Happy Birthday Lynette!
Where's Audrey? Audrey loves to play hide and seek, and her newest way of doing it is hiding behind trees. I then have to search for her loudly, at which time she'll jump out and scare me. In case you haven't seen me say it lately, this is a really fun stage.
My sister Ashley and her family live in Colorado and are able to pick the date their children get baptized. (In Utah, there are so many kids that there's generally a set date) Tommy had the opportunity to be baptized on his 8th birthday, which is really cool. We didn't want to miss it, so we made a quick trip to Colorado to be there. I made my usual cookies, but since Tommy didn't want to have a luncheon, we let the kids all go nuts eating them.
He had his birthday celebration the day before. We filled up hundreds of balloons and the kids launched them and threw them for a few mad minutes until they were gone. After, Connor showed off his strength bench pressing his cousins and then taught them how to do back flips. Ash and I tried and it was UGLY. Well, Ash did okay, but I was awkward. I also did something to my ankle and it still isn't right. That's what I get for attempting my first back flip on land as a 42 year old.
My dad and I snuck (Sneaked is probably grammatically correct, but I don't like it) in our annual, "My dad is super old and just got a year older" 5k. I'm sure I say this every year, but I'm grateful my dad is physically able to do this. I enjoy this tradition and will keep it going even if it means we walk.
Sarah hadn't tried on my dress in a while, so she put it on and...it fit! Poor Mike started to tear up when he saw her. She looks gorgeous in it, and it's a little crazy that it fits her. I found some of the pics from when she tried it on in year's past and have discovered more since. I need to find them all. Stinking kid is getting too old! Here she is in 2014(9), 2016(8), 2019(11), and 2022(16). She found some older ones in past blog books that I need to track down.
It all began on August 10th. I took Audrey to see the animatronics dinosaurs at Thanksgiving point and she was hooked.
We took my parents when they came into town and not only did Audrey get to feed grandpa to a dinosaur, but they also bought her Grave Dancer, her toy T Rex. (Sometimes his name sounds like Brave Dancer, but she insists it's Grave Dancer) This beloved stuffy has not accompanied us everwhere and sounds a lot like me using a gruffy voice.
Sarah was a busy little bee this summer. She had FOUR different camps. I probably need to get pictures from her of each one.
First up was girls camp with our ward. She packed he gear and we loaded it up and dropped her off at the church. I grabbed all of her bedding and left her luggage for her to grab. Sarah closed the back of the car and was off. Without her luggage! It made for an interesting time, but she borrowed some clothes from another girl and had a fun time. (Despite the mouse in the tent at night)
Next up was SBO camp at Utah State. Student body officers from all over the state converge on Utah State for a week of leadership skills. (and the kissing A. Lets not forget the kissing A) Sarah had a great time.
Her third camp was FSY. For the Strength of Youth, which is a week long camp for teens in our church. Sarah and her friend Eliza chose to attend at the University of Utah. They stayed in dorms and got lucky to have a private bathroom and two spacious rooms. A highlight was probably the boy that snuck in a smooch as they were leaving and kicked off Sarah's first official coupling. (I'll have to let her read this and make sure I'm not over sharing.)
Her last camp was OFY, Ourdoors for Youth, with her longtime BFF Lillian. The camp was in Idaho, so the girls had a long bus ride there and back.
It's been nine years since our sweet Erik was born. That seems like a really long time. I love that Audrey now talks about him and tells people about her three brothers, one of whom is in Heaven. It will be a sweet reunion when we get to see him again. We visited him on his birthday and opted for yellow flowers. Sarah decided to be in the picture because her shirt matched perfectly. :)
Happy Heavenly birthday Erik! We all love you!
Steven joined a competitive lacrosse team called the Outlaws. During the summer he had numerous tournaments and his team always did well. His game improved and he really liked his team. He was number 125, which is perfect, since his birthday is 1/25.
