September Happened

Kason finished his reading program.  There was a story at the end of his last book where the kids had a celebration because now they could read.  So, we had a celebration too.  Kason's celebratory food of choice: cinnamon rolls with chocolate icing.

She posed for these all on her own, so cute!

My parents came for a visit!  We had beautiful weather, and this picture makes me think that maybe Montana really is Big sky country.

Our very own "jungle path" around the lake

Science Festival

Good food

I don't think I'll ever get over those blue eyes.

I never thought I'd be so excited for a new toilet.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

Both boys made it up to here and decided that was high enough.

Exploring the Wilds of Bozeman

Things have been hectic.

But, a good hectic.

We love having more space.

We like Bozeman.

We miss our friends.

School started! 

Kason is in First grade, Asher is in pre-school! 

We are homeschooling and it works well for now.

Here's a smattering of things that have happened since we moved in!

Bozeman Parade

Pigtails!  

Why did it take me so long to do this?!  Now her hair is in pigtails practically every day.  Don't worry, she still twirls her hair while sucking her thumb.

 The Swensen clan came for a visit and helped us cut down some big trees in our backyard so we'd have some more space.

I love that all the cousins are such good buddies.  These two look so much alike!

$1 garage sale score!  She loves it.

One of our favorite park finds.  

The kids ride a tube through this culvert under the road!  Isaac went through after our kids did, and we realized then that it might not be the safest thing to do, but they sure had fun.

Yes, somebody did put his swim shorts on backwards...

 What a good sport

The reservoir in the nearby canyon

Throwing rocks

Emry wanting in on the action

relaxing on the front porch

Timer family pictures.  

Yes, that is the garbage can that I didn't get out early enough and consequently missed the truck.  Differences from apartment living!

Summer of Summers Part 3

One of the good things about being at my house was being there for the 24th of July!  Mapleton is my favorite place to be on the 24th.  Kason and Asher got to ride in the parade with Grandma and Grandpa who were with the ambulance as EMT's.  The plan was to pass out otter pops as they rode on the gurney, however I only saw Kason passing them out, Asher was eating one the whole time I saw him.

Then it was to the park for some fun!  They have bounce houses that the boys had a blast on.

Kellie and Emry

And bounce houses with water.  Half the fun of this was watching the boys try to get up the wet and slick steps and take out whoever was behind as they slipped down.

The helicopter ping pong ball drop.  If you get the winning ping pong ball number you win a bike.  I was really hoping we'd defy the odds this year, but no such luck.  I did however manage to lose Kason after this.  After trying to stay calm and not panic, I let my dad know I couldn't find him and we all began looking.  I finally found him wandering around awhile later and we had a little chat about staying still when you're lost.  In my defense, there were about a billion people there.  Later, Asher took a little break on the playground, we were watching him closely, along with the other 500 kids on the playground and then he was gone.  He was lucky enough to be taken to the lost and found and we got to have our name called over the speaker for the lost and found kid.  I didn't even hear it, luckily my mom did.  Mom fail #2.  It was all fun though and everyone had a blast and the day ended with some good fireworks.

Isaac was getting pretty sick of living at "our" house by himself so we decided to brave the tack strips and head up there to be together.  The kids and I made the drive on our own quite well actually (7.5 hours, thank you!) and even saw a bear cross the road by West Yellowstone.  I was the most excited.  

We lived in our kitchen and dining room.  Our couch was in the dining room, all our stuff was in the garage, and we had some tarps laid down with our mattresses on top. We laid cardboard and old rugs over all the tack strips and tried to go to as many parks as possible.  We only suffered one little puncture incident from the tack strips and it wasn't too bad!  I'm so mad I didn't get a picture of the no carpet era, but I guess things were a bit hectic. Emry had some episodes where every other night for 4 nights she would throw up every 15 min for 4 hours!  We finally found a dr and got her some antibiotics for bacterial sinusitis. And all was well!  When the carpet people called  to tell me it was going to be delayed yet another day, I almost started crying in Target.  Needless to say, they worked it out and got the job done in 2 days instead of 4!!!  Carpet has never felt so luxurious!

CARPET!!

And finally, rushing to move in! 

Summer of Summers Part 2

WE GOT A HOUSE! 

So, closing ended up being earlier than expected and after some last minute craziness with dates changing we headed down there from living in Fairfield to go close on our house! 

CR-A-ZY!

We had gone house hunting a few months earlier and found one.  It was a scary decision to buy instead of rent when we didn't know the area yet, not to mention the financial part of it! 

But, it's not a huge town and we had been looking online a ton, had a realtor, and had done as much research as we could.  I was not a fan of the house the first time we looked at it, but Isaac and his parents helped me see the potential (it also makes a huge difference when other people's messes aren't there anymore!)

We were down there for a total of 24 hours.  And the only pictures I got were of our "first homeowner's purchase" - a lawn mower.  Maybe those were the only pictures I got because the whole time we were there we were tearing up all the carpet in the whole house and picked out every. single. little. staple from the pad.  Saves money, but lots of work!  That was one of my main things with the house - it really needed new carpet.  I was told we could have it installed in 1 - 2 weeks, so we went ahead and tore up the old stuff now (more to come on that!)

I've always wanted a picture like this!

Then we went back up to Fairfield for a couple days, then down to my parents house to visit and wait for our carpet to be installed soon.

Bubbles!

We went to a super fun place called "Airborne", full of trampolines and foam pits.

Perfect Summer picture

...still no carpet and now we find out it could be many, many more weeks...

Swensen Family Reunion at Bear Lake

So fun! 

I love Bear Lake and think it spoiled me to other lakes.  It was sandy, it was warm for a lake and it was oh so blue!

These kids played and played hard

The 3 musketeers

I'm so mad I didn't take the camera out on the boat. But Emry took her first tube ride with Isaac.  Just picture a life vest pretty much immobilizing her and up so high on her face it was pushing her little cheeks up, but she was waving furiously at me the whole time.

We also made a trip up to an ice cave

...No carpet, Isaac needs to get to work.  We thought it would be installed by now, so he goes to live in our house with the tack strips sticking up everywhere and the boards on the floor.  We can't take the kids with those tack strips everywhere so I go back to my house with the kids.  Emry throws up 3 times in the 3 hour drive back home.  It was awesome.  Asher was sitting next to her yelling, "I don't like it, I don't like it!"