the murrays: Fast Fall

Fall has flown by! I guess it still is fall, but it's gotten cold so I feel like it's over, sad. Here's the highlights.

Katelyn is so old! Check out her schedule! She is enjoying her classes and handling junior high well.

First day of school for these big kids! 1st, 5th, and 7th grade! It has been awesome this year; for the first time Katelyn is getting herself up in the mornings without me lol. And Owen has done pretty well with being out the door by 7:45; better than I thought he would since he used to sleep in until 8:30 every morning!

It has been quite the adjustment for Maris and I, having Owen in school all day. We are still adjusting! It's funny, because she will play happily by herself whenever the other kids are home, but when they are at school she's super afraid to be by herself and follows me everywhere and wants to do stuff with me all the time! We are working on learning how to play with Emma, but it is a slow process. And Emma is still young. Maris is used to having someone older to play with; not being the one in charge and coming up with the game. Owen has usually always been sweet to her, but somehow that is not translating to her always being sweet to Emma! Somehow she sees her as a rival sometimes instead of a cute baby sibling. sigh.

But here they are getting along at a "swimming and music party" Maris wanted to have on one of the first days of school.

And a lot of the time they are really cute. Such as when Emma tries to copy Maris doing weird things lol.

One of the first Fridays of the school year we went park-hopping to like 6 parks in southern Utah County. it was fun.

And I took the little girls to the aquarium one time.

I altered this dress I got at the Down East Tent Sale.

One of the first few weeks of school I surprised the kids with making fruit forests when they got home.

Once there was a big rainstorm and the river looked like chocolate milk.

and flooded the underpass on the river trail!

I often see deer while running in the early morning, but this one had the biggest antlers I've seen!

Eric worked really hard all summer to finish the basement! Here is my craft room!

One time the girls were both at a birthday party and Eric and I took the littles mini-golfing. It was really fun and cute.

I discovered a new summer treat- garden zucchini, garden tomatoes, and basil!! and some kind of cheese.

another during-school activity with the girls!

Maris started preschool- she's doing upstart and a little group with friends once a week.

After dieting all summer I finally got to my goal weight!! this was a dehydrated weight after a long run but I'll take it! It took me 14 weeks to lose 12 pounds and I gained back 2 right after haha.

Maris made a cute sign to cheer for Owen at his soccer game!

We went on a hike to Donut Falls with Allison and her kids and my cousins Kendra and marla and their families. It was really fun to hang out with them.

Whitney got to score 3 goals this season, more than ever! Because Eric has had her playing halfback sometimes when her team gets ahead. its so fun to watch her develop her skills.

Owen had fun playing soccer this fall- he was playing against 2nd graders, but he learned a lot!

Another field trip with the little girls.

Emma decided to climb in bed with Owen one night.

Whitney was supposed to dress up as a hero for school, and she dressed up as Eric! So cute and funny. his hat, an LEI shirt, a jacket with his favorite color, chapstick and a fake phone in her pocket, a pencil behind her ear, and engineering plans in her hand lol.

Maris had fun playing soccer this fall too! Fun as in she loved talking and playing with her teammates, running around endlessly following the pack, and occasionally kicking the ball. Here she is messing around lol.

She did score one goal when she got a breakaway once!

We hiked the Y as a family! Kate only wanted to go to the bottom :) and notice Emma asleep in the baby backpack.

Eric and the 3 middle kids went to the top! ANd I ran up there real quick too to say I'd done it.

Here's Maris being goalie, she did pretty good.

Maris and Owen ran in the BYU Homecoming races. Maris was finally the oldest in her age group of 1-4, and we knew this was her year!! She took 2nd last year! So this year we practiced starting and kicking at the end (I would run by her and say "hey, you are too fast! hey, you can't beat me!" and she would laugh and run faster! It was awesome.) We didn't talk about winning, but we talked about if a girl is in front of you what should you do haha.
Here she is at the start of the race.

And she did it!! Yes!!!! She came around the corner kind of taking it easy, then with 50 meters left she was kind of jogging hanging out behind 2 girls, so I said "Maris go around them and run fast to the end!" She looked over at me and up at the finish and nodded and did it! It was so awesome, and she wasn't even tired. So cute. So she got to stand on the top of the podium and get her medal. :)

Owen (in the black and gray jogging suit) didn't train AT ALL, because he hated training last year. But he had just been playing soccer for a month, so he was in shape to run a 400. He took 12th place again, same as last year, but he was 12 seconds faster! So that was cool.

There was a huge fire in our mountains, it was crazy! This was on a day when the wind was blowing the smoke away. Other days it was horribly smoky, like fog but grosser!

Cute girls riding on dad's feet.

cute girls ready for church in October.

Owen and Emma enjoying a book together.

We went to a football game! Me, Eric, Whitney and Jonathan

Me and Kate and Whit got to enjoy the awesome BYU women's volleyball team! They ended up making it to the national semifinals.

In late October we found out the MacKays were moving to Missouri!! So sad! So we tried to get together every week until they left. Once we went to temple square.