Rog and Chief Phillips: September 2018

We went to a wedding reception for Jackson Packham. He had been on my first Hood to Coast team and his parents are in our ward.

Then it was time for the first BYU game of the season! The Twitchells invited us over and I made these Football Scotcheroos.

Logan approved!

It was a late game, so we watched the first half at the Twitchells and then came home at halftime, put the kids to bed, and finished watching. We weren't expecting a win after we were so bad last year, but we were pleasantly surprised when we beat Arizona 28-23.

I took pictures of some of my August decorations as I was putting them away. This summer Mickey was so fun.

We had 13 items on our Summer Bucket List.

Of those 13 we did 10 of them. We didn't go to Crater Lake because the smoke was too bad, we went to Beverly Beach instead of Cannon Beach, and Rog was a little over ambitious with his goal to build a shed.

Rather than put away the frame where I had our bucket list, I decided to just change it out for each month. I purchased this printable from Alexa Zurcher for September.

On Labor Day we did a little hiking on Mount Talbert. When we hiked it before, it was spring/early summer, so this time everything seemed pretty dry in comparison. It was nice and shady and a fun little thing to do on our last day of summer.

When we got home I took some pictures of the yard because I knew everything wasn't going to stay beautiful for much longer. These sunflowers were perfect and so fun this year. I did a different variety than the year before and I think I'll continue to do this variety for many years to come.

My zucchini and yellow squash plants were pretty much done giving me vegetables, but they still looked good and I think gave me a couple more in the weeks that followed.

Same with my tomatoes - nearing the end of their life, but still giving me a few tomatoes here and there.

I'm so glad to have this part of the yard looking good and finished. It will require some bark refreshing at the beginning of each summer, but that's easy now that it's done.

We put a lot of stepping stones here because the hose tends to cause havoc on the bark in this area, but I actually really like how it looks.

We had pizza from Papa John's for our back-to-school dinner. Then we did father's blessings for FHE and had giant snickerdoodles for dessert.

The next morning it was off to school. Corbyn was off to 3rd grade in Mrs. Boyes' class.

And Peyton was off to 1st grade in Mrs. Christensen's class.

I like to take them on the first day and make sure they are settled in their new classrooms. Then they ride the bus home and pretty much take the bus to and from school every day after that.

Cute friends on the first day of Kindergarten a few days later. (My friend Erin sent me this picture.) Chayse Yates (2nd grade), Kinley Martyn (Kindergarten), and Peyton.

Logan was in a good habit of not looking at screens every second of every day, so I did my best to continue that. (Unfortunately that didn't last too long.) We did some watercoloring.

And made at least two batches of muffins at his request that first week.

Impromptu popsicle and sprinkler party one afternoon after school at the Sullivan house. Erin walked the kids over, so I don't know all the details, but it looks like it was fun!

Corbyn started his running club. He had practice for an hour every Monday and Wednesday night and then a few meets throughout the season on Thursday nights. It kept us pretty busy!

Corbyn and Peyton had their turns at the dentist. My view in the waiting room before they went back.

Our bishop had asked Rog if I could update the mission board outside his office. This was the before.

And this was the after. Much better!

I put up these shelves to display my Tsum Tsum collection in the craft room.

About a year earlier I had found a bunch of busy bag type activities that I was planning on making for Logan. In September I finally got around to making some of them. I made about one a week throughout the month.

Our stake had a day of service at Blue Lake Park. We hadn't been before, but it looks like something we need to check out next summer. We helped put new compost in one of the gardens.

Then we went to Chayse's birthday party at Dave & Buster's.

The kids had a blast playing the games.

That night we took our turn watching the Yates boys for date night swap. It was nice, so we spent most of the time at Pfeifer Park.

I think Corbyn and Kingston walked around talking to each other the whole time rather than playing ball with the rest of us. Corbyn and Chayse are technically closer in age (in the same primary class, but not the same grade at school), but these two are more alike. Kingston is a year ahead in primary and a year ahead in school.

Peyton was working on her backbend and practiced almost constantly.

There was a BYU game that night, so we had Kevan and Krislyn over to watch with us and I made a giant cookie shaped like a football.

We let Corbyn and Peyton stay up watching until they fell asleep.

We were starting up a little joy school, so I pulled this out from when I did joy school for Corbyn.

Kristen took the first week. Cute friends - Everett Tutt, Logan, and Riley Bond. We added Sydney Tanner after the first month or so.

Everett and Riley are definitely Logan's best friends, so this has been really fun for him.

We just do once a week for 3 hours and we only do school for about 30 minutes of those 3 hours, so it doesn't take too much prep work. The rest of the time we just let the kids play and eat a lunch that we pack for them to take.

Our Mondays were a little crazy for a few months. Peyton had dance and then we had about 30 minutes to get Corbyn to the park for his running club. We'd usually just hang out in the car while Peyton was at dance. Corbyn would do his reading during that time and eat his dinner. Logan would occasionally nap or play on his tablet.

Peyton would change after her class and then we'd head to the park where Rog would meet us for a picnic dinner and play time at the park. Fortunately we didn't have a very wet fall and most days this plan worked out pretty perfectly. I had to become creative with our meals on these nights since we would have got tired of the same sandwiches and sides that are my picnic go tos if we ate them every week.

Logan had his first day of preschool a week after the older kids started. He's going to Building Blocks twice a week in the afternoons for 2.5 hours. It's at a Catholic church that's literally about 3-5 minutes away (by car) depending on if we have to wait at the light to cross Sunnyside. It costs way more than any preschool Corbyn or Peyton ever did, but with his speech issues I figure anything we can do for him will only help. We are in a financial place where we can afford it now. And those 5 hours a week of kid-free mom time are worth every penny!

