Mustang Mile

The girls always get excited about the Mustang Mile, but this year was even better because McKenzie was old enough to run.  She asked me to run with her which meant that Cambrie had to do it alone this year.  I don't think I could have run with all those big kids anyway!  The girls all lined up with their grades and did a fun dance warm-up with the school.  I was standing next to a sleepy-head Kelton and couldn't get a good picture of the girls dancing, but they were pretty happy about it.  

McKenzie with Aubri at the starting line.

Cambrie lined up and ready to go.

The fifth graders went first since they were competing for cross country slots, and then the kindergartners went next.  I jumped in with McKenzie and she did great for about 100 yards then said she was tired.  She doesn't do much continuous running so I wasn't surprised.  It was nice for McKenzie that I was there because she simply held on to the stroller as I gently pulled her along.  About half-way we met up with Aubri and ran with her.  

At the finish line we camped out and waited for Cambrie.  She looked like we felt great.  It was nice that it wasn't too hot this year.  

After the race all of the friends started to gather.  I love, love, love that these girls have so many friends!  

That was also a life saver for me this year as I needed their moms' help keeping track of them.  Kelton wanted to stay on the big inflatable slide and we rode it 13 times in a row.  The girls on the other hand wanted to go play the carnival games and earn some tickets.  McKenzie left with Jen who had Aubri, Brody, and Brielle in tow.  She took them to the carnival games, to get cotton candy, fed them dinner, and even stood in line to redeem their tickets.  

Cambrie wandered off with Ella.  At one point she was also with Olivia M., and Brynlee but they were separated and took care of themselves.  Luckily Cambrie came and checked in with me often enough that I at least knew where she was.  I'm grateful we live in a great neighborhood and go to a great school so I can let me kids do that.  The only way I was able to get Kelton away from the slide was to bribe him with chips and juice.  He would have stayed all night long had I let him.  This year was also excellent for the girls because as they redeemed their tickets, they were each able to get exactly what they wanted.  In years past they always seem to run out of the best prizes at the beginning of the night.  I left with three happy, and exhausted kiddos.

Um, potty training?

With how often Kelton is running around the house naked we realized that short of duct taping or stapling on his diaper on him we couldn't keep him covered.  I didn't want messes around the house and we were left with the only solution of potty training the kid.  At first it just began as "house training."  I would take him to the bathroom, he would take care of business, then he'd be off to play again.  But  he was doing so well that I wondered if we could make this big boy underwear a full time thing.  We are on day 4 now, and it's still looking good.  True, he had a few accidents that first day in his Baymax underwear, but I expected that.  He has become better about initiating his bathroom breaks, and almost always goes when he's there.  I even dared to take him his gymnastics class today in his underwear.  I was a little worried, but he did it.  I'm still not convinced that it's going to stick around.  But maybe I'll get lucky.  I didn't have any expectations of fully potty training Kelton until March, so this is very early.  If it works out, awesome!  If not...then at least I had a week-long break from diapers.  After we came home from the store McKenzie laid out all of Kelton's new underwear on the stairs to see how cool they were.  

And here is the big boy Kelton, fully enjoying his gummie snack rewards.

Kid highlights

Quick moments from my kids that have made me smile, and I was able to catch on camera.  Cambrie prepared a family home evening lesson about the armor of God.  She made all of Caroline's armor out of paper.  I love her creativity!  

McKenzie is a budding writer in kindergarten.  The pieces she's bringing home are fabulous, but this definitely caught my attention.  She told me that she likes writing her name "fancy."  Why am I not surprised?  

Kelton has become so interactive with his toys.  This morning he had me make a pancake specifically for his airplane.  He even fed the airplane little bites during the meal.  Cute kids :)

The Cabin and USAT Tri

Bruce was able to recruit the entire crew to participate in the Utah State Triathlon Championships this year.  It looked like the perfect race for everyone: there was a half Ironman distance for Brody and Jeremy, a sprint for Bruce and Alysha, and a relay for Leesa, Dantley and I.  To sweeten the deal it was to be held up in Eden which is just minutes away from the Stratford cabin.  Everything was going smoothly until we received an email a week before the race from the race directors saying that they had to change the venue of the race to Morgan, and they got rid of the endurance distance.  Suddenly we were all very stuck about what to do.  The boys wouldn't get to do what they had trained for, and the venue was now a half hour, to an hour away from the cabin.  However, if we stayed in Morgan the three of us with cat allergies would be miserable the whole weekend.  We decided to stick to our original plan and it worked out so well.  

