Here are some random pictures I took!

Joshua's 8th Birthday!

I thought I had better get a post done of Joshua's Birthday before it gets to be Halloween! Joshua got to have a Friend birthday party and invited his three cousins who live next door, and two other school friends. He had a Jedi themed birthday and loved all the fun we had.

Joshua's cake in progress, can you guess what it is?

Everyone thought Joshua's Millenium Falcon cake turned out cool.

They played games like keep the balloon off the ground using their 'lightsabers' and Jedi obstacle course. I made lightsabers out of pool noodles with duct tape at one end to look like the handle.

Joshua with all his gifts: Spy watch, lego star wars, Book of Mormon, puzzle, ping pong equipment, etc.

Wesley

Battlepoint Park

 

It was a hot Saturday, so we went to Battlepoint Park and tried to have fun.  The first ten minutes were great, then Joshua fell and jammed his thumb, so he was crying and wanted to go home.  All the other kids were running around having fun but had very red faces because of the heat.  Logan cooled off his head in the drinking fountain! :)  Then of course Logan decided to have a leaky/poopy diaper and I had no extra shorts for him, so we convinced all the kids to go home for a popsicle.

 

 

 

Jonas, Jesse, Abi, and Kaitlyn on the ship!

 

This obviously was not at the park, but I had to add it to the blog it was so cute! Jesse has been Grandma's little shadow often and in this picture they are making cookies.  Jesse is wearing an apron that was his daddy's as a little boy, it says 'Manly' on the front!

 

This isn't the greatest picture, but you can kind of see that one of Joshua's thumbs is bigger and bit off color.

 

 

Later that night, Logan was taking a bath and he started crying.  I ran in to see what was wrong and found his entire face covered in soap lather and he was rubbing his eyes! Poor kid! Then, his terrible evening wasn't over, he fell while getting down from his daddy's lap and face planted on the hard floor.  Lets just say there was a fat lip and lots of blood. :(  Sometimes being a kid is rough! I was exhausted at the end of the day just from taking care of owies and calming the injured kids!

Back to School!

 

As you can tell from the pictures, I let the boys pick out what they wanted to wear for the first day of school because it wasn't worth it to get in an argument over something so little as looking their best for the first day of school!  Jonas was excited and raring to go with his new Superman backpack!  Joshua on the other hand, must have been feeling the after affects of his first hiking trip because he was a bit grumpy and impatient with his mom taking pictures and all.  I love that Joshua saved his new shoes all summer so he could have nice clean shoes to wear to school, now both boys have their separate play shoes and school shoes!  When I went to drop them off at school I was planning on parking and walking them into their classrooms to make sure they remembered where they were, but there were absolutely no parking spots available. So, I dropped them at the curb, told them their room numbers, and told them to ask an adult if they got lost!  As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw a parking space, so I parked and hurried inside to catch the boys.  When I got to Jonas' classroom there was no Jonas!! Heading back into the hallway I saw Joshua being helped to his room by an adult and asked where Jonas was.  Joshua said, "oh, somewhere down the hall.  he didn't want to follow me." :(  So I went to find my lost child and saw him just at the other end of the hall with someone helping him.  My boys probably thought I was the worst mom to do this to them!  Anyway, we got the boys to there classrooms and told there teachers who would be picking them up at the end of the day.  Nathaniel and I went to pick them up and ended up waiting forever for them hoping they hadn't got lost or were in the wrong spot, but they had both been let out late.  Just before leaving the parking lot, Joshua remembered he had forgotten his lunchbox, so it was back to his classroom to get it.  Needless to say it was a confusing first day for them.  It got better the next few days though. :)

 

 

Hiking Trip

On Labor Day, Nathaniel, Joshua, Jonas, Papa Burt, Uncle David, Cody, and Abigail went for an overnight backpacking trip up to Lake Angeles.  This was the first big hiking trip for our boys and they came back safe and walking funny from being sore!  We worried about Nathaniel because he had a bad cold that weekend and had a hard time breathing because of his cough, but he came back alive and not worse!  They got back the night before the first day of school and were tired.  Jonas only had one pair of tennis shoes which he wore hiking, so the next morning before they left for school I had to scrub them down as best I could (he stepped into the lake on the trip, so one shoe was still damp) and go buy him some nice school shoes for the next day. It feels like a whirlwind of fun and adventure since moving to Washington, things should settle down once Nathaniel begins work on Monday and the boys are all adjusted to daily routines whether it be school or home routines.



 

 



We made it to our new home in Kingston, Washington! We are so excited to start another chapter in our lives and are so grateful that Nathaniel has been blessed with a good job and that we can stay in the Burt's home for a little while.  Here are some pictures of our journey!  While mommy and daddy were packing things up, Joshua was in charge of watching the baby, so he decided to build a little fort around the baby!

 

Jesse and Logan checking out the moving truck that Grandpa Burt picked up in Hays and drove to Larned to help us pack.

 

The boys showing off in the truck before it gets packed.

 

The day we moved to Larned it had just rained and was wet and muggy! The same was true on the day we moved out.  I can't believe we fit everything into a 16 footer with a little room to spare!

 

We started our long trip on Saturday the 25th of August with Papa Burt driving me and the five boys in our van to Cheyenne, WY.  This is a picture of some of the boys in the hotel that we slept in while waiting for Nathaniel to meet up with us (Nathaniel had to stay in Larned Saturday evening for a farewell dinner for work and then drove all night in the moving truck to meet us at the hotel).  Nathaniel pulled in about 4:30 in the morning and got to sleep for a short spell before we hit the road for our next stop in Soda Springs, ID.

 

I didn't get pictures of the rest of our journey except this one of Logan who was so ready to be done traveling!  After a night spent in Soda with Des and Ammon, we drove to Pendleton, OR where we stayed and swam in a hotel.  The next day, Tuesday, was our shortest drive to make it to Kingston, WA!  We were able to get there by lunch time and had the rest of the day to unload and start mingling our household with Mama and Papa Burt.

 

Here is Logan all happy in his and the baby's new bedroom (wonderful soft new carpet too)!

 

Logan just happened to be the one around when I wanted to take a picture, so we have a lot of pictures of him!

 

Playing with the bikes, trikes, etc. on the Pickelball court on the side of the house.

 

One of the first places we visited was the Kingston Ferry dock where we played in the sand and caught little crabs while it was low tide.  In the picture below is Nathaniel and Jonas, Abigail and Cody (cousins), and Uncle David and Logan.

 

A few days after moving in, we had to take advantage of school not starting until next week so we went camping at a church property called Zion's Camp.  I am so proud of myself for getting this picture, it has been a while since I got all five of the boys in one picture!

 

There were all sorts of cool swings to play on at the camp.  Uncle David is pushing Joshua and Jonas in one of the barrel swings.

 

Abigail and Jesse enjoying the tire swing.

 

Joshua and Grandpa in the canoe.

 

Kids playing in the lake, you can see Logan's little head poking up in the row boat!

 

The boys with their cousins doing puzzles while the adults get some time to relax at camp.