Septembery

Regular life did continue during August and September…even with Baby Clementine making everything feel new and different. We had another rainbow over the hill! And lots of other pretty skies. We love the rain we've been getting!

• I felt an urge to document some of the great meals Sam made me the week after Clementine was born. He always takes such good care of me (and it helped a lot that my mom took all the younger kids to stay with her for a few days!). I love eating after a baby is born—I always feel like during those last couple months of pregnancy, nothing really tastes as good and my appetite is decreased (or maybe just my stomach space is too small)—but whatever it is, I'm always ravenous once the baby comes! 

• This is a darling little card/box Daisy made for me when Clementine was born. I don't know how she managed to make it! It starts out as a neat little box, and when you take off the lid it unfolds like a flower, and the corners are hearts. She had some cute little thing on every side—a bunny shape cut from velvet, a little cut-out Clementine and Fern, a tiny file folder with pictures in it, and a little book. Plus a baby Clementine made out of a truffle tucked inside! It was the cutest!

• Speaking of Daisy, she gets to start wearing pointe shoes in ballet this year, apparently! I was surprised about that because I thought you had to be really good to dance en pointe (no offense to Daisy of course; she IS good, but she is also still quite a beginner!), but it was fun to go have the pointe shoe fitting with her and see all the pretty ballet shoes in the shop. She hopes she will be as tall as Junie when she wears them :)

• Ziggy's penchant for hats continues. Here he is in a penguin suit, wearing what looks to me like an Ancient Egyptian royal headdress. But which is actually a hanging pocket organizer for file folders. I don't know how or why he is wearing it, only that it has a very regal effect!

And more Ziggy costumes. He is the right size to fit a whole bunch of the cutest ones right now—the penguin, the bear and the monkey, the bunny (not pictured…I guess? I'm sure it will show up in a picture one of these days), and of course the UPS man, which is worn so often I don't even think of it as a costume anymore.

• And Ziggy, as it happens, had a birthday in September and can you believe he is FOUR?!! Just the best age. I love four-year-olds. His birthday dinner was the first time we ALL, including Clementine, ate at the table together! I had to use the wide-angle lens to fit everyone :)

For his birthday we got him a hat stand for his bedroom, and five more hats (hard hat, frog hat, owl hat, fox hat newsboy cap). AND just by total chance, his Grandma Nielson gave him a cowboy hat for his birthday too! He was very pleased with his windfall of hats, and continues to rotate through them daily.

Foxy hat! And birthday pie.

• Seb has been running hard as usual this season. He had a nasty bout of shin splints over the summer (thus the pink tape in the middle picture, which I think he actually quite liked) but still managed to hike Timp with his team and recover enough to start racing in August. He's been running Varsity all year and doing great. We love watching him run, his long flowing hair blowing behind him in the wind… :)

• Maybe I already wrote about the new bike Seb saved up for for two years and finally got? One of the things he did to earn money was a HUGE clean-up and organization of our garage, including building and installing new cabinets. I love having the tools organized, and the outside fridge and garbage cans right by the door to inside! Saves me many steps a day, I'm sure! Here is some of his handiwork. And the bike.

• Reading outside in the dimming twilight. (Gussie too; what a precocious child, reading chapter books already!) I already miss these warm summery evenings.

• Miss Marigold by some of our marigolds (she planted these herself)

• My brother Philip got season tickets to the BYU football games, so for awhile there we were seeing him every weekend (he lives in California) and it was so great! He brought a different one of his kids up each time. We loved getting a little extra time with them and having Philip here for things like Abe's ordination to the office of Elder. Abe has always reminded me a bit of Philip, and more so as he gets older. With Philip here so often, I became hopelessly confused, and I'm STILL saying "Philip" half the time when I mean to say "Abe," and vice versa!

Me, Abe, my Mom, and Seb lounging on the piano bench in a debonair fashion

My mom, me, and my FOUR DAUGHTERS

Abe, Philip, and Adam before the game

Goldie and Adam playing a cutthroat game of foosball

• Gussie continues to stuff himself into boxes whenever possible. The picture on the left doesn't look like he's in a box, but he is inside the small compartment of that bench, with a blanket stuffed in with him (in case he wasn't squished enough).

He's such a pleasant little guy (except when he's yelling "noooo!" at his brothers)

This is one day when he was sick. Look how pale he is! :( 

But not for long! What a happy little squish! I especially like him in this bunny hat. He likes wearing it, too (Ziggy's influence, perhaps?)

• We have lived in this house for ONE YEAR! We have loved every season here. We had a house anniversary party to celebrate. We ate Cafe Rio out on the deck, and I made a game where I took pictures of random objects in the house and people had to guess what and where the objects were. Actually, I had Malachi take the pictures, which meant we had lots of things no one could guess. Things like "the chain on the lamp in Sam's office" and "the underside of the piano." Fun!

What's a party without some laundry hanging on the line?

Junie and Goldie provided the decorations. I hope you notice the marigolds adorning Junie's sign, and the sunflowers tied around each porch post in the top picture! It was very festive.

Marigold decorated Gussie too…as one does. (Happy Anivershy!)

• One night for family home evening we played badminton up on the hill. It was such a beautiful evening! I think we managed to hit the birdie back and forth across the net about 3 times in an hour, but that didn't bother us too much. Ziggy ran around tripping over the ropes and singing the "Dark Vadar song" (scary) and Gus ran around tripping over the ropes even more and trying to imitate Ziggy, and I sat on a chair and nursed Clementine and felt quite satisfied with the proceedings. (Where were all the big boys? I don't remember. Somewhere, I'm sure.)

In the two pictures on the right, Gus is saying "OooooOOOOoooo!" at the pretty moon.