Colton's Big Day

After months of waiting, and probably 6 evaluations, Colton finally started school today! He was actually diagnosed with Highly Functioning Autism a few weeks ago. It didn't come as a huge surprise, but it has been overwhelming to try to figure out what to do to help him. He is such a sweet, loving little guy most of the time, and a challenge at times for sure. We are so relieved that we will be getting some help at school.
His teacher is so great. He's in class with 2 other three year old girls and some special ed Kindergarteners. We have lots of goals for him and can't wait to see his progress over the next few months!
He did not want to look at the camera today. But he sure looked sweet in his new little backpack.


After school.


Within 5 minutes of getting home. His new thing...removing shoes and pants as soon as he walks in the door.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!

Spencer, Alyson, and Grace came out for the weekend. It's always great to hang out with them!

We had tons of fun with some of our old friends celebrating Jonathan's birthday yesterday.


The babies


These kids (mostly) had a great time.

Here are few random pictures from the last few weeks. Jonathan was gone this week so it was pretty boring. He got to go to the BYU game last night. Too bad they lost.

Kirsten loves her brother. Although she came home from church with a picture that said she prays for a "baby sister".


Colton loves his trains still. He can lay there all night, usually crashing his trains.




My parents gave us this chair. The kids have had tons of fun spinning each other on it. Colton loves spinning people. He'll come up to me and say "mommy's turn" and pull me over to the chair.

So our computer has not been working exceptionally well and I just haven't had the patience for it these last few weeks. So now that it's working better here's some of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

We had a really great windy day. Colton had his first experience flying a kite.




Colton is really loving Max. Well, mostly he's ignoring Max. Unless Max is messing with his stuff. In which case, Colton will put Max on his bed and say "go to bed, Max", "nigh-night, Max", and then pretend snore to show Max what he should be doing.


We've missed having this funny girl around all day. She started school on Aug. 11th! Which seemed super early. I didn't take any pictures of her first day. It was just too crazy. She's really enjoyed her teacher and the new friends she's made. It's been a much easier adjustment than kindergarten was!


Max has been into everything! Driving me a little crazy, but how can you get mad at that chubby face?!





In case you haven't heard or experienced...this Summer has been really hot. We heard some rain might be coming our way so we headed outside to check it out.

First we checked out a snake.


We had Emily over a few times this Summer which is always SUPER fun! And we really miss her now that she's moved to the other side of the country!!










After Kirsten did her rain dance, we finally got some rain! Actually she's really gotten into trying to break dance. It's pretty funny.


So other than that. I've mostly been chasing


And cleaning up after these two boys.


And laughing at this silly girl.


And one last cute picture.

Family Reunion

We got back from our Townsend family reunion a week ago. I feel like I'm starting to recover from it. The house seems so quiet compared with the chaos of having (almost) my whole family under the same roof for a few days. Oh, and I forgot my camera so here are all of my high quality phone pictures.

We drove alongside my Dad and Emily for most of the way. Which made the drive much more entertaining!


We stopped in North Platte, NE. Home of of the Wolrd's largest Railroad Classification Yard (whatever that means). All I know is that it had lots and lots of trains and Colton loved it. Colton and I went to the yard. You take an Elevator up 7 stories to get a great view of all the trains.





He loved looking at all the miniature trains, but his favorite part was the gift shop with all the toy trains he could touch and play with.


The next night we stayed at Little America in Wyoming. After passing all the signs for it many times our interest was piqued. We met my Dad and Emily there. After playing in the playground, we had a very crazy dinner (kids + driving all day = crazy, out of control kids at dinner). They were happy to have lots of 25 cent cones afterwards. Actually Colton doesn't like Ice Cream for some reason, but Kirsten loved it. We woke up in the morning, swam, and then headed to Bear Lake.

The rest of the family got there that day as well. We spent most of the week at the beach. Uncle Karl and Uncle Scott brought their boats. So we got to do lots of wake boarding and tubing. Jonathan is perfecting his skills on the board. Colton and Kirsten loved riding in the boat. Colton took lots of rides with Great Grandma. Kirsten still wouldn't ride the tube...maybe next time. I had some crazy tube rides with Emily and Michael. I still can't do anything cool on the board, but it's tons of fun.













All the kids loved playing in the sand...even Geoff. He couldn't pass up an opportunity to bury Kirsten.






Kirsten spent lots of time playing with Ashley. Ashley, Kate, Kirsten and sometimes some of the other little boys chased Michael around after he would steal a ball of something from them. They always called him "red boy" or "white boy" based on what color shirt he was wearing.

Michael and Nathan liked to play with baby Max.




Jana and Karl planned lots of fun activities, like kids Olympics and sing-a-longs. Karen and her family planned a really fun Minute to Win It game. Nancy helped us do a really cute craft. We had volleyball tournaments, got Milkshakes, played games at night, ate lots of good food...We had so much fun. I love being together with family!

We also did lots of driving. Good thing Max likes the pacifier.


Good thing these two like each other...for the most part.


On the way home we stopped at a hotel in Kansas that had a water slide. At first Kirsten would go on it. After seeing how much fun Colton was having she decided to join in. Then she was hooked. We had so much fun going on it over and over again.

As soon as we hit Kansas I thought I was going to die! It is so stinkin' hot here. What is going on this Summer? It was a very nice break up in chilly Utah.

Bye-Bye Helmet!

So after about 18 trips to Dallas since February... we are finally done! We have seen some amazing improvement and are really glad we did it, but man was it a pain to make that trip so often. It is a little bitter-sweet though. The helmet was actually really nice when he would fall down, and we absolutely loved Julie, the physical therapist we saw each visit. We found out she was a BYU fan too! We're going to miss everyone there but we are glad we're done!

Tough Mudder

2 Weeks ago we met some friends in Colorado for a Tough Mudder. It's a 10 mile run up and down a mountain with obstacles in the middle. It was awesome!



Me, Jonathan, Spencer, and Rachel, before the race. Look how clean we were.


The Start






We climbed through mud.




Swam through some of the coldest water I've ever been in.







After swimming through the water we had to get back in the water and swim under barrels. I absolutely could not make myself do it. So I had to go around. Everyone was brave and finished it. I can say that I stuck my head in the water though. Later in the race we had to jump in some freezing slime. We had to swim under a plank, and I did make myself do that. I'm so proud of Rachel for finishing this one though, she did not want to but she did it.


We had to carry logs, climb up really steep hills, climb up snow mounds under nets, crawl through tunnels in the mud.


Slide down snow mounds and seriously hurt our hands in the process. Slip and Slide! Jonathan totally knocked this girl out when he did this.


We had to climb over 12 feet high walls. Luckily for Rachel and I, we had some strong guys to push us over. The bad part was figuring out how to get back down on the other side of a wobbly narrow wall.
This was my favorite obstacle. I have been nervous for this one from the day we signed up. We had to cross monkey bars that went up and back down. We all made it across! It was either do everything in your power to stay on or fall into freezing cold water. The choice was pretty simple.


We were constantly sprayed with freezing cold water.


And the finale...running through electrical wires. We all got shocked a couple times. It was weird.


And then we were finally finished! Here's us with our free beers, I promise we didn't drink them though.


This was such a cool event. It wasn't a race so everyone was helping everyone else. It was awesome for us to do it together and something I will never forget.