September Slideshow & Newsletter

Here's some of our family adventures this past month...

FAMILY:  The beginning of September was spent at Enterprise Reservoir for Labor Day weekend. We had such a great time catching fish (Heidi caught a bass, Jason caught a bass & trout & crawdads, and the girls caught some baby bass), riding bikes, roasting marshmallows, playing games, listening to the crazy rainstorm at night, and playing and playing in mud. The St. George Hamiltons even came up and joined us for a lot of Saturday & brought some fun 4-wheelers. What a fun weekend! The 6^th was our ward party & we had fun visiting & getting to meet some new people!  The 9^th was Sunday & it was McKinley’s 7^th birthday! Happy Birthday McKinley! See her section for more details on the fun. The 9^th was also the day that Heidi & Jason spoke in church. It went well, but Jason didn’t have much time at the end for his awesome talk L Heidi spoke from the talk “Coming to Ourselves” by Elder Hales & Jason spoke on “How to Obtain Revelation” by Elder Scott. The 10^th was South Elementary’s back to school bash. The girls had so much fun riding the train, doing the jumpy slide, and McKinley even got to do the walk-on-water bubble. Ireland & McKinley had fun seeing their school friends & teachers. On the 13^th, Grandma & Grandpa Potts came down & stayed with us for a couple days. They took McKinley out for her birthday date, did lots of piggyback rides, read lots of books, did some crafts, went for a walk, and on the 15^th, we got to go cheer Grandpa Potts on in the Cedar Half Marathon. He did great & took 3^rd place in his age group. Way to go Grandpa! Jason also got to see his friend, Brady Nielson & his family there as well. That evening we got to go to the block party with our Herriman friends, the Hooks. McKinley had so much fun reconnecting with Alyssa & we all had fun dancing to the live music, playing in the bounce house, eating yummy food, and free cotton candy. It was an all-around great time J On the 20^th, we headed to St. George. The adults went to the temple and then afterwards we had a little mini birthday party for the September birthdays – McKinley, Daken & Jeff. It was a great time! The 22^nd we had fun going to a swap meet in the morning, McDonald’s for lunch, checking out our lot in Enoch, going up to Woods Ranch to see the leaves, walking up to the fishing pond, and then meeting our friends at the park for a potluck. The 23^rd was the special temple dedication for the Brigham City temple & we had the Johnson kids over in the morning – Jason made pancakes & we had fun building temples out of marshmallows & toothpicks – while Heather & Dustin went to the 9am session, then our kids went over there & we went to the noon session. It was neat! On the 30^th , we made a quick trip over to Richfield to celebrate Aunt Kim’s birthday. It was great to see everyone & eat some yummy food!

JASON: September was a busy month for Jason with his boss gone and end of fiscal year arrangements to be done, but he did a great job & we’re all glad that a new fiscal year has begun. He’s enjoyed his calling in with the priests & getting to know everyone. Jason has been working on some family history & one night stayed up till 2am! He thinks he may have found his great-great-grandma on his dad’s side, so he’s pretty excited. He’s also started to read Lord of the Rings again J

 HEIDI: When we went camping over Labor Day weekend, Heidi slipped down the trailer stairs & really hurt her lower back. Thankfully, she & the baby were fine, though. She had her checkup this month & everything looked good. She really is looking forward to holding her baby boy in her arms finally. Heidi enjoys teaching the 6 year-olds and she enjoys visiting teaching & getting to know the ladies in the ward. She stays busy going to playgroup in the old ward & the new ward & she’s finishing up Kezia’s birthday book. She finished a Scottish historical novel called “Thorn in my Heart” this month, which was pretty good. On the 29^th, Jason watched the girls while Jason went to the Relief Society General Broadcast with Elise Dixon. It was great food and wonderful messages.

McKINLEY:

-McKinley continues to enjoy first grade. Her teacher, Mrs. Robb, had some hard times at the beginning of the year including sickness & some funerals, so that was hard, but things seem to be better now. Mrs. Robb said that McKinley is one of her very favorite students & she’s doing so well. She’s already passed off all her sight words for the year. Her friends in her class are Alyssa & Aurora & Gracie. She has a crush on Casen and Daniel & makes a heart with her hands & shows them J She’s also been learning lots of hand-clapping games at school & she really loves lunchtime. She sits by Ireland on the bus on the way to school & she sits by Olivia on the way home. She also likes to sit by her friend, Jenny.

-McKinley says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up AND a mom. She says “I know it’s hard word and I like hard work.”

-On the 8^th, McKinley went to a birthday party for Aiden in her class. It was a circus theme & was pretty amazing with magicians & face painting & game booths. McKinley even came home with a goldfish! (which, unfortunately, only lived for 2 days L

