School

Ella's School:  She is loving 4th grade.  We love her teacher.  For the 4th grade play (called Character matters) Ella tried out for the role of the TROLL.  She got the part and got to sing in a trio of trolls.

Her school just got done with red ribbon week.  They dressed up in red, pajamas, mustaches and of course CRAZY hair day!

Parkers School:  Parker just graduated from the "Up to 3" program at USU.  He started this program when he was 27 months old because his speech was delayed.  In the past 9 months, this kid has changed so much.  His vocabulary has just exploded.  When he started, he could say about 10 words.  Now I can not even count what he can say.  When he started he was so shy; almost debilitating.  He was scared of everyone, including his grandparents.  Now, he warms up to new people within seconds.  He has learned to deal with other kids, take turns and communicate much for efficiently.

Parker had 3 therapists.  One for speech, one for behavioral and one at the end for occupational therapy (because he DOES NOT eat anything)

We loved every therapist.  They were amazing.

Now we move on to preschool aka speech at the elementary school!

Autumn

Autumn time DOES have its perks.  For instance, the pumpkin walk with my family, followed by glazed donuts and apple cider...that is one perk.

Playing hard in the fallen leaves, that is definitely another one.

Parker turns 3!

Parker is 3 years old!  We can't believe it.  Parker is just awesome.

He is a sweetheart.  He says THANK YOU for every single thing you do for him; even when we vacuum the house he says "thank you mamma"

He is very picky; he won't eat a lot of food.  I was surprised when the Dr. said he was gaining weight perfectly.  As much as he eats, that seems impossible.

He can watch Cars, then Planes, then Cars, then Planes for days.

He is not yet potty trained.  He is very picky (see above) and he hates new things.  It took me weeks to even get him to sit on the potty-fully clothed!  We are working on this potty thing.

He used to sleep in complete dark with his door shut, but now he has to sleep with the hall light on and door open ever since our summer of thunderstorms.  It freaked him out.

He is actually scared of some other things; dogs, sirens on TV shows and rain.

Parker is learning like crazy.  Learning to talk better, learning colors, letters and numbers.

Like I say, he is a complete sweety with a HUGE heart.

 Birthday breakfast!

 Birthday treats!

Instead of a cake, we made his favorite treat in the world- Cookies!

I love his expressions when he opened each present.  He is genuinely happy!

Parker got his first bike!  He loves it.  Asks me first thing in the morning to go ride bikes.  He loves to ride down our hill to the backyard with feet in the air!

Ella Dance

A few weeks back Ella helped me take some portraits of Parker. Now it is her turn.  We got some pretty pictures of her in her pretty lyrical outfit.  Becuase she is pretty!

Labor day/Lagoon/Aggies/loose tooth/Final boating

I found more pictures so time for another update!

Labor day fun:

Ogden Temple open house.  Ella has been through a few open houses.  She cries each time.  This time as she was walking through the hall, there were pictures of the Savior that led up to the Celestial Room.  Her tears started there.  She has a very tender soul and is very in tune with the spirit.  It was a little fun for me to talk to her about the bride room when she asked- because it will not be very long before Ella is the bride.

 BBQ with the Bensons.  Grandma had games and yummy food.

Annual Lagoon Day:

This was the first time Parker got to ride the rides.  He did excellent.  He "talked" about it for days.  Mostly that the train was fun and the boat hurt his tummy!  Ella was a good sister and rode on the baby rides.  She looks thrilled.  She did get to ride all the big rides and had a ball.  She ran into a school friend and did some rides with her.

Ella and dad and Grandpa Benson have been to a couple Aggie football games this year.  Ella's favorite team is BYU (thanks to her fathers influence) and a close second is Utah State.

Ella lost a tooth.  This one gave her so much trouble.  It was loose for months and really hurt her. As excited as she was when she finally got it out you would have thought it was her first lost tooth.  Its really her nineth!

Because Dustin had surgery, we had to miss out on a couple months of boating.  (We didnt want any popped stitches)  We had one more chance to go out before we put the boat away for the winter.  And Dustin was in HEAVEN.  The lake was as smooth as smooth can be.  No other boats were out.  Man, if it had not been ice cold I would have loved to get in.