Vivvie Loses Her First Tooth

Our sweet Vivvie Girl finally lost her first tooth in September.  She was so excited to finally reach that milestone!  She had patiently waited through her entire Kindergarten year for a tooth to become loose, but to no avail.  Thankfully, over the summer, one of her bottom teeth started getting a little wiggly.  And just as she started 1st Grade, she got that hole in her mouth that she's been wanting so badly...

She's since lost another tooth, and has two permanent teeth in their place.  We're still waiting for the two front top teeth to come out.  I'm fine with them staying in there as long as they want.  I love those cute little baby teeth!  --Lindsay

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Labor Day Weekend is always kind of sad for me.  It's the unofficial end to summer...and I hate that.  But luckily, we usually plan some fun activities for the Labor Day Weekend to make it fun as well.

First of all, my mom, sisters, and I have made a tradition of going to Swiss Days on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend.  It's a festival held in Midway every year to remember the Swiss immigrants that settled Midway.  There's lots of cute booths, we always spend way too much money, and we get to eat the yummy scones they sell there.  So good...

We even ran into someone famous this year...President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  He is (or was at the time) the 2nd Counselor in the LDS First Presidency.  Kristin snapped a picture of Ashlee with him in the background, so it wasn't totally obvious that she was just trying to get a picture of President Uchtdorf.  Haha!  We found it appropriate that when we ran into him, he was in a German toy booth...

It was a fun day, and I'm glad it's a tradition of ours to go to this every year.

On Labor Day, our family went hiking up Rock Canyon with Nana and Poppy.  It was a fun little hike, but it was so freakin' hot!!  If I remember correctly, the temperature was in the upper 90s...

We were glad when we got up into the canyon and had a little shade.  The kiddos had fun climbing some of the steep rock cliffs...

This is how Cohen dealt with the oppressive heat.  If only all of us could do this...

Hiking the trail...

Anytime my kids see a huge bolder, they have to climb on top of it.  It's their thing, and I have no idea why...

We found a "friend" along the trail too.  Ewwwwwwww....

The kiddos found a cave up along the canyon wall and climbed up to it.  Who knows what was in that thing.  Shudder...

That evening, we came back to our house for a barbecue (I didn't take any pictures unfortunately), and held a little birthday party for Aiden...

Aiden LOVES stuffed animals.  He has so many!  It's kind of ridiculous!!  I made him get rid of a bunch of them about a year ago, and he still has way too many...and is adding to his collection all the time.  As you can see here...

Make a wish...

Then we ended the night with one final s'mores night of the season...

And had a Rick Astley dance off.  Because...why not?

We also tried to teach Lila how to do "the floss".  Haha...

Aiden got a hammock for his birthday.  Yep, he wanted a hammock!  He was so excited to get it set up in the backyard.  He spent the rest of the evening relaxing in that thing...

So, that was our Labor Day Weekend in a nutshell!  It was a fun last hoorah!  Good bye, summer!  --Lindsay

That Nine Months Between Summer Breaks

You know what ruins a perfectly good summer break?  That day when school starts again!  Sigh.

Connor started high school this year!  HIGH SCHOOL!!!!  How did we get here already?  He is a Freshman and crazy busy between his AP and honors classes, keeping a 4.0, and running on the Cross Country and Track Teams.  I'm so proud of him and his ability to do hard things.  On top of it all, he's taking early morning seminary, so he gets up at 5:30 am every other day!  Here he is dark and early to go to his first day of early morning seminary and high school...

His best friend Josh is taking early morning seminary with him...

He is handling high school like a champ and loving everything about it...except maybe his homework load.  Super proud of this kiddo!!

A couple hours later, the three younger kids headed off to elementary school...

Aiden is a 6th Grader this year, Cohen is a 3rd Grader, and Vivienne is a 1st Grader...

Yep, all my kiddos are in school all day.  It's weird to have all these crazies gone for a large chunk of the day...

Here's Cohen and Vivvie with one of their school's mascots...

Viv and her bestie, Hazel...

Waiting to head inside their classrooms...

After everyone was off to school, my sisters and I met up for our annual first day of school brunch.  It's a fun little way to celebrate our new-found few hours of freedom...

