Rise and Shout!

I now have 2 more siblings in college!!  Melissa and Jonathan made their way up to BYU-Idaho to start their college careers last week!  And they were kind enough to stop by for a visit.  They made friends with Owen again...

 and wrestled with the girls...

 And we even got to hang out with my Grandad, who is SO cute with kids!  Sorry I didn't get any pictures of you Mom!

Then last weekend I played with the settings on my camera during a photography class at my stake Relief Society Retreat.  This is with a lower aperture:

 normal aperture:

 low aperture and flash and portrait setting:

 regular aperture and flash:

 very interesting... I need to experiment more, before I get a nicer camera someday maybe. :)

And then we went to the BYU game!!  Woo hoo!  First time for the kids, except Kate when she was really little.  Whit was rebelling against taking a family picture, surprise, surprise.

 Whitney even brought her pom-poms so she could cheer more effectively. :)  Her favorite parts of the game were when everyone would stomp and cheer loudly when we were trying to stop Weber on a third down. She would excitedly stomp as fast as she could!

 We loved sitting by Uncle Derek!  Oh how we love having him close by at BYU!

 Owen had a great time seeing his first touchdowns inside the stadium!

 Kate's favorite parts of the game were when we got to sing the fight song, and I think she liked the band too.

 caught this touchdown run on camera!

 touchdown!

 "rah, rah, rah rah rah!"

 "gooooooooo, cougars!"

 good times!  we will only do that once a year though, I was amazed we made it through the whole game, since the girls started asking when it was going to be over at the end of the first quarter!  

And we won 45-13, I love BYU football!

first day of school

So, this post is long overdue.  Why?  Because end of August/ September is CrAzY!!  We start school, preschool, soccer 2x a week, and separate music class for both girls all at the same time.  We go from no schedule to crazy schedule, complete with getting up early to catch the bus, having regular homework and Spanish homework and music homework.  It's going well, but just a little crazy. :)

So here's Kate in the outfit she picked out for her first day of school.  I need to take pics of her in some of her other, SO cute uniform outfits.  Seriously, most days she goes off to school looking so adorable in her little skirts and jumpers.  Not to mention her newfound hairstyle of curled hair- she's actually letting me use the curling iron on her!  So cute.  Oh and she's standing this way in the picture to show off the new yellow bracelet, the famous one mentioned in a previous post.  I guess this is right before she lost it on the bus!  Don't worry, it's safe and sound on her dresser most of the time now. :)

 Here she is about to ride the bus for the first time.  She's pro now!  She's carrying her bag of classroom supplies and she's still using her old Lightning McQueen backpack!  It's wearing out on the bottom though, about time for a new one.  

 Random side note- Owen can play rolling-ball catch!  sort of.  It's super cute and he loves it.  

 Other random picture of the kids enjoying a rainstorm.  

 And here's Whitney on her first day of preschool!!  We're doing a preschool with a few of our friends again, so fun.  And luckily we've discovered the curling iron does wonders for Whitney's crazy hair as well!  She looks so cute and un-ragamuffin-ish when she actually lets me do her hair!

 And here's my cute girl on the day of her first soccer game!!  

 She's #27, sprinting down the field after the ball!  Good thing I took this picture in the 3 minutes she played in the first game, because that's all we might get folks!  Poor girl has been having a hard time with soccer- "It's so hard, all the kids just keep taking the ball away!" "Maybe I can play basketball instead?...what sport doesn't have a ball?"  and she hasn't played again in 2 games!  I told her she can be a runner or a swimmer. :)  Maybe we should have waited until she's five to have her play!  We'll see how the rest of the season goes.  We just want her to have fun!  But she's so competitive and INTENSE about everything, she just can't handle playing if she's not going to score and win and have possession of the ball apparently. :)  But those 3 minutes she played were awesome!  She'll be really good at soccer I think, whenever she decides to try again. :)  And it will help if next year Eric's her coach.  She was devastated when she found out he was going to be Katie's coach and not hers!  But that's the age the city needed coaches for more.  Oh and I'll post pics of Kate playing soccer soon.

 Oh and one more thing- Eric sold his motorcycle! It was a little sad, especially since he took it on a couple of last joyrides right at the end- like this one up Payson canyon- and remembered how fun it was.  But he hasn't been riding it to work anymore and it was just gathering dust in our garage and we didn't want to pay to register and insure it again, so he said he wanted to sell it... he said he'll get another one again someday.  Actually his exact words were, "maybe when Owen's 16 we'll get some dirt bikes or something" which I thought was SO cute.  He's making little plans for himself and his son. cute. :)  He had me take this picture to prove to the kids that their dad actually had a motorcycle.  :)

Vegetables

Vegetables Katelyn will eat:
carrots
peas (sugar snap or regular cooked ones)
occasionally broccoli (florets only)
spinach secretly blended into a smoothie

Vegetables Whitney will eat:
carrots (with Ranch)
peas (sugar snap or regular cooked ones)
cucumbers (with Thousand island)
broccoli (stems only)
spinach secretly blended into a smoothie

Vegetables Owen will eat:
peas
carrots
sweet potatoes
zuchini
broccoli
yellow squash
cucumber

hmmm... what does this say about my methods, or Owen's personality, or just his taste buds?
Whatever it is, I'm happy he loves food!