The End of Summer

  Summer finally came to an end today.  Avery starts school tomorrow, and I think we are all ready.  August was a crazy month.  We moved into our half finished home, we went to Disneyland, then Daryl and I were sick for about two weeks, we spoke in our new ward, and Daryl got to the half way point of school.  Here are some of the outtakes from the month that haven't made it onto the blog yet.  Also you can see how Sisko and Dax are doing.  They adjusted to the new home amazingly well, and are eager to explore the rest of the house.  We often find them waiting at the top of the basement stairs now hoping they can escape.

Sisko hanging out on top of some mac and cheese.  Dax also enjoys stuffing herself in our cupboards.  Fox is much too sensible for such tomfoolery.

Dax and Sisko are grateful that we procured a giant cat bed for them.

Yay! Dax likes the expensive cat furniture we purchased.  It wasn't a waste of money and space.

Oh look at what Luke can do now.  Now we have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.  The end.

Avery put together a puzzle on the iPad and thought it warranted a picture.  Harper thought she needed to be in it too.

Luke trying to snag my phone from Emery.  Emery's hair gets wilder and wilder it seems.

So Harper drew a smiley guy on Daryl during Sacrament meeting at Church.  Somehow Daryl didn't notice while it was happening.  We have a nice discussion about how we don't draw on clothes after Church.  

House Update #5

  A lot of progress has been made with the house, but we still have quite a few things that need to get done.  We had to go ahead and finish the wood floor in the living room because the piano we bought had to be delivered last Friday, so it is now currently sitting in the living room wrapped up in thick layers of plastic since we aren't done with  painting all the trim.  The most progress is visible in our master bathroom.  The tile flooring has been laid, the vanity is installed, and the shower is almost ready for tile.  Avery and Harper's bathroom had it's medicine cabinet installed much to their delight, and their backsplash is up.  The kitchen cabinets are all up now, and they are working on finishing up the trim in there.  The original plan was for our house to be done in two weeks, but Daryl and I are not holding our breath.

Here's what the flooring looks like now.  Much better than the dusty rose stain.  That big box is our stove.  

The hearth in our living room fireplace has been installed.

This is the painters' work sanding and prepping for painting the trim.  Every time they are here sanding it reminds me how much I hate painting.

Here is the bathroom vanity and the new tile flooring.

Here's our future shower.

Here's one side of the kitchen with our island.

Avery and Harper's medicine cabinet and the new tile backsplash.

The current progress of our family room fireplace.

There's actually been a lot of work done on our back deck because the railing was in danger of falling down.  They've been going through replacing posts and boards.

Here is the other side of the kitchen with all of its uppers.

Disneyland 2015

  A couple weeks ago Daryl and i took Avery and Harper to Disneyland.  We were more than happy to leave Emery and Luke at home because doing Disneyland with diapers and strollers is not ideal.  We enjoyed having no diapers to change or strollers to park.  We were also fortunate that my sister DeAnna was able to meet us there too.  That way her dreams were able to come true as well at the princess luncheon at Ariel's Grotto when she met Belle.  The princess luncheon has surprisingly good food too, so it was a win-win.  The girls had a pretty good time.  Harper didn't want to go on all the rides that she was tall enough for, but that really didn't surprise anyone.  In fact one day she happily spent half the day at the hotel room while Daryl did homework.  We had a great time, and enjoyed spending some one an one time with Avery and Harper.

I love Avery's fearlessness.  We might have tried to trick Harper into going on this ride, but she was too smart and refused.  Is it wrong that you just want to freak your four year old?  Probably.

Daryl perfecting his craft.

For the record DeAnna and I weren't trying to hold Avery in.  DeAnna was holding onto her hat, and Avery forced me to hold her hand.

I love Avery's ride faces.  

This is me succumbing to my watery fate.  This was the day after I got drenched on the Grizzly River Run.

We let the girls dress as Queen Elsa and Princess Anna the first day we were there.  They loved having light saber battles while dressed up in their finery.

Harper dressed as Princess Anna with Darth Mickey ears and light saber.

The girls and Belle.

They love Princess Tiana.

Here they are with Rapunzel.

Princess Harper

Avery didn't quite catch what we were going for here.

Avery and Harper in front of Cinderella's castle.

Here's all of us with Walt and Mickey.  

Sunrise

  Last Friday I decided that Ashlyn and I would bite the bullet and drive up to Sunrise on Mount Rainier.  Harper asked to go to the bathroom when we were twenty minutes down the road, and about two minutes after we passed the last gas station for a while.  Then we stopped again at Greenwater.  We eventually did make it to Sunrise.  We didn't stay very long, but we enjoyed the views thoroughly anyway.

Luke didn't seem to mind being in the carrier too much.

Avery and Harper being silly.

Checking out the mountain.

Luke is Nine Months Old

  Luke is insisting on growing and nothing I have said or done has convinced him to stop.  He is nine months old exactly today.  He is 17 pounds and 26.75 inches tall.  He really shot up since his last visit.  He has abandoned the army crawl and now is up on his hands and knees.  Luke also has one bottom tooth that has grown in, and there's another on its way right next to that one.  It's pretty hard to get a picture of his teeth though since Luke is constantly sticking out his tongue.  He doesn't try to pull himself up into a standing position yet, but he does pull himself up while sitting on his knees.  He's still a super happy little guy.

Here he is up on his knees.

Harper wanted to hug Luke for a picture.

My happy little guy.

Luke loves eating real food.

I still haven't convinced Luke that this is a fun place to play for long periods of time.

Here's Luke sitting up all by himself.

House Update #4

The house is coming along.  Our kitchen cabinets are almost all installed.  The interior walls are all painted, and now they are working on painting our doors.  The most exciting thing is that they took up all the paper from the floor today to start getting it ready for staining next week.  We also got our fireplaces installed this week.

These are what the floors look like currently.

The office needs the trim painted still.

Our new living room fireplace.

The dining room without columns and no more triangle.

This is  the new fireplace in the family room.

My laundry room.  

Here's the kitchen.

This is the other side of the kitchen.

Our master bedroom is currently where the doors are getting painted.

One of the guys cut up pieces of the tile flooring and put it in this grate, so it would seamlessly blend in with the flooring.

This is the mudroom portion of the laundry room.