My kids are growing up way too fast!  It is so sad that I only have a few years left with Connor before I will need to send him off into the big, bad world!!  That's craziness!  I also can't believe that my BABY is old enough to be in school all day.  It's been an adjustment for sure.  The weirdest part is not having anyone to eat lunch with each day.  I know that sounds weird, but I've had a lunch buddy for 15 years, and now I eat lunch by myself.  It's really weird!  Luckily, Mike works close to home so he comes home for lunch a lot, and we sometimes go out to lunch together.  I also get to go to lunch with my friends from time-to-time without a kid attached to me, which is awesome!  But I miss my kiddos a lot too!!  Is it summer break again yet?  --Lindsay

The Best Season of the Year

Here's a bunch of random pictures of fun experiences we had in the sum-sum-summertime that never got their own blog post...

When we visited Vivvie's Pediatric Endocrinologist at the beginning of June, she was 43" tall.  That's 9 1/4" taller than when we started grow hormone shots in January of 2015...

We love hanging out around our fire pit with friends on summer evenings...

Some cute pics from Vivvie at a friend's birthday party...

My mom was getting rid of a really cute shower curtain and towels one day, so she asked me if I'd like them.  I put them in my kids' bathroom to give it a little face lift.  I also bought the cute sign above the toilet that says, "Oh Happy Day".  Mike's Dad always says, "Happy day to ya!" so I hope it reminds them of their Grandpa...while they're peeing.  Haha!  I guess that's kind of weird.  Let's move on, shall we?

Twinners...

Out on a midnight snack run with Connor...

Ice cream with Grammie and Grandpa...

Fun at the splash pad with cuzzies...

Snuggling Baby Hazel while at our neighborhood pool...

Vivvie on the Frog Hopper...

Miniature golfing with Grandpa and Grammie...

Cohen riding the airplanes at Trafalga Lehi...

More pool fun...

Ice cream with Coco...

Seeing Cars 3 with the cousins...

Mike and Vivvie ran into my co-worker, Sterling, and his wife, Danette, at a Real Game.  Danette ended up passing away of cancer just recently, so this picture is priceless to me...

The kids and I got up early on Fathers Day to make breakfast for Mike and Rick, two of the most amazing men I know...

Uhhhhh, when my family gets together, it makes you wonder if our family is a bunch of car racists or something.  Why do we only have white cars?  Haha...

More fire pit fun...

I love long, lazy summer evenings...

The sunsets in Utah are amazing.  This is one viewed from our backyard...

Cohen getting ready to go to Cub Scout Day Camp with his troop...

I have become friends with one of Lisa's friends (Kim Lowe) through Facebook.  In June, she came to Utah to visit and I got to meet her in person...

More fun at our neighborhood pool with cousins...

Vivvie and Ella got to ride on a float in the Lehi Rodeo Round Up Parade.  Here they are all ready to take off on the parade route...

The family came to watch, and were thrilled by it (as I'm sure you can tell)...

Here they come...

Connor and his best friend, Josh, went to EFY (Especially for Youth--a church camp at BYU) for a week in June.  They had such a great time...

Out to lunch for Nana's birthday...

Cohen and Vivvie enjoying the food at the RSL VIP dinner before the game...

At this game, Kristin asked if Landon could sit with us, so he hung out with us and it got kind of crazy at times...

Then Landon suddenly got very quiet and laid on Vivvie's lap...

Then he threw up!  Yep, everywhere.  I felt so bad for all the people sitting around us.  Luckily, it was toward the end of the game so they didn't have to smell it for too long.  Kristin came and got him and took him home.  After the game, we moved to some other seats that were free of throw up and watched the fireworks show.

While getting Cohen ready for church one Sunday, Mike noticed a resemblance to a character from the Harry Potter series.  What do you think?  Is this Cohen's doppelganger?

A late night run for shaved ice with the Simons family...

Out to a movie with Aiden...

I discovered how wonderful Smith's Clicklist is.  You order your groceries online, and set up a pickup time.  Then you show up and they load all the groceries into your car!  I did it just to try it once, but I loved it so much that I've continued to do it almost every week since then...

Our kids had never been to a drive-in movie, so we decided that needed to change this year...

Mike trained for LOTOJA all summer.  Here's a picture he took while on one of his rides...

Vivvie and Landon playing after Sunday dinner.  Vivienne is seriously so beautiful!  And I don't think I'm being biased either.  She's just a very pretty little girl, and seems to get prettier all the time...

