My new favorite workout

Does your gym offer turbo kickboxing? If so, have you tried it? And if so, do you love it as much as I do?? You know I must be obsessed with it if it's making it to the blog! I fell in love with it this summer when we were in Houston. I didn't have much going on this summer so I had plenty of time to spend at the gym. Which I loved because I was able to trim down a bit since I worked out so much and began obsessively counting calories. Thankfully Madeleine and Ian loved going there too. They made some good friends at the kids club and were thoroughly entertained while I worked out. Anyway, our gym in The Woodlands had a fabulous TKB instructor who made it so fun! Even though I will be the first to admit it took me a good 4 or 5 times to feel like I was actually doing the moves at the proper times. It is so fast-paced! You really need to give yourself at least a time or two to understand what they are telling you to do.Even though I don't agree with her 100%, this blogger gives a pretty funny account of her experience with TKB. I know where I'll be every Saturday morning at 8:30. And I know I'll be thinking about it in anticipation every Friday night as I fall asleep.

Field Trip/Sneak Peek at Ian's Costume

Grandpa Paul took Ian on a "field trip" to the firestation earlier this month. Ian was thrilled! He is going to be a firefighter for Halloween this year so we decided he might as well be in uniform for their visit.
Isn't this picture cool?
Of course the real firemen thought Ian was pretty neat.
They concluded their outing with ice cream and playing at McDonald's. Pretty much a perfect day!

Halloween Party

Can you believe Spencer and I were the first ones to attend a Halloween party this year and not the kids? I was kind of surprised too. Anyway, we got dressed up in our new used referee shirts and whistles to party it up with some of the other MBA students and their wives.

We always have fun with this crowd and this party was no exception. We started the night with a delicious spaghetti dinner eaten off of or out of random kitchen or hospital wares. My plate, for example, was a pink puke receptacle. I don't know what the proper name is, but that's what it's used for. One lucky person had a bedpan for their plate. Spencer's drinking cup was a urine sample collection cup. Sounds appetizing, huh? The really tricky thing was getting the food sucessfully into your mouth with the utensil at your seat. Spencer had an especially difficult time eating the salad with his potato masher. We also had a pumpkin carving contest. A 20-mintue time limit was imposed so it was a very high pressure competition! We managed to carve the skull despite our tools all breaking on us. I guess you can't expect too much from the $5 kit from Walgreens.

The highlight might have been when the wives finally won a round at Catch Phrase. We have played many times and the husbands always win, so we were very pleased with ourselves for a few minutes until the husbands came back and beat us again. Oh well! Thanks, Clarks, for putting on such a great party!!

Party, party, party!

Our little man turned 3 last week!! We had a lot of our family over one night for his "family party" and then had another party with his friends a couple days later. He loved all of it! Here are some pictures:Blowing out his candle at the family party.

These are our kids' cousins, Jalen and Lizzie. They are so lucky to get to live near each other and play together so often! Ian loves playing with Jalen especially. He has learned to appreciate things like Spiderman and Star Wars thanks to his cousin. He has never seen Star Wars, but he told me today that he wants his next birthday party to be a Star Wars party. I guess we'll have to wait and see if that still holds true next year.

Here are some of the kids at the friends party. A couple more came later and Ian loved having all his friends over.
This is the bike we gave him. He is a little nervous since it's a bit big for him, but he'll get the hang of it soon I'm sure. Since we are on a tight budget as poor college students, we got the bike at a second hand store (which is my new favorite thing, by the way!). I cleaned it up pretty good I thought, though I didn't clean the tires very well. Who knows how to do that? As soon as we wheeled it out, Madeleine says, "It's dirty!" Luckily Ian didn't seem to mind that.
Second Costco cake of the week. I was crazy to get that much cake. I don't even want to think about how much I ate. Except that they were both so delicious! I just knew I didn't want to make cakes and why would I pay more for a regular store bakery cake when I could get one from Costco? You see why I had to do it. Thankfully there are a lot of people around this house willing to eat lots of cake!

