On a beautiful Saturday morning in the beginning of September, Brad and I were spreading the top soil in our planters when our neighbor came over and asked us if we wanted to go with them to get some trees. We said, "Yes!" and ended up with seven gorgeous trees. Finding the time to plant them was the new trick.
My Grandma Bushman has a beautiful tree in her backyard that I really wanted. She didn't know what it was called. I figured that I would have to search everywhere and ask people at different nurseries if they knew what it was. When we got to Home Depot with our neighbors we were looking around and Brad said, "Shay, is this the tree that you like?" It was! He found it. It is called a Doppled Willow. We got two. One for the front and one for the back. We also got a Red Leaf Maple, a Globe Spruce, a Cedar, and two Columnar Blue Spruces.
When we finally found a minute to plant a tree we all worked together and it took us an hour! So many rocks! It was fun to have Aleah and Cade help us the whole time. Cade kept telling us that he was an excavator.
The next minute we found to plant trees was on a Saturday. We planted two trees, which equaled two hours, and then we thought that we could quickly do one more before lunch. Haha! We soon realized that one of the down spouts was buried right where we wanted to plant the tree. It turned into a huge project. So many rocks! We had to dig up the down spout and dig a new trench for it and rebury it. It was crazy. That one took us more than an hour.
Every time we dug a hole for a tree, we sifted out about a wheelbarrow full of rocks. We lined our back property line with all the rocks we dug up. Our hope is that it helps keep the weeds out of our yard. It was hard work, but we love having some trees. They are beautiful!
It started feeling like we were never going to spread all the top soil. It was a lot of dirt! After Cade and I dropped Aleah off at school we would work on it for a while. After a couple of weeks, we finally got it done!
Brad had to go Canada for work and it fell right on top of my birthday. It was hard to have him gone. I'm thankful that we family celebrated with me. Brad sent me beautiful flowers. My family came over for dinner and my sister made me a delicious german chocolate cake. It was a fun party.
Brad got up super early the day after my birthday so that he could fly all morning and make it home by lunch. He is the best husband! When he got home he took the kids and I got a massage. Then I met up with my Mom, Sister, and (at the time she was) my soon to be sister-in-law. We got pedicures and then went out to dinner. It was a nice day. I finished it off by going to literacy night at Aleah's school.
I absolutely love my birthday card! Aleah's teacher has been having her write words by just writing the sounds that she hears. It's fine if it is not right, she's just supposed to do her best. I love it! She wrote this card all on her own. It says, have a happy birthday mom to mom from Aleah and Cade. There is a picture of me, Cade, and Aleah with a birthday cake and candles.
For Friday craft day, we made masks. After Aleah and Emma made their masks they decided to make some silly glasses. They are cute cousins!
They loved their masks and wanted to wear them everywhere.
Cade's cutting skills are very impressive! He did such a great job cutting out and glueing his mask.
Then we heading up to Heber for Brad's sister's 40th birthday party. It was awesome! She had a hot air balloon there. We all got to take a ride! I have always wanted to take a ride in a hot air balloon.
We drove home late after the party. Aleah and Cade feel asleep quickly. I wish someone would invent something to hold their heads up when they fall asleep in their car seats! They had so much fun at the party. They love spending time with their cousins!
Our garden did really well this year! We really liked the vertical gardening. We grew a lot of tomatoes! We will not plant so many tomatoes next year. We got five pumpkins. Two were really late bloomers.
Aleah and Cade are such great helpers. They pick the tomatoes for us and they had fun picking the carrots.
That night they ate about half of the carrots that we picked. They love veggies from our garden!
It was a rainy September. It was pouring rain and Cade asked, "Mom, can I please ride my bike in the rain? I love the rain!" He was soaking wet when he came in and loved every second of it. (He is actually ridding Aleah's bike.)
They still love "frozen ice cream"! (That is what they call frozen yogurt)
I never know how the bike ride to and from dropping Aleah off at school is going to go. Most of the time we have a nice ride. Sometimes one of the kids gets hurt. Thankfully Brother Barrus was outside and he was able to bandage up Cade's hurt leg. We love Brother and Sister Barrus. They were Cade's nursery teachers and now they are Aleah's CTR teachers.
Aleah got to be queen of the day! She was looking forward to when it would be her turn. In the mornings she would say, "I hope I get to be queen of the day! I just don't know when it will be my turn." She got to do special things, the class asked her questions about herself, everyone drew a picture of her and they put them all together in a book for her. She loved it. It was fun to look through all the pictures with her!
Cade loves to leave a little early so that he can play at the park before we pick up Aleah.
One Sunday afternoon Aleah and Cade decided to make masks out of paper bags. There was an outline of the gorilla face for Cade to cut out and Aleah made up her own.
At the end of the month I got to throw a bridal shower for my soon to be sister-in-law Amy. It was such a fun shower! We played get to know you games, visited, and did the video question game. My brother Nate made a video answering a bunch of funny questions that Amy's Mom came up with. Then Amy had to try to match his answers. She did really well. It was fun to get to know her and to see how happy they are together! What a miracle and blessing that they found each other. It was meant to be!
The last few nights of September I got together with my Mom, sister Bre, and cousin Angie to make burlap roses for the wedding. They turned out so beautiful!
