Before I start posting about September stuff, here is a fun little quote from Henry – it’s from way back in May when he was still 3, and I had written it down on a little scrap of paper so I wouldn’t forget it, and then I just found it a few days ago. He was trying to talk like some sort of animal expert guy, and he was just bursting with all these funny little tidbits of wisdom that don’t make any sense:
“Mom, I was just learning about the African Savannah. And I learned that the croc’s jaws can swallow up to 20 fishes at a time. The African Savannah has mostly like lizards and snakes. The most dangerous place of all snakes is the python. The python is that most dangerous place of all places. The place of the African Savannah has like lots of deserts. And it has the most of lots of places. Like the jungle. The jungle has the most 20 feet tall grass. And a hummingbird can even go on the grass. The Savannah has the most iguana lizards and a iguana lizard can eat 20 little tiny lizards at a time. And the African Savannah has like the most dangerous places of all places.
Can you believe I just learned all this stuff from a giant animal book?”
Haha. I know I’m his mom, but I think Henry is “like, the most awesomest of little boys with the most of lots of places, even with 20 feet tall grass that are the most dangerous.”
And while I am talking about Henry, here is one of the funny things he does: when he feels like I am talking too much and he wants to interrupt me, he holds up his hand like a traffic cop, and says, “mom, mom, mom, pause! Pause!” Like I am a movie, and he has the remote control.
It is weird raising kids who are surrounded by so much technology. The other day Lizza was talking a million miles per minute like she always does, and she must have said something she didn’t agree with, because she stopped and paused a minute, then said “wait, delete that”, and then she just carried on as if nothing had happened.
I’m going to start using that one when I mess up in conversations and I’ll see if it works.
And now for September pictures:
September 1st started out with football, and that’s pretty much what we did all month. Here are Tristan and Oliver at their first game:
Daniel coaching:
Cindy in the stroller with her books. She was content to stay in there for about the first 5 minutes of the game. 
I really love having Tristan and Oliver play on the same team. It’s pretty fun to watch. Tristan is number 15, and Ollie is number 1.
It was super hot at the first game, so the girls and Henry spent most of their time in a shady area under the bleachers. I finally gave up on trying to keep Cindy in the stroller by me, and let her go hang out with them. 
Daniel and Tristan talking after the game. I can tell by Tristan’s hands that he’s trying to explain something here:
Still explaining: 
Then on Labor Day we went to Schlitterbahn, but I already posted about that.
Then it was back to school for the oldest four, and time for Henry and Cindy to settle into a “we’re the only kids at home” routine.
Cynthia realized that with no more Lizza at home to build forts for her, she was going to have to figure out how to build forts all by herself. For about a week we went through a stage where I could never find the kitchen chairs because she would scoot them all around the house in random fort-building attempts.
Here is a video clip of a typical morning for these two. I love how Cindy still claims Lizza built the fort at first. And of course Henry is at the table doing puzzles in his underwear.
Hiding in one of her “forts”: 
She is so much fun these days. I love listening to her talk. She copies the older kids so much. One of her favorite things to say now is “promise on my life.” Whenever she wants to do something that I won’t let her do, she promises on her life that she gets to do that thing – “I promise on life I bring toy to park, I not take nap, I get a cookie, etc. She is also super curious about what everyone’s saying all the time. She is constantly asking, “What did you say, mama?” What’s that called? Why you say that?” Once in awhile she’ll be in the middle of telling me something and she’ll get confused with her words, and she’ll stop and look at me and say, “What I saying, mama?” It always makes me laugh.
She gets really excited about lots of things, and loves to announce, “I love this! It’s fun to do this! It’s fun to go here.” Here she is doing some of the things she thinks are fun:
Going through a stack of books on the couch:
Trying to figure out how to do Henry’s math puzzles. She is pretty independent, and when she wants to do something by herself, she’ll say “go away, Mama.” 
Letter puzzle and letter magnets and animal magnets:
Reading in a “fort” under the table:
Henry still spends a lot of time on puzzles while the older kids are at school, but he has also entered into a major lego stage. He has a few little sets that he has gotten over the years, and they are all mixed together in a box, along with any little random lego pieces that I find downstairs and stick in there. Every morning he gets out the box and spends hours putting stuff together and then taking it apart again. He is so funny with the stages he goes through – when he focuses on something, he really focuses. 
Another football game. Here is Tristan tackling someone:
And Rachel with her best friend. She moved to a different neighborhood and different school, but her brother plays on the boys’ team, so Rachel still gets to see her at football games. 
