August

 We love having Baby Jane over! And we got her right outta that doggie bed after this picture haha!

We were SO SAD when we saw the Farmington temple open house dates and realized it was right in the middle of three trips and school starting. UGH. Then, the last week I realized Olive didn't have dance on Saturday and nothing else was on the schedule. WE COULD MAKE THIS HAPPEN!! It's was literally the very last day of the open house. Olive had choreography camp until late on Friday so we loaded up first thing Saturday morning and headed out! 

We stopped in Holbrook for lunch. Man that A&W restaurant is 3rd world poverty level gross. Praying we don't get parasites. Also had to take Weston's picture with the rootbeer for a throw back to a toddler picture of him with the same rootbeer in his bottle on another long car ride from Gallup!

We lost an hour with the time change which was stressful. We screeched in to our hotel, got changed and sped to the temple. It was about 5pm and it ended at 8pm. We started the tour in the church building. We were with a pretty small group so we got the longer tour. We found out later that if you were there when it was really busy, they hustled you through without any talking and only showed you the main rooms. I was so glad we got the more relaxed tour! It really was such a beautiful temple! So many Native American touches in the colors, decor, and architecture. The bride's room was stunning. We saw many friends from our old ward. It's crazy to think we only lived here 1 year and yet made many good friends. Our old bishop, Bishop Payne and his wife are in the temple presidency. It was so wonderful to see them there! The church building we used to go to was on this land. They tore it down to build the temple and built another church building next to it. 

The etching along the top is the Native American symbol for eternity.

This was such a special experience to be here with our kids. I don't think Collin and Weston remember much from us living here but it is apart of our family's story and it felt so good to be here together. I pulled them all close when we were in the Celestial room and told them I couldn't wait til we got to do this again someday. SO glad we made the effort to come. To me, it was more than worth it.

Our old house is just a couple streets away from the temple. We had to swing by and see it. This was our first home after dental school. I remember feeling very lonely and anxious when we moved here. Crazy to think that was 13 years ago.

Our favorite restaurant in Farmington was Si Senor. I was so excited to go back but wondered if we had hyped it up in our minds.

NOPE!

If anything it was even better than I remembered! We had forgotten about the yummy white sauce they serve you with the chips and salsa! Oh my gosh it's so good!! Our burrito was phenomenal and the sopapillas covered in honey was the perfect finish! I was SO happy. 

We got ice cream at the store and took it back to the hotel. 

Our old ward had been divided up and sent to various buildings so we just picked the ward at the best time for us and it happened to have a lot of our old ward members in it, which was fun! We went to the Apache building which has been around for decades and I loved the stained glass at the front of the chapel. I wish they still made buildings like this. I would love to stare that this every sacrament meeting.

Brinn invited us over for lunch on our drive home, which was SO nice. It broke up the drive and was really fun to see all the kids. The Shaheens were out of town, which was a bummer. 

This sign is normally in the kitchen. Weston thought he was funny. ;)

Collin and Paige painted each other's portraits for a date night. I saw Collin's first and melted, it was sooo cute! Then he showed me his painting of Paige... hahaha! I fell on the floor. Poor girl. This whole thing is hilarious. 

Olive quit piano. She never practiced and is going to focus on violin. So Tanner is taking for the first time! He was so excited and said piano is fun after his first month of lessons. I'm still taking too, but I've scaled back to just one song a week. 

Lane left on him mission!! We went to the airport to see him off. I thought the kids' messages to him were sweet. 

Abby opened her call to the Belgium/Netherlands mission!

The Figs had a sleepover and I thought the arrangements were cute. Landon and Madeline snuggled up. Tanner on the ground with our body pillow over the top of him.

Yep, I fell pray to the AI generated image of myself. I can wish. Me as a therapist someday... maybe in the Millennium we'll look this polished??

I watched Stetson one morning and he was a little nervous so I planned some fun things for us to do! It took him a minute to warm up to it, but we had fun baking banana bread!

Poor Tanner caught Hand, Foot, Mouth. He really suffered and was in so much pain. It lasted a solid week and even after the sores healed, he had marks for much longer. I felt so bad for him. 

But when I saw this on my camera roll I laughed out loud. He must have been wanting to see if there were sores on his tongue.  His big brown eyes are my favorite!

Nothing more fun than teasing your teenagers by being "cringe". 

Girls dinner with Abbey, Marcie and Shelley to celebrate our birthdays at a new place in Dana Park that was super cute but had mid food. Oh well.

Our new theme for this school year... WORDS MATTER. I feel like our family could really work on making sure we keep our words encouraging, uplifting and kind and watching our tone too. This seemed to fall under charity to me. If we love each other, hopefully our words will match. So Moroni 7:45 will be our scripture. I made them each bookmarks to remind them. And then I posted this picture of our family with this quote in the kitchen. I've had this quote by my computer for years and I love it. It's such a good reminder. "Speak to your children (family) as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical creatures on earth for what they believe is what they will become."

We had smashburgers, fries, fruit and a chocolate torte cake for dessert. 

Poor Tanner was sick and not having it tonight. :(

This license plate cracked me up!! Idk if it's a nod to Enrique Iglesis or their name is just Enrique, but it makes me think of the line from Christmas with the Kranks. I can hear Nora saying it haha.

Travis was in Texas with Collin for Father's day for dive zones so we finally celebrated in August!! We love this guy with all our hearts. I couldn't have dreamed up a better husband and father in all my imagination. I'm super lucky to have him by my side.

