Sittin' Pretty (or Handsome... sorry Will)

I would say that as of today the babies are now officially sitting up on their own. Elle has been sitting for a couple weeks now but now Will also has the hang of it. It is so fun to set them face to face and watch them steal toys from one another, grab each other's faces, and laugh at each other. It is exciting to watch these two as they perfect each milestone.

Hannah's first day of Kindergarten

This picture is from the 3rd day. She just looked so cute that I couldn't resist.

Hannah's first day of school.

Hannah and Mrs. Hillner
Grammy and Hannah
Here is Ava so sad that Hannah got to go to school and she didn't.
It is nice that we can just walk or ride bikes to school.

Tuesday August 26th was Hannah's first day of Kindergarten! I never knew how hard it would be to get her to talk about what she did during the day, but it is like pulling teeth!! Yesterday, her second day of school, I asked her what she did and her response was... "we did not do any school work because it took us too long to do other things". Fast forward to a couple minutes later... so what did you learn about today... "Mom, I already told you". So I was given great advice from my mother-in-law, she said to tell Hannah that she has to come home and tell us at least 3 things that she did at school. I have set the plan into action and will let you know how it works.

Teeth, Teeth and more Teeth.

Our lives over the last couple weeks have revolved around sticking our fingers in our children's mouths. I know that it sounds pretty repulsive but we are at such an interesting stage in our lives, we have one child losing teeth and two children getting teeth. Funny that you typically lose your two bottom middle teeth first and they are also the first to appear when you are a baby. Well last Friday (the 24th of August) Elle got her second tooth, on Sunday the 26th Hannah lost her second tooth, and currently Will has two bulging bumps on the bottom gum that look ready to give way to two little white nubbins we like to call teeth any day.

Hannah really wanted to extracting her tooth with the method of tying a string around her tooth and the door knob and shutting the door... YIKES. We tried this a couple weeks ago with the same tooth and to both mine and Aaron's relief the string slipped off the tooth before the door shut all the way. WHEW! Luckily a couple weeks later the tooth was literally hanging on by a thread and string stayed in place around the tooth resulting in a successful tooth extraction using the door slam method. It was quite exciting and surprisingly Hannah did not flinch at all, she just stood their until she heard the tooth hit the ground and then started laughing.

Now about that tooth fairy... Hannah's first tooth was MIA before she could get it under her pillow for the tooth fairy so we decided to go against the grain and try a different method of getting the tooth to the tooth fairy. Luckily Hannah's Grammy had tried the method when she was little and assured Hannah that the tooth fairy would still come. We put a glass cup in the window sill above the kitchen sink and dropped the tooth into the water. This way when the tooth fairy flew by she would be able to clearly see the tooth in the glass that was placed in the kitchen window and surely she would retrieve the tooth and leave $. Well I am happy to say that this worked. The tooth fairy was able to find the tooth and left Hannah 4 quarters. (I think the tooth fairy started a bit high, with 4 kids she is going to be broke!)

Rafting the Payette

A few of us girls cooling off.
Here are the Wilkey's riding the bull! I wonder if they knew that I was their guide??? They should have been afraid! But we got through without injuries.

Stephanie Wilkey, Heather Pruett, Jill Simmons, Me, Kara McBride, Angela Giles, Monica Knight, Erica Wheeler. Notice there are no pictures of the boys all together... I guess someone had to do the hard work ;)
Here are some of the guys getting the rafts ready to go. Kevin McBride, Aaron, Trent Wheeler, and Vaughn Pruett.
Here we are in our boat. We rode with the Wilkey's, the Pruett's and the McBrides. We had the Cool Boat!!
Here are our competitors... The Wheeler's, Simmons, Knights, and Giles.
Heather and I enjoying the water after our boat was attacked and we were thrown overboard.

