Stop the Cuteness!

We're leaving Laney's fur long for her Halloween costume, and holy moley she is looking cute and fluffy!

 And bless her little puppy heart for tolerating all of the love and snuggles Adam gives her.  

Every day.  

All the time.  

The Armor of God

With helmet in place

with sword in hand

with the shield of faith 

we are worthy to stand. 

With the gospel of peace

our feet are shod

valiant and strong in the armor of God.  

Noah Is Six!

We love Noah so much we had to celebrate his sixth birthday in three parts!  Part 1- the birthday party with friends!

We celebrated the week before Noah's Wednesday birthday, and it was so fun to see him with some of his best friends!

We went to the jumping place for his party, and had cupcakes and presents outside, but it was so windy that we couldn't get the candles to stay lit!  We started singing as soon as we finally had one lit and Noah immediately blew it out.  Oh well!

Kyson, Noah, Ezra, Stella, Maddex, Sam, and Oswin!  What a cute bunch of friends!

And I think they had a pretty good time jumping around together!

Noah has never asked for a friend party before, and this one was a whole lot of fun!

Part 2- The dinner date with Mom and Dad!  Somehow we missed the traditional pictures to go along with it, but the date was fantastic!  It's always fun to hear what ideas are rolling around in that little head.

Part 3- the big day!  

Starting out with orange rolls topped with the candles and 

and sparkler that we couldn't get to light at his birthday party!

He was a little nervous about having such a sparkly breakfast!

But he was all smiles once he started opening presents!

This years favorites included the entire Dog Man collection, a shirt to match, a marble game and, of course, LEGOS.

After the breakfast party the day took a not-so-celebratory turn as we had to take a trip to the dentist to figure out what to do about a newly abscessed tooth that Noah had come home from school telling me about the day before.  Emma had a similar problem a few years ago and I wasn't going to wait for the tooth to start causing any pain before taking care of it!

While we were waiting for the appointment we grabbed a few favorite treats for the birthday boy- including egg nog!  I guess Noah's birthday is the official kick-off to the holiday season at our house!

A sick tooth isn't the best reason to be home from school, but I sure did like having my little buddy here keeping me company during the day!

And once the misery of the tooth pulling was done, we picked up the big kids from school to help take care of and dote on Noah all afternoon.   I think Emma sat with and read to Noah for well over an hour that afternoon.  She loves her buddy boo!

And the LEGOS and other presents definitely helped keep him busy once he was feeling better.  You can still see his fat lip from the dental work in this picture a few days later.  Overall he handled the tooth pulling like an absolute champ!  And the $10 that the tooth fairy left him (she pays extra extra for teeth that come out ahead of schedule!) didn't hurt either.

And now King Noah is SIX!  

He has transitioned to kindergarten beautifully.  He is a good listener and a good friend and a good example to his classmates.

Noah is a good reader, a thoughtful playmate, and a pretty awesome little brother.  He does occasionally lament about the troubles of being the littlest in the family, and knowing that he will never catch up with Adam, but he has recently taken pride in knowing that "youngest goes first" and that we "saved the best for last".  

He still abides by the rules that are and upholds the Way Things Should Be.  For example, in the first week of school he told me a story that went something like this- 

"I was sitting by my friend at lunch, and he was drinking a juice box, and I told him that water is your body's favorite drink (a common saying at our house) and he said well I like juice, and I said but water is your body's favorite drink but he kept drinking his juice box anyway!!

There is a way that things should be and Noah does not understand why anyone would not want things to be that way.  He's cute like that, and it doesn't usually bother us and it doesn't usually get him in trouble so we just smile and say, "that's Noah!" 

Noah loves Dog Man and LEGOS and Ninjago and his big brother most of all.  He loves to snuggle the pup and he's still working on riding his bike confidently and he approaches just about everything with a healthy dose of caution.  He is my snuggly bud and I just love to hear him laugh and see his pumpkin smile (which I also couldn't get a picture of because of silly brothers). 

 Sometimes on Wednesday nights Noah and I get to go on an ice cream/sherbet date while everyone else goes to church.  I love when that happens.

He's growing up so fast and so fantastically and we are all so happy to have Noah in our family.  Happy birthday to you Noah!!! We love you!

The Jag Jog

This year's Jag Jog route changed to the park across the street, but that didn't stop Laney and I from heading over to cheer on our favorite students as they made their way along the path (this is the best fundraiser ever- nothing to buy, and a chance to get outside!). 

I just love that look of surprise on Adam's face!  

 Emma was pretty pleased about seeing her pup too!

 And Noah, sweet little rule follower that he is, just waved at Laney as he kept chugging along.  I had to run with her in my arms to give him a chance to pet her.   

Laney was a hit with the other 600 runners too.  She tolerated quite a few pets and snuggles for all of the sweet little runners that went by!

We have lots of neighbors with sweet but big dogs that don't get out and about very often, but that's not the kind of pup we want to have in our family.  Dogs bring lots of people joy and my goal is to train up a pup that will let us share that joy with everyone that wants it!

Scaredy Pup

She might look fierce and mighty

 but Laney's still quite a scaredy pup when it comes to just about all of the things she doesn't understand yet.  Like balloons!  

Curious when they're deflated- 

 terrifiying when they're inflated!

 Sometimes she feels brave- 

sometimes she just gives up.  

Learning about all of the things in this big world is exhausting!

The Best Conference Ever

That's what we've dubbed October's general conference, and it was exactly what we needed because April's conference was the worst conference ever.  

And we blame it 100% on Laney.  She was a brand new pup in our home and we couldn't take one eye off of her to look at the broadcast before she was peeing in the house again.  It was not very fun.  Looking back we should have utilized the crate more to maintain our sanity a little better, but this time around Laney's behavior was a non-issue.  She's growing up!

And so this time around we got to enjoy our traditional, mostly relaxing weekend at home, complete with puzzle, 

treats,

activities from the conference store (shrinky dinks!) 

 and a whole lot of family snuggles. 

I got to take my girls out to dinner before the women's session. 

It was Emma's first time going with us!  And of course, she made it extra fun!

Jason officially got to start his Practicing the Priesthood guys night with the boys (I just made that name up, but I think it's going to stick). 

They went geocaching at a nearby county marsh

and it sounds like they had an awesome time following directions and discovering the treasures that were hiding in the trees.

And they talked about how important it is to follow the promptings of the Spirit and to be ready to help people in need.  

  Between sessions of conference the next day we all went together to find another two hidden geocaches.

It's amazing to discover the treasures that are waiting for us if we know where to find them!

We played on the Lava Monster park.  

and then headed home for the final session of conference.  It always goes by too fast, and this one was exceptionally wonderful.  Although I have realized that with every conference our hopes get a little higher and our disappointment is a little deeper when the temples are announced and there isn't one coming to Des Moines (yet!).  After conference we mapped out all of the temples in the US and made some interesting discoveries about which states still don't have temples and how far away we really are geographically from the temple.  

Attending the temple for us right now is a six-hour commitment, at the minimum.  It requires planning and preparing and clearing the calendar, and while it isn't always fun, it's always worth it to take the time to be there.  But it's also fun to dream about what it would be like to have a temple in Iowa, to be part of the building process and to take advantage of the blessings of the temple even more fully than we currently do. 

On the way home from the womens session, where the temples were announced, I told my girls "If there was a temple in Des Moines I promise I would go every week!"

Leah said, "I would go twice a week before school!"

And Emma said, "I would go thrice every week!!" 

And I'm recording that here because it's a promise we will keep if we ever get the chance!