities, like this "Cub-anapolis" car race.

He and his good buddies, Stockton and Cooper, were some of the fastest!

We had some good times in our yard, like mowing the lawn with our new tractor mower!  Dad helped David pick it out when he was here and David and the kids have had a lot of fun with it.  David feels especially manly driving it and can't help but do a few fist pumps each time. :)

Owen gets so excited when he hears it start up and can hardly wait to get on! 

Thankfully this was found in our neighbors' yard and not ours, but the kids thought it was the coolest thing.  Bryan has no fear!

Their favorite thing to do outside this summer was kickball, so they played lots of games with all the neighborhood boys in those last days before school started.



Ari got to go to her friend Alaina's birthday party and insisted on wrapping the present herself. :)  She's getting so big, I can hardly stand it!  But it's fun to see her do more and more things on her own.


All ready for church one Sunday and looking so grown up. :)

The last day of summer before school started I let the kids pick a place to go to lunch and then an activity afterwards.  Of all the places to go, they decided on Subway.

And then we finally renewed our Pass of all Passes so we were able to spend the afternoon at the Trafalga by our house.  It was hot, but fun, and a good way to celebrate the summer's end.  Fall, here we come!