Another Lost Tooth

Nathanial lost another tooth, that is 5 total!  His 6th one is also loose.

Soccer

Nathanial really wanted to do soccer this year and I was all for him trying it out.  I was looking at registration for soccer and swimming.  They overlapped each other, there was no way to do both.  I decided to sign him up for swimming and organize my own soccer league.  I ended up with close to 40 soccer players!  It was great!  We made 4 teams: 2 younger (yellow and green) and 2 older (red and blue).  We had a practice and scrimmage every Saturday for several weeks.  I asked for parents to be soccer coaches and it turned out AMAZING!!! And the best part? It was FREE! I couldn't have made this work without all the wonderful parents.

The green team practice (Christopher)

 It was really cute to watch the younger kids play soccer, most of them were 2 and 3 year-olds with a few 4 year-olds.

Ryan was in charge of keeping track of Emily while I made sure everybody had what they needed

 The red and blue teams had AMAZING coaches!  Thanks Luke, Justin, and Nate!  They really knew what they were doing and taught the kids some great drills. (I have to appoligise for the pictures, I set my settings while taking pictures of Chirstopher, who played in the shade, and didn't change them when I took pictures of Nathanial)

Nathanial was on the red team

Every Saturday, Ryan and I woke up early to get our kids ready and to load the four soccer nets in our car to set up the field before everyone showed up.  I am thankful that I was able to let kids play soccer who might not have otherwise. It was stressful for a while but in the end it was worth it!

Bike Trouble

Nathanial rides his bike to school almost every day, one morning Ryan was taking him to school and came in to tell me that he had a flat tire.  After looking at the tire, no wonder it was flat...

Look at that hole

Nathanial rides his bike any time he has the chance and after 3 years on these tires and his new found love of skidding his tires it was time for some new ones.

Our Friend John Dahlen

Let me tell a neat story about our dear friend, John Dahlen:
One summer Sunday we were driving to Church and we saw a man walking on the side of the street.  I had the very distinct impression that we should pull over and offer him a ride. I knew that he was going to our Church. Ryan didn't want to stop, and for good reason: you don't stop and pick people up off the side of the road, especially in Cleveland. Ryan has never picked up anyone off the side of the road before and was really hesitant, but after some prodding from me he consented and pulled over.  We asked where he was going and he said he was headed to the Mormon Church, he then asked us if we were Mormons.  We replied that we were and that we were headed to the Church.  He was pleasantly surprised that someone would stop and offer him a ride.  He had ridden the bus, but the last stop is a few miles away from the Church.
We typically arrive at Church about 30 minutes early so that I can print off the ward bulletin.  While I was printing the bulletin, Ryan was able to talk to John.  We became good friends with him.  He continued to meet with the Sister missionaries and set a date to be baptized.
John asked Ryan to be the one to baptize him.  When he found out that we would be out of town for Keshia's wedding he postponed it for another week.  Then when he found out that I was still going to be out of town he decided to wait for me to get back so that I could be there too.

9/21

We Found Something for Christopher

I have been wanting to find something for Christopher to do that would help him develop some of the talents that he has.  A friend suggested that we try gymnastics.  As it turns out this was the perfect thing for him.  It is every Friday for an hour. He started on the 21st of September.  The coaches think that he is a natural.

Outside the gym (we are not allowed to take pictures inside)

Nathanial's Early Birthday Present

I have been wanting to put Nathanial in some type of music program for a while.  I was looking into piano and even found a key board that we could borrow to practice on. After talking to Nathanial he had set his mind on wanting to learn to play the guitar.  While we were at Toys-R-Us we found the perfect guitar for Nathanial; it was red with orange flames.  We were going to wait and give it to him for his birthday.  I was starting to ask around to see if anyone knew where we could find someone to teach Nathanial when a sister in our ward sent out an e-mail saying that she teaches guitar!  The downside to this is that she is only in our ward for about 6 months so if we were going to do this we needed to start right away.  So Nathanial got his early birthday present...

September 19th

What could it be?

His guitar

He has 1/2 hour lessons every Thursday and is loving it!

Idaho Part 9 (Spud Days)

On Saturday, September 15th was the Annual Spud Days in Shelly to celebrate the harvest.  There was a parade and other activities...

This cement truck was filled with water and potato flakes and turned into mashed potatoes and added to a pit for the "mashed potato tug of war"

Christopher getting his face painted

Emily and her yellow balloon flower

Christopher and his orange sword

There was a rock climbing wall...

9/17