September little things

We love her.
Amen.

I have this picture the beginning of September, but it’s really from the end of August when Elle returned from Jerusalem and she gave us some gifts.  I posted pics of the girls gifts, but here are mine, and oh I sure love them.

(Elle knows I like to collect salad tongs from all over the world…I know, random…but I adore those ones from Jerusalem.  And I love the black and white picture beauties that now adorn the shelves in my bedroom.)

Sometimes I randomly stop the car and just sit and send up some gratitude to Heaven for this place we call HOME.

I am grateful every single day that we get to live here.

Lu and I played a bunch of chess in September.

…and I love this picture of Elphaba I found lying around the house.

(She’s pretty in love with that lady we got to watch on broadway in NYC back HERE…that “wicked witch” who was really all good despite the fact that everyone thought she was all bad.  Pretty good role model if you ask me!)

We sorted clothes and cleaned out all closets which made us realize how much Claire had grown:

Found these cute drawings she did last year:

Lucy got a new computer through her Braille teacher.  It’s a cool touch-screen thing that you can even detach the “monitor” from.  It’s taken her a while to get used to being “different” from the rest of the class, so it made me happy to see her so happy to be listening to books with that thing and working through some things on it from home.

In September we were all-in to volleyball.  Lots and lots of games and practices, and this girl right here is head-over-heels in love with that sport:

…and she sure has learned a lot, as well as fallen in love with her awesome teammates.

(Much more on the volleyball season soon…)

Speaking of volleyball, September is when Max signed on to the BYU Men’s Volleyball team, came up for a block in his first practice, and broke his finger which resulted in this:

Yikes.

Handsome dad helping with homework:

Love this quote:

We tore apart a few things in our house in September in order to fix a few others.  This was Lucy’s room for a couple days:

Grace tried to balance two jobs for a while.  But in the end, she couldn’t do it all, and decided to let the Old Navy one go.  Before she finished, Lu and her friend came with me to spy on her a little bit:

Max’s fiance does some nannying and every now and again Max joins in on that fun.  Loved the video of this that Abby sent of the kids trying to help Max eat his Costa Vida salad with his new bandaged up hand.

Pretty proud to be done.

Activity Days hoopla:

(more on that back HERE)

Lunch in the “big city” with these lovely ladies for one of their bdays:

Grace leaving on her homecoming “day date” to the lake:

We have some friends who have two kids with BBS who live near us.  Love that they are going to be helping with the Turkey Trot this year (which is coming up so quickly!!).  Here’s Lucy with one of those BBS kids:

She’s such a sweetheart.

A little ride around the block with these girls:

Film from Jerusalem:

(more of Elle’s pics back HERE)

More chess:

Max and Abby sent this from the art museum in Provo.  Oh man I love when my kids appreciate beauty like this:

Spirit week at the high school:

(Lots more pictures of each day of all that school spirit back HERE.)

Lu and I went to Science Camp, and I had a little epiphany as she ran around amidst all those kids playing dodgeball.

(all about Science Camp back HERE)

Grace sent us this on her last day at Old Navy:

Dave got to golf in Utah with these guys with these surroundings:

Yowzas, that’s a little bit of Heaven right there.

He got to take these two out to dinner while he was there:

 Meanwhile I got to be with these four in Southern Utah:

 …and then these two basking in God’s beauty at Lake Blanche:

(more about that trip HERE)

Our football team killed it this year.

…which makes it pretty exciting.

Homecoming prep:

(More about that beauty-girl and Homecoming back HERE.)

Another cousin headed out on a mission…this was a family gathering before she left:

SO EXCITING!

I hosted book club and we read this book:

Oh my word, that is a pretty amazing book I tell you!  Made for a really interesting discussion.

I have much more to say about that book, because I want to write up a few things about books I’ve read lately, but for here and now I’ll just say that it sure made me think a lot about what it really means to be “educated.”

More on that later but check it out HERE if you want to read it, and below is the only pic. I got of book club…after all the food and prep was cleared away, and all those good women I love to discuss things with had headed home, there remained a lone pumpkin and some pretty fall flowers 🙂

Dave’s parents were in town from Idaho for a little and they came to one of Claire’s volleyball games and to dinner:

(Love them and we’re excited for them to move back here soon!)

More Activity Days and a “deck of cards” workout:

…and bday delivery:

We went outside to admire the moon one night.  This iPhone picture cannot do it justice, but I love that memory:

Ha!

Grace got her senior yearbook pictures taken:

…which kinda makes my heart cinch up.

We had a “temple day” before our temple closed up for a month to do some renovations:

We finally replaced our chewed-up-by-Bo-Jangles family room rug with one we hope she’ll leave alone.

It’s huge and having trouble relaxing from those creases.  Any great ideas on how to straighten it out from out there in the blog world?

I think I already posted this, but love this quote:

We finished off the month with a last minute surprise breakfast for Lucy in preparation for her bday on October 1st…

(it was orchestrated by her, which sure cracked me up)

Our friends came to visit and stay with us for their nephew’s wedding (and our friends too):

Golden friends right there.

Speaking of golden friends, these ones are pretty great too:

Sometimes we get random pics like this from Provo:

And random shots like this from Hawaii: