Update: Me

School is in full swing and I LOVE it. Walking away from school, knowing I have 6.5 hours of free time is the best. Of course, it's not really free, but kid-free is good enough. I haven't been as ambitious in filling my days as I was last year, but I'm okay with that.

I've been doing some biking, just trying to get used to a road bike is hard enough. I'm crazy slow (shocker). I'm still crazy slow at swimming. It's infuriating, but I just have to get over it. Swimming I get: my arms aren't strong and I've never really done lap swimming until last year. But biking? I thought I could do better given my legs are fairly strong and I've been riding a bike my whole life. But nope. I'm super slow. Still considering doing a tri in June, though. We'll see.

The boys finally decided what they want to be for Halloween: Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Easy. The ties and scarves are done; I'm just figuring out how to do the Hogwarts robes. Simplicity has a pattern, but it's expensive. And knowing they go on sale for $0.99 makes it really hard for me to spend $8--and that's after my 60% off coupon. Sadly, most of the tutorials aren't that great.

The biggest news is that I joined a clothing "challenge." What does that mean? It means that the blogger tells you the pieces you should have (either that you already own or that you should buy) and then she gives you 48 different outfits from those pieces. Because it's me, I didn't have much in my closet so I needed to get a lot of the things. But shopping with a list was AMAZING. You didn't have to buy the exact thing she recommends; in fact, she gave many options as examples. But it was so helpful for me because I just don't know how to shop. The best part, however, is obviously having her put together all the outfits because this is where I completely fall apart. I have no idea how to do this. So it's been awesome. I don't even have to think about what to wear: I just check the pdf and grab the clothes. So lovely. Plus, I actually like what I'm wearing. Sure, some things feel like a stretch for me. But that's okay. Also, I'm not sure I can pull off a lot of what I'm wearing, but I'm doing it any way.

My calling. Sigh. I knew the hardest thing about this calling (for me) would be finding people to work with me. I don't know that many women outside of my own ward, so am finding it difficult. Plus, asking someone to go to camp for a whole week?! That's so hard! I decided to let our YCLs vote on the theme, so data are being collected as I type. Of course, Chuck reminded me that I can override their decision should I choose. Ah, the beauty of being in charge.

What's next? I mean, it's October so it's just one holiday after another. My half marathon is in four weeks, so that'll be fun. Training has been fine. My Saturday runs are pretty long already, so it hasn't even really felt like I'm training yet. I've been trying to do an additional speed run so that's different. And of course, Thursday night runs with the girls. We have no family trips planned, so it's just hunkering down for the winter. At least Fall decided to finally show up. (Last Sunday was still in the 80s.)

That's it.

Update: Chuck

Chuck is, well, pretty much the same. Work is good. He's working on creating the online statistics course. Of course I'm super jealous. I think he has more fun at work than at home because of his work husband (they don't have any kids together AND his husband likes sports). At home he's busier than he wants with his calling. Sunday meetings, Wednesday nights, and then anything extra. We all know the drill. But they've had a couple of great activities. One was teaching bike maintenance to the YM and the other was teaching the boys how to grill and then eating the food with the YW. He loved the pineapple so much he made it at home. (Rub the pineapple with cinnamon and then grill--delicious!) He'd love more time to play video games, but wouldn't we all?! Well maybe not, but we'd all love more time for something. That's just his something.

In other news, we cleaned out his closet. (And by "his closet," I mean the section of the laundry room where we hang his clothes.) I think we got rid of 50 pounds of clothes. It's amazing. It just feels so good, at least to me.

Update: Rhett

I think all kids are weird. I mean, I only know two really well, but 100% of them are just bizarre. They other night Rhett got every stuffed animal we have (along with his brother) and put them in bed with him. So weird. I love him, but weird. In good news, I'm really starting to like him too!




And what's he doing? School, obviously. Man, 4th grade is REAL. I mean, the homework is serious! He's had lots of projects, spelling tests, math that's getting hard (exponents!), and he's doing cursive. It's been a real adjustment for all of us. Chuck and I are having to learn to navigate Google classroom, Rhett has to learn to manage it all, and Ollie has to learn to play by himself when Rhett's still doing homework. It's not been terrible, but I feel like I have a big kid now, not just a little guy. Socially he's doing okay. I think he likes the kids at school and they like him, but I still can't get him to name one kid he'd like to have over. As long as he's happy, I won't worry. Well, I will, but I won't press. Also he's learning the trumpet in music. That's been, um, interesting.

At home, it's lots of homework. It's also chores and while he's not perfect, he does seem to whine less about them. Like his brother, he loves kindle time (the only screen they choose). He's also doing scouts with church and then hockey one night a week. He's getting much better on the skates and it's so cool to watch your kid do something you can't do. He's still reading a lot, frequently two to three books at a time (which drives me crazy!). And, because he's my kid, he still hates pretty much everything I put in front of him to eat. One day he'll be big enough and hungry enough to eat. Hopefully.

