Sunday 10

1. I love conference weekend.  It's pretty much impossible to sit and listen to all 8 hours when there are little kids talking and asking for things and soccer games to get to and meals to make.  But I always catch some really great tidbits and I'm excited to read them again.
2.  Alli and Holly both had soccer games yesterday.  It was perfect weather...I could handle Fall like this for a long time!
3.  We spend the evening in Spanish Fork at Betsy's.  The kids and moms played and talked and the guys went to the priesthood session.
4. Alli and I got back from our trip Monday night.  Alli wasn't ready to come home yet, but I was happy to see Alex and the kids.  Cooper didn't want anything to do with me until the next morning.  It was a little funny and a little sad at the same time.  Luckily the next morning he was back to his regular self.  I took the boys to the Children's Museum that morning and we had a lot of fun - especially playing in the music room.

5.  Abbey spent the night here Friday night, and Brynne went with the Bates to have a sleepover with Porter.  Abbey and Alli watched Harry Potter while Alex, Holly, and Tyson went to the bummer of a BYU football game.  Abbey and Alli told me that their new crush was Voldemort.  Those girls make me laugh.
6.  Alli and I spent many hours (5? 6?) on Friday putting her piano song she wrote on the computer.  We found a good program that lets you write your composition and print out the score, and it looks so great!  Alli has spent months working on it.  She's turning it in to the school this week for their Reflections competition, which is a National PTA program. I'm hoping she does well.  She's worked so incredibly hard on this song.
7. Tyson and his buddy Brayden are doing the Itty Bitty Football Camp at the rec center right now.  They are so cute and funny together.  Everyone has to do some warmups at the beginning and Tyson takes his running laps very seriously!
8.  Cooper is talking a ton...except none of it is actual words.  But he points and talks and I really think in his head it all makes sense.  Today he started saying what sounds like "don't want that!" I'm not sure that's what he's actually saying but it always comes out when he's mad, so I'm guessing it's close!
9.  Cindy and Chad and their kids, and Steven came over for dinner today.  Always a good time, except for the part where Hailey threw up.  Luckily she seemed fine as soon as it was out, but that's still not a pleasant experience!
10.  We drove the Alpine Loop today in between conference sessions and for the first part of the last session.  The Fall colors are really showing off right now.  It was gorgeous!

Picture Day!

I'm too cheap to pay for school pictures when I have a perfectly good camera, and I can take the pictures before they ride scooters to school and play at recess!  Here are a few pictures of the girls before they took off for school on Friday.  Love these girls.

Side note: I had parent/teacher conferences last week and all the teachers raved about these sweet girls.  They are all doing very well in their classes and have good friends.  Alli's teacher said she's stone-faced.  :)  I had to convince him that she's really a happy girl, she just has a tendency to look like she's sulking.  We keep telling her to SMILE if she's happy!

DC Part 2

Just a few more highlights from our DC trip.  We all piled into Michelle's van on Sunday and drove to the temple.  We spent a good amount of time at the visitor's center, which was the coolest one I've been to.  We took some pictures and walked around for a bit.  It was a beautiful day!

On Monday we stopped by the James Madison statue and the Jefferson Memorial before we went to the airport.

Sam reminded me so much of Tyson.  I had a blast with him and I can't wait for him to come here next month and actually play with Tyson!

 It took Lydia (2) a little time to warm up to me, but I'm pretty sure all the kids loved me by the end.  I don't think it took any warming up for Alli though - she had quite a following the whole weekend!

 Alli taught Abby and Sam how to make monkey bread.

It's safe to say we wore Alli out.

 We made a quick stop at the Pentagon Memorial before we went to the Jefferson Memorial.

Michelle, Alli, and I (and baby Andrew, who slept the whole time!) went to the Old Town Alexandria ghost tour Saturday night.  It was such a blast!

I'm so, so glad Alli and I got to spend a weekend away.  And I'm so glad we could spend that weekend with Michelle and her family.  We don't get to see them nearly enough!

DC Part 1!

After not having seen Michelle or her family for nearly 3 years, we decided it was time to fix that.  So Alli and I got to hop on a plane and fly across the country!  This was Alli's first plane ride that she's old enough to remember and she was soooooo excited.  She learned pretty quickly that sitting on a plane for 4 hours isn't as fun as it sounds.  

We made it to Reagan Airport!

We spent that first evening hanging out with Michelle's family, and meeting Lydia (who is 2.5) and Andrew (who is 8 weeks).  Alli seemed pretty tired that night, but she got lots of sleep and we were energized and ready for a fun Friday!

On the metro!

Alli had a long list of things she wanted to see.  We crossed most of the things off her list, but we weren't able to get tickets to the top of the Washington Monument.  Bummer.

My favorite thing in all of DC...the first American flag.  I get teary-eyed and so grateful in that room.

 We stopped for lunch at Old Ebbitt Grill, where supposedly all the US presidents have eaten.

 

WWII Memorial - quite a sobering sight.

Lincoln Memorial 

White House

This was the thing Alli got the most excited about on our whole trip - Dorothy's ruby slippers. 

Future President?

Air and Space Museum 

We busted our butts to get to the library of congress before they closed...we failed.  So we headed to the capital building for some pictures and a rest on the field.

 I would say on a scale of 1-10 we definitely hit a 10 that day.  It was so great to spend time with Alli and to see the things that she got excited about.  Once-in-a-lifetime kind of memory making that day.

We were happy to get a seat on the metro ride back to the Zwahlens!

FHE: Alli Style

Alex asked Alli to plan Family Home Evening last week, and she went all out!  She decided to do a lesson about David and Goliath.  She had props, a game, pictures, scriptures, role play, the works.  It was very well planned and I think we'll recruit her to plan it every week!  She also made monkey bread for a treat, with the little pieces representing the stones.

David (Tyson) and Goliath (Brynne) 

Playing "pin the stone on Goliath" 

Such posers :) 

I couldn't resist Tyson's face.   

David and his sling shot.