The craziest of days

 Today has been just chock full of so much stuff. As is seemingly every day at the moment. All good things, but so very many things filling up our time. Bright and early this morning I took Spencer to the hospital to get his adenoids out. This was the third reschedule after he had to postpone for seven weeks due to having had Covid, then his doctor got Covid and finally today we were all able to be there at the same time. Surgery went well, but the anesthesia made him nauseous so he spent a few hours post surgery throwing up off and on. He's fine now, so that's great. Here's hoping it fixes what we did the surgery for. 

This was before the surgery. He got to take home this adorable quilt after his surgery. It is so cute.

And post-surgery. Still happy, albeit a bit more groggy. He slept for hours today.

Today also happened to be our final walk through on our house. It is gorgeous. I'm so thrilled. They'll spend the next week doing paint touch ups and some trim work that is left still, and then we will have our welcome home next Monday and close on Tuesday. We are so excited! We built with Woodside Homes and I would recommend them to anyone. They have been phenomenal to work with. Such high quality building and attention to detail. I don't actually have any finished pictures Bill just took a video, but all in good time there will be some.

In other news from last week, Genevieve lost a canine. She is so pleased to have it out.

Her soccer team is the pink team, which is fun. They're learning so much. It's fun to watch them improve. 

Spencer is also getting so much better. This is him kicking off to start the second half. 

We signed up for this family race. I think I only signed up for the one-mile run so all my kids could do it, but it was totally free and these shirts are awesome. Good times!

Just another pretty great week

Chloe got this dress as one of her new long-sleeved shirts. It's so adorable. I love how cute she looks in this style.

Bill's work had a family BBQ party. It was delightful. We haven't had one of those for at least two years. Those sorts of things make you feel more a part of the company. I appreciate that. 

Don't know how I did it, but I broke the top piece off of one of my prongs on my wedding ring this week. Thankfully I noticed it immediately so there wasn't any chance of losing the main stone. I need to figure out how to get it fixed. 

We took the kids to a 9/11 memorial on Saturday. It was sobering and I was glad we went. 

Spencer has been asking to get tucked in lately. Bill obliged. Not shown, Spencer laughing his head off. He was so tickled over this. Also, when he has to go back to a twin bed from this queen in a couple weeks, it's going to be a sad day. Hahahah. He spreads out so big on this bed. And it is so squishy soft. 

Genevieve hamming it up. She is so much trouble, lololol. 

Bill treated us to a Peru food feast. He made all sorts of tasty entrees. This was the desert, which I never remember the name of, but Peru's version of flan. It was so delicious. We chowed through nearly all of it. 

September fun

Spencer and Genevieve are super excited to have the chance to start playing instruments at school. We got this new guitar for Spencer so he can take guitar class through his school. Genevieve is thrilled to finally be playing the flute she was given a year or two ago. 

Aaron discovered this week that trimming your own hair doesn't get the results you want. Thankfully his hair will grow fast. First picture is my efforts to fix it as best as possible after his efforts to make his hair brush to the side easier. He also gave himself a few bald spots on the side and back after playing around with my haircutting scissors. Live and learn! 

 

Grandma did some makeup and hair for Chloe and Genevieve the other day. they were thrilled. 

And Bill and Spencer had a lovely little adventure at Utah Lake bright and early this morning. First time we've taken our kayaks out this entire summer, sigh. It's been a crazy one. But I'm glad they got out at least once! There will be time in the future to get out more. 

 

Happy ninth, sweet girl

More cool artwork from Spencer

House progress! Eeeee! Painting is well on its way plus cabinets are in and shelves in closets. And the outside is coming along.

Happy first day of kindergarten for Chloe! She is so cute and loves it. She just wishes she could go all day like everyone else, but unfortunately our district does half-day kindergarten. So I'm commuting kids back and forth two and a half hours a day for two and a half more weeks. It's pretty insane for me, but I'm so glad the kids like their new school. 