Update: Ollie

This kid. He is such his own little person. Most of the stuff he does comes out of nowhere. For example, he put on seven shirts and five pants during pre-bed reading time. Why? Because he's six. And weird. Mostly the latter.


But he's just so cute, right? Omy. I love him so much.


So what's he up to these days? School. He says he hates it, and I believe he does sometimes, but thankfully this hatred doesn't translate into problems getting him out of the door in the morning. It only manifests itself during writing and then he writes stuff like "School is a prison." Nice. Things are going much better this year. His teacher is great and he's had no trips to the vice principal's office...yet. We got in trouble for doing his entire October homework at once so now we're back to doing it weekly. (We also got in trouble for bringing Bruno to school drop-off in the morning. Ha.)

At home it's a bunch of mood swings. He can be this happy, fun, silly boy but then ask him to do chores and WATCH OUT. ("WHY? Why do we always have to do chores?!?!?!") But then wait a couple minutes, and he just does them and happily reports when he's done. He still does this annoying baby talk thing which everyone in the house hates. ("Me want kindle.")

He loves his kindle, but he also loves riding his bike and jumping on the tramp. Sadly, no one wants to do those things nearly as much as he does. He is still reading really well and it's so nice to not have to read to him all the time. Like his brother, he says he likes to wear only polo shirts (although he does wear t-shirts too). Unlike his brother, he matches these polos with basketball shorts. It's quite the look. And of course, Piggie is still his favorite.

Camping in Ohiopyle

Because our lovely governor has seen fit to change our school calendar, we no longer have a three-day weekend in October. BUT we did manage a short-day on a Friday so we took advantage. I camped here at Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania years ago (I think) and have wanted to come back. So we did. This time, however, we remembered to bring friends. And everything is better with friends.

Saturday morning we did a hike along this gorgeous creek. Best part by far was the natural waterslide. As we started the hike it was too cold, but three of the five kids did it when we were done. It should be noted that no adults got wet, except for shoes.








That night our friends used our electric hookups to have a movie night at our campsite. The kids watched "Boss Baby." I watched my kids laugh at "Boss Baby." We even invited our "neighbor" kids to watch with us.


Sunday morning started out rainy (but we don't care because we have a Scamp!) but then it turned out just kind of misty. We decided to hike anyway and I'm so glad we did. The Youghiogheny River is gorgeous, if not a bit terrifying when hiking next to it on slippery rocks. (Oh Rhett.)




We opted for one more small hike before leaving (long-ish car rides really go so much better when prefaced with as much movement as possible beforehand!). The colors up there were just starting to turn but were really nice here.


Family group shot behind the falls.


The rocks were wet which meant slippery, but we took it slow and had no problems. Piggie even joined us.




We had a great time and wish we could always camp with friends. It just takes so much pressure off of us as parents to entertain the boys. The kids just ran around the campground, and frequently we had no idea where they were. Just like it should be. Besides, we really like these friends and enjoy talking to them, because that's how adults play.

Conference Sunday

Living on the east coast means that conference doesn't start until noon. And to increase any chance of my boys sitting somewhat still during conference, we take advantage of the long morning by getting out. We've only had about two days of fall (Mother Nature still thinks it's summer here), but those two days occurred over conference weekend. So Sunday morning we took a little excursion to Teddy Roosevelt Island. It was perfect! Hike, monument, and sliding. What more could you want?







Then, after this outing, we were able to do the clothing swap between summer and winter clothes, which is unfortunate because of MOTHER FREAKIN' NATURE. It's in the 80s here. So dumb.

Weekend in North Carolina

One of my dearest friends recently made it to North Carolina. When she asked if we could make it down for the day, of course we (or maybe just I) screamed, "YES!" It worked out great that the boys had a Thursday off, so we took them out for Friday too. They didn't get in until Thursday night, so we had Thursday to ourselves. We camped at a recreational area just north of Raleigh and did some fishing.





Rhett caught this little one and we were able to get it quickly back in the water.


He then got this one stuck in the eye with the hook. We're pretty sure it's blind, but we're also pretty sure it lived. We think. We know it puked during the process, however.


Ollie and I played with the camera a bit while Rhett and Chuck did some more fishing. This. This is my son. This is how I'll remember him as a six-year old.


This is how I'd like to remember him. But I just can't.


My lovely friend Rachael! We're pretty much the same person. I love love love talking to her and blame my sore throat on the amount of talking we did.


Her adorable Isaac in my mess of boys. He's only one year older than Rhett but look how tall he is! He's such a good kid and I'm so glad we all got to spend time together.