September Recap

We had a fun girls day a few weeks ago. We started with a stake primary luau for mothers and daughters. We hula danced, made picture frames, sewed a few stitches in the legacy quilt, ate a yummy lunch and enjoyed our friends and sisters in the gospel. Then we went to the mall with Sarah and Piper and let the girls apply makeup to their hearts' content. They were bright and sparkly and pink. It was adorable and so much fun!!




Hannah started reading the "Captain Underpants" series. She just cracks up while she's reading. Its kind of fun to watch. She just couldn't resist acting out her new favorite "superhero". She'll probably be super-mad when she sees her undees picture on the blog, but I picked the blurriest close-up shot.



Order has been restored to the universe, or at least our mini-Thayn-universe. The carpet is in. The walls are painted. The baseboard has been restored. Our family room now looks 10x better than it did 2 months ago. The painter did a terrible job painting and doing trim work and refused to fix it until I refused to sign the check from the insurance company over to them and called them out on fraudulent charges. When the almighty dollar spoke, they were much more cooperative and our home is now lovelier than ever!!! Yeah!! I'm so happy! Nate LOVES the new carpet and just rolls around in it for no good reason other than to roll around in it. That's reason enough, right?

Where did September go?

I can't believe September is gone already. It blew past me like a tumbleweed in Oklahoma!! I have plenty of pictures to post and will try to get started tonight.

Cute boys....

Nate was playing in the cul de sac today and was being so cute. He was almost running with his little tricycle-like thing and playing with Jesse's helmet. It reminded me so much of Jesse when he was a little guy. Check it out. Do you think these two are brothers?

Magic Kingdom meets Gustav

We thought we would get one last trip to Disney World in before our annual passes expire in 2 weeks. We didn't realize Gustav would be making its way though Florida yesterday. It rained and rained and rained. There was no easy way to get from the park to the car, so we just went for it. We probably walked a good mile through the pouring rain. When we neared the exit, Jarin asked a couple hanging out under a building to take a picture for us. They were cracking up. We all splashed in the puddles. Jarin did the classic "singing in the rain" down Main Street with Jesse on his shoulders. It was definitely a day to remember.

Side note: we've probably taken our ponchos to DisneyWorld 10 times and never used them. We decided not to worry about it this time. Murphy's law, right? Sweet!

The Birthday Girl

Elle celebrated her birthday with a "happy breakfast" in bed, then a cookie cake with ice cream and gifts after school. We'll probably have a party for her after we get our house put back together.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Warning: This post contains some potentially graphic material (a bloody little chin)


I wish life were all sunshine and roses, but its not and sometimes bad things happen. We had a couple of "bad days" this week.

The good: Nate couldn't resist a tub full of water with a fun big brother. Jesse wasn't as excited about the company as Nate was, but he warmed up to the idea.



The bad: We woke up Tuesday morning to a living room full of water. We had a plumbing problem. Kind of a pain, if you ask me.

The cleanup team took out our carpet and installed all kinds of fans and dehumidifiers. Our house feels so crazy right now!!

No, Jesse isn't ugly, but this cut on his chin could qualify. He took a little fall and split his chin open. Don't worry. The doctor was able to glue it right back together.

Back home and back to school

No sooner did we return from vacation, and it was time for school to start. I think this was the shortest summer ever. We had a wonderful summer and did a lot of fun things, but I don't think any of us were really ready for school to start again. The girls both had a great day and are so happy because they both have the same teachers from last year. They both just happened to move up a grade with their class. How great is that?

When we returned home, everyone in the Tampa area was busy preparing for Tropical Storm Fay, which was projected to hit the bay area as a category 1 or 2 hurricane sometime tonight. We got to work making sure we had flashlights and food and fuel just in case. We moved all our yard furniture into our house and anchored the trampoline so it wouldn't become airborne. The storm took a right turn south of us and missed us all together. We have enjoyed a lovely cool breeze, but not a drop of rain. We're thankful for the miss. It was good practice for us, as it would have been our first hurricane. The kids got a "hurricane day" from school, so we all slept in and played at home all day. Back to school again tomorrow....