September

September has been a very busy month. Jared has been extremely busy at work, so we've been trying to keep busy ourselves to pass time. We've had appointments almost every day and have been going on lots of fun adventures. Now that we've taken care of all our appointments (and hopefully in a week or so things will slow down for Jared - keep your fingers crossed that that is true) we're looking forward to a quieter month of October.

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I was trying to clean my closet out the other day, so I opened up my box of dress up clothes to keep the kids occupied. Once they showed me their outfits I had to take a picture. By the time I got back with the camera Bradley had taken off his boa, hat and Jared's shoes, but they still looked very cute!

Jacob helping me with the laundry

Jared's Grandpa and Grandma Richins were in town and we were delighted to get to see them.
They came over for dinner along with the Nelson's and Jared's cousin Rustin. We love family gatherings!

A story from their great-grandmother

We had Family home evening with everyone that night and Mackayla had been planning for days to accompany us on the opening song. She doesn't know how to play the piano at all, but had "practiced" so she felt very confident about it. I'll probably add a video of the great job she did at the end of the post.

Then, of course, Bradley and Sophie wanted a turn too, so we had three opening songs. :)

We had our primary program on Sunday. Bradley and Mackayla both knew her part perfectly.

Reading the adds together Sunday morning

Jacob was eating some graham crackers one night when we noticed he was using his bottle to pour milk onto a piece of the cracker and then eating it. He figured out how to have graham crackers and milk like the other kids do.

I showed Jared my golfing skills the other night...
and he decided he would be the one to teach the kids to swing a golf club.

Finally!! The chairs are finished! Jared finished reupholstering the second chair last week and they look wonderful! Now on to a new chapter in his life.

The boys love to shave with Jared!

It's officially fall now, but we are still waiting for the fall weather to show up. It's still feeling like summer every day.

After having a few behavior problems, we made a chart for the kids. It's worked great so far. They get to put stickers on their own chart for good behavior and they both just earned enough stickers to choose one of the rewards. Mackayla picked a trip to Toys R Us. We spent almost two hours yesterday walking around the store and she loved every minute of it. Bradley chose an ice cream cone from McDonalds. He was SO excited about it!!


Since it was Bradley's reward, the other two kids got to tag along but had to share a cone.

At the ward Luau

Bradley didn't want to be in the group shot, but wanted one by himself

The ballerina walking with her dad