September

The library hosted a few themed parties, and one of them was Pinkalicious.  Sadie has loved Pinkalicious for years now, so I signed her up thinking I would take her and have a one-on-one.  It was on a Saturday, which Ryan always wants to use to get out of town.  So he ended up taking the older two on a hike to Lower Palisades and I took Kaden with Sadie and I to the Pinkalicious party.  He was happy to be there.  Look how cute he is on Sadie's lap during story time!

 The librarians were all dressed up.  It was really cute.

 They made wands, ate a cupcake, and had a little dance party.  I think Kaden liked the dance party best.  Well, maybe the cupcake best.

 After their 8  mile hike, they came back and Kylee mowed the lawn.  She knows how to work hard for sure.  She gets paid $5 each time she mows.  And she does well!

Around Dylan's birthday he somehow talked me in to buying him a giant jawbreaker.  I bought one fore all three kids because they think they are so cool and I have memories of eating them when I was little.  So they spent some time sucking on them like two different days, and they have since sat in the pantry untouched.  But Dylan was working on his with the tip of his tongue (quite effectively, actually.  He got through a few layers faster than the girls) and soon after he complained of a sore on his tongue.  Well, this sore lasted for MONTHS!  The poor guy was sucking on ice constantly trying to numb the pain.  I started worrying that something was really wrong with him, some sort of mineral deficiency that affected his healing.  I felt really bad for him.  It did eventually heal, but it took like three months.

 I harvested my garden and I love it!  I made this veggie chowder soup using all veggies from my garden, except garlic I think.  Onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, corn, I can't remember what else.  It was really yummy too.  The kids even liked it.

 I had to laugh at Dylan's football shirt one day after a game.  Grass and dirt stains covered the back of it.  It's clear he played hard!

 Kaden loves books!  Not surprising since all my kids love books.  But I think it's so adorable to see him hanging out reading, especially on his belly in his church clothes.

Sadie loves to be in pictures with Kaden.  And she also likes to read to him and play with him.  They are good little buddies.

 Our neighbors were selling their tickets to an Aggie football game and we have Fridays free so we took them!  It turned out to be a beautiful night (even though most of the nights were freezing in September).  The kids get a little bored and would rather run around, but it was fun for awhile.

 Kaden has to goofiest faces.

 These two happened in August but I somehow missed them on that post.  Dylan and I spent some one-on-one time going down by the library and walking along the river playing Pokemon Go.  He has not been able to get too serious about it because it is on my phone and I don't let him play it too much.  But we wanted to see what the "gym" was all about.  Plus hit up all the pokestops along the river.  There were a lot.  We had a lot of fun.  And it was obvious there were a lot of others playing the game as well, lol.  I guess I kept him out a little too late though, because he fell asleep on the way home.

  

Sadie had a rough month or so a little before school started, and then into school a little.  It's like she was having power struggles with us.  Or she just decided she wanted to do her thing and who cares what mom asks her to do.  When she would completely disobey me, I would get really mad, and then there would be a power struggle and fight.  I was having a really hard time understanding where her behavior was coming from.  And it was especially frustrating when A: I needed to be somewhere so I asked her to go get dressed but she decided that's not what she wanted to do so instead she lays on the floor of my closet whining "mo-om!"  For 30 minutes, making me late and very angry.  And B: when she is losing the power struggle so she screams bloody murder at the top of her lungs when Kaden is sleeping...  UGH!

Anyway, one of those times I kind of bribed her with a "date" because I started wondering if she was just having "middle child syndrome" and having some alone time with me and doing something special would help.  So we went to Jamba Juice and hung out.  We had fun, but not 10 after we got home, she threw another fit because I asked her to do something.  So yeah, I guess that wasn't the solution  UGH!

Honestly, I think the turning point was when she was having an episode (it's really hard to describe her episodes because there's no rhyme or reason to how she's acting).  We were at Kylee's soccer game and needed to walk back to the car.  The walk is about double the length of a soccer field on grass, really annoying to carry chairs and a toddler and a bag full of snacks and entertainment.  So the game ended and Grandma carried my chair for me, but she was in a hurry I think because she went quickly and dropped it off in the parking lot by my car.  I was carrying Kaden, who was cranky anyway.  And a bag.  But the kicker was that I was sick.  I still haven't talked about me being sick all the time.  But this time my stomach was killing me.  I asked Sadie to carry her backpack that she had stuffed full and brought with us.  I guess she didn't want to carry it and thought that I should be able to.  She whined "mo-om!" and started pushing me.  I couldn't handle being pushed when I didn't feel well and was carrying a load.  I was patient, didn't scream at her in front of everyone, but after we had walked less than halfway, and she was still pushing on me, I had to take a knee to give my body a break for a minute.  Ryan was out of town, probably golfing, and I was so tired from being sick all the time.  And I just couldn't physically deal with a nearly six year old pushing on me.  So I knelt for a second, and cried a little, trying to gather some strength to make it the rest of the way to the car.  Sadie saw me crying.  She is generally a very empathetic person.  So when she saw me, she stopped being a pill and I looked at her and said, "I can't handle you pushing on me, I hurt really bad.  PLEASE?"  And she stopped.  And a lady asked if she could help me but there was nothing I could hand her (my baby?  My stomach pains?)  So we slowly made our way to the car and Sadie calmed down.  She still acted up a bit.  She still does.  She's kind of a stinker, but I guess it's the age.  But I think that moment made her realize that her actions do affect other people.  I talked to her again at home about how it was really mean to me when I am in pain for her to act like that.  And she understood.  So yeah, things have gotten better.  Life with kids is fun and super challenging sometimes!

On that note!  I got to have a weekend getaway with my friends in Park City and Salt Lake!  It was awesome!!  We drove down Friday morning, stopped in Brigham at Maddox for lunch, then made it to the temple just in time for a session without having to wait.  The Salt Lake temple is fun with it's live sessions.  Then we settled in at the condo in Park City.  The next day was Saturday and we shopped at the outlets and then went to the Women's Session of General Conference in the Conference Center.  It was so great!

 Sunday we walked around downtown and just hung out.  This was outside the condo.

 And in the evenings, we had too much fun!  We played Heads Up, the app like charades.  It was SO fun!  We laughed and laughed.  We spent some time in the hottub and sauna.  And we enjoyed the fancy white robes

 I went for a run and enjoyed the views.

 We were going to go to the Olympic Park, but it was rainy so I didn't think we would be able to do any of the fun stuff there.  So we shopped some more instead.  So fun!

I drove home alone Monday night, everyone else was staying another day or two.  And on the way home I listened to EFY music and thought about the weekend and the good people I spent it with and I just felt so uplifted! And blessed!  I'm so happy that Ryan sacrificed and dealt with the kids and work so that I could go.  It was amazing.