August 2013

 August seemed to fly by!

We kept ourselves busy with changing rooms around, a wedding, and end of the summer fun!

The need to change rooms around was due to the fact that we decided to try out home school this year! We enrolled the boys at Utah Connections Academy, which is an online public school. In order for us to have a designated "learning space" we decided to kick Charlie out of his bedroom and turn it into our school room. Lilly was kind enough to allow Charlie to move into her room. (I don't think she realized how long term it was going to be at first, but she has adapted). 

Here are the boys taking a quick break from the school room set-up and posing with some of their buddies.

This picture was taken on the first night that Lilly and Charlie shared a room.

So far, so good. 

These two are like two peas in a pod.

The annual Carnival for Autism was moved to August this year! (Yay!) I was honored to take Sam to the carnival this time. We made a "Mom & Sam" date out of it and we had a blast!

 Sam surprised me this year....he didn't really to seem to care about anything at the carnival except for all of the characters that were there walking around for photo opportunities! He made it his mission to get his picture taken with every single possible character....which, believe me, was a lot!

His favorite were the guys from the Star Wars movies but he also rubbed elbows with Spiderman, Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Shrek, Nemo, Bert, and Ernie! (Just to name a few!).

 The big highlight of August was Matt's sister's wedding!

Matt's youngest sister, Heather, got married to Matt (yes, another Heather and Matt!) Nelson on August 16th at the Salt Lake Temple. We had an entire week of wedding fun!!

Two of my Cropper-in-laws....Kazi and Suzy.

We were chillin' in the shade while we all waited for Heather and Matt to make their exit from the temple.

A picture of all SEVEN Cropper-in-laws: Russ, me, Dave, Matt, Kazi, Suzy, and Cheryse.

 

The seven Croppers (+ Matt): Bryce, Kathy, Kara, Heather, Matt, Mary Ann, and Mark.

All the ladies!

All the men-folk (+ Heather)!

That evening there was a reception for Heather and Matt. Lilly was beyond thrilled to be a flower girl! I promised her we would do her hair super fancy....and I think it turned out quite well! She was pleased, that's for sure!

After pictures were taken, we waited in the HEAT for the party to start.

Luckily there was limeade to keep us cool!

Charlie figured out the best way to do it....just dump it down the front of your shirt! Brilliant!

Our best attempt to get a family photo:

It was a great wedding! It was fun to spend so much time with the Croppers. The "new" Matt and Heather are adorable together. They will be living in California until the end of December, and then they will move back here to Murray! Yippee! The kids are already in love with their new Uncle Matt. I don't think he realizes what is in store for him...if he is going to be the new "fun uncle" then he will have to prepare and take his vitamins before the Croppers cousins wear him out!

Sam had been wanting to go to the Clark Planetarium all summer long...so Matt took him one Saturday afternoon and made his dreams come true. 

Apparently, Sam fell in love with this cool contraption. He stared at it for a good hour!

Before school started back up, we had an "End of the Summer" party with some of our neighbor friends...the Fergusons and the Almazans.

The Fergusons were kind enough to invite us over to their house for backyard fun and cake!

The kids took that as an opportunity to go crazy in the sandbox...and turned it into a MUDbox!

Sam loves their giant tree house!

Charlie loves frosting!

Daphne and Lilly stayed clear of the MUD, but had plenty of fun together drawing with chalk, and taking each other for rides in that black truck.

Matty and I celebrated the end of the summer with a date to a University of Utah football game!

Alas...Labor Day weekend arrived and I kept with tradition and went up to Midway for SWISS DAYS!!!!

My mom and I go every year, and luckily Jaymie was able to join us this year for her first time!!! We had SO MUCH FUN together shopping, eating scones, shopping some more, and then eating some more at Kneaders. It was a fantastic day and I'm already looking forward to next year!!