September

This is what I remember about September which was a million years ago:

It was so warm!  It was lovely to be swimming into late September.  Most pools close the end of August, but we have access to our local lake so we canoed and swam and skiied through the end of September.  I kept reminding myself that when I feel like complaining about our crappy June weather, I need to remember that September is usually glorious around here.

The kids went back to school.  I was not ready till about a week before (melancholy about the growing up that it symbolizes, not excited about busy extracurricular schedule), but then they all just started fighting like crazies and I was ready.  First day of school photos:

We celebrated Labor Day with Grandma and Bekah visiting.  We also had a fun Labor Day triathlon organized by the Shenemans complete with prizes.  Breakfast was hosted by the Beykirchs.  I love our active, social friends!

Gabe played football.  What?  You don’t think the kid is built like a football player?! He LOVES that game and it was fun to watch him get to practice and play it every day.  He was junior varsity, but he got lots of playing time because he played offense and defense.  I’ll try to hide my very strong desire for him to run track since he enjoys wearing those pads so dang much.

Faith was bereft without her siblings!  She was clueless as to what to do without her 4 playmates.  It was a little disturbing when she complained of hurting teeth and we realized it was because she was sucking her thumb so much (out of boredom) that she was literally injuring her teeth/gums.  (What do I do about this, people??)  I, however, was happy to have her all to myself and am just reveling our alone time.  I do let her go to preschool two days a week and it’s the highlight of her week.

Ryan and I started the Eat to Live eating plan…basically lowfat, no sugar, vegan eating.  I’ll have more to share about that later, but I must say:  I truly have never felt better.  I lost 20 lbs by doing it for 6 strict, straight weeks and am working on how to modify it to work in the world that doesn’t eat that way.  I will say that we eat vegetarian/vegan dinners here at least 5 days a week and the kids are great sports about it.  Here are pictures of my grocery cart and some meals (and a reminder why I’m not a food blogger…have you ever seen uglier food photos?):

I finished off the month with a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate my sister Bekah’s MBA graduation.  It was a first girls trip for the three of us, and while we probably won’t repeat the location (NOT a Vegas fan!), we will definitely need to keep doing them.  We did a session at the Las Vegas temple, caught the Cirque du Soleil Love! show (so so so good), shopped, and visited Red Rock Canyon.  Loved the chance to talk and talk and talk without distracting (albeit cute) kids around.

 

 

One more summary, done!