To the trees!

Here in Texas we’ve wrapped up summer and moved into the best time of year, autumn. For many of you in other parts of the country this means jackets and hot chocolate, but for us it just means the highs are only in the low 90s. Woohoo! Alixa and the kids wrapped up summer in style in Delaware, enjoying the pool and also swimming as much as possible while laying by the pool. But our family is now old enough to have vacations dictated by school days, and Jenna could not have been more excited to start first grade.

One last beach hurrah in style 

Jenna does reasonably well at most things that she tries, but school has been far and away her best area. She looks forward to each day and seems to thrive in her class. She is good at making friends, although she seems to have inherited her father’s ability to do her own thing without feeling lonely or snubbed. She is an insatiable reader. She reads for at least 30 minutes every night before bed and often tries to sneak more time in with a flashlight or lamp after bedtime. She isn’t quite as good at math as she is at reading, but we are working on it. She has also started to develop some big girl tendencies. She has started to be independent with certain things and can throw a good tantrum, complete with door slamming. Right now it’s funny and cute. It’ll wear off as the years go by.

 The 3 Amigos

Bo is back in Mrs. B’s preschool class and loves it (and her) to death. He seems to have a better mastery with the numbers, and has started to regularly do math problems in his head without using his fingers. Just simple things like cube roots and derivatives, but he has potential. He’s very sensitive on some days, particularly when he’s hungry. But other than the occasional bout of tears he has been a great helper with Maggie and Emmy, and Lix really enjoys hanging out with him. He’s playing soccer and Jarom is coaching him, which Bo thinks is cool. He’s capable, but not a standout. He does usually keep track of the score though.

Bo fell out of a golf cart on an outing with dad

Emily has become a big kid real fast since Maggie was born. We went through potty training with her and she has done quite well. There was a brief regression when she got sick and had diarrhea for a week, but we pulled the sticker chart back out and are once again on track. She has also significantly expanded her vocab and speaks in complete (well, nearly complete) sentences. You can’t always understand everything she says, but you can usually catch enough words to fill in the blanks. She has also moved full time into Bo’s room on the top bunk so that Maggie can sleep in the crib. The one major problem that we are having with Emmy is that she is a bit of a bully. She is certainly the toughest of our kids so far, and doesn’t always do the best job of playing with others. We are doing the best we can, although it has been slow going.

She's a bit of an exhibitionist

Maggie still mostly sleeps, but she is starting to mimic and laugh and make noises. Alixa can’t get enough of her and Jarom is excited for her to become a real person, which he claims doesn’t happen until 6 months, or whenever he can start handstand training.

Jarom celebrated his 34^th birthday, which means he has entered his mid 30’s. He is trying to hold on to his past athletic glory by playing basketball, softball, and golf, since those are sports where you can get old and still be okay. He has started his old man regimen of medications, taking ibuprofen after ball because otherwise his body is stiff the next morning.

Jarom got to take Bo and Jenna to Six Flags on a beautiful September evening

Alixa is still in her early 30’s, so she hasn’t had to start doing any of that stuff yet. She’s actually been doing an amazing job post pregnancy, although her expectations are so impossibly high that she is usually a little disappointed with herself. She wants to do another half marathon in the spring, which means she’ll probably make Jarom join her. She has recently become the piano player in Relief Society, so each week there are two new songs being played over and over on the piano. She’s a little rusty, but it is coming back and she really enjoys it.

As for the animals, I am doing great and Jazz has started to find her killer instinct. In the past week there have been three deaths around the house; a sparrow, a blue jay, and a rabbit. They were all grown up animals, which made it more impressive. Alixa was pretty mad about the demise of Mr. Blue jay, but apparently you need to keep your head on a swivel around here now.

What she does when she isn't killing stuff  

There have been some big changes in the yard over the past few months. At some point in this house’s life somebody thought it would be a good idea to plant trees everywhere, which is a mixed bag. They look nice and keep the house shady and cool, but they are a maintenance hassle and can cause problems and made it impossible for grass to grow in the front. So we called an arborist to trim the trees around the house and remove 2 of the 4 in the front yard. This had the temporary effect of highlighting the fact that there wasn’t any grass. So we ordered some sod. Then the trees went all Lord of the Rings on us and got their revenge. They cracked a sewer runoff pipe with their roots and caused some backups in the house, so we had to call a plumber out to do the fix. The trees are not without a sense of humor, as the pipe destruction was discovered and the plumber was called on the very day the sod was scheduled to arrive. So we simultaneously had a crew of Mexicans digging up the front yard to get at the pipe while a separate crew was laying down the new yard (except for the spot with the giant hole, they will do that next week). Alixa could not be happier, because now she has grass in front of her house. Jarom could not be less happy, because the whole deal cost about $8,000. But hey, who needs savings, right?

Artists rendition of the trees fighting the house

Before

 During

 After