thankful

we had a family home evening lesson on being thankful tonight

and while (like most weeks) the only ones really paying attention were noah and hazel

it was a really good reminder for all of us to be thankful

then when we went upstairs to brush and floss teeth on mom and dad's bed

the kids took turns taking pictures of each other with our camera 

 this is my new favorite picture of eleanor

i'm pretty sure hazel took it

i love that big brown speck in her right eye

 just me flossing someone, i think olive

 they got some really good pictures

 noah was trying to look like he was stepping on the camera

 it looks like eleanor is sleeping standing up

 michael helped with an in the air picture

while hazel was taking it from the ground

 typical olive and our messy room

 of course some fighting

 angry noah

 hey dino!

 hey michael on your phone and snooping hazel

 way to go, eleanor! this is a pretty good picture she took

these pictures show that our life is messy, there is fighting, and a lot of personalities

but it's beautiful, fun and crazy and i'm thankful for it

ballet and soccer and doughnuts, oh my!

hazel and eleanor started ballet a couple weeks ago

this is hazel's fifth year of ballet!

i can't believe it

she was a little younger than eleanor when she started

 they are starting to use the barre and she loves it

she also has a friend from her class last year and she has a lot of fun with her

eleanor started her first ballet class the week after hazel

she loves it!

she is so cute doing it and trying her hardest

all the other girls in her class were super nervous

but not her! she's been watching and waiting for years

 then saturday before last noah and olive started soccer

olive likes it but got hit by the ball really hard her first game and that made her nervous

 we still aren't sure we've found her thing but she'll stick with soccer for now

 noah started soccer the same day and michael gets to coach him!

we're all pretty excited about it

 noah scored the most goals for his team at his first game

he seems to really be getting the hang of it!

 henry wants to know when he gets to start soccer

 so sweaty after his first game

 a few pictures from this last saturday

 olive doesn't like how sweaty she gets playing soccer but she's so cute running around

 we're at the soccer field for 2.5 hours each saturday between the two kids

so the little ones get bored

henry had fun feeding michael carrots

 noah practiced before his game

 i think henry was jealous of the sucker eleanor found in my purse

she eventually gave it to him and he trashed his sweater..

 michael is such a good coach

the kids love him

 after soccer this last saturday we went home and got dressed like pirates

for talk like a pirate day

we got lots of free doughnuts

 then went to the meridian block party with the hunts

 there were lots of bounce houses 

and michael had lots of fun rolling the kids around in these inflated balls

 life is good

our first homegrown watermelon

we decided saturday was the day to finally pick our watermelon

with our fingers crossed it would actually be ripe

gardening has been a lot of fun and a big experiment this year

we have successfully grown kale, lettuce, green onion, carrots, lots of cantaloupe, one watermelon,

zucchini, basil, one tomato :), and we have a ton of pumpkins coming

 there she is!

 seriously, best watermelon we've ever had

 we ate it with nachos on the back porch

 it's a good thing we have such a cute resident gardener here

 we love spending time together in our backyard

michael gave the kids airplane rides and they allll loved it

i love them all lined up waiting their turns

michael figures he'd better do it while he's still young :) 

i feel like he's forcing me to have like 12 kids because he's such a good dad

 trampoline time

 after some jumping i tried to get a family picture of us all laying down

i'm under henry :)

 we got one! even if henry and eleanor weren't super thrilled about it

i could not love this family of mine any more

yay for end of summer nights and homegrown watermelon!!