On Saturday the 25th of August we were able to head up to Cascade and float the Payette River to Smith's Ferry (the Cobarton Run for those of you familiar with this area). We went with 7 other couples in 2 different rafts and had a GREAT time!! We were on the river for 3 hours and the water fights began as soon as we got into the boats (we hadn't even pushed off yet... thanks Mike). It's a good thing we left all the kids at home because we pretty much acted like children the whole day, I think we all need to be able to be the kid from time to time. The weather was beautiful, the water was relatively warm, and the company was perfect. I was able to find a very capable babysitter to watch all 4 kids for 9 hours (thanks Amy). I have been so nervous to leave the twins with anyone other than family. I am used to having two babies at once, but I know how overwhelming it can be from time to time. The great thing is that Amy did a fantastic job and said it went great. I guess God heard my prayers.

9 YEARS!!

I can't believe that I forgot to write a post about our 9th anniversary that we celebrated on August 14!!

It is amazing to think it has been 9 years. It has gone So fast but it is amazing to think back at how much we have accomplished in 9 years.

We thought it was funny that when we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary we did not talk about the kids at all. We were thinking back to when we had just Hannah and Ava and it seemed like they were always the topic of conversation between the two of us but it is nice that now when we get away from the kids for a while we are truly ready to GET AWAY!! We had a nice dinner and then went and bowled 3 games. We had a great evening and were thankful to Aaron's mom and dad for watching the kids so we could enjoy our time out together.

Ice blocking on Simplot Hill

All the mom's are ready to race!!
Now this is an ice blocking hill!!

Go Ava
Daddy and Ava with Ben Tolman hot on their tails!
Go Hannah

On Monday night we got together with 4 other families for a fun night of ice blocking on Simplot Hill. We had a GREAT time. Ice blocking is a fun activity for all ages. The kids all the way up to adults loved it. Despite it being 102 degrees outside everyone still joined in the fun. I realized the other day that many people have never been, or don't even know what Ice Blocking is... Well I looked up a definition online for all of you out there who are in the dark. I recommend giving it a try, it is a great family activity!! Amber- Thank you so much for the pictures!!


ice blocking definition:

The sport of using large blocks of ice to reach relatively high speeds down a grassy hill. The only required materials are Blocks of Ice, Towels, and a Grassy Hill. Simply sit on the block of ice (with a towel over it) and slide down the hill allowing minimal friction by using smooth ice and short grass. Let Gravity do its thing. Often times it is called "Reverse Sledding" because of its popularity in areas that do not receive snow. Ice Blocking can be used as a great first date, or hours of endless fun with friends.

Roaring Springs.

Elle's first time on the waterslide
Elle lounging in her tube. I forgot her sun hat so I made do with a little towel.
Will before he started screaming.
Two lounging babies

The girls with their good friends Lizzy and Parker. They will be moving in a couple months so we are trying to cram as much fun in as possible before they go.

Well all summer we have been going to the waterpark on average 1-2 times per week. The babies have been troupers, they usually stay in their car seats the whole time. We park in the shade and I put wet towels in with them to keep them cool and typically they fall asleep. On Monday this week (the 18 of August) I decided to take them both in the water for the first time! It was about 100 degrees and I knew they could not stay in their car seats the whole time so I took a couple float tubes that a friend just gave me, dressed them in their swim diapers and suits and we were off. They were not overly impressed with the cold water but they tolerated it for a while. We also ventured over to the lazy river which they really did not like!! They cried the whole time and we went around twice... I held Will and stacked a second tube under Elle to keep her out of the water. Luckily I had lots of friends helping me keep and eye on the girls and grab a baby or two when we were done. I even took Elle down the waterslide for the first time. We had a great time, but it was exhausting!

7 Months Old!

Papa, William, and Elle

Elle loves her toast!