Ian, you are such a sweet boy and we love you so much! Happy birthday!!

A bunch of pictures

These two are so fun! Madeleine likes to put on her ballet clothes any old time, but this time Ian got to her slippers. It is just so funny to me to see a kid like Ian, total boy through and through, wearing the girliest pairs of his sister's shoes. Do you see the little stuffed toy Madeleine is holding? That's Chick Chick. She is obsessed with Chick Chick. It's totally dramatic and kind of annoying, but I am no dummy. I pick my battles, so Chick Chick accompanies Madeleine most places. Turns out we also have a stuffed horse named Horse Horse. Do you see a pattern?
Grandpa Paul took some pictures after church today. I don't know what face Ian was trying to imitate, but I like the way this one turned out.
Such a couple of cuties!
A family picture. It was super dark so I tried to lighten it and it doesn't look so hot. Oh well.

Reading

Madeleine is becoming quite the little reader. She has known all the letters and their sounds for a long time and she has been able to sound out small words, but it seems like recently the whole concept really clicked for her and she is reading like crazy! She still has days when she is too tired and impatient to try to learn new words, but I'm sure that is to be expected. Last weekend, Grandpa Paul taught her all the words in The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree and she read the book all in one day. This is the first book Spencer read when he was her age.
I absolutely LOVE what Paul and Sandi have done with this book! First of all, they used this to teach the kids how to read, but then had the kids write their name in it the day they first learned it. And then saved the book so the grandkids could read it too!! How amazing is that?
Madeleine was just thrilled to be able to write her name in the book along with her aunt and uncles. I think Ian is hoping the book survives a few more years so he can put his name in it too.
Good job on all the reading Madeleine! We are so proud!!

I have some catching up to do!

I am SO far behind in my blogging!! In my mind, I intended to do a post on each of these events, but now they have piled up to the point that I know I won't do individual posts so here they are lumped together. And they may or may not be in chronological order.
My Grandma Barb found her new love, Lincoln Raynes, and got married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple on August 8th. They are so cute and so in love! It's really sweet! I was lucky enough to make it up there for most of the festivities. It was so great to see so much family after being in Houston all summer so far from everyone. And pretty much all of my Lee cousins were there which was amazing! We all had so much fun together at family reunions as kids and it has been ages since we were all gathered in one place so that was extra special. Spencer and the kids stayed in Houston so they had to miss out. Hopefully the next time all the extended Lees get together we can really all be there, no one missing.
I can't lie. Spending time with Rozannah had to be my very favorite part. She and I were sidekicks for so many years, growing up and in college, and we haven't seen each other for over 2 years so it was a definite highlight to catch up with her again.

After I got back from Utah, it was time to pack up and head back to AZ. On our way home, we stopped in New Braunfels to play at Schlitterbahn one day. Schlitterbahn is an enormous water park and we knew we would be remiss if we didn't take the opportunity to visit there when we had the chance. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but I really should have gotten one of the waterproof disposable cameras and since I didn't we got only these two pictures which are not a very good representation of all the fun we had there. Oh well. They are something. Anyway, it was pretty awesome! If you ever have the chance to go there, you must take it! Just make sure your kids are well rested before you go so you don't have to sit around holding a sleeping child for an hour. You could do that anywhere.

When we got back to Mesa, Madeleine started kindergarten. Here she is on her first day. She goes full day and while it is pretty tiring for her, I think she is handling it really well. She mostly seems tired when she has ballet right after school. She is having a lot of fun in school. She doesn't remember much about each day to recap, but I am hopeful that there is some actual learning going on. And so far her favorite class is P.E.

Then, I think to prove just how much she is really growing up, Madeleine lost her first tooth! It was loose on a Sunday and we freed it from the last little thread it was hanging on to on Thursday. For some reason, that makes her seem even older than starting kindergarten. She was SUPER excited about it! She is thrilled to be able to put a straw into her mouth where her tooth used to be. It really is crazy how fast these babies grow up!