September 2017

Welcome to September of 2017!

It was a good month.

Fully of good weather,

and therefore,

fun outdoor activities.

First up,

a trip to a cool bridge.

It's called High Trestle Trail Bridge.

Most people bike their way to it,

but we just parked as close

as we could and walked our way in.

Walking long distances isn't always

the kids' favorite thing,

(can you see Tyler giving Ellory a piggyback ride??)

but they thought the bridge was cool.

And some of the sticks and rocks

they saw along the way.

It was VERY windy up on the bridge.

I texted this picture to my mom

and she said it looked like

Ellory was trying to be a model:

And of course,

the kids needed a snack:

It was a fun little outing!

Here is Ellory making a silly face:

And then, it was time for the best

day of September....

my birthday!!

Ellory and I had a picnic:

And she helped me mash some bananas

for banana muffins:

And then we put on some costumes,

and built things with the magnets.

 And, she sang Happy Birthday to me.

Side note, since I do this blog partly

as a journal, let me say something to possible future

family of mine who may read all this.

(Yup, that feels weird to say)

I also have an Instagram account

with pretty much all these same 

pictures, but sometimes I also put 

little videos on there.

My handle is @bryncessp.

One day, way in the future,

I'll give my kids my username and password

for my Google accounts, too.

Anyway, back to my birthday.

When Kale got home from school,

we played a fierce game of 

Battleship:

And it was a great day!

More celebration was to come later.

The next day,

Ellory and I explored a trail in Ames:

We liked it so much,

that we took Nana and Kale 

there when Nana and Pop-Pop came 

to celebrate my birthday.

Tyler and my dad were at the 

Iowa/Iowa State football game!

But this was the fun to be had

along the trail:

It was a bonus to tire the kids out a little.

We headed back to our place

to wait for Dad and Tyler to make their way home.

Look how adorable she is:

Nana and the kids shared a smoothie.

Yum!

And then we went to Hickory Park for dinner!

It was a little busy because of the big game,

so Nana and Pop-Pop kept the kids entertained for a bit:

And then they were able to get a break

and sit down.

Look at this delicious food:

It was a hit!

And then,

for the first time in many many years,

my mom made me my favorite 

chocolate cake for my birthday.

And it was just as delicious as I remembered.

 

It was a great birthday and I felt

very loved!

Say hi to Ellory,

on our way to pick Kale up from school:

School picture day!

Isn't he so handsome???

Since Kale got all dressed up for school,

Ellory and I felt that we just wanted

to have a pajama day:

We started giving Kale an allowance.

And he saved and saved and saved

until he could buy himself this lego set:

I was really proud of him

for being able to wait and save his money

until he had enough.

It took him over a month!

One of my very best friends from high school,

Alison Yanda,

got married!!

And I live in Iowa now, so I could actually go!!!

And the best part? 

Tyler was able to come with me!

We had lots of fun and it was nice

catching up with some old friends.

We had a rainy day,

so that means matching rain boots time:

And rainy days area always a great time

to make the best chocolate chip cookies around.

Look. At. Her:

Tyler was traveling,

and it was time for a movie night:

Ellory loves playing this game 

that Aunt Laura gave her.

It's called Seek-A-Boo:

She's "not tired" until all of a sudden

she is passed out and nothing can wake her:

So Ellory said she wanted to be 

Owlette from the show P.J. Masks

for Halloween this year.

I decided to take her to Target to see

if they had a costume so I could figure out

what size to get her.

She ended up seeing a different costume she liked more.

Unfortunately, it wasn't this one:

Look who's "not tired" again"

Tyler must have been traveling again:

I actually did Ellory's hair! 

Look!

I have proof!

It all fell out about an hour later,

but still.

Ellory and I decided we wanted to have 

a picnic at a park AND read books on the blanket:

And later, smoothies and Snapchat;

Gospel Bingo time!

We had our first week of chilly fall weather,

and I wasted NO time making soup.

Tyler took me to a football game.

It was fun!

Even though we lost.

I don't remember why were

shopping with my parents,

but dad was bored

(shocker)

and after mom and I finished checking out,

this is where we found him:

 

When Ellory wants to do some Snapchat pictures,

she says, "Mom, can we do some smiley faces?"

And it's pretty cute.

Kale dipped his strawberry in ketchup.

 

Back in Oregon, 

we started the tradition of 

Saturday Conference Donuts.

