Who doesn't love FALL?!? It's my absolute favorite time of year. I do however think that summer went by way too fast....how can it possibly be over? One fabulous plus about that though, is the return of Thatcher to school. It makes both of our lives so much easier. He likes being at school and having fun with other kids, and I like having him spend some time away from home for part of the day... its perfect.

Anyway, here are some pics that pertained to summer that I just didn't get around to posting until now.


We finally got a bike trailer for the boys and I gotta say, I love it! With both boys, I am much too big of a wimp to get very far, but usually I take Luke for rides while Thatcher is in school. On this particular occasion however, I did manage to get around the block!

We went to the Brian Reegan concert at Thanksgiving Point with some friends in August. For those of you who have not heard his comedy, you must at some point... he is HI-Larious. That is such a fun venue, outdoor concerts are the best.

We went up to Silver Lake for one of our outings, it was a perfect day. How cute are these two brothers?

Thatcher started soccer again this month and he is a little bit more interested in actually kicking the ball then he was last season.

Here he is in action.... Go Thatcher!!

Thatcher and his Dad are two peas in a pod... Not only do they look exactly like each other, they both think they are so funny! I guess they are for the most part...

Here is some great entertainment from Thatcher... He loves to sing!

Moving!!

Well, hoping to be! We have officially listed our house and are now just playing the waiting game to see if anyone likes it enough to buy it.

Just getting our house ready to put up for sale was a chore in itself. We bought a storage unit to put some things in to make our house look a little less cluttered and lot more enticing. We thought we'd only have a few things to put in there... now of course its almost full. If you ever want to know how much crap you have, think about moving! It becomes apparent sooner than you'd hope.

I also noticed that I should probably clean our little stove inserts. I debated for a while on how much effort it would actually take to get them to look good and then decided that it wasn't worth it... Do they sell new ones that I can just buy?!?

Moving is definitely not on my top ten favorite things to do, but it is a necessity unfortunately! When we first moved into our house we thought it was huge and had tons of space. Now 2 1/2 years later we are tightly crammed with one additional child and no place to expand.

So... if anyone lives in a cute neighborhood that has any houses for sale by them, let us know! (that would of course entail us living by you though, so think it over!)

BEAR LAKE!!

BEAR LAKE!!

We had so much fun in Bear Lake with the fam. We stay at an amazing cabin that fits everyone comfortably... its 7 days of nothing but relaxation, games, and fun!
It's great having 6 kids in the family, 5 of which are married so we had plenty of people to get a competitive game of volleyball going. The sand was too hot during the day, so we moved the net into the shallow water so we could also get wet while we played, it was awesome! It also made it a little easier on those who were willing to dive and sacrifice their bodies for the ball.

Mat and Brandon were a good team. Way to go boys...


Oh yeah, we looked this hot the whole week!

Me and Thatch getting ready to ride the 4-wheeler. He likes the fast life and loved the wave runners also... he is quite the dare devil!

Luke loved the water, this is about as far as we let him go in, but he was content to just hang out and sit and splash.


Everyone really got in to the volleyball games, it was on when we had the siblings against the spouses...


The three grandkids hanging with uncle Chad.

He likes it in the nude...

So sad to see the week come to an end. It's hard coming back to reality and responsibilities!

7 years and counting!!

We had our 7th Anniversary on July 31st! We ended up spending it with the whole family in a cabin in Bear Lake, but it was awesome nontheless!

Mat is the best husband in the world and makes me happy every day. Thanks for putting up with me for seven whole years!

Thatcher turned 4 this month!! I can't believe he is that old. We had a fun party for him in Gramme's backyard and had a spongebob theme. Mat is a genius, he made a spongebob cake and decorated it himself! He is a great cook and seriously so creative. He wanted to go to culinary school at one time... I think he would have been an amazing chef!


Here is the cake along with some Patrick cupcakes

Thanks to everyone for making his birthday so fun!

So I have a really good friend who just happens to be the most amazing photographer! She has been doing our family pictures for a few years, and just took some of Luke for his birthday. She always does such a great job, we are so lucky to benefit from her talent!!

Here is her website if you want to check out some of her other marvelous work:

http://www.picsbysteph.com/

Thanks Steph!

Thatcher James

I wanted to blog a little about Thatcher because he is turning 4 next week! This kid is one of a kind. He is hilarious, so cute, so smart... I was looking at the videos Mat took of him on his last day of preschool and realized how glad I was that he actually made it to the last day. If I was a good blogger, I would have already written about some of his preschool shenanigans, but alas I am not.

Basically for the last two or three months of school, every time I would pick him up his teacher would have that look on her face and start the conversation with... Thatcher made some not so good choices today. I would of course look shocked, because Thatcher is perfect every minute of every day at home... I had to give the obligatory, Oh no, what happened today? And then she would proceed to rattle off a list a mile long of things like.... well, he hit someone, he stepped on someones toes, he pulled a chair out from someone, he said he didn't like one of the girls, he smashed another kids fingers in the door, he bit someone ... and on and on. What?? Who's child is this??

His teacher is actually really cute and for some reason really loved Thatcher and kept saying how he had a special place in her heart, and it just made her so sad when he does stuff like this. She even welled up with tears a couple of times, and if this had to do with her thinking we beat him at home or that he was a lost cause I have no idea. We talked to Thatcher until we were blue in the face about what kinds of things are allowed at school but nothing seemed to get through to him. We told him that they were not going to let him come back to school if it kept happening, and eventually I think it sunk in because one day his teacher threatened to call me and have me come and pick him up. He said that he was sorry for whatever he was doing at the moment, and was good from then on.

I don't know what got into him at school those last few months, but truly this is not the cute child we have raised to be so loving and kind. All I have to say is that maybe boys will be boys and they just go through phases, not that he didn't get in trouble for these things, but he seems to have grown out of this phase and is once again fun and cute and nice.

One night after my surgery a couple weeks ago, Mat was gone and I was laying on my bed in pain and Thatcher came up and gave me a kiss on my forhead and said, "don't worry mom, I'll take care of you while Daddy's gone". Wow, I love this kid! He has such a big heart and is a great big brother and takes care of everyone. He is too smart for his own good sometimes, but he makes us laugh constantly. We are so happy that he is a part of our family!