Miss Marissa

After having to wait a few weeks after Shane started school, Marissa got to have her first day of school a few weeks ago!  

And as luck would have it, she also had her first day of her new ballet session on the same day!  Can you tell she was excited??

I love this little girl, she loves to be beautiful and frilly, and at the same time is catching bugs.

She spends a large part of her day making projects that she comes up with on her own.  One day she asked me to show her how big the baby would be when he was born, and I realized why after- she was making t-shirts for him!  Josh brings us home tons of scrap paper from work and it goes quickly at our house!  I used to worry they would get upset when they realized I threw out their stuff every night but Marissa very nonchalantly said something the other day like "and you will throw it away when it's time for dinner" so I am not too worried anymore!

I am the lucky recipient of probably about 10 of these every day:)

And she is slowly overcoming some of her fears, and so proud of herself when she does!

She is loving school and I can tell by all the stuff that comes home in her backpack that she is a busy little bee there!  It makes me laugh because pretty much every time her teachers bring her to the car they say something like "Marissa had a lot of fun with the glue today, I'm not sure we got it all off her chin!" or "she was having such a great time painting we got the smock on a little too late!" and I just laugh and say, "don't worry about it, I pretty much just expect it by now!"

Fall Fun

Though the weather has been feeling more like summer than fall (which I am not complaining about- we got a few cold days at the end of August and I was worried that we were on a downhill slope til spring- but since then it has been really warm and nice), we have been enjoying a few fun fall festivities.   We've been watching lots of football.  It was especially fun when the girls put on their lucky BYU nightgowns we won from BYU 50 and we had a miraculous win against Nebraska!

 We picked a bushel of apples (about 40 pounds) at the orchard a couple weeks ago and have 2 left.  We've eaten lots of apples at lunch, apple stuffed chicken, apple pie (which the girls did not like), apple cinnamon waffles, apple baked oatmeal, applesauce, apple muffins, etc. etc.  I love that picking them gets them so excited to eat them!

We hit up a fun fall festival that we hadn't been to before because I wasn't sure how much there would be to do- and I wish we would've gone every year! They had all kinds of rides all for free and the kids loved it.  Here are Shane and Sadie on the hayride, 

 and little miss scaredypants who had to be right by me.

 She finally got brave enough to sit with brother and sister for a picture,

 but insisted on riding with someone on the barrel ride (I rode with her the first time while her little sister rode on her own ha ha)

 then finally warmed up to riding something on her own because she realized I couldn't fit on there!

 And with the weather still being so warm we have gone on a lot of morning walks after dropping Shane at the bus stop.  I always love it when we see herons (which I tried to get a picture of but is obviously too far away).

Can't wait for more fall fun in October!

Docs vs. Suits

Last month Josh got to play in a "Docs vs. Suit" fundraiser game at Parkview Field.  

 It was a beautiful name for a ball game, and Grandma and Matthew came and some of our neighbors and friends were there too.  We had a great time!

 Josh kept saying things beforehand like he hoped we weren't embarrassed by him, but he did awesome!  He strategically placed his hits and got on base both times he got up to bat.  We were very proud of him!  I thought it was cute too that he kind of jumped up and down on the base when he made it because he was excited- reminded me of Shane!  I joked with our neighbors that I had bribed him with ice cream too:)

 Grandma and Matthew spent the night and the next morning we took them to Lowe's to build their last Avenger kit, and we spent the afternoon at the pool.

 We sure love when they come to visit!

Adventures in Cooking

I love to cook.  While the actual act of cutting and stirring and creating something is relaxing to me in itself, I love it on a deeper level too.  I love knowing that by cooking and feeding my family I am helping them grow, creating traditions, and bringing joy (depending on what's being made and who we're talking about...).  I (mostly) enjoy the challenge of planning out meals for the week- thinking about what ingredients are on sale and which recipes we like that use them, and how I can get healthy foods in there that my kids will enjoy (or practice learning to like).  And though gluten free cooking can be a pain at times, it is a pretty simple way to show love to my husband and he makes me feel like a rockstar because most of the best things he gets to eat are made by me!  And I am pretty sure that love is rubbing off on my children, especially the girls, because it is a very rare instance when I am starting to make something and don't hear the scraaaaape of a chair being pulled across the kitchen to come help.  

One of their favorite things to help me with is homemade pizza.  The recipe I use makes 4 pie-sized pans so there is one for each us, and I have learned to plan extra time and am slowly letting go of my desire for them to be perfect and relinquishing more and more responsibilities to them. 

 And I have to give a big shout out to good ole Mel, author of my favorite cooking blog, melskitchencafe.com.  Probably a good 75% of the things I make came from her site because I always know they will be good.  And she feeds my need to constantly try new recipes by posting often.  Some of our very favorites are:
Creamy Baked Chicken Taquitos
Grilled Island Chicken
BBQ Pulled Pork
Beach Street Lemon Chicken Linguine
Creamy White Chili
Cheesy Ham and Broccoli Quinoa Bites
Chicken Tikka Masala
Creamy Tex Mex Quinoa Dippers
Grilled Honey Chicken and Veggie Kebabs
Roasted Garlic and Cauliflower Pasta
any of her muffins

Now if I only I loved the cleaning part afterwards...

Back to School

Just a few days after we got back from North Carolina, Shane had his first day of first grade!  (I am not a fan of how early school starts here, our summer seemed to go by so quickly!)

The girls and I miss this crazy kid when he's at school, but it's also nice to get some more individual time with each of them.  We've had fun going on long walks,

 to the Y and the park,

 and just doing girly things.

 And it's been fun to see the progress Shane has made in the last year, he is a lot more confident reader now and I love it when I'm busy doing something and I ask him to read to the girls and he does.  It's a win-win- he's practicing reading and keeping them happy!

North Carolina!!

This year for my family's annual reunion we decided to go to North Carolina since Shannon and fam live there and Josh and I wanted another chance to visit Greensboro.  Sadly Jamie and fam couldn't make it because she was very pregnant, but we were so excited that Alyssa and Charlotte could come with Bryce!  Charlotte is right betwen Shane and Marissa in age and fit right in with all the cousins!  

 We loved getting to know Alyssa and are so excited for them!

 I was awful at taking pictures, but we had a lot of fun at the pool, waterpark, movies, of course eating lots of good food, and going to Carowinds.  I wonder just how many of these theme parks there are in the US?  We've met a lot of Snoopys and Charlie Browns!

 Shane was very brave this year and went on every ride he was tall enough for- which included one that went upside down and a few other doozies.  Josh was on ride duty with Shane and the middle kids, which I think he really enjoyed,

 while I hung out in Planet Snoopy with the little girls.  I think Marissa rode this carousel 20 times!

 Luckily I had lots of helpers.

 Marissa took a bit to warm up to a lot of rides, but did pretty well in the end.

I think going with Grandpa was an added incentive, and also when she discovered that its appropriate to scream on a ride when you're scared she was all over that!

 Sadie was free because she's under 3 and we joked that we definitely got our money's worth out of her!  This girl rode everything she could and would have gladly gone on bigger, it was a lot of fun watching her.  The ride operators in Planet Snoopy all did chants like "When I say Carowinds, you say fun..." and Sadie was all over that which we got a kick out of!

And as always, it was just so good to spend time and bond with cousins and aunts and uncles we don't get to see very often- thought that will be changing next year!!

 (this picture makes me smile a little because they look so serious in it- this is probably after we had to crack down and make them eat because they were laughing and being so crazy together!)

We headed back to Fort Wayne by way of Greensboro and spent some time getting the lay of the land and preparing to house hunt.  Can't believe it will be home soon!