Fall Weather

The last couple days we have been enjoying cooler fall weather. It is such a welcomed change. We've had a fun week. I've had a couple good jogs with Max. Especially yesterday around the lake. Levi is now a half day pre-k kid and I love it! I'm so happy with the decision we made to have him come home early. I love those few hours I have with my boys before Lily gets home. Levi has helped me accomplish a lot at home this week. We put up fall decorations, washed Danny's car, mopped the floor and went grocery shopping. He's so willing to help me. I love how excited he is to see me when I pick him up from school. 

Last night Matt and I were able to go on a date without kids. That was the first time we left Max and he did great. This morning Matt let me sneak away and go to the craft show at the expo center. Loved it...people are so talented. Lots of OSU cowboy crafts. Matt worked today while the kids and I did chores. Tonight we had a hotdog roast and it was lovely. Perfect weather and terrific conversation with the kids. I am so proud of Lily for all her hard work at school. She loves to talk about school and is already learning so much in 1st great. Tonight she was telling us about CVC words. That means consonant vowel consonant words. She was also telling us about how Y is so special and that her class sometimes treats the Y like a vowel. Her favorite part of that is the word 'treats' because that makes her think of treats you can eat. Oh man I love her. Tomorrow we have Stake conference and then onto another busy week. 

4 month Max

 September 10th he turned 4 months. I feel like every time I talk about this kid I'm always gushing. I honestly do not have one bad thing to say about him. He is a complete joy and our entire family is in love with his kissable self. 

 Max is a really great sleeper. He wakes up sometimes during the night. We had a week of him sleeping 8-11 hours without waking up. Sweet! He's also a really great eater. Infact I weighed him a week ago and he was nearly 22.5 pounds. This is even blowing Lily's chubby baby stats out of the water. I remember when Lily was a baby I got a million comments on how big she was and I was a little self conscious about it as a new mother. Levi was much smaller in comparison. I did NOTHING differently people. Max came to me a big boy and he has just grown so fast. I'm so thankful for a happy, healthy, content, wonderful, snuggable baby boy! We can't get enough of him. Some of his talents right now include eating his hands, jabbering, laughing, smiling, bringing his toys to his mouth. One fun fact is that he basically only poops in his diaper when he is sitting in the blue bouncy chair. I would say 95% of the time this is the case. This is true baby skill. We love you Maxi boy!! 

New Vehicles and Danny

About a month ago, we finally upgraded to a van. We are in love with this new to us Honda Odyssey. The extra space is wonderful for our growing family. The timing worked out perfectly. My brother Daniel was needing a car and ours was available. Thank you to my dad for working out all the details. It was sure nice of him to think of us both and make this happen. Levi was so happy to wash the car, getting it nice and clean for Danny.

Yesterday, we took Lily out of school early and headed to OKC to pick up Danny from the airport. It was so good to see him and it felt so normal to have him here. 

 We ate at 5 Guys and were happy to see that we were eating potatoes from St. Anthony, ID. We are fond of our time living in St. Anthony. We still talk about how nice our apartment was there.

Here is Matt showing Danny what makes this car work. There's a little sneak peak at Lily's Halloween costume.

This morning Danny drove off with his "new to him" car and we said goodbye to our first family car. I have to be a little sentimental for a moment. I remember when Matt bought this car. I had a fresh new engagement ring at that time. He bought this car and I took it back to WA for the summer before we were married. Matt and I drove from Washington to Idaho together as an engaged couple. We drove to the Idaho Falls temple together in this car on our wedding day. We brought three babies home from the hospital in this car. We rolled into Stillwater, OK for the first time with this car, Matt's truck and a U Haul not knowing what our lives were going to be like in the days to follow. We've had many wonderful trips and adventures as a family. I know it's just a car but it has been through the most memorable and best times we have seen so far as a family. It was such a good little car for our family. I'm glad it's going to family who will be starting their new adventures together. 

Labor Day Weekend: Fair and Missouri

I am still glowing about how awesome this weekend was. Friday night we didn't have any plans set in place. On the spur of the moment we decided we needed a family night and decided to go to Braums for dinner. We usually do not drive on Airport road. It is a windy road and I get motion sick, especially when I was pregnant. Thankfully that night he made an exception and drove past the airport. We drove by exactly as the OSU football team were taking off on their way to Dallas to play their first game of the season against Florida State. We were pretty excited to stop and watch the plane take off. After we ate Braums we decided to go up to the Payne County fair just to look around. I'm sure thankful we did. We were able to see that our Lily won 3rd place in the K-1st Grade coloring contest. I'm so proud of her. Lily is getting to be quite the artist...drawing and coloring. She puts so many details into her work and makes it beautiful.  

Saturday we were invited to a pool party at the Burkhart's house. The kids had so much fun swimming, playing in the sand and eating. That night we watched the football game on TV. 

Sunday morning Matt suggested that since he had work and school off for Labor day we should do a quick trip to Springfield, MO. I haven't even been out of Oklahoma since April 2013 and I didn't realize how much I needed a little vacation. We decided that after church we would come home, pack real quick and head out for the night. I'm so glad we did. Matt and I gathered all the stuff and didn't even tell the kids what we were doing until they saw us loading the van. They were beyond excited and so good for us on the 3.5 or 4 hour drive. 

Matt had been to Springfield last year and this is the hotel he stayed at. He loves me. I'm so thankful we stayed in a super fun hotel. It was perfect for the kids. Do you see that elevator? Going up and down that to the 6th floor was so exciting for the kids. 

This might be one of my most favorite pictures ever. Yum! I could just eat this boy, he's so good. He was a little angel on this trip. Even when we tortured him by making him swim in the freezing pool. 

I am in love with our family.  My heart is so thankful for these little people. 

The sun was just about down when we arrived but we had time to do some swimming. 

Max and I sat on the side lines and watched Monday morning. He was a trooper swimming on Sunday night...I didn't want to make him do it again. We loved watching. Part of the pool was outside. They just had to swim under the glass window. Monday morning it was a little rainy which made it even more fun. 

Once we had breakfast, swam and bathed we checked out of the hotel and made our way to Bass Pro. 

Matt and I have always loved going to Cabelas and we liked the Bass Pro shop in OKC. Matt had been here before and told me how awesome it is. I was pretty much expecting it to be similar to Cabelas, which is awesome. However, this was far better than my expectations. We saw live alligators, turtle, gigantic fish and more. There was so much to see and we had a great time exploring.

The kids got ice cream and Matt and I got fudge. Yum! 

Next stop was fishing. We went to a fish farm outside of Springfield. The kids loved it. They caught their fish quickly and were proud. Lily said she felt a little sad for the fish. 

The guy clean the fish and bagged them up for us and we were on our merry way back to Stillwater. What a lovely trip! One thing I loved was the 7 hours of driving where I had Matt all to myself. He let me talk his ear off. There wasn't any homework, smart phones or T.V. shows in my way of getting his attention. Thanks for the awesome trip Matt.