September Wrap Up

Here are a few pictures from September.

Lydia decided to do a little business drawing "Portraits" for people. We had some kind neighbors who stopped by and paid for a portrait. It was 25 cents for a portrait or 35 cents for one with the person blowing a bubble. I was so proud of that girl.

Watching kids as part of our babysitting swap.

Our kids loved having their grandma to come visit and were sad to see her go home.

Fun outside.

Cute baby girl.

So so funny. We had just got Caleb ready to go for the day and came in to find him in the bathtub.

Lots of love for this girl.

Lydia working on her house for one of her stuffies.

Dady and Austin date. We went to the arcade and played some games. We had so much fun trying lots of different games. He earned lots of tickets and got to pick some prizes. Then we went to Macey's and got ice cream cones.

Playing one of Austin's new games from his birthday.

It was a great month.

Basement Progress - September

Here is an update on our progress on the basement in September. We are so grateful for the help we received and made such good progress. We are pretty much done with framing. I am really proud of our progress. We started pulling wire and it is great to be on to the next stages. Next up we have to finish electrical and do HVAC, plumbing. Then we should be ready for sheetrock. 

The kids have continued to love to come down and check on the progress, and build with the extra wood. Austin in particular has really loved it. He had an idea that he wanted to make a "dust collector" to collect all the dust the comes out of the skill saw. So he and I built this dust collector (the other side is open to collect dust). It was all his idea and design and then he painted it. He talks all the time about growing up to be a machine maker and he really does love building.

This was us working on the really long (36 feet) wall. It took a while to lay out and get it nailed together. Then we got some help to lift it up and get it into place. Once it was up it took a couple hours to get it perfectly straight and nailed it, but I was really happy with it.

So glad my mom has been able to come down as well.

This was by far my favorite thing. Scott showed Austin how to pull wire and Shantel showed Lydia how to pop out the tabs in the boxes and both of them helped us pull wore in the basement and did a great job.

Temple Groundbreaking

We are so excited for the new temple in Saratoga Springs. Shantel and I really feel like it is a unique opportunity to help our kids become connected to the temple. We feel so grateful to have a temple built near our home. We just found out that we will be part of the Saratoga Springs temple district. We were invited to go to the temple groundbreaking broadcast at the church. Right before general conference we decided that we would go take a picture of where the temple will be built and go back every 6 months to check on the progress. We had a family home evening lesson and talked about the new temple and then headed out to the temple site (we hope!). It was very windy and cold, but we ran out for a quick picture. We are grateful for this opportunity.

A few weeks later was the broadcast of the groundbreaking. Shantel took Lydia and Lucy to the church to watch and had such a great experience. Lydia even made a book about the new temple while they were there. One thing that I think was so impactful for Shantel was living so close to the Manti temple and seeing it every day growing up. I hope that we can make the temple a keystone for our children as well.

Here is what Lydia had to say about the groundbreaking: "I made a book about the new temple."

Shantel posted her feelings on Instagram, and I'll copy it here: 

Lydia, Lucy, and I got to go to the new Saratoga Springs Temple groundbreaking (broadcast) this morning. One of the speakers spoke to my heart. He talked about how we may wish that we could build the temple with our hands, or be an integral part of the building process (making me think of the pioneers who labored with their might and sacrificed things like their treasured China to break up and put in the plaster to add to the majesty of the temple) but that our role is different now. He invited us to have a personal and spiritual groundbreaking in the soil of our hearts so that as this temple is being built, we can also be building ourselves a Temple Life. My thoughts travel to a story my Mother-in-law tells about the building of the Jordan River Temple. They were young and poor, barely making ends meet, but had decided that it was important to them for their children to take piano lessons. They had been saving a small amount each month(basically their only savings) for a piano. When the Jordan River Temple was being built, their Bishop called them in and asked them if they would donate a certain amount of money for the building of the temple. Exactly the amount that they had in their piano savings account. They faithfully gave that money knowing that they would not be able to buy a piano, but also giving with gratitude that they COULD give because without that savings they wouldn't have been able to. The Lord knew exactly the amount and what their sacrifice would be. Several years later, and still no piano, Sue's parents decided that they needed a a piano more than they did and they sacrificed their own instrument so that their grandchildren could have lessons. That Piano has now been passed to us and Lydia is learning to play on those very same keys. .
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Faith. A Temple. Building a life centered around Christ.
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Feeling excited to be in the temple district of this very special temple and even though we haven't been asked to sacrifice in the same way that others have, I'm feeling the need for a tiny shovel to start the groundbreaking in my heart.

Homeschool September

Homeschool. 

I knew that homsechool was going to be harder this year with a new baby and all. I told myself that I needed to do all my my planning and prep before Lucy was born, but then I didn't. Lydia had a Spanish class start at the beginning of August before I was really ready for school to start and for some reason, that threw me off, too. I'll be honest, we haven't really hit our groove yet this year - but even though I feel like that's true, we've also had some beautiful golden nuggets. Learning how to draw portraits for art class and then setting up a booth in the front yard to sell custom portraits for a quarter. Reading in the sunshine after a good library book haul. Earning chocolate chips for correct spelling words. And so many other little tiny glimmers of homeschooling light that don't get photographed or recorded. 

Some of our highlights this month: 

Going to California! I loved so much that we had the flexibility to just pack up and drive to California when our new niece/cousin was born. No stressing about school schedules. The opportunities that we experienced in LA were AMAZING. Art class with Aunt Brooklyn where she taught Lydia to draw animals by looking at pictures of them and then looking at their shapes. (Brooklyn is an amazing artist who works in animation at Sony.) We went to the LaBrea tar pits, the California Science Center and the ocean. Each place was so interesting and full of opportunity. I particularly want to remember the way that Lydia interacted with the volunteers at the LaBrea Tar Pit museum. She answered their questions intelligently and asked her own questions. She confidently approached them and knew how to speak with them. Several of them commented to me about her. I once read an article about "socialization and homeschool" that talked about how the social experience of a homeschool child is SO rich, varying from free play with other children their same age, social opportunities with kids of varying ages, and also confident interactions with adults at museums and other community events. I felt like I was seeing the truth of that rich social experience embedded throughout this trip. Matthew taught the kids all sorts of interesting facts at the aquarium, my Dad discussed all sorts of interesting tidbits about evolution/natural selection and how interesting he thinks it is as it applies to the gospel, my mom read books with the kids both in the car and at the house, and like I said above - Art with Brooklyn. Plus the myriad of adults that we interacted with.  Plus the deep play of siblings who love each other and also like to be with each other. This trip was the best. 

Another highlight: 

Raspberry picking with the Middletons. Doing outside of the house activities like this are one of the things that really fill up my homeschooling cup. Sunshine, fresh berries, and the time to be together in an unhurried morning of adventure and friendship. The time. It's a gift. 

The gift of time is truly the greatest gift of homeschool. I've been feeling a little worried about how long it's taken us to really get in a good routine with homeschool - but I just went back and read the post that I posted at the beginning of school and reread one of my goals "-Allow myself to snuggle Lucy and enjoy her baby stage through homeschooling, even if a few other things have to be simplified or let go of. (Me.)" We are at a stage where things ARE simplified, but I AM trying to enjoy this baby stage with Lucy. I'm trying to build relationships with my kids and trying to allow them to build those relationships with each other. This picture below: this is the true reason that we homeschool. Even above fostering a love and learning and all that. But giving ourselves the TIME to be together. To snuggle in bed around our new baby. To shake off the world that says GO GO GO and to slow down and focus on the things that matter most. And I just try to have the confidence and faith that the education part will come along for the ride.