Time is flying by and the babies are growing so fast! We noticed Elle's first tooth on August 12, the day after their 7 month birthday. Will still has his cute little toothless grin. This last week or so has brought a lot more mobility, which is exciting and scary all at the same time! Elle is perfecting the art of sitting up and beginning to army crawl. On Sunday the 17 as we were getting ready for church Aaron and I watched in amazement as Elle wormed her way inch by inch forward to reach the package of wipes and now 3 days later she is getting better and better. She has stolen a couple toys from her brother and if something is in her sights that she wants she will get it. Will is still pretty content laying on his back only rolling when he feels like it, but he sure loves to bounce in his exersaucer. He gets pretty wild in it.

Last week we were at Grammy and Papa's house and Papa was feeding the babies lemons. They LOVED them. It was fun to watch the sour face reactions.

Huckleberry picking and Camping

The huckleberry journey begins.
The babies took the easy way.
Yes, we are about to bushwhack through this... Amazing that there was no whining.
The perfect huckleberry patch.

The weekend of August 8-10 we went camping in McCall at Ponderosa State Park. We camped with our friends Bryan and Nicole Weaver as well as their kids Brock-6, Haydin-4 and Sage-2. Our girls love playing with Brock and Haydin, they get along so well. The Weavers brought their boat up so we were able to do some wake boarding and all the kids skied. The water was a bit choppy and the weather less than perfect but we still had a great time. It is always fun to camp with friends. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures... Ugh!

On Sunday before we left we decided to find a spot to pick huckleberries. If you are a Carroll then picking huckleberries for huckleberry pancakes ranks high among a favorite past-times. If you saw were we went with 4 kids you would think we were CRAZY, but we took all 4 of our little munchkins up the side of the mountain and bushwhacked our way over a hill until we found the perfect huckleberry patch. Despite the fact that both the girls were in flip flops and shorts the mosquito's, and two babies in car seats we made out with quite a few huckleberries (the girls got practice with their grammy and great grandma shooshe last year so they were pros this year) and virtually no whining! Amazing!!

Y-Not-Tri

Well I attempted my second triathlon. This one was quite a bit shorter than the first one I did a couple years ago, but still kicked my rear! I did it with my friend Kara as well as her sister-in-law Rachelle and Rachelle's sister Lindsay. We had so much fun. The triathlon consisted of a 1/4 mile swim, a 6 mile bike ride, and a 2 mile run. Although the four of us did not stay together we all finished within 2 minutes of each other! It always feels good when you finish! I look forward to another this spring when I am a little closer to pre-pregnancy weight.

A Goodbye Party.

Nayibe (our resident nail tech) doing Megan's nails
Teresa and Camilla (we will miss you)

Laurel and Leslie

Nayibe and Nicole
Three babies.

Our friends Justin and Teresa Bozovich are headed to Australia for one year were Justin (a civil engineer) will be working on a project. So they packed up their house and set out on their journey. We were able to have a girls get-away weekend for her before Teresa left which was so much fun. There were about 9 of us and we stayed in a cabin in Idaho City over night. We did lots of girly things like face masks, pedicures, talking, giggling, and more. We had a nice breakfast Saturday morning and went for a little hike before heading back to reality. We will really miss the Bozovich's while they are gone. They have a little boy Jacob who is almost 3 and their little baby Camilla is 2 months old. It will be fun to see how much they have grown when they return at the end of next summer.

Jamming with Kara

Kara and I decided that despite having 3 babies between the two of us that require a fair ammount of attention we should spend a day making strawberry and raspberry jam. We had a great time and are enjoying eating our labor of love.
Hannah was a great berry smasher!!
The finished product.
Mylee's contribution. Thank goodness Kara had just handed her off to me as she stirred berries. Notice how soaked my shirt, pants, and leg are as well as the puddle on the floor. Luckily she missed the jam.

The future jammers. Mylee and Elle playing together on the floor.

Make shift bath tub.

Wild man Will. We put him in the little dish tub to give him a bath and he loved it! He was splashing like a Wild Man.

Elle was a bit more calm in the tub. We love these pictures of her because they showcase her CHUB!!


Look at those rolls!!!