-McKinley turned 7 this month!! She was so very excited for her birthday. It was on a Sunday, so it was a little different than other birthdays, but it was still a lot of fun. She wanted the cereal Crave for breakfast & then she opened a couple gifts & we headed to church. Mom and Dad both mentioned McKinley’s birthday in their church talks & she got to wear the birthday hat & get sung to in Primary. Mom was teaching her primary class, so she brought cupcakes & we all had some J Since everyone knew it was her birthday, she got LOTS of Happy Birthday wishes at church.  For lunch, McKinley wanted homemade pizza, so we had fun making those when we got home from church. McKinley got to find more presents after that – including an MP3 player! She was SO very excited about that & has told most everyone that she got an MP3 player. We worked on setting it up & getting it going. For dinner, she requested Navajo Tacos & then we Skyped with the Potts & we all sang Happy Birthday to her while she blew out the candles on her cake. From mom & dad, McKinley got a Barbie coloring book, an MP3 player, a jacket, a farkol card game, some nail polish & some lip gloss. She got a Barbie, a shirt, a hat & some money from Grandma Devenish. Grandma Potts got her a birdhouse & a hummingbird feeder. Lots of great gifts! She’s VERY excited to be 7, though she asked mom what she gets to do now that she’s 7 & mom just said “go to first grade!”
-Mom & dad stayed up late with her on her birthday, looked at her birthday book & told her how special she is in our family. Afterwards, we played her new Farkol game. The baby was really active in mommy’s tummy, so McKinley got to feel him. Apparently he wanted to put on a show for her birthday because he just kept moving all around & kicking her hand &McKinley was laughing so hard that she was crying! J

-After dad had had a couple of really busy, late days at work, McKinley decided he deserved breakfast in bed, so she made him some chocolate milk and got his cereal ready in his bowl & brought it to him. It was so sweet J

-One Sunday, mom worked with McKinley to learn how to finger knit. She has really taken off with it & made at least 7 bracelets for family & friends!

-McKinley was supposed to give a scripture in primary & she decided to read 1 Nephi 3:7-8, where Nephi says “I will go & do the things which the Lord hath commanded…” She did a great job J

-One afternoon, McKinley decided to put together a band. She made a drum (for daddy) out of an empty ice cream bucket, 2 guitars (for McKinley & Ireland) out of empty Kleenex containers & rubber bands, and a tambourine (for Kezi) with 2 plates stapled together with noodles inside. She called it the “family band” J

IRELAND:

-Ireland continues to love Kindergarten as well & scored a 32 on the DIBELS test, which is great! She knows about 45 sight words now & is getting really good at reading. She sits by McKinley on the way to school & sits by her friend Isabella on the way home & they love to talk. Every recess she gets, she works hard at doing the monkey bars & she’s gotten REALLY good! She can go all the way across by herself & she has the calluses on her hands to prove her hard work. She even got a blister & had to wrap it for a couple days. She’s been practicing writing her letters for homework and she’s getting really good at it. Mrs. Ekker says Ireland is a joy to have in her class!
-One day we were talking about what the girls wanted to be when they grow up. Ireland said “I want to be everything when I grow up!”
-Ireland REALLY loves it when daddy gets to stay home from work & she expresses her gratitude in her prayers “and thank you that daddy didn’t have to go to work today”
-Ireland gave a talk in Primary this month about Helaman & the stripling warriors. She did a great job repeating what mom said & didn’t get the giggles at all! Great job Ireland!
-One day we were talking about skeletons & Ireland said “Yeah… and when you die and you have a skeleton & someone that didn’t die can take your skeleton for Halloween & it will be really scary”
-Ireland has had a harder time this month with telling the truth & remembering to ask before taking things. We’re working on it!

KEZIA

-Mom & Kezia have enjoyed their mornings together lately. Sometimes we paint. Sometimes we read. Sometimes we play games or go for a walk. One day we were out walking & we saw a black cat. Mom asked Kezia where she thought the cat was going & Kezia said “It’s going visiting teaching to that house.”

-At the ward party, Kezia was running around with her sisters & friends & playing. The next thing that we know, she is screaming. Jason ran over & stripped her down naked – in front of most of the ward. There were red ants all over her!  One was especially mean & clinging to her neck. They were attacking another little boy, too, that Jason tried to help. She does love to play with ants, so hopefully after that episode, she will stay away from the red ones.

-Kezia still loves her little “friends” & she has a little Winnie the Pooh. She held him up to mom one day & said “Look mom! Winnie the Pooh has a baby in HIS tummy, too!”

-Mom was singing to Kezia one day “..One fell off and bumped his head. Momma called the doctor & the doctor said…   what did he say Kezia?” Kezia – “he needs a band aid.”

-Kezia’s prayers have been more appeasing to what she wants. An example…”And please help that we will play with Anna & Ella and we’ll go to Walmart and get candy.”

-McKinley got a huge bag of birdseed for her birthday & Kezia had made a huge mess with it. Mom asked her to clean it up & she said “but I’m just making a sandcastle!”

-One day Kezia was looking at daddy’s socks & she asked “are there words on your socks, dad?” and he said “Yes. They say George.” Kezia said “Curious George?”

-Kezia has been getting so tall. Every day for bed she would reach to turn off the light, but she couldn’t quite make it, but in the last couple weeks, she’s JUST tall enough!

 -There was a katydid on the ceiling of our covered deck. It was pretty cool to look at. It was walking up there & mom said maybe it was looking for its family. Kezia said “Yeah – maybe they’re in Arizona.”

-Mom & Kezia were in the foyer at church during sacrament. There was a picture with Jesus & a boat. Mom asked Kezia what she thought Jesus was saying to the men in the boat. She said she didn’t know. Mom said “Jesus is saying Come Follow Me. Stop what you’re doing and come follow me!” Kezia said “ohhh… like… like Potty Time! Stop what you’re doing!”

-When Kezia gets upset, she’ll say “oh, dangit.”