September

The month of September flew by as we transitioned into our fall routine.  Everyone is back to school and the year is going really well!

Summer

Summer is in 8th grade and relishing all of the amazing leadership opportunities of being the oldest grade in her building.  She loves helping out with chapel worship band, being a house leader, and connecting with new middle schoolers. 

This year she surprised us all and decided to run cross country!  It has been an amazing fit for her, and she has continued to improve every meet.  She medaled in her first two middle school meets, and has been running JV ever since.  She has PR'ed in every race, continuing to decrease her 5K time every race.  It is fun to watch her grow in confidence, and her coaches and teammates are just the nicest and best people!  

Summer continues to love working with kids, babysitting and teaching Pre-K Sunday school, and loves her many hugs on Sunday mornings from all the littles at church.  She continues to sing and play piano on the youth group worship team and is continuing to grow spiritually as she seeks the Lord in prayer for each decision she makes.  She has grown so much in depending on the Lord and trusting in his faithfulness.

Colton

Colton is absolutely thrilled to be in middle school.  He says he loves the independence and that he doesn't have to walk behind a line leader anymore!  He loves his teachers.  He says his favorite class is geography, and his favorite teacher is his science teacher.

He has demonstrated great responsibility managing everything from homework, practicing his drum set, soccer, extra soccer practice (on his own at home), youth group, and more without me having to remind him to do anything.  He absolutely LOVES soccer and his coach this year is fantastic.  After losing the first two games while the team got used to some new positioning, they have won every game since.  After every soccer practice Colton excitedly shares how much he is learning and and he is extremely motivated, setting goals for himself both in speed and juggling, and is often found with a soccer ball between his feet as he walks anywhere around our home.  His team has one tournament weekend left this coming weekend and then winter/indoor season start.  

Colton has fully embraced middle school activities like youth group, hanging out with friends, and all things sports, including managing his first fantasy football team.  He is also looking forward to new ways he already has and will be serving at church including working with kindergarten Sunday school and playing drums with the youth worship band.

golfing with friends

Gopher Game with Isaiah

Colton is blessed with amazing friends at school, church, and soccer, as well as amazing role models in family, youth group, and teachers.  He truly loves the Lord and proactively wants his friends to know Him too!

Larkyn

Larkyn has had a great transition into 4th grade this year.  She was thrilled to get a locker this year, and absolutely adores her teacher Mrs. Nerdahl.  She continues to live life with energy and spunk.  This year she decided to jump back into gymnastics, and is taking two tumbling classes a week.  She is extremely motivated to conquer her back handspring and front handspring before the year is up. 

Larkyn loves all things fashion and all animals.  She almost daily requests to get a dog, a cat, or any animal that we will allow (so far, no success....!) and loves on any animal she can find.  She looks forward to her piano lesson every week because her teacher has many cats :).  

She is also thrilled that this year it worked out for me to be her Wednesday night clubs teacher.  She is so excited for the Christmas musical this year, and loves singing, acting, dancing, and all forms of art and creativity.  Her heart has continually grown softer to the Lord and his leading and she has grown so much in being a friend at school that includes others.

Mom and Dad

Mom and dad have been kept very busy running to various sports and music activities this fall and are learning how to best adjust to kids staying up until almost 10pm every day!  It is a very fun and very busy stage of life.  In addition to my part-time math teaching job, I took on a part-time long term sub for a co-worker on paternity leave, teaching two of his math classes for a month.  It was a very rewarding and busy fall.  I loved getting to teach Algebra II, but am also grateful now to being back to part-time and having the extra time to do "at-home" things.  Paul was able to add an extra member to his work team this fall, and we are grateful that some of his responsibilities working in multiple roles can slowly be off-loaded as he looks forward to entering a new role that he has been given, but didn't have time to do due to the various roles he was already fulfilling within the company.  We enjoyed a state fair date as well as we are both looking forward to a little fall getaway up north back to where we honeymooned over 16 years ago.  

Family Weddings

We all enjoyed the opportunity to see a lot of family on my dad's side when my cousin Nate got married.  My cousin Heather and her family stayed with us for the weekend (from CO) and we loved getting to connect with other family from literally around the world.  We also recently got to connect with family from Paul's side at his cousin's wedding as well.