September

Dorian and Levi have started piano lessons!  Their teacher is a Dordt student and it's been working great to have Ms. Monica come right to our house on Thursday nights.

 Watch out!  Mason is fishing for more than just his fish.  :)

I took the boys to the Sheldon Labor Day Celebration.  Mason was old enough to enjoy just as many of the rides and bouncy houses as his big brothers!  We also had fun watching the parade.

I was excited to join Dorian for his field trip to the Harvest Festival!  Graden, Addison, Jaidyn and Lydia were in our group.  We toured the sod house, the school house, Roelof's store, and a farmhouse.  We saw horseshoes being made and many other farming demonstrations.  Dorian pulled out a carrot from the garden area, ground corn and helped make a rope.  It was a beautiful morning!

On the 11th, Nathan left with Dorian and Levi for an overnight camping and canoeing trip!  When I picked them up the next day, they couldn't wait to share with me about all of their adventures! They saw or heard 14 different animals including nocturnal animals like coyotes and raccoons, and stayed fairly warm on a night with temperatures in the upper 30s.

On the 15th I went with Heidi, Adria and Mason to Mom's yard sale, McDonald's for lunch, and Pumpkin Land!

 Mason was a little hesitant to feed the animals, but he was super thrilled when he did it.

 I remember taking a picture of Levi in this exact spot with the same shirt on.  :)  Made me happy.

Mason really liked the ceramic dog.  Not sure why he kept wanting to pet it when there were plenty of real animals to look at.  :)

On the 17th Nathan took Dorian and Levi to the Compassion in Action Golf Benefit.  It was a perfect way to remember Rodney, support others with blood cancers, and enjoy time as a family.

On the 22nd, I spent the day making freezer meals at Heidi's house.  We also made bran muffin batter...and a lot of it!!!  It's often hard to know how many times to multiply the recipes by and Heidi overestimated on this one!  We ended up mixing the batter in a plastic tub since we didn't have any bowls big enough!  We all had a good laugh and I love eating the muffins!

Dorian and Levi have been enjoying playing Animal Jam on the computer lately.  I had to take a picture because this was just another day after school where Levi is wrapped up in a blanket, and Mason is running around in his underwear standing on the bar stool that he pulled over so he could see what his brothers were up to!

Mason still likes to play with cars, but not as frequently as he used to.

One of my goals after Dorian and Levi started school was to work on potty training Mason.  So far I'm happy with the progress that he has made but I think the key so far is that I've been able to be home with him so much.

I don't think that I've ever been stuck behind a grain bin while riding down the rode before!  We have wanted to check out Yankton, SD as a family since we moved here and finally made it happen one warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.

We were able to fit all of us and our bikes in our minivan and planned on biking on the trails along the river.  It was a really windy day so didn't bike as far as we thought we would, but the beach that we stopped at provided tons of entertainment!  There was water to step in, rocks to climb, feathers, rocks and shells to collect, and bugs to explore.

What a beautiful afternoon/evening.  We couldn't have timed our drive any better because on the way home we got to watch the lunar eclipse framed in the front window of our van the whole way!

Levi took home a seed from Kindergarten and we planted it in the corner of our garden.  Surprisingly, even though we didn't know what it was, it survived and Levi now has a big, beautiful pumpkin!!!  How fun!  It weighs 25 lbs!

In addition to the cooking that I did with Kerry, Heidi, and my mom, I also did some things at home. After taking an assessment of everything in the freezer I think we counted that we had about 45 meals of food!  We also made cookie dough balls which make having warm chocolate cookies for a snack super easy and fun!

Another month of good memories!