Lizza: 
More tackling (Tristan’s the tackler on the left of the pile):
I love this picture, because Oliver just tackled a guy and caused a fumble, and Tristan is standing right over him, saying I don’t know what. I hope something nice, like “did you get him?” But maybe he’s talking trash to the player who just fumbled. I wouldn’t think that of my sweet little Tristan, except for that a few games ago he actually got a penalty called on him because he sacked the quarterback and then stood over him and said “That’s how you do it!” Right in front of a ref – whoops. 
Cynthia escaping down under the bleachers:
Henry was sick for a few days and spent a lot of time laying on the couch with a bucket. Cindy decided she needed a bucket on the couch, too.
Oliver with a giant cicada. The cicadas are so loud around here.
Balancing games with Dad: 
More football. Cindy loves her BYU shirt. She requests to wear it whenever it’s clean, even though she has no idea what BYU is. She just knows it’s exciting, and she likes to say, “rah, rah, rah, gooooo Cougars!” whenever she wears it. 
The girls partying under the bleachers during the game:
Henry working on his tackling skills: 
Daniel and the kids studying the route for next years’ road trip on the kitchen table map. I love this kind of scene. And Lizza’s faces:
Oliver showing the girls a tiny baby softshell turtle he found on the way home from school:
We have had this trusty state puzzle since Tristan was 2 years old. Cynthia is probably our youngest to figure out how to do it. I had noticed her playing with it for a few days, but I didn’t think she was old enough to learn how to put the states in their spots, so I didn’t even try to teach her. Then I started paying closer attention, and I realized she was actually following the little white guidelines, and putting some of the states where they go. I sat down with her work with her on it and see how much she could do, and she ended up doing the whole thing all by herself. 
But she’s still young enough to have a tantrum about it when things don’t go quite right. Also, she claims Daniel is the one who taught her how to do it, which is totally false:
Another day, more puzzles. This is a very typical scene at our house – every morning now, instead of just asking for applesauce, she asks for applesauce, her state puzzle, and her letter-state puzzle (that’s what she calls the letter puzzle).
Daniel and I have always said that since Cynthia was born she’s been trying to catch up to the older kids – she has no idea she’s supposed to be my little tiny baby. We’ve been trying to teach her to say that she’s one year old, and she just won’t accept it.
More football:
Oliver and Tristan after a tackle:
Oliver chatting with his friend on the sidelines:
Tristan tackling. He’s the one on the ground under the guy with the ball:
Cindy on her bookmobile: 
Having a tantrum because I told her she could only choose one book for me to read before nap. She is clearly in love with all of them:
At the splash park. They keep the water on through the end of September, and I had told the kids we could go before it closed (we don’t go here that often because I’d always rather go to the pool). Cynthia loves the swings. She always says “go away, Mom”, because she likes to lean way back and be wild and dangerous, and she thinks I won’t let her. 
Henry is still working on his relationship with swings. He mostly still hates them, but he is brave about trying them once in awhile. While he’s swinging gently he’ll say stuff like, “whoo, this is kind of fun! Not bad at all!”, and then “I actually do like swinging, Mom, I just want to get off, okay?”
I made a big discovery a few months ago about Henry and swinging. I think I’ve posted on here before about how Henry always said that he didn’t like the swings because they made him feel too stretched out. I always thought it was funny, but I didn’t really know what he meant. He would say it all the time, though. Then one Sunday as we were walking into church (and not swinging), I was holding Henry because he was super tired and had fallen asleep in the car. I asked him if he was excited to go to his class, and he said, “I don’t know, Mom. I think I’m feeling a little stretched out.” It was then that it hit me – he meant stressed out! I asked him, and he said yes. So whenever he said that the swings were stretching him out, he really was trying to tell me that they were stressing him out. It made me feel bad to have added all that stress to his life. 
My delicious little squishy Cindy Lou:
One last run through the splash park:
And a big thumbs up to Henry, who stayed dry five nights in a row and got to pick out a little Lego set from Target. He had seen it in the checkout area the week before, and begged and begged for it. I really wanted to get it for him, because it was only $4, and I knew how great it would be for him to have an actual real set with no missing pieces and instructions so he could put it together. But I told him that we don’t usually buy toys for no reason, just because we want them. On the way home I came up with the idea that maybe if he could stay dry at night (he’s been sleeping in diapers still at night because he’s pretty hit and miss) then we’d mark it on the calendar, and when he got five in a row we would go back and get it. We talked about how it might take a really long time, but that was okay, because it would help him learn about patience. Ha! He was so motivated – the next week we were marching back into Target to buy those Legos. 
The end.