For Olive's birthday she wanted nails done at a salon! It's crazy to me that she has friends whose parents pay for this on a regular basis. Sorry, not this family. But for your birthday, yes! Her birthday was on a Tuesday so we got them done the Saturday before.

It was ward temple week so we took Tanner to walk around the temple. We are so good about the rest of us going regularly but I need to be better about taking Tanner.

Love getting singing time pictures from Primary!

Lazy Sunday activities.

Weston and Tanner did those iron on beads and made fishing poles out of legos.

I love watching "girl" shows with Olive.

We had the younger kids in YM/YW over for games and the ice cream machine!

I took Olive out for lunch on her birthday and she picked Joe's Farm Grill! Love this sweet girl! She really is SO SWEET. She is naturally happy and outgoing. She makes friends easily and always has. She is a SHRIEKER! Not a mad one... she just squeals or screams when she's scared, happy, or a number of other emotions! I can't imagine where she gets it from ;)

She dances around 18 hours a week! Her favorite is hip hop. Her least favorite is ballet.

She is not a picky eater. She does not complain about my dinners or turn her nose up at much of anything. It's so nice. 

She loves sushi, Italian beef sandwiches, Hawaiian pizza and coconut rice.

She used to not like pancakes, waffles or peanut butter but now she does!

Her best friends are twins... Mae and Ruby Standage and Emerson Owens. She also loves her cousins, Lindi, Scarlett and Olivia.

She tries really hard in school. I never have to wonder if she's done her assignments. All her teacher love her. 

She really wants a sister.

She reads her scriptures every night. And she is such an avid "question answerer" in Sunday school, the teacher has to ask her to not answer because no one else cares or tries because they know Olive will say something.

She is a rule follower and wants to do what's right. She cares a LOT about what I think. So much so, that I have to be careful what I say because she feels really guilty going against my wishes or opinions. That might seem like a good thing.. and it can be... but I also want her to make her own decisions and not just default to what I think. This regularly looks like her asking me what she should eat, wear or do and me saying, "that's something for you to choose". 

When she is with her friends they love to do their nails and make up dances. 

She loves babysitting and wants to start babysitting in the ward.

She still has nights when she comes into our room anxious and on the verge of a panic attack, but it's happening less and less. If she's overtired or can't fall asleep, it's a trigger. She hates being the last one awake. She also does not like being home alone at night. 

Some of her favorite shows are KC Undercover, Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World, 

Her crush at school is a boy named Gov. Yep... Gov. 

She wears her emotions of her sleeve.

Recently she told me that she's been working hard at not judging people. She said she was assigned to sit next to a boy at school with hair and clothes that she would normally be judgmental of. Then she thought, "well, he doesn't think they're bad so I won't either. I'll give him a chance" And she said it turns out he's really nice. She has done this with girls at dance who she normally wouldn't spend time with but instead makes an effort to be friendly and comes to like them after all. I was so impressed when she shared this with me! I told her most adults aren't so self-aware and that she's doing a great job at trying her best to love everyone. She is an example to me. 

I get compliments about her all the time. She will bear such a thoughtful testimony at church and multiple people will tell me they can't believe she's only 12. She's well spoken, sincere and kind. I got so lucky being her mom!

Of course Camilla and Posey came over to shower her with love!

She chose Asian BBQ chicken thighs, coconut rice, pineapple and salad for her birthday dinner.

And sherbet cake for dessert!

She got a weighted stuffie but her real present is coming up.... a day date with me! 

Leah talked me into it... we watched Kpop Demon Hunters. I tried real hard to keep an open mind. And I'll say, it wasn't TERRIBLE. I get that some of the songs are catchy. But the weird anime characters are too much. I will not be watching it again.

Collin and Lincoln working on Collin's poster to ask Paige to Homecoming.

We went all summer without a lake day so everyone was excited when it finally happened! We are so lucky Grandpa has a boat! Paige came too and we all got Venezias pizza afterward.

The phone fell and this was the candid reaction from everyone haha!

It was time for Olive's day of fun with mom for her birthday!!

We started with a bike ride to TruBowl for acai bowls.

A lady I minister to was getting married again and Kimber was throwing her a shower. Olive wasn't thrilled that this interrupted our day but she was a good sport stopping by for an hour. 

Then we did some Target shopping...

got fun drinks at the new Starbucks that opened up on Elliot and Higley...

and made soap at a class in downtown Gilbert called Studio 223.

This turned out to be really fun! We cut up the base then melted it over a double boiler, adding in scents and such. Finally, pouring it into a mold! 

We ended at San Tan mall, shopping around and buying some of the must have lip gloss right now... Summer Fridays. We had dinner at the Thirsty Lion then I dropped her off a party her dance friends from Ignite were having. Today was everything I hoped for in having a daughter! I didn't get to do this kind of stuff with my mom but I love that I get to with Olive. Our personalities match and it's so fun spending time with her. 

Poor Collin was trying a new dive off the 3m at practice and smacked over and over and over again. Watching the video was brutal. Also, I'm super proud of him for keeping at it. The red back tells the tale. 

I've gotten texts from Marcie and Shelley giggling over Wayne's new car shed poster. Giddyup.

Was there ever a sweeter picture!!! I can't. May we all feel so relaxed at our dental appointments.

Memes that spoke to me this month...