Bennett's Baptism Photos!

I can't believe my little boy is eight years old and baptized! I took these pictures for his baptism invitation back on October 8th. He really is growing up so fast and is such a great boy. We sure love having him as our oldest child. I just hope this growing up business will slow down a little bit, but sadly, I am told it doesn't...

This first picture is my very favorite. I could stare at that sweet smile all day :)

Bed Time

*They all had to sport Bennett's new Harry Potter Glasses before bed one night.
*I love how much they all love each other-they are truly best friends. (I hope it lasts!)
*And Mylie sleeps pretty crazy.

He's a Nut

While getting ready for a photo shoot, this little one wanted me to take some of him. He is a little nut!

Back 2 School {2013}

I am still floored that Mylie is in Kindergarten now and my first baby, Bennett, is in Second Grade! And we are already in the second quarter of school! They are both loving school and doing so well.

Here is Mylie and Coy before we headed out to Back to School night. They love helping me water my flowers. (Kind of crazy that we just finally pulled everything out this past weekend and now we are pretty much done with the yard work and on to the next season!)

Here is Bennett on his first day of school. I always love the "honeymoon" stage of school when they get up super early, get ready super fast, and are out the door way before they need to be. Too bad that only lasts about 2~3 days, and then the exhaustion sets in :) Isn't he a handsome second grader, though? He has great teachers again and is really getting good at Spanish!
Mylie had to wait a week until she got to have her first day of school. So it was double the fun this year with two "First Days of School." She was also beyond excited, and was even sad when the weekend came. She said she wishes she could go to school every day, even on Saturdays and Sundays! I think once her exhaustion had set it, which it definitely did, she has probably realized that having the weekends off is a good thing!

She picked her own outfit and hairdo for the first day of school--a bright pink dress and lots of curls! She also chose her bright pink sequined heart back pack. Always so girly!
Mylie had to be super fancy every day for Kindergarten. It took me a long time to convince her to wear pants to school. Every night she would set out matching accessories/jewelry for what she would wear. Luckily, that has worn off a little. She might even wear pants or leggings as many as two times a week now! Usually it is skirts and dresses.

Saying goodbye at the bus is always fun and a little sad at the same time. (But I really have been enjoying the special time I have with just Coy in the mornings!) Cute Bennett always goes with Mylie off the bus and walks her to the Kindergarten doors. For the first while he would even always give her a hug and kiss when he left her, but Mylie told me he doesn't do that any more. But he still does walk her to her door. What a little gentleman!
Of course I had to follow the bus to school to see Mylie's arrival into Kindergarten. I am glad the teachers tolerate this parental behavior at her school :) It is fun to see them line up for the first time, find their desks, and just be excited to go! We are so happy with Mylie's teacher as well. She is amazing!
At this point Mylie was like, "OK, Mom. Get out of here!" I didn't linger too long, even though I really wished I could be a fly on the wall. I may be weird, but I honestly miss my kids so much when they are at school. It is a big part of their lives that I am not a part of, and it is really hard for me! I have always tried to find ways to volunteer so I could see a little what their school days are like, but because of this pregnancy, I am not able to as much. I've hardly seen any of Bennett's class this year which I really miss, but I've been able to go into Mylie's class to play the piano for singing time a few times.

Our Last Summer Activity!

We headed out with Grandma and some cousins for one last summer fun day right before school started. We rode the FrontRunner train to the Gateway to get lunch, play in the fountains, and get ice cream. It was a great day and perfect weather. The kids especially loved the train! It had been so long since they'd ridden it, I don't think they remembered it much.

The Ride on the Train:

  Playing in the Fountains:     Then Bennett and Mylie visited the moon and mars:

Coy's Third Birthday!

Oh, how I love this boy! To say he was excited for his birthday would be an understatement. I think thanks to older siblings, little ones learn fast the excitement, fun, and anticipation of birthdays! Coy turned three back in August. He chose a robot cake for his birthday months before the actual day. He asked me almost every day if it was time for his birthday and robot cake.

After an eventful morning (you can read about that at the very bottom of this post), we celebrated that day by going out to eat at Noodles & Co. to get his favorite dish of all time, Macaroni and Cheese. Then later that night we had a Robot party that night with Robot cake, Robot Pops, and Robot games. Coy even wanted Happy Birthday to be sung to him in Robot-style.

The night before, my parents took him to Build-A-Bear and this is what he chose all on  his own. The bear's name is Camo Jazz. Coy's favorite color is green, by the way. Thus it was love at first sight when he saw this bear.



