I heart pencils!

Whitney loves pencils!  She finds them all over the house and eats the erasers off.  We're trying to replace pencils with other long cylinders, like spoons and toothbrushes.  So far it's working.   We still have to be careful because if she sees a pencil with an eraser...it's lunch.

My Birthday

 Amongst the shadows you will find me receiving my birthday breakfast in bed.

The Super Saturday that I was in charge of was September 24th, the same day as my birthday.  Joe was extra good to cheerfully do many, many honey do's.  It was a great birthday.  The RS suprised me with cake and balloons at the activity.

Conference Cash

Conference Cash was a great discovery!  They got a conference dollar every time they got a conference bingo and then after each conference session they bought things from the conference store.  I thought this helped them a ton.  Plus we watched 6 extra children on Saturday during conference and that helped them as well.  Success!

Play Time

Sometimes it's just fun to take pictures of Whitney.  I think she looks pretty in this dress.

This is us having a lunch picnic at the park.  Lily often requests that and it's her reward for being good in the jogging stroller while I run.  This day I took pictures because it was a beautiful nice day.

Kentucky Kingdom

Lockheed Martin reserved Kentucky Kingdom(like Six Flags) for the company party.  It was awesome!  We got to bring friends so we brought the Ashtons.  They are the family we date swap with.  Our kids are all around the same age and get along well so it worked out really well.

 Hannah, Lincoln, and Rachel all were really brave and went on the scary rides this time.

I had to take this picture.  Last year we came and I was less than a week from delivering Whitney.  I was so glad she was outside of me  this time and that I got to ride the rides.

Below is all the kids.  It was nice having so many grown ups so we could split up based on kids desires for rides, and grownups too:).  

 This is some girls going on the scary ride.  L to R Melanie, Ari, Rachel, Alina, Kaia, and April

Fist Day of School-ish

Lily's First Day of Preschool 2016.  She was stoked!  She requested the Elsa braid.

 This might be the 20th day of school for the kids.  The first day was crazy.  This was picture day so I figured I would do a make-up picture.  Rachel is in 5th.  Hannah is in 1st.  Lincoln is in 3rd.

Over Ambitious

I decided to do the ambitious project of refinishing our kitchen table.  It required a lot of sanding and a lot of mess but it's finished!  Thanks to Deanna for letting me borrow her rotary sander.  I brought Lily in on the sanding too so I could do it while she was awake:).

Philadelphia Temple Open House

We wanted to go to the Philadelphia Temple Openhouse but ruled it out because it started August 10th, when school started.  We've been excited since this temple was announced since when we lived there we had to go to DC, which was about 2.5 hours with good traffic.  We made a last minute decision to try and pull it off over labor day weekend and we're glad we did!

 We started the tour across the street in a new chapel.

There's a utility building next door with a second story garden.  That's where we took these pictures.

We decided to be tourists of down town Philadelphia while we were there since our kids probably don't remember when we lived there.  This is a kids section at the liberty bell display building.

 The Liberty Bell

A monument that I can't remember the name of.  

 The kids infront of the monument infront of Independence Hall.  In this picture is Ellie and Ruby Ruch.  We knew the Ruchs from when we lived there. They were nice to host us.  We enjoyed spending so much time with them.  

This is one of the story tellers around historic Philadelphia.  When the kids listened to 10 stories that got a free ride on a carousel.  The stories were actually pretty good.  The weather was perfect for walking around.

  

Below is a "Children's Muster."  They had a guy teach them how to march, etc.  It was pretty funny.

 Here's a Benjamin Franklin that I thought looked pretty legit.

Finally the free carousel!

And lastly, Lincoln lost one of his two front teeth on the trip, one week after the other front tooth.  I had to get a picture of his smile. He was self conscience about it for a while.

Happy Birthday Hannah and Rachel!

We lost all the pictures on Joe's phone of Rachel's birthday, but this is Hannah's.  Hannah is such a fun part of our family.  She's very spunky and energetic.

Rachel's birthday was on the day I got back from the wedding  We went out to eat at Zaxby's.  Rachel is a sweet girl and a wonderful first child.  She's very obedient and is kind to her younger siblings.  She's also very caring and concerned about the feelings of those around her.

Rachel and Hannah had a combined party that was "Flower Power" themed.  They tie dyed and made a painted flower vase.  There ended up being about 18 kids last minute.  It was definitely a party!  

Lincoln is a Wolf!

Lincoln turned 8 in June and joined scouts.  He loves it!  This is him at his first pack meeting earning his Bobcat.