Sweet September

Every year I feel like August is 15 weeks long and September is like 5 days. Every year.

Michael:

went hiking with us on Saturday at Balsam Forebay and it was really pretty. We went out on a date Friday to Westwoods with some friends and had a fun time with them. He was home all weekend and harvested tons of grapes from his garden to make some grape juice with the boys. We both got so much done in the little bit of time between our hike and our date because Camden slept through that whole 90 minutes. He never stays asleep in his carseat and that has been hard, but it made a big difference on Saturday when he did! Michael works so hard and we love him.

Maddie:

loved going out with Michael on Friday night, loved hiking on Saturday, loved the cooler weather this week. I feel like basic needs (for me and three other little people) take up all my time right now. Especially food. If I make healthy food choices for us I feel like it takes so much of my time. I spent so long trying to fix up the wheels of my stroller this week with a repair kit but in the end I think I just need to buy new inner tubes. Sometimes spending time and effort on mundane stuff like that makes me super annoyed but I'm learning more and more that life is just lots of work, big and small, and when we do it we're happier. And when we do it we can have more fun later too. I'm feeling extra tired lately, not sleepy, just tired -- keeping a little family afloat is a lot of unexplained work and sometimes I can get lost in it. But I love the sweet little moments with my boys that feel like a pause in it all, even through all the hard stuff.

Westin:

had such a hard time when grandma and grandpa left on Monday. He really had a good time with them last week. His favorite parts of his week are Student Chef Wednesdays (someone in the class gets to help make a fun treat for everyone) and Book Buddies on Fridays (he's paired up with a 5th grader and reads with them, and he says that his book buddy makes him "laugh and laugh and laugh"). He has a best buddy named Weston at school and they seem to have a lot of fun together. He's such a helper and so sweet. We've come a loooooong way with his temper and it fills me with extreme relief.

Bennett:

seems to be picking up that his birthday is happening soon. He even held up three fingers when daddy asked him how old he was going to turn. He has some streaks of being a stinker lately and honestly I laugh even while they're happening even though, such a stinker. It's just so un-Bennett that it keeps amusing us. Although the pen marks on my couch and chair that I keep meaning to hairspray out of there remind me that it's not all fun and games. He's only napping about 50% of the time these days, which is just so much earlier than when Westin started doing that and I can't deal. I planned on taking a wall off his crib when we moved them into the same room but I'm afraid that will just kill the naps all together so, for now, he sleeps in the crib still and sometimes looks at books there for quiet time. His speech is coming along, I can tell he's working hard. My favorite things he says right now are "You help me?" and "I wuv vu". 

Camden:

is just so tender. I left him with a teenage babysitter for date night for the first time this week and he did great. I'm looking forward to when I teach him to fall asleep on his own at 4 months, I think that will give me so much time back. But I'm also soaking up his sweet rocking-to-sleep moments. I am so lazy with feeding him at night -- I've never slept with my babies or fed them laying down and I've been doing both so much. The other night he woke up at 1:30, so I pulled him into bed and fed him. Then he was crying so I put him back in his bed to fall asleep (which made no sense but I was tired) and looked at my clock and realized it was 5:30 and NOT even the same feeding. All my nights are a similar story, which overall I think means I'm getting more sleep but probably creating some bad habits for this little guy. I'm not going to worry about it for another month or two though. He was so fun to hike with on Saturday :)

So sad saying goodbye to grandma and grandpa on Monday morning.
Westin cried and cried and cried. And cried.

When Grandpa and Westin would walk to and from school last week they built lots of rock stacks just to see if they'd stick around.
We found two on our way to school on Monday and Westin thought that was pretty cool!

I've been turning on kids yoga when I exercise and the boys love it.
I exercise whenever Camden is asleep, so these two sometimes need some entertainment when that goes down!

This scene. This is life right now.
Feed, rock, keep him upright, sleep. Think about safely putting him down and get something done.
Eyes wide. Repeat the process.

But oh the sweetness is not lost on me.

This face.

Bennett eating his ice cream bar in a slightly feral way.

More cosmic kids yoga.

Cutest little school picture boy.
He really wanted to wear his Captain America shirt that day.
He's also already asked if I can make sure it's clean for his birthday in November.
We can never be too prepared.

Saturday hikes! Camden's first ergo ride.

It was 50 degrees, which is half of what most of our week was, and we were in the clouds.
It felt like a different world than the long-lasting Fresno summer.

Sweetest. I loooooove hiking with a happy baby strapped to me.

Bennett was our little pack horse (his choice).
He was totally into stuffing that backpack with all our snacks and hitting the trail.

Crossing the dam

All three out. And then Camden stayed asleep in his car seat (which he never does) up until our date that night.

We love to get all ready for church then watch some home videos.
Bennett's TV-watching posture is inspiring.