The Stout Family: September 2012

September

Andrew celebrated his birthday and finally caught up to me. He got a new camera, which as you can tell from the pictures below, improved the quality of our pictures.

Running laps during half-time at a football game

Megan always puts her helmet on wrong. She was riding around with it like this with a very serious look on her face like she knew exactly what she was doing the other day. I'm sure the neighbors just look out their windows and get a good laugh. She also likes to ride around in her princess dress, complete with her crown, necklaces, earrings...etc....oh, and I should mention she's still riding her tiny little tricycle made for someone half her size. Her little feet go crazy fast on the pedals, but she barely goes anywhere.

Went on a 20-mile hike with the young women from church. We started in Maple Valley and ended at the temple in Bellevue. All of these girls are amazing and I'm so lucky to be involved in their lives. I learn more from them then I'm sure they learn from me!!!

The biggest highlight of the month...Jordan took his training wheels off and is now cruising around the culdesac on 2 wheels!!!!

Mr. Clean and Ms. Hoarder

These 2 pictures just prove that kids definitely come with their own little personalities.

Jordan has loved having a clean and tidy room ever since he was a little baby. Even before he could speak, he would fuss and cry when I put him down for bed if there was anything left on the floor or looked out of place in his room.

Megan, on the other hand, prefers her room to look like this. We do pick it up regularly, but it always ends up looking like this before too long. She told me once when we were cleaning it together that she likes her floor covered all the way to the corners.

Back to School

My big first-grader, so excited to finally be able to wear his Ninjago shirt which he had laid out on his floor for weeks.

So excited for preschool

Cute cousins, all ready for this new adventure that they get to start together!!!!

Summer Happenings

Here are some random pictures of some of the highlights this summer.....

A new cousin, baby Harrison was born and made it to the top of the list of my kid's favorites. They talk about him all the time and love to hold him and be with him. There's just something so magical about a tiny little baby coming into the family.

Megan chose this as her picture she wanted to bring to share with her class on the first day of preschool. She keeps telling me that I'm going to have twin babies, a girl and a boy named Austin and Sally. I'm not sure if she's having a premonition of something to come, although we'll take any babies we can get...not so sure about the twin idea, although I'm sure Megan would be more than willing to give me lots of help!!!

We had our house resided, which was quite the project with workers pounding on our house for a couple of weeks. The house looks great now and I'll have to get an "after" picture, although it pretty much looks the same since we painted it the same color it was before. Megan loved taking the workers treats and lemonade and was a little sad to see them go...it was like they had become a little part of our family.

We went to the zoo with cousins and Jordan was chosen from the audience to come up to the stage to be a super-hero.

...and of course, we went on lots of horseback rides!!!!

Pack Trip to Twin Sisters Lake

The Bolles family pack trips have now officially been passed onto the next generation. We hiked up to Twin Sisters Lake, a favorite place we've gone many, many times for as long as I can remember. The road was washed out to get to the trailhead, so the hike was extended by an extra 2 miles of walking on the road. Alison and I had the kids with us and Andrew and Jason led the horses and went on up ahead. It was pretty slow-going at first and we wondered if were ever going to make it, but the kids picked up speed once we were off the road and hiking on the trail, even though it was a steeper climb. The boys made it to camp, unloaded the horses and came back down the trail to pick up any kids who were having a hard time. Jason was very surprised when he met us because we were nearly there.

We all made it to camp and the kids had big plans to go swimming, which ended up with them just sticking their feet in and realizing the water was a bit too cold, although Alison surprised us all when she dove in. We set up camp, ate dinner, played frisbee and then headed to bed once the sun started to go down because it got pretty cold up there and we couldn't have a fire because there was a burn ban.

The next day we went on a hike to Blakenship meadow and lakes with the 4 youngest on horses and the rest of us walking. We got back to camp to eat lunch, break camp and headed down the mountain back to the car. We met quite a few people coming down the trail, who all looked a bit surprised with all the kids and just 2 moms, especially since we didn't have any packs on. Someone said, "You must be coming down from a day hike." I said, "No, luckily we have 2 horses coming behind us who are willing to carry all our stuff." Speaking of "stuff"....Alison gave us a good laugh because space is very limited in the packs and we were told to bring only the essentials. I took this very literally and brought barely anything, not even a change of underwear for Jordan, which became a problem when he wet his pants in the night. Well, somehow, Alison made it up there with 3 umbrellas. Jason said he'll have to go through her stuff a little more carefully next time. Needless to say, she never had to use them and it gave us all a good laugh. The walk back was even more slow-going, but I found that if I kept Jordan talking about his favorite toys, which are Ninjago at the moment, that he picked up speed and it kept his mind off of how tired he was. Overall, it was a very fun trip and it didn't surprise me that when Jordan had to write about a favorite thing he did over the summer, he wrote about the pack trip....there's just nothing like being with family in the mountains.