B&M WHITING CLAN: September

After my father's passing we changed Bryant's vacation from March to the last week of August beginning week of September and went to Arizona. I spent many days cleaning up/out my mother's office. Apparently the final inspection on the addition to the house that was completed over ten years ago had never been done so the inspector was coming two weeks after we were there. Bryant and the children helped occasionally with shredding papers and organizing all the "missionary boxes." I've told my mom that missionary boxes are a bad idea. Some of them were from 2008! For those that don't know what a missionary box is it is a box that is filled with everything on the table when the missionaries come over for dinner. (Side note: the addition passed the inspection!)

We stayed with Bryant's parents this time and enjoyed the sprinklers turning on in the evening. At our house the sprinklers turn on in the middle of the night so there is no running through them when they turn on. The children had lots of fun

The even came up with a game of eating Connor when the sprinklers had turned off.

Due to my sister Emilee's health she is unable to take care of her daughters, Maelee (turns three in November) and Mollee (recently turned 1). Maelee's father was unwilling to step up (not that any of us care for him) and so Bryant and I worked on becoming Maelee's guardians. Arizona granted us the full 6 months of temporary guardianship giving us plenty of time to work on getting permanent guardianship here in Utah.

As a result of taking guardianship, we no longer fit in a mini-van so my mother spent lots of time looking for a bigger car for us. My preferred choice was to have the new Ford Transit 10 passenger van. It was a little out of our price range initially due to the fact that we were buying it several months ahead of our planned schedule (waiting for another tax refund in April) Thanks to my mother's bargaining we were able to get a great deal and I got my dream van. After all, if you are going to be stuck driving a giant van you might as well enjoy it. I am so glad that I was able to dote upon myself with this purchase. I tend to be frugal with my money and go with the cheaper options but we were able to get 0% financing for the life of the loan and I don't regret my choice. I truly love driving around in the van. Each of the seats is so roomy! I have successfully placed 8 car seats in the back and was able to easily fasten and unfasten all of them! There is so much room inside. I originally thought the seating configuration was funny but now I love it. The front row is two seats, the second row is two seats behind the front row, a walkway and then a bucket seat next to the door and the back row is a bench of three seats. It is so easy to access any seat in the van. Every seat has a headrest and all the seatbelts are attached to the seats and not the roof! It is everything I wanted from the Nissan NV but not as ugly and a much smaller wheel base so it is closer to driving a minivan than a giant van!

Maelee came home with us at the end of our "vacation." She loved getting in the "bus" and didn't fight us at all when it was time to get in and go.

We went to a family BBQ with Keith and Cindy for labor day when we got back to town.

Gunnar has been working on his hula hooping skills. He is getting better at it but I had to capture a video of his concentration before he stopped being so cute at it.

After showing off his skills we had a dance party!

Everyone in the family can agree that the park is fun! It makes everyone happy!

Tucker and Hunter had another wonderful soccer season. I spent lots more time sitting watching at the end while keeping track of all the children. Maelee especially loved going to the games.

Here is the team with their coach!

Brylee really wanted to go to Chalk the Block at the Riverwoods again this year. She had been talking about it for weeks. Well the Saturday of Chalk the Block was busy and Bryant and I were both worn out by the afternoon. I decided I would take Brylee and it would be a nice time out together. Well then Gunnar decided he wanted to go and then Maelee also wanted to come along. I was a little disappointed because I was looking forward to having an easy time and then it turned into watching three small children in a crowded area. Ultimately we had fun. Maelee decided she was done earlier than everyone else, as I figured she would but I had a stroller so she just sat in it while we wandered around.

Here is Brylee at the mall, she requested a picture.

We enjoyed quite the rain storm. Connor wasn't so sure that is was really fun.

But everyone else had lots of fun. Even Maelee opened up a lot and ran around squealing with delight and happily posed for a picture!

My life: Tuesdays I watch Lexie (4 months) and Audrey (4). On this particular day I was also watching my neighbor's girls Mia (5 months) and Arya (3) for a couple of hours. It was a little crazy but everyone got along and had fun.

Play Doh fun

Brylee learned to climb really well this summer and loved that she could not scale the front post.

This is Maelee's modeling shot.

Connor loves smiling for pictures and as you can see from his shirt he is constantly droolly!! He is currently working on 4 molars...

We enjoyed another day in the swimming pool outside before it got too cold.

Brylee, Maelee, and Gunnar are working on sharing with each other. Maelee has never really had to share before so we have quite a few struggles over sharing around here. I love when they are able to figure out a way to all be happy about something!