August

Wow summer has gone fast. The Lord said to plant a garden, so we did and I've been keeping up with the harvesting and processing of all the yummy veggies. We've been working on more and more projects on our house. Brandon is currently building a big loft shelf in our garage and I stained the front porch and sprayed about two-thirds of our yard for blackberries and hawthorn. Those things are coming out. We have already pulled three pretty good sized hawthorn trees out of the yard but the rest will quickly be following since it has spread all over!! There are little patches of new hawthorn growth everywhere and it HURTS when you step in some accidentally.

We went on a fun ten-day trip this month and forgot our camera. Genius, I know. But there are pics on my sisters-in-laws' blogs. The first leg of our trip was a Chapman family reunion in Roseburg, OR. Sterling met Brandon's cousin's son (does that make them second cousins once removed?) and they totally hit it off. After we left the first night he talked about his cousin Dylan the entire 20 minute drive back to our hotel. It was so nice to see!

We spent two days there and packed up Sunday morning to head to Uncle Bryan's! We were sooooo excited!! Bryan and Kim and Jaxy just moved into their brand-new house in Springville, UT, so we felt very privilaged to be able to visit. I can understand that there could have been some anxiety about having five extra people in your brand-new house, but we had so much fun. We could have stayed a few more days. We went to a huge Dinosaur museum, got rained out of going to Hobble creek, played at the park, ate at Cafe Rio (yum!), Kim and I went shopping all by ourselves, and when the days were over and the kids were all asleep all us parents would stay up and do something fun. We sure miss you guys!

Even though we wanted to stay and play another day, we had promised our friends some time on our trip as well, so we loaded up the van and headed for Moscow, ID. We stopped at temple square on our way up I-15 so the boys could feel the awe-inspiring power of the temple grounds. It was under some construction but we went in to the visitors center to see the Christus. Sterling has been in awe of it since we saw it in the Nauvoo visitors center and he had the same overwhelming feeling again. When we were back on the road he told us he really liked the feeling of that Jesus. We had a talk about how we can always have that feeling in our home by being kind and loving. I hope it sunk in a little!

Moscow was the last stop, and good thing! We hadn't seen our friends the Schwecke's in a few years and it was so great to visit with them. Unfortunately, the boys were at the end of their ropes so we decided to head home a day early. We were glad to be back in our own space.

I know that was a lot, but there's more!! I started potty-training Hyrum last week He's doing great! He hasn't quite figured out you have to sit on the toilet before you go number two, but he has full bladder control during the day. He's so proud of himself!


Indiana Jones starts kindergarten on Wednesday. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. At least it's only half-day.
And Jonah is the sweetest baby. He goes in for his four-month check-up on Monday. He's growing out of his six month sized clothes, smiles at everyone, has a conversation with us everyday, and is trying to sit up. Not rolling yet, but that's ok. He's growing too fast already!

That's it for today. Next week will have growth updates and first day of school pictures. Where does the time go?