Fridays the kids get out early. So I pick Chloe up at 10:55 and then have to get the others at 1:00. It's a 25-min drive each way to our house so that makes no sense to go home. So for the new few week Fridays are going to be shopping days in between school pickups. Chloe and I hit up Costco last Friday and grabbed some pizza for lunch. Fun times!

Happy ninth birthday, Genevieve! Her teacher gave her this cute cup filled with treats. 

Opening presents.

This is a cat stuffie that I ordered online and I was so amused how it shipped. 

It's much better once the shrink wrap was off. 

My kids have a cat obsession. We've promised them we'll get a real one in a few months after we're settled in, but for now they're pretending all their cat stuffies are real. 

Genevieve won her first soccer game of the season the morning of her birthday. Yay! This is actually Spencer's team, since I was at his game and Bill at Genevieve's. 

She got some legos and assembled them immediately. This is part of the kit. 

She wanted a white cake with blue frosting and a green gecko on top. And she wanted to draw the top herself, which was fine by. me. I made the cake from scratch, which was delicious by the way, and frosted it and she did the green. 

She said it needed palm fronds and a few snakes too. Haha! I love her creativity. 

We had a pool party at our cousin's pool to celebrate. Pizza and swimming and cake made for a great little evening. 

And Chloe is always picking out the most interesting outfits she thinks match. I love her creativity. 

Another Chloe make believe moment. 

first day of school and birthdays galore

 We had a GREAT first week of school! Aside from adding two plus hours of commuting a day to my schedule, it's really awesome to have the kids in their new school where I expect them to be able to stay for the foreseeable future. No expectation of moving in a year to a house or finishing grad school or whatever else has happened at the previous three elementary schools they've gone to. It's such a nice, new phase to be in. And we're three and a half weeks out from closing on our house too, at which point we'll be walking to school, so the excitement is real. 

Fifth Grade.

Fourth Grade.

Second Grade.

Kindergarten.

And just in case we have Covid cases go crazy like my friends back east have been seeing their first few weeks of school, I made a couple new masks for each kid. Two aren't pictured. Here's hoping they don't even need them, but if they do, at least they have fresh ones to use. I'm feeling a big silver lining for my particular family post our Covid July. We are about as protected from getting Covid as it's possible to be for the next at least 90 days and if things go as I hope, the kids will have a vaccine available before they are in danger of being infected again. This is huge for feeling less anxious about this school year. 

It poured for two straight days here in Salt Lake last week. It was so cold for August and in all the 13 years I've lived in Utah I've never seen anything like the longevity of this storm. The air quality was absolutely horrendous during it because of the storm blowing the smoke over from California, but now this week we have fresh, clean air and it's so lovely. 

This is from last week. Today I drove by our house and they're starting putting the siding and brick on. Eeeeeee! They're painting inside this week. 

We took an absolute whirlwind trip down to Las Vegas on Saturday. Bill's grandpa turned 90 and we were off and on whether we would be able to have a party for him, but in the end we did a scaled back version of what had been planned and it was so great. We actually cancelled our original hotel booking and they were just really expensive when we looked again, so instead we left at 4:15AM Saturday morning and drove down, arriving before 10AM Las Vegas time. We got to swim in the grandparent's hotel pool and we got to go visit one on one with Grandpa at his house, and then later in the afternoon we had a dinner out at a Brazilian grill. It was so good. We hopped in the car after and drove back home, arriving just before midnight. It was surprisingly not stressful and totally felt worth it. We saw three of Bill's siblings and some nieces and nephews and it's just great to be with family. Totally worth it. 

And not to leave my family out, we had a family birthday party at my grandma's house to celebrate our July and August birthdays. We missed the July party because of our Covid adventure, as well as our family reunion with my family, so it had been a long time since we saw everyone. Genevieve and my nephew share the same birthday, so it's fun to get to celebrate together now while he's still in Utah finishing up college. Here's the birthday peeps.