Splendid September

The first week of September was hot!  So we still enjoyed playing outside.  The kids love the new swing set!

The Saturday of Labor day weekend, Lily and Tom had been working on putting in her cat window.

So Lily and I started looking for kittens on KSL classifieds.  We knew we weren't ready to get one yet, but we thought it'd be fun to look.  Well, that was a dangerous idea, because we found several for a decent price that she liked.  She was mainly wanted a black kitten, so we messaged a few we liked and got one that responded back right away.  So we asked if we could come see them, and headed over to see the kittens.  Of course, Lily fell in love with the little black girl kitten.  I told her we weren't ready to take it yet and we had others to look at, but she really wanted it.  So we told the family we would pay for her now and pick her up Monday since we didn't have any cat stuff yet.  As we were leaving, I really didn't want to drive all the way back on Monday, so I said to Lily, "let's just run to Walmart and get all the stuff now and go get the kitten tonight.  So we texted the family, and they said it was fine.  So after going to the store, we went back and got the kitten.   

Lily couldn't have been more happy.

She wanted to get a rescue kitty, and she kind of felt like she had.  The home the kitten came from didn't seem the most ideal place for kittens.  In fact, the kids had even cut her whiskers!  So she felt like she was rescuing the kitten and giving her a better home.

She had already picked her name out, ever since her last kitten, Baby had died.  So despite the black color, her name would be Angel. 

That night, we gave Angel a sponge bath to get her all clean.  She didn't even meow, just shivered from being wet and cold.  But she was such a mellow, sweet kitten.  We'd bought a dog house for her litter box to go in outside, but for now, made the whole dog house her home inside Lily's closet.  We just took the roof off.

It only took a couple days before Angel figured out how to get out of the dog house and was a VERY playful kitten!  Lily was happy to see her thriving so well.

We only let Angel in Lily's room, and not in the rest of the house to help limit the cat dander, in case of allergies.  But one day, I did put her in Jeff's room and she was very curious, and nervous around the turtle.

She's been a fun cat, but I didn't think about the fact that cat's are nocturnal, so Lily's had to get used to her playing with her hair, licking her face and biting her toes while she sleeps.  Also, Cedric seems to be allergic to her as he's been sneezing ever since we got her and sometimes complains of itchy eyes.  That doesn't seem to stop him from playing with her, though.

The Sunday of Labor Day weekend, we went up to our cabin for one last time this year.  We were planning on going up just for dinner, but when I reminded my siblings it was our cabin weekend, Mike and Karyn's family, Candalyn's crew and Natalie and Travis all came up too!  Mike and Candalyn's families slept over, but we just went up for the afternoon/evening.

We all did our own thing for dinner.  Then we all went on a hike up to Donut Falls.  The weather was perfect!

The river wasn't too high and so most of us crossed over.

A large group, including Tom, Cedric, Lily and Jeff, hiked all the way up to the falls.

After the hike, we played games and hung out until we left to go home to bed.

Monday/Labor Day, we spent mostly cleaning out the garage and getting preschool stuff ready before I started teaching the next day.  This is my thirteenth year teaching and my first year teaching without any of my own kids at home.

Cedric had to create a picture on the computer of school showing something he'd done that summer.  He'd made a picture of him on the zip-line at the cabin.  I thought he did such a good job!

The night of the BYU vs Utah game, Tom had planned on having some of his brothers come over and watch the game around 8:30.  But at 8:15 our power went out!  Half the neighborhood was out!  So the kids and I went for a walk around the neighborhood to see how far it went.  Tom took Lily and they ended up watching the game at his dad's house instead.  Meanwhile, I had to try to shower and get the three other kids to bed via flashlight.  Thank goodness for iPad's.  All three went to bed in Cedric's room.  And around 12:15am the power came back on.  Not even two minutes after that, Tom and Lily came home.  We still don't know what caused the outage.

We have a tradition of going to the State Fair every year.  We usually go on Monday, because it's the best deal for our family.  It's also the night of the all-you-can-eat ice cream tent.

When we first got there, it wasn't very crowded.  They had a very simplified haunted house that costs $5.  But because the crowds were sparse, the guy let Lily and Jeff go in for only $1 each.  They made it out all in one piece.

We then headed over to the ice cream tent and ate, danced and partied til our stomach's hurt. (OK, so maybe they didn't hurt, but they were full of ice cream.)  

One of our favorite activities is the fishing pond.  However, this year, the fish just weren't biting.  It was a little anticlimactic since in years past all the kids caught fish within minutes.

Lily and her friend, Jenna bought wrist bands and went and did all the rides.  We met up with Maren and her girls and we did the Little Hands on the Farm...

While Tom and the boys went and rode the Starship 4000.

However, the boys still wanted to do the Little Hands exhibit, so they waited in a VERY long line to do it (compared to mine and Maren's line, which wasn't a bad wait at all).

Meanwhile, the little girls and moms went and saw the animals.

Our favorite was the building with all the baby animals in it.

The boys met up with us there.

We'd gotten a lot of pictures of the kids, so we made sure to take one of us adults too.

We stayed way later than I thought we would!  Here's our whole group before we left around 9:30 (we'd been there for five hours).  Because of the ice cream, we hadn't had any real dinner yet, so we went to the Burger King drive thru, which for some reason took a half an hour for them to bring us out our food. But it was nice to have something to eat on the drive home.

Sometime during the second week of September, Tom and Lily made a ramp for the kitten to get out of the window well.  They also cleaned out and put old carpet in the window well to keep the weeds down.

Angel quickly became curious and came out to explore.

She loves to come out whenever the kids are in the back yard, and now her "dog" house, with the litter box is outside as well.

I love this kid. If anyone ever gets to know Cedric, they fall in love with him. Poor kid has many challenges, which we are still figuring out, but he's amazing! He deals with anxiety fears (hence the sleeping mask), ADD, and has recently been diagnosed with high functioning autism, which comes with its own list of challenges. But I always say he's going to be my billionaire child when he grows up. He has an endless imagination unlike anyone I know!

I love this boy too.  He loves being the big fish in the elementary pond.  He's on safety patrol and Pack Protectors (kind of like student government).  He is such a good boy and loves to help at school.  He wasn't too excited about me taking his picture though.

Jeff also loves the Micahel Vey books and since the new one came out, I bought all seven of them.  He was so excited!  Although he still doesn't like to read.

We love this girl too, and it was her turn for date night with Mom and Dad.  Sophie picked going to Classic Fun Center and doing the bounce house and jungle area.  Afterwards, we went to Leatherby's for some food and ice cream.

They had several Disney Princesses there, and Sophie loved going over to talk to them.  She got a picture with her favorite princess, Moana.

I love this girl too and how mature and responsible she's becoming.  Watching her be a "mother" to her kitten has been fun.  She is a great second mom to her siblings as well.

Despite September starting out very warm, the week of the State Fair went from the high 80's down to the 50's as the high later in the week.  So when we got a small warm spell (mid 60's), I took advantage of it and went for a bike ride between preschool clean-up and kids getting home from school.  It was so nice to get out and do something for me.

The kids love making "clown lunches" or pancake faces for meals.

Angel has started to grow and explore.  She isn't allowed anywhere in the house, besides Lily's room.  But sometimes she'll sit on the back porch and watch us.

Or climb on the screen to try to get to us.

  

It's been fun to have her around.

 September was a good month.