September

September was such a busy month! Nathan's soccer season was in full swing. He's had practice on Wednesday nights from 5:30-6:30 and games on Saturday mornings at 9:00. His favorite position is defense. He loves it. Anyway, tomorrow morning is his last game. Aside from a few moments of "sillyness" he's done a great job. Dan has been an assistant coach, too, which has been fun.

General Conference weekend! I love these weekends!
Megan and her friend Taylor made a fort between the chair and stove and watched conference from there. I always love conference, but the music seemed especially uplifting and beautiful this time.

A neighbor's cat had a litter of kittens in the barn a few weeks ago. There are three tigers like this one and three black ones. They are so cute! I want a cat so badly lately, but I haven't talked Dan into it yet. Nathan loves to hold the kittens when he goes to the barn.

This is Bryce, a little guy that stayed with us from the 17th to the 26th. We got a call on a Saturday afternoon from DHS saying that they had a 3 year old boy. We were so excited and went to pick him up right away. Megan was with us, too, and she was super excited. I was joking around on the way down to Lewiston, saying, "Wouldn't that be cool if he was African American?" Dan and Megan know how much I've been hoping to get an AA child. We said, "Bryce isn't an AA name, though, so I'm sure he's white." I was picturing a child with blond hair. When they brought him out to meet us I couldn't believe it. I loved his hair! He was so cute, but had a lot of needs. He wasn't potty trained and was basically nonverbal. He also had some behaviors that were challenging. Things went kind of up and down throughout the first few days. It would seem to be going okay, then things would get hard, and back and forth. After a few days, I let the case worker know that I didn't think it would work. It was almost a week before they found a place for him, though. He actually went to his grandmother, so hopefully that will be good for him. I was not impressed at all that DHS took so long to find a place for him. I kept calling her every day because he didn't do well at day care (They were basically having to use one staff for him all day) and Dan was going out of state (for Amber's wedding, which is another post). Anyway, it was very stressful, but I made it through the weekend. It really wasn't his fault, so I didn't blame him. He actually had lots of really cute qualities and I could have bonded with him so quickly. He tugged at my heartstrings for sure. He was more like a toddler than an almost four year old. He was so cheerful when he woke up in the mornings. He loved to be played with. He had the cutest way of talking when he did try to talk. He tried to sing, which was really cute. I loved doing his hair! He loved to be sung to. My heart really went out to the little guy. He definitely needed some structure and discipline, though. If I was a stay at home mom I could have kept him, but that's not the case. I hope we were able to make his life better for the week he was with us.

The Oxford County Fair was in September. We went for one evening when we had Megan. The kids got bracelets so they could go on unlimited rides. We got candy apples, fried dough (the fair always has the BEST fried dough), and taco salad. After the kids were done with the rides, we looked at all the animals, then went home. It was a fun evening and definitely a tradition.