September

After school started, the Hs were left to be entertained by yours truly--and by themselves, of course. We did a little painting.

 visited the museum a couple of times

and hung out around the house.

 H started his computer preschool

and learned how to ride his bike without training wheels.

 Over Labor Day weekend, we went hiking with cousins to the rock slide, where we all took a turn or two except Zelly. Sweetie went 9 times:

 In September we also headed up to the cabin for a weekend and invited friends to join us for part of the time:

 

Man Alive, H is FIVE!

Some days I don't know how H has managed to stay alive until his big fifth birthday but he has made it and we can't imagine our lives without him. H lives his life in a state of excitement about what is coming next. We love his smile, his sense of humor, and his love for his family.

H had a superhero birthday party with his friends. We decorated treat bags, played superhero bingo, had a superhero training obstacle course, shot silly string at Venom and then at the villains who ambushed us (until one little boy started crying because he was scared!), played superman muscle stuff, and had a pinata and presents. I planned lots of activities, but the boys seemed to enjoy the post-party playing upstairs with the legos more than anything.

  

  

Family presents and cake 

H at 5

Favorite color: yellow

Favorite restaurant: Panda Express

Favorite TV show: Peter Rabbit

Favorite move: Captain America

Favorite sport:  soccer

Favorite food: spaghetti and cookies

Favorite drink: juice

What he's good at: playing football

Where he wants to go on vacation:  to Grandma's house

What he would buy with $1000: a TV

Back to School

Back to school! We managed to cross off quite a few on our Super Summer list. Sweetie started 4th grade ALL with Mrs. Moore, Mister 6th grade with Mr. Hawvermale, and H his 2nd year of preschool at Miss Nicki's Mighty Montessori. 

Little Zelly was not too happy about the back to school business until we started making the back-to-school cakes.

Yellowstone!

For our family vacation this year, we decided to introduce the kids to Yellowstone, a place I grew up doing, summer and winter. In preparation for the trip, we learned about bears, about Yellowstone's geological background, and about geysers. Here are the kids doing one of the geyser experiments:

We'd heard good things about Bear World, so we headed there on our way up, and we're glad we did because we didn't end up seeing any bears in Yellowstone. We paid a little extra to feed the bears from the truck.

The baby bears

 

  

  

 

 Yellowstone! We stayed the first night with Grandma S, the 2nd night in a cabin at Canyon, the third night in a cabin at Lake (our favorite by far), and the 4th night in a cabin in Jackson Hole.

  

  

  

  

 We did a cruise on Yellowstone Lake (which was fun for the first 10 minutes!)

 We saw lots of bison, a handful of elk, and a couple of coyotes.

  We stopped by the Tetons and Jenny Lake on our way to Jackson Hole.

  We took a boat ride across Jenny Lake to hike to this waterfall.

Our cabin in Jackson Hole had a pool! And we went to the Bar J Wranglers chuckwagon dinner and show that night. The kids liked it--H danced in the aisles--and so did I. But J wasn't impressed and it was hard to go to a chuckwagon dinner with 2 kids who needed help getting their food and who didn't want to sit still during the show. The bottom pic with Little Zelly shows what she did the entire evening.