On the Saturday morning of General Conference weekend,

we go to the store,

in our pajamas,

and get donuts.

Ellory has yet to eat an entire donut.

And that was September!

A Year Ago......

So now that I'm behind
on keeping this thing updated
by an entire year,
I thought I'd take the time
to finally get caught up.
Plus I'm home alone all day
on a kind of bed rest thing
(more on that later).
So let's take a journey back
over the last year.
Well, I won't do the entire year
in one post.
I'm not that motivated.

So this summer was the
Great Eclipse Event.
It was this huge deal.
People were going nuts for it.
Of course, it was too cloudy
for us to see it here.
So we watched the live stream of it:

One day the kids were playing

and Kale started yelling,

"Mom! Hurry and come take a picture

of what I'm doing to Ellory!"

Although I was happy with how

they were happy to play

with each other,

I'll admit I was a little apprehensive

of what I was going to find.

But I had nothing to worry about,

this time:

Ellory figured out she could
do this with her fingers,
and she thinks it's super cool:

To get Kale ready for school,
we went and got his hairs cut.
Before:




After:



I'm obsessed.


Well, summer has to come to and end
some time.
And with our last day before Kale
started school,
we built a blanket fort,
and watched a movie inside of it:



 And then it was time to send Kale
off to his first day of Kindergarten!



I'll admit, that was a hard day for me,
for many reasons.
For one, Kale is my pal.
He and I like to do the same things
together.
And I missed having my pal to play with.
For another thing,
I hate that he is growing up.
I mean, I love getting to share in
new experiences with him,
but at the same time,
I want to keep him little forever.
It's also hard going from knowing
what he sees, hears, encounters every
minute of every day,
to having only a vague idea of
what he is experiencing,
and trying to get him to tell me
everything after school is
practically impossible becasue
he says he doesn't really remember.
Letting go is hard.
I can admit, too, that sometimes
I am fearful that some horrifying tragedy
will happen at his school and I won't
be there to protect him.
It's sad, but true.
But, despite all these things,
I am happy for him.
He LOVES school.
He loves learning and getting to help his teacher
and spending time with friends.
All year long, he would NEVER let
me get him out of school early,
for fear he might miss out on
something.
But that first day,
Ellory and I missed him terribly:



Like, A LOT:




But then it was time to
bring him home and we
couldn't have been happier!!!!



And then later that week,
I got to take him to the
End of Summer Party
at the Ames Public Library.
Just the two of us.
We danced.
We played all the games.
And I let him eat as much
pizza as he could handle.





 And now, Ellory and I
had to get better at playing
just the two of us.
This really was an adjustment for me.
I had to be very aware of when
I was trying to treat her
the same as Kale.
Her interests are different,
and sometimes her attitude is WAY different.
Although missing Kale was hard,
having an opportunity
to spend time with Ellory just the two of us
has been a great blessing.

One day she wanted to do some sort
of dress up AND have a surprise
for Kale for when we picked him up from school.
She picked pirates.
No complaints here!
So we made spy glasses and swords,
enough for all 3 of us,
and had a blast hunting for
treasure and beating that sneaky snook,
Captain Hook!

Ellory really really likes taking pictures of herself.

Like a lot.

Like, I'm pretty sure we will NEVER

give her a smart phone because

she would spend all her time

taking selfies.

But every once in a while,

I indulge her:

This was Kale's 3rd day of school.

I took a picture because this

is my favorite shirt he got

when we went school shopping:

Ellory the picky eater

actually asked for a piece of toast

one day,

so I had to document it:

Sometimes, if I catch her in the right mood,

she likes to play Go Fish:

And then, one time, 

tried something new!

Fruitloops.

I don't remember the context of this next picture.

But she's cute, isn't she?

I'm sure I've mentioned this before,

but just to remind you all,

Tyler is a genius. 

I told him I really wanted to get 

the kids a book shelf,

but that I wanted it to be short

so that they could reach everything themselves.

We were at Wal-mart and he showed me

a bookshelf that I loved but I told him

it was way way way too tall.

His response?

"So we will lay it on it's side."

GENIUS.

Plus we got it for a steal.

It was the last one in the store,

and it was already on sale,

but since it was the display one it was 

a tiny bit banged up,

so they gave it to us for and extra 50% off.

Win!

And then one Sunday, 

Ellory decided to dip her french toast in

KETCHUP.

So. Gross.

So that was last August.
Lots of changes and
new experiences.
And still stunned that we live in Iowa!