Connor got these scriptures from his grandparents when he was baptized.  Then, just a few months later, he lost them.  We searched and searched, but to no avail.  Well, fast forward about 7 years when my mom got a phone call from her ward librarian.  He said, "I have a set of scriptures that have been in the lost and found for years now that have the name CONNOR MICHAEL STORRS on them, and I just realized that your daughter's last name is Storrs.  Do you know a Connor Storrs?"  The mystery of the long lost scriptures had finally been solved.  Connor must have left them at my parents' church while attending there sometime.  They are like new and he's using them as his seminary scriptures now...

Vivvie and I spent an evening at the Museum of Natural Curiosity, where she spelled her name out in the bright lights of a marquee...

She also became a floating head...

And a veterinarian...

Then played outside a little bit.  I love how the sun stays up until after 9 pm here in the summer...

Afterward, we got some ice cream (of course)...

We went out to dinner and to the Days of '47 Pops Concert with the Simons.  It was a fun evening...

Christmas in July?  Apparently so.  Heidi and I showed up to work wearing red and green, so we decorated ourselves for the occasion...

My sisters and I went to the temple together one night and then to Baked Bear afterward...

Vivvie loves to help cook dinner.  She's totally Mike's daughter because we all know this love of cooking didn't come from me...

Cohen started taking Parkour in June.  After just one month in the beginner class, his teachers moved him into the intermediate class.  He's a natural...

Mike and I at our neighborhood luau...

Moana made an appearance there...

And the kids had fun swimming and splashing with all their friends...

We have been slowly but surely finishing the basement.  Mike decided he wanted the shower in the bathroom to be a zero entry shower, and he had to break up the concrete to do it.  This is what he looked like when he came upstairs.  Keep in mind that he had a protective suit on while doing it, so this is just the concrete dust that made it through the suit...

At the end of July, we went to my 20th High School Reunion...

It was fun to see so many people that I haven't seen in ages...

Another date night with Aiden...

A trip with the three youngest kids to the Museum of Natural Curiosity...

Vivvie finally got over her fears and walked on the rope bridges to reach the airplane...

Smoothies with Mike...

This is how Cohen unloads the dishwasher and puts dishes away.  Is it any wonder that he's the kid that is always being taken to instacare or the emergency room?

Aiden has the best teacher this year!  Right before school started, she went around to every child's house to introduce herself.  We weren't home when she came to our house, so she left a letter.  I said to Aiden, "That's awesome!  Sounds like she's going to be a great teacher!"

He replied with, "Maybe.  She used the word 'adventure' a lot in her letter."

I asked, "What's wrong with that?"

He exclaimed, "That's teachers' secret way of saying 'You're going to work your butt off in my class!'"

Haha...

One last trip to the pool with the cousins before the start of school...

While at the dentist with Cohen one time, I discovered they have a massage chair for parents to use while their kids are getting work done.  Uhhhh, awesome...

We got the opportunity to get a tour of the new Missionary Training Center that just opened.  It was fun for the kids to be able to get a little taste of what the MTC will be like when they'll be there as missionaries.  The kids guessed where they will be called on their missions.  Aiden chose China, Vivvie chose Hawaii, Connor chose Europe in general, and Cohen wanted to choose England but he couldn't quite reach.  The new MTC is a beautiful facility...

The weekend before school started, Nana and Poppy rented a room at the Zermatt Resort in Midway and invited us all up to swim, golf and do some other fun things.  We went over to the Homestead Resort and climbed on top of the volcano...

Tried to recreate a picture we had taken several years ago of the kids standing on this little rock wall.  It didn't turn out so good, but we tried...

We went inside the crater to look at the natural hot springs...

And the guys went golfing while the girls and kids went swimming...

The day before school started, we got to experience The Great American Eclipse--a total eclipse that traversed across the U.S.  We only got partial totality (about 91% totality) in Utah, but it was still pretty awesome.  Here we are with our glasses...

We watched it from Ashlee's house because we were already out there for piano lessons...

We used a funnel to also see the partial eclipse's shadow...

And you could see it really well on the ground through the shadows caused by the leaves on the trees...

And we went to another Real Salt Lake game to finish off our summer...

We had the best summer!  I love summertime so much!!  It is absolutely my favorite season.  I love having the kids home and having a little more freedom to our schedule.  There's also a lot of traditions associated with summer, so it seems like there's always something fun to look forward to!  Can't wait until next summer!  --Lindsay