I think we packed 10 years' worth of activities into August. It was a great end to the summer and we all had a blast together! Because it was such a busy month, I've already written about some of what we've done, including Ben's families' reunion with his siblings, Rylee's fourth birthday, a trip to Lagoon, getting back to school, and Oliver's first birthday (some of which was celebrated in August and some in September). We also got family pictures done in August and I love the way they turned out.
One really fun thing in August was how long cousins were here. They came at the beginning of the month for the family reunion and ended up staying until the last week. It was fun to spend so much time with them.
We went swimming at the rec center, which was a blast! Makenzie and her kids came as well and we ran into neighbor kids while we were there.
Getting a haircut in preparation for family pictures!
Some pictures when he turned 11 months at the beginning August 💗
Rylee wanted a picture too!
Ashtyn and Parker making more people.
Oliver learned to clap and it's one of his favorite things now. He especially loves If You're Happy and You Know It. He's really good at clapping now too (better than in this video).
He also loves walking around with this thing, but now he's also started standing on his own and taking steps without the walker (I'll share that next month).
Oliver loves signing. He signs food, milk, dog, bird, and outside.
I'll have to try to get video of the other ones and a better video of this sign.
When you're having a hard day, sometimes you just need to wrap up in a blanky with Mom.
Hanging out with cousins tuckers a boy out.
I love watching him eat.
Ashtyn reading to Oliver.
In the summer, Ashtyn and Parker did an online class about bugs.
At the end, they could choose to do some sort of project on a bug and the girls wanted to do a video about the life cycle of a butterfly. This is Ashtyn's.
And this is Parker's.
When I was making cookies for the family reunion, Oliver wanted to help too.
And he loves helping with laundry.
Oliver loves to crawl under (and through the bottom of) chairs and stools.
Rylee loves going and doing things all the time, but she also crashes in the afternoon when we do a lot. Luckily, we were planning on staying up a little later on this day anyway, to hang out with cousins outside as it cooled off some.
While cousins were still here, we celebrated Elizabeth's birthday a little early. We did a fire with hot dogs and then a cake. It was fun to celebrate Elizabeth, we're so glad she's part of our family!
Oliver was in heaven when he found a toy truck with a puddle of mud and a ball to throw in it.
Oliver also loved the ice cream cake!
Also while cousins were here, Grandpa Danny took the grandkids to look for fossilized shark teeth in the mountains. They had a blast!
Oliver was ready to climb the mountain!
Rylee loved climbing as high as she could.
He's a big boy! He doesn't want to be carried!
We love having Uncle Dalin along with us!
Parker was our cactus radar. She was pretty wary of cactus the whole time and with good reason. Thomas got poked by one, and it hurt but he was okay. Parker hid under a bush after and didn't want to keep walking (she was worried about it happening to her), but she toughed it out and made it back to the car. On the way home, Grandpa got them treats at the gas station and they got to play with cousins all day. It was a great memory.
Hanging out with cousins 💗
Another time, we went to the park with everyone (they had a ward party there and went down to be with them).
I think Oliver is just the cutest little boy.
My boys 🔥
I love them so much.
Another park day! We went to a park that Melissa's kids had really been wanting to go to.
We tried to go on a day that was supposed to be cooler, but the morning was still pretty hot.
While at the park, Ashtyn found this caterpillar.
She had a hard time leaving it behind, so I let her take some pictures of it to remember.
After cousins left, we slowed down a bit and got back into a school routine.
In the evenings, it's been cooling off sooner so we've been able to do some more bike rides. Oliver and Rylee do great in the bike trailer and both Ashtyn and Parker have big enough bikes to keep up with me.
Rylee getting ready for her birthday party!
Oliver loves to eat this way now. It's so funny.
He struggled to sleep and I discovered this was why.
Ashtyn loves to read and I love it.
Playing with his dinosaurs in the tub!
Rylee loves to make "castles" for her toys out of our cans of food in the pantry.
I made two angel food cakes for Rylee's birthday party, so then I made two sponge cakes to use up the egg yolks. They turned out pretty good.
I love the laid back mornings.
Sleeping babies are my favorite.
Oliver loves to try to sharpen crayons in the pencil sharpener. He watches and then tries to figure out how to do things himself and it's the cutest thing ever.
Sleepy baby.
I love his new jumper!
Rylee and Mom!
Oliver loves playing piano, so Ashtyn had the idea to put his chair here.
Unfortunately, it didn't work for long. He pushes his chair out with his feet. In the kitchen, his chair will slide on the floor, but on the carpet, it won't so it tipped over. It was a slightly traumatic experience for him, and we aren't trying it again.
Parker wanted me to take this, hoping that it would look like her head was inside the frisbee on the wall without her body.
Oliver loves banana bread and raspberries!
I got no tomato and Ben got tomato, but we couldn't figure out who's was whose, so we opened them up and had to take a picture of how small the tomato was. It was too funny. Luckily we had some garden tomatoes from a neighbor Ben could add to his.
Lazy Saturday mornings!
I love watching Oliver play and explore!
Oliver loves sliding!
Oliver loves pizza!
Oliver dancing!
Oliver loves playing piano!
Oliver loves playing with his sisters!
One evening at Ben's parents' house, Ben walked down and picked me some sunflowers for my vase.
I am so lucky to have him.
Oliver playing with a train set we had borrowed for his birthday party.
He's so cute!
And playing with a new toy that Aunt Melissa got him!
He (and the girls) absolutely love it.
For the last few months, we've been working on trying to do our dishes right after we finish eating.
We had this chart and every meal we remembered to do it, we got to fill in a square. It took us awhile, but we finally filled it in and got to go get ice cream as a reward!
Our ice cream cones!
Oliver highly enjoyed my ice cream cone 😂
We also started watching some episodes of I Dream of Jeanie and it's fun how much the girls love it.
These cars run on batteries. The girls set up courses and then create their own demolition derbies, to see which car will win.
They've had so much fun with it.
Near the end of August, after school was in but before the splash park closed, we went over there with Makenzie (Ben's cousin) and her kids. The kids had a lot of fun, and they found a frog! I had them let it go before we went home.
(Side note: I thought it was a toad and Ashtyn thought it was a frog because she had learned the difference between a frog and toad somewhere. We took this picture and sent it to Ben to ask and Ashtyn was right!)
They loved finding the frog there!
When we got home, the girls found three more frogs in the window well! We rescued them and the girls loved playing with them until we let them go.
We kept them in a container in the bathroom until we had the chance to let them go. Ashtyn was playing with her favorite one and it got away in our house, but we didn't know until hours later when we were leaving to let them go. We looked for it but couldn't find it.
That night, Ashtyn was praying that we could find it. She really didn't want it to die, but if we didn't find it, we knew it probably would. I was worried about it, too, because of the smell. When Ben and I went to bed, Ben was joking that in the night, we were going to hear it hopping around while we were trying to sleep. Then we looked over and it was sitting right there on the floor! Ashtyn was so happy and so grateful that her prayer had been answered.
August was a long, busy, fun, and exhausting month! It is weird to look back at the beginning of August and see how different things were from the beginning of September. We loved summer this year and made so many memories. I hope my kids always remember how much fun we had together, and I know I always will.
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