September through Today

I have gotten behind on blogging once again.  Life has been crazy busy with four kids.   I have learned that four kids is a lot of kids, especially when they are all crying at once.  It also took the older kids a while to adjust to having a new baby in the house.  Truman kept yelling "no baby".  The other two just seemed to need more attention once the baby came.

On September 4th, Sterling started school.  It is his third school since he started kindergarten last year.  He was nervous to start at another school where he didn't really know anybody.  We went to meet his teacher on September 3rd.  She was really nice and I explained that Sterling was nervous about starting at another school.  

Aaron took Sterling to school on the first day so that he could help him find his classroom.

His teacher is doing a lot of fun stuff and he is really enjoying school, but full days are really long when you are only 6.  His teacher called and left the following message on my phone the other day.

 

Shortly after Sterling started school, Avalon started a ballet class.  She loves it. She is having a recital in May and is very excited about it.

 Aaron's parents also came to visit us in September.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures.

On September 24th, my Mom and oddly enough, Aaron's mom had their birthdays.  We had my family over for a birthday dinner for my mom.

 Sterling wrote Happy Birthday on the brick of our house using corn husks.

 

 

The oldest kids made my mom necklaces.  Sterling made his extra big so that my mom could grow into it.  I'm sure she appreciated that.

 

These are pictures of Quin at about a month old.

 

On General Conference weekend, the kids and I made tepees from the corn in our garden.  My Grandpa Batt used to make tepees for us when we were kids.  It made me miss him a lot.  Sterling really got into it.  He spent the next day hunting the dog with a bow and arrow he made from sticks.



 Avalon got a tutu for her dance class.  She loves it and wears it all of the time.

 

The other day I did a photo shoot with the kids.  I made them all matching Halloween shirts and then we took a bunch of pictures.  The shirts were made by simply spraying bleach on the shirts and using freezer paper as a stencil.  Turns out black shirts bleach to orange.

This is what Truman looks like after eating Nutella on toast.

Sterling also recently lost his first tooth.  He is very proud of it and of the fact that the tooth fairy brought $2 for the tooth.  Inflation is going to be the undoing of the tooth fairy.

I also thought that I should post some stuff about what Aaron and I have been up to.  We have spent a lot of the summer gardening. We grew corn, peas, beans, red potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, basil, onions, squash, lots of pumpkins and gourds.  Sterling was particularly focused on the pumpkins.  He planted giant pumpkins and worked very hard on them.  Not everything grew great.  Our pumpkins were pretty small.  We did manage to put some stuff away for the winter, though.  Here are some of our pumpkins.

I have also been canning.  This is the first time I have tried canning and I'm really enjoying it.  My mom has been helping me and we have canned applesauce, apple slices, pears, pickles, salsa, and spaghetti sauce.

 

Aaron just reminded me that he has been busy with hobbies of his own.  He is in two fantasy football leagues, one with family members and one from his old work.  He is very addicted to fantasy football and so I don't really see him at all on Sundays. 

 

Aaron has also been playing tennis with my brother Klint every chance he gets.  They are well matched and have some good games.

The next part of the blog is going to be some random stuff that I have forgotten to post in the past.

The first pictures are better pictures of our finished basement.

Random stuff about Sterling:

 

This video is a voicemail that we received at the first of the summer from a girl in Sterling's kindergarten class. When Sterling left his kindergarten class, he gave all of the kids his phone number because he knew that he would not be coming back to the same school.

Random stuff about Avalon:

The other day Avalon informed me that she doesn't drink her sippy cup at night because she is afraid that bad guys will have broken in and filled her sippy cup with alcohol and then she will be drinking alcohol.  In Avalon's world drinking alcohol is the worst thing you can do.

Random stuff about Truman:

A few Sundays ago, I asked Truman what he had done in nursery.  I asked him if they had sung songs.  He said "yes".  So, I asked him what they sang and he looked at me and in a weird Yoda-ish voice sang "La, La, La". 

I have to say these children crack me up and I am thoroughly enjoying all four of them.