Corbyn's cross country meets were at a park in downtown Portland, so even though the actual running part only took about 15 minutes, it took awhile to get there and back. It worked best for me to do crockpot meals those nights, so they were ready to eat as soon as we got home.

His first meet was on a night that Rog happened to have a late work meeting, so he couldn't meet us there. I didn't know where to park, so we ended up parking farther away than we needed to and then I was frazzled and forgot my phone in the car. So I have no pictures of the actual meet.

Logan is not very good at playing by himself, so when it happens, it needs to be documented.

Utah was having a terrible fire pretty close to where we lived in Spanish Fork. It reminded me of the fire we had here in the Gorge last year.

We had a team dinner with our Hood to Coast team at Hop Jack's.

Rog started teaching Corbyn how to mow the lawn more seriously than he's done before.

We watched BYU play Wisconsin at the Din's house. They were ranked and we were definitely not expected to win, so it was fun when we did.

Rog has been reading Corbyn the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings a little each night after I read to Corbyn and Peyton.

I took my turn to host joy school. We made bees out of the letter B.

And played with balloons.

They get so excited to eat their lunches and usually end up eating way earlier than they normally would at home. (At least earlier than Logan and I normally eat our lunch.)

I got some inspiration for our Monday dinner at the park from their lunches.

Peyton and I saw a beautiful sunset on our way home from dance one night.

A sunset this beautiful demands to be photographed!

Of course Jake Egbert was able to capture it better than I did. He was at his son's soccer practice.

Logan had an interesting way to watch shows for a few days.

I didn't leave my phone in the car for Corbyn's second meet. This is Overlook Park in Portland and the view is just 👌.

Go Corbyn, go!

I had ordered the kids Halloween pajamas from Carter's. They really wanted to wear them when they came. Even though it was only September, I let them.

Halloween pajamas 3 years ago. They all look so little, but especially chubby, baby Logan!

I finished my Holiday Patchwork Forest Quilt and mailed it off to Just in Time Quilts to be quilted.

Rog got pneumonia again. He suspected it was pneumonia pretty much as soon as he started getting sick, but he had to wait a few days before they could diagnose it as pneumonia and get him started on antibiotics. It didn't get nearly as bad as it did last time, but still wasn't fun. Two times in less than a year qualifies him to get the pneumonia vaccine, so hopefully he won't have to suffer through it again anytime soon.

We hit up another REI garage sale and scored a cooking stove.

And an 8 person tent!

Chayse got baptized.

I had to sew on a grommet that had fallen off the tent, but other than that, it was perfect and we got it for a screaming deal! We set it up in the garage after church.

I made Mel's peach pie with some of my canned peaches. I had made it for Thanksgiving the year before with store-bought canned peaches, but it was way better with home-canned peaches!

I had been planning this camping/National Park shelf for awhile and finally got it done. I'm so happy with how it turned out!

These three buddies took the snacks Tracy had brought for Riley at playgroup and were sharing so nicely over on the other side of the park.

Corbyn had to miss his cub scouts for his running club for a couple months. But pack meeting was on Thursday nights, so he was able to go to that. Rog worked with him on what he was missing out on and he was able to still earn some awards.

I would prefer pack meeting being just the awards, but the kids all enjoy the activities after.

We had tickets to the BYU vs. UW game on Saturday night, but we drove up Friday night and stayed at a hotel, so we could play in Seattle Saturday before the game. We took the ferry to Bainbridge.

We got some ice cream at the Mora Iced Creamery. I got their blackberry flavor, but if I remember right, Corbyn's strawberry was better.

And then we took the ferry back.

Logan did great walking all the way from our hotel to the ferry, to the ice cream, and back to the ferry, but ran out of steam on the walk back.

Before going back to our hotel to pick up our car, we stopped at the gum wall (which had just been cleaned again). Someday we need to take the kids to Seattle in August before its September cleaning, so they can get the full effect!

We also got some lunch at Pike's Place. We tried the Chicken Hombow and the BBQ Pork Hombow from Mee Sum Pastries because Sara from Our Best Bites had recommended them, but we weren't really fans. I waited in a long line to get the mac and cheese from Beecher's only to find out they were out for the next 20 minutes or so. Then I had to wait in the line again when it was available.

We walked to our car and drove to the Freemont Troll.

This was probably the highlight of the trip for the kids.

We had just learned that they have Cafe Rio up in the Seattle area. It wasn't exactly on the way to the game, but we took the time to drive there to get some before the game. We were in a hurry by this point, so Rog and the kids ate it in the car while I was driving. I was going to eat mine when we got there, but finding parking was a lot more difficult than we thought it would be and Rog ended up feeding it to me as I drove. It wasn't as good as I was hoping because it was cold by this point. We eventually found parking in a lady's driveway in a neighborhood. She wanted $30, but we only had $25 and she said she'd take that.

We had purchased our tickets through BYU and we didn't get to pick our seats (they were all the same price). When we got to our seats we were very disappointed that we were way up at the top and Washington's stadium is much taller than BYU's. We could hardly see anything from up there and we ended up getting beat so badly that the game really wasn't any fun at all.

At one point in the game, Rog left to take Logan to go to the bathroom and came back with nachos and popcorn. The popcorn got Logan through the rest of the game.

The lady whose driveway we had parked in had told us we'd have to stay until the end of the game because she was going to park cars behind ours and we wouldn't be able to get out until the end of the game. When we came back our car was parked on the street (we had left our keys with her), so maybe we could have left before the end after all. We had to drive back that night because the Primary Program was the next morning at church and traffic was terrible getting out of Seattle, so we didn't get home until something like 1:00 am.

I had prepared my lesson for my primary class on the drive home from Seattle. I taught that after the program and then they basically just had a party for sharing time. Brother Bean is our neighbor and a friend. I recorded this for his wife, but it's too good not to share.