We let him open one present that morning to play with through the day. He loved it and calls it his "IPad".

Here is his cake and Robot Pops. The pops were definitely better looking than than they tasted. I didn't have time to actually make cake pops, so I just did marshmallows. Russ actually stayed up late with me the night before adding all the candy details. It was kind of fun to have him help me. It was tedious work to glue on all the details and took a lot longer than we thought it would! The cake was relatively easy, though.

Coy loved his cake and pops. We were planning on having the party outside, but right before a HUGE windstorm hit, and we had to set it all up inside. Luckily it calmed down enough later to still play outside and do some robot races with the cousins.


Here are some more pics before the party.

Opening Presents:

His excitement could hardly be contained when everyone sang to him. He was just shaking with excitement. Russ and I always just try to describe him as really having a "zest" for life. He just loves and appreciates things so much. He makes life so fun because he find such excitement in the littlest things.


Here is just some journaling for myself to remember some things.

Coy at Three Years Old...
He is finally starting to make his "S" and "F" sounds at the beginning of words, and is really starting to pronounce words so clearly.

He is FINALLY trying foods!!! After 3 years of being THE PICKIEST eater ever, he has finally gotten brave enough to try things and even has some new favorites, such as meats, fish, and poultry. That kid literally didn't try any of that stuff the first 3 years of his life. I can count on one hand how many times we actually got him to swallow a bite of chicken. Now, one of his favorite foods is fish, especially salmon. And you should have seen how much trout he ate when we went camping! He even ate fish eyeballs! He also has a newfound love for edamame, another food we never could get him to touch. In fact, most vegetables we could rarely get him to eat. He also loved zucchini this summer. It is so relieving to have him eat foods, I can't even fully express it!

He is smarty. He knows all of his uppercase letters (and has since he was just a few months past two years), knows almost all of his lowercase letters, and knows many sounds. He is funny though, and really has to be in the right mood for me to work on it with him. Mylie on the other hand loves teaching him these things while she is working on her kindergarten homework. He also counts really well, and as long as he can remember 7 without saying 11, he can mostly get to 20 with little or no help.

He and I are enjoying our one-on-one time each morning as the two oldest go to school. It is so special to be just with him each morning, and I will cherish it as much as I can. He is the sweetest child when no one else is around. It is a whole other story when his siblings get home :) He really can bully them good, but a lot of the time, he can be a sweet brother and has learned how to say sorry really well. (He gets a lot of practice.) He is a lot more physical than the older kids, and will hit, punch, and kick...and I honestly have no idea how he learned to act that way! On the other hand, he and Mylie really have become good friends in the time they get to spend together while Bennett finishes his day at school.

And just so I don't forget, here is a little more on another subject:

The morning of Coy's birthday turned out to be quite eventful! Bennett had a soccer game that morning so amidst the rush of getting ready, I was filling the tub for myself (because no one loves a good bath when she's pregnant quite like I do), and didn't even quite notice for a bit that the water looked a little brown, OK a lot brown....no extremely brown and orangeish and even sandy!!! AAAAGHHH! What in the world was going on. (And believe me, I really needed that bath!) I immediately drained the water, and of course turned on all the other faucets to check it (dumb idea), and sure enough our water was majorly contaminated. So I called my mom (the city offices weren't open yet, and I wasn't even sure if they were who I was supposed to call.) She suggested running the water for a bit to see it it would flush clean. Well it didn't, it just got worse and my sinks and tubs were filthy!! So once I FINALLY got a hold of the city, they investigated and found out someone had opened a hydrant (without permission) and messed up the water very badly. The lady said run my water in every faucet that I had turned on that morning (all of them, unfortunately) for 20~30 minutes and it should clear up. Well, after an HOUR of running the water, it was still terrible, and probably getting worse. So I reluctantly called again...Eventually, they had to flush the lines, and then after running the water for probably another hour or so, it was finally almost clear. My water heater was full of it though, so I had to try to run out the hot water about 3 times until the hot water was mostly clear. (Bennett's shower after his game was still a little yellowish.) So, needless to say, I did not get a bath that morning, got to enjoy the day in a greasy bun, and got to clean all of the tubs and sinks. Luckily I had gotten a lot of the cake and marshmallow pops done the night before. Funny thing is, they told me it was still OK/safe to use the water. Really? I would just love a tall glass of muddy water, wouldn't you?