1) The first two outfits that I bought for this baby! 2-3) Grant's brother, Jeremy, came to visit from North Carolina, for a couple days. It was nice to see him. We also drove about an hour to Grant's sister, Jill's house, and visited with her and her family, while he was here. 4) We went to the park with my sister, Celestia, and her family. They brought their boys' little car and the kids enjoyed riding/driving in it! Here is Aurora and Harrison going for a ride. 5) Our girls climbing on jungle Joe- my youngest brother. 6) Aurora is slowly learning to use the potty. I'm not in any rush because I figure she will regress anyway when I have this baby. But we are making progress! :) She especially loves the mini M&Ms and picking a princess sticker for her chart. 7) Grant brought me flowers and a card one day for no reason. The card was extremely touching... maybe my most favorite that he has ever given me. He wrote many words of appreciation for me and I pretty much cried through the whole thing. I sure love him!
In September, we canned a lot of fruit and had a garden feast, at my parents' house. At the garden feast, we ate potatoes, zucchini, and corn out of my parents' garden and we ate some corn we bought in Eastern WA. Also, I made meatloaf, which is one of our girls' favorite meals. Later, I made peach cobbler, with fresh peaches from Eastern WA, which I don't think I have ever made. It was so yummy and especially tasted good with a little vanilla ice cream! We are definitely going to have to have that more often! (The girls also enjoyed jumping on the trampoline with Grandpa.) We also canned a lot of peaches and pears, and even tried canning some nectarines (we haven't eaten them yet), this year. (I can't can on my stove, and it is funner with my Mom anyway, so we headed over to Grandma's house to can.) We also dried/dehydrated a lot of pears, which are my favorite treat ever!! They don't last very long at our house!! YUMMY! (Seriously, I like them better than chocolate! Maybe because I only get them once a year. And I haven't found any store bought ones that can even come close!) Tierra and Karina were my best helpers but Riana and Sariah helped too. (I don't know why I don't have any pictures of them.) I have fond memories of canning with my Mom, when I was growing up, and hope my children will also have good memories of this too. :)
Two important dates in September were my birthday and the first day of school for our girls. On my birthday, Grant and the girls brought me breakfast in bed. Then Grant took the van to get cleaned inside and out, which was my birthday wish. That evening, my parents watched the kids so that Grant and I could go out on a date to my favorite restaurant, Olive Garden. (Side note- We didn't even mean to match- LOL!) It was a wonderful, relaxing evening. It was really nice to spend time, just the two of us. Afterwards, my parents gave me a little teddy bear with a soccer ball, for my collection (and later some more trays for my dehydrator.) The next day, we ate the cutest ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. I love ice cream cake!! (And apparently so does Aurora, since she licked her plate clean!) I also loved the singing princess card that our girls picked out! :) The next morning was the first day of school. All the girls were really excited and a bit nervous... well, everyone except Aurora. She wasn't too keen on the idea. I think someone touched her lunchbox or something. Silly girl! They had a lot of fun in their classes. It was a good day!
We scored 7 free tickets to the Sounders vs Real Salt Lake, from a friend of Grant's. We decided we would probably never have this opportunity again, to take the whole family, so we did. We also realized we didn't need a ticket for Aurora and invited my little brother, Tommy. 5 of the seats were together and then the other 2 were in the next section over. Besides enjoying the soccer, of course!, the girls enjoyed all the flags and banners and such. Aurora enjoyed the food we brought. It was fun seeing Kasey Keller make some amazing saves, including an incredible penalty kick save! The score ended up 0-0, which was a bummer, since we didn't get to see them score. It was fun being there together as a family! Although, I have to say that I did not enjoy the section we were in. They were all shouting chants, many of which included swear words. One chant even included the "F" word, which was ridiculous! I have been to many professional/college sporting events and I understand that people are drinking, swearing, etc. However, it was very frustrating that everyone around us was screaming the "F" word all together, in a chant, which of course, gets stuck in your head. Grant said that when he took Riana, he never noticed anyone shouting those chants. That is why I think it was just our section. Anyway, besides that part of it, and the fact that everyone stood the entire game, which is hard with little kids, we really did have fun. The kids enjoyed themselves. And if nothing else, hopefully it will be a good memory to look back on, that we shared as a family.
We had a lot of fun at the Puyallup Fair this year. At first, I honestly didn't really want to go. I was feeling pretty tired. However, we didn't go last year because I was on crutches and I had promised the girls that we would go this year. And let me tell you, they have incredible memories!! But I am glad we went. We had a great time and lucked out on a lot of freebies!! First, we received free tickets for the girls and myself, at our school, since I am counted as an educator. Karina and Aurora are still young enough to get in free. At work, Grant mentioned he was taking his family and someone gave him a free pass, as well. When we arrived, we looked around for parking for about 10-15 minutes and were lucky enough to score a free parking spot also! The first thing we did was walk around and see the exhibits. Our favorite was all the collections. They were really neat to see. We especially loved the "Wizard of Oz," the rubber duckies, the pandas, the "Peanuts" gang, the dolphins, the snow-globes, the collector Barbies, the Pez, and the old school Little People. Next, we went to see all the animals. My favorites were the zebras and the camels. And we all loved the little baby goats. They were so cute! We even caught two kissing. And they were crying like babies- it sounded just like it! We were making jokes about the kid who was crying. The girls enjoyed the little petting farm and especially watching Aurora. She enjoyed seeing and touching all the animals, up close. After we all washed our hands really good, we ran into a little shop selling salt water taffy, one of my favorite candies. So of course, we had to get some. It was really yummy! Then, we let the girls each pick a ride to go on (too bad it wasn't dollar ride day or something.) We walked around all the rides, so they could see them all before they decided. Riana chose to go on the Wildcat Rollercoaster, and convinced her Daddy to come along. Tierra and Aurora chose to drive the little cars. While we were waiting, the ride lady was sweet enough to let Sariah on for free, with a little boy. We joked about her riding around in a car with a boy before she is 16. ;) Then the sweet ride lady let Riana and Karina go in a car too, for free! It was very nice of her! Since everyone got to ride in the cars, we let Tierra pick another ride too. Karina and Tierra decided on the Merry-Go-Round. Aurora decided she didn't want to go. (She prefers the horses that don't go up and down, which was how the first Merry-Go-Round she went on was, at Silverwood. The second one that she went on at the other fair, moved up and down and it scared her.) By this time, my body was very sore from all the walking, so the younger girls and I sat on a bench by the exit. Then Grant and Riana walked Sariah over to her ride. Sariah chose to go on the Superman ride, where she flew up in the air. While they were gone, Tierra, Karina, and Aurora found something to pass the time that was almost as fun as a ride-- the revolving exit! They went through it and then ran around and went through it again... and again!! By the time Grant and the girls got back, they had probably been through it 20-30 times! And they were giggling and smiling practically the whole time! It was hilarious! On the way out, Grant mentioned that he had really wanted an elephant ear but we had almost run out of our cash supply and we were about a dollar short. I felt bad because I didn't even know he wanted that and yet he had spent it on us, without mentioning what he wanted. Right outside the gates, we found a little stand and I told him to just ask if they would take a dollar short. Then I told the lady all about how sweet he was to us and she happily agreed to make him one, for the money we had left! In fact, she grabbed the biggest one she had left! It was so awesome! It made me really happy! It was a great ending to a great day! :)
