Our New Groove

Our first full week into school and it's a good routine!

Asher:
our littlest buddy. No crawling, no foods. Lots of smiling. Loves to be held. Blows raspberries really loudly all through church. Wakes once a night, sometimes twice. Sits and smiles at his crazy brothers. Loves stroller rides. Likes car rides. Enjoys smashing some foods in his high chair at meal times, which we'll call progress, but none of them have made it to his mouth. He's so tender and we are all obsessed with him. Such a sweet soul.

Camden:
Our sour patch kid right now. Sooo sweet, so funny, so adorable... so mean, so maddening, so tantrumy. But mostly he's sweet and we're obsessed with him too. He loves to ride his balance bike to school. He likes to watch Daniel Tiger while I exercise. He loves choosing what I make him for lunch. He loves all cars and trucks in the world and loves to point them all out and talk about everything on the road on our drives. He likes to try to wrestle with Asher when Westin and Bennett are at school, with a distinct "Well, it's just me and you kid" attitude about it. He has to stop us on our walks about every third of a mile to "give baby hug! give mommy hug!"

Bennett:
I wish I could be a fly on the wall for Bennett's school day but he seems like he's liking it! He's my little buddy. He loves picking up Asher lately, which is new and slightly concerning but so far all is good :) He's my biggest eater right now which is totally saying something. They all take turns being in a growth spurt and this guy is for sure in one. We're working hard on our Bob books and he loves to play outside with his brothers.

Westin:
our little shadow. He loves to be where we are, hear what we're saying, learn what we're talking about, ask us so many questions, and do whatever we're doing. He has had great days at school and a great attitude and we've had smoother mornings than last year, which I'm very grateful for. He's soaking up Harry Potter -- we read the book together, then he reads it on his own before we read the next one. He's read 1 and 2 solo after me reading them to him and now I'm halfway through the 3rd with him. We have a Harry Potter world trip in the calendar and he's thrilled about it. He had a blast at our ward party this week, which was a family heritage potluck. We brought Daetwyler rolls and jam and the missionaries awarded our fam "Prettiest dish" because those Daetwyler rolls really are so pretty. And I still feel like I never quite remember the exact right way to tie them and they STILL won prettiest dish, so just imagine Sally's rolls.

Maddie:
I have a meeting about expanding our book in retail spaces this week that I'm hopeful for, and our holiday shipment of books hit the states last week and is making its way to our distributor. It's hard to believe that we're heading into our second Christmas season with this book on shelves! We're loving working on our next book more than we're loving marketing our first but both are important to do, so I need to do some end of year planning. I love our new school routine, I get good time with Camden and good time with Asher, and Westin and Bennett are so cute after school. The hardest part of the gig is when I walk them home and they both talk to me a mile a minute at the same time and I'm getting better and better at just listening to them simultaneously and responding to both when I can, because I just notice when I make them wait for each other then they usually just lose their end-of-day excitement and I get way less out of them. So much of motherhood is anxiety and sensory overload and I decided to just start taking medicine for it instead of waiting for me to learn how to handle it better ;) nooo regrets. Wish I did it sooner. Also, I am just so excited for September and fall and birthday season and fall and, fall. I love fall. The 10-day forecast is all 90s and I wore a sweater to church today. Because, fall. I did regret that. I love fall.

Michael:
has some big things in store at work this week that we'll be happy to get on the other side of, hopefully things come together and we'll feel a weight off in a few days! He played dodgeball with the Young Men this week and I laughed so much at his sweaty state when he got home. He showed no mercy, I could tell. He's really liking his calling. He also likes that I now pack him lunches since I have to pack them for Westin and Bennett :) It hasn't been as big of a hassle as I thought. I like looking at ways to turn dinner into their lunches or pre-make a lot of lunches for the freezer. Tonight we had crepes for dinner because the boys have been begging for me to make strawberry jam, so I finally did and we celebrated with a crepe night. Then I packed them each a turkey/pesto crepe for lunch tomorrow and Westin was excited about it. It's fun to have a kid that is into food. Because life is....so much food.

We are looking forward to a new week in our new school year and just getting in our groove!

From last week, sweet Bennett

A cute second grader in his reading space

Mornings have a lot of time before school... I feel like we start so late!

We look tired and blurry because we feel tired and blurry. I love these two.

Baby hugs... I can't handle it.

Playing with his ears a lot these days.
Not in an ear infection way. Just in a, well these are interesting.... way.

Found a new fun spot downtown. Not the best tacos, but always good to check another spot off that taco search list. 

I love Fort Collins so much.

Tomatoes from the elementary school garden!

We went to a peach festival and it was...
just not our best outing. On the way out Michael said,
"Well, it was a thing to do and we did it." And that appropriately summed it up.
Next time we'll just spend festival ticket money on more peaches :)

Cuties from the ward party eating bishop's apple crisp