August

August is easily one of my least favorite months. Nothing happens!! Here in Arizona it is so hot and we are running out of ways to beat it. Sometimes it felt like the month was dragging on and on and on. But as I look through all these pictures it really was a wonderful month. 

Abby and Juliet started school! Apparently we ate a lot of donuts. We had some fun adventures! But we are so happy we are in September. This month we have DISNEYLAND!! And hopefully the weather will break and we can start decorating for Halloween!! Good stuff happening! 

One night as we were getting ready for bed Mema and Poppi stopped by and read bedtime stories with us. That was really fun. The girls love that. 

It was the 9 year anniversary of when Kyle proposed to me. We took the girls to the Riparian preserve to show them where Daddy asked Mommy to marry him. It was so fun. It was such a beautiful day. It started pouring rain and the girls ran around in it and played. It was so much fun! 

Juliet had a play date with a friend so I took these two out for a date to In-n-out. It was fun. 

These are Jane's toys as explained by her. She is so cute. 

We had our last Summer movie at Harkins Theater. That was such a fun summer activity for us! 

Jane keeps dumping her food on the table and then bringing me an empty plate telling me she is "done". Very tricky Jane. 

Back to school night for Abby. Her teacher is Mrs. McMullin and she is so cute. Abby seems to be doing very well in school and really enjoys her class. 

Lots of Saturday morning donut runs. We love Bosa donuts! 

The Cordner family band. They are pretty good. 

Date night with Lacee and Zach. We went swing dancing and then sodalicious. It was really fun! 

Sunday morning snuggles

1st day of first grade! Abby was so awesome. Not nervous and ready to rock life with her Star Wars backpack and BB-8 lunch box. 

She is so much smaller than everyone else! It makes it harder for me to let go. 

Luckily she has Annie in Second grade and she looks out for her. 

We set a goal to read 50 books over the summer. If they reached their goal before school started they got to pick out some new legos. Star wars and moana legos for the win! 

I love Jane's kisses! 

I dropped the ball on one of the first days of school. I didn't pack Abby and lunch or send her with any snacks. So we picked her up for lunch! It was fun to have her during the day for a little bit. We have missed her. 

I love taking naps with this sweet girl. 

We got a new bed!! Our old mattress was really causing us some issues. We love love love our new bed! 

I convinced Jane and Jules to take a nap with me in the new bed. 

First day of Pre-School round 2! Juliet was so excited to see her teacher again. She was so cute and ready to run off. She hardly even said good bye to me. She is older than the other girls in her class, so she feels like big dog on campus. 

We had a Friday night family night and went and got a treat and walked around the temple grounds. We love living so close to the temple! 

Tara and her family came to visit. We loved playing with Ezra. He is the cutest little boy! 

More donuts! We got some for Halee's birthday and took them to her. 

Jane cracks me up. 

I had one of the coolest and longest Sunday's off all time. The youth were able to go to the Randolph Training Center. I was able to go twice as a youth and it is an experience you don't forget. Its a really cool facility that is about an hour away from us. (I swear when I was a kid it was like two hours, I think they've added some roads and highways to link us better to that area) Randolph House opened in the 50s. Its a home for people that are physically and mentally disabled. They came to the home as little babies. The purpose was to help them and train them to be able to live on their own someday. They haven't had anyone new come to the facility since the 80s. Now the people that are left are those that are so disabled they can't live on their own and need round the clock care. These people are very elderly at this point. This amazing place is only 2-4 years away from being closed down. As the numbers in the facility dwindle it no longer possible to keep it open. So its very possible this was our last chance to do this. I was paired with Geneva. A beautiful soul who is blind, unable to speak or control her arms and legs. She also has limited hearing only out of her left ear. She is wheel chair bound. I was able to sit with her, talk to her and sing to her as we sang the primary songs. She would react the primary songs. It was really neat. I can't imagine the life she has lived. I wonder if she has any family left to come visit her. I wonder what her conversation was like with Heavenly Father when he sent her down to spend her life trapped in that physical body. It made me think about how blessed I am, and how I need to make the most of the life I've been given. 

After we return our "friends" back to their little cottages we had a sacrament/testimony meeting with the youth and leaders. Then we had some snacks in our cars and headed back to the church building. Now as a youth we had the sacrament meeting at the Randolph house because we missed our regular church meetings. We left for the Randolph house at 7 and didn't get back until 1:30. But we have 2:00 church!!! So we got back exhausted and had church. It was crazy. Third hour we had a waffle bar for the young women. It was the perfect end to the day. We sat and chatted and it was awesome. I really love those girls. 

After church we headed over to my parent's house to have cake and ice cream for Halee's birthday. A monsoon moved through and made a rainbow. Juliet came in the house shouting for everyone to come outside and see it. Then she danced around and got everyone so excited about it. We are so lucky to have her. 

Sometimes Jane really doesn't want to take a nap. 

We play a lot of dance dance. 

We took Abby and Jules to see The Little Mermaid at The Hale Theater. It was so much fun! They loved it and did so well. Juliet was really really into it. She belted out the last note on the last song at the top of her lungs. It was hilarious. 

Friday night tent building and watching "Rock Dog" 

Our new bed set!! Real nightstands!! I love it! 

I love this awesome, patient man. He is the best. 

Kyle won the corn hold tournament at the Elder's Quorum activity. The 1st prize was a set of Corn Hole boards. We love them! 

Abby had the scariest allergic reaction to some mystery item. The nurse called and made it sound like she had pink eye. So Kyle ran over and picked her up. He brought her home and we thought it looked like allergies. Her eyes were a little bit rid and had tiny little welts under them. Nothing to really worry about. About an hour later, she went upstairs to use the bathroom and came down to tell me her eyes hurt. And her eyes were almost swollen shut!! It was very scary. I gave her allergy medication and then Kyle came down stairs saw her and grabbed her and took her to the ER. I called my mom to see if I could bring Jules and Jane over so I could go meet them. And thats when I realized that Kyle had my car keys in his pocket. It was crazy. So I had to wait until Halee was done with her singing lessons so my mom could come over and pick us all up and take me over to the hospital. When I got there she looked even worse. Her eyes were more swollen (I didn't think it was possible) and she was covered from head to toe in hives. They had to give her multiple IV and oral allergy medicines. We were there for a few hours until we were sure that the medicines were working and it wasn't going to get any worse. We took her to get a happy meal and then she relaxed the rest of the evening. The doctors told us not to be worried if she crashed as soon as we got home and slept until way late the next day. With all the medicine they gave her, she should have been very drowsy. But nothing stops our Abby. She was up and ready to go to school at 6:30 the next morning. She was not happy when I told her she wasn't going. She kept asking us if her eyes still looked "creepy". It was so sad! It took another 3 days for her eyes to go back to totally normal. 

About a week later she told us she was sorry she ate her friends "green nuts" during recess right before the reaction started. So we assume it was pistachios. Poor thing. Tree nuts are not her friend. Luckily its not something we come in contact with very much. And I think this experience has really taught her to avoid nuts as much as possible, and ask if something has nuts before she eats it.   

Abby got to golfing with daddy! She even got to drive the golf cart. She was in heaven! 

That was the excitement of August!