My family arrived at the cabin the day before the rest of the crew so we were able to just hang out and have a good time.  Kelton was thrilled he had the freedom to roam the outdoors and I didn't even see the girls all morning because they were busy building a fort in the backyard.  Oh it made me happy to be there!  

When the rest of the Rogers/King family arrived it got even better.  

The kiddos all received Halloween jammies and they loved doing their skeleton dances in the dark.  

We roasted ooey, gooey marshmallows at the fire pit, 

and ate all of our meals outside.  

Meal prep.

It turned into a late night before the race, but that's what happens when you get family together.  The next morning we woke up bright and early to drive down to East Canyon State Park.  Everyone had their pre-race jitters, especially the first timers.  My jitters were a little bit different however, I was just worried I wouldn't fit into my wetsuit!  Luckily it zipped up without a problem and I didn't freeze during the swim.   True, I kept stressing about the waves so it wasn't a perfect swim, but before I knew it my leg was over and it was everyone else's turn to race. 

It was strange watching them all take off.  They obviously rode their bikes down to the next transition area, but Dantley was my biker so I had to drive down a separate canyon to meet them in Morgan.  Everyone cruised down that hill!  I didn't even see Dantley, Bruce, or Alysha come into transition, and I didn't have to wait long for Brody and Jeremy to come zipping by.  

Grandma Pearce, Lynette and Jan were at the park cheering us all on.  It was a great central location for everyone.  

Dantley had enough energy to wrestle with the kids after his bike.  

Waiting for our runners.  We always had someone to cheer for.

We decided to stick around for the awards ceremony and it's a good thing we did.  Bruce took second in his age group.  Brody took second in his.  Jeremy took first.  Alysha took second.  Whitney King took first.  And our relay took first in the relay division.  We started taking pictures of everyone individually but as soon as we realized that everyone of our group received an award it was obvious we needed a rockin' group shot.

Before our extra swag.  

With our extra plaques.

While we waited for the awards they had some raffle prizes to give away too.  Bruce, Dantley and I all ended up with vouchers for free Rudy sunglass.  And Alysha won the race to the announcer to claim a pair of Newton running shoes and some new shorts.  I have to say, the Rogers clan definitely represented at that award ceremony.  

No wonder Brody has an advantage on the swim, look at the flippers compared to Jeremy!

Back at the cabin it was chill time again for at least a little bit.  The Rogers/King group had to head back to South Jordan that night because they all had flights to catch the next morning, but we got to stick around at the cabin one more night.  We played horseshoes and roasted more marshmallows.  

Jeremy teaching the girls how to build a tee-pee fire.

Kelton loving the marshmallows!

My kids were appropriately filthy after all the fun.  The girls didn't mind hoping in the shower, but Kelton wanted nothing to do with it so we bathed him in the sink.  At first he was pretty confused about why I was putting him in the kitchen sink, but he warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.  

I was really grateful we were able to spend that weekend at the cabin, it really does a body good.

Braces!

Cambrie is definitely surrounded by a bunch of dentist families.  Nearly all of her friends have braces.  I didn't even start thinking about braces until I was 16!  I was pretty sure that she would want braces someday to straighten things out, but I thought I still had five years or so before I had to worry about that.  Well, she started asking for braces.  What kid asks for pain and inconvenience?  Of course she has no idea the annoyance braces can be while you have them, just the beauty (hopefully) of what they leave behind.  We took her in for a consult and she left with braces!  She'll have this first set on for roughly nine months, then she'll need another set in her teenage years to finish things off.  She loves them...most of the time.  And those times she doesn't love them, she doesn't complain, she just asks for more wax.  I guess there could definitely be worse things.  But she does look cute with them on!

Labor of Love

Risas has a company-wide free dentistry day on labor day every year.  Comfort did something similar, but theirs was on Christmas Eve.  We've always loved the idea of being able to donate dentistry, but Christmas Eve was always so inconvenient when traveling to Utah.  Labor Day makes so much more sense for us.  The kids and I went down to visit and to take advantage of some of the free activities they had set up.  There was a DJ outside the office playing a bunch of Spanish music, which makes sense since Risas caters to the Hispanic population.  I have no idea what any of the words were, but the music was great to listen to.  The girls had their faces painted and were really happy with how they turned out. 

Kelton thought it was going to hurt, so he decided to stay on the bouncy house instead.  The kids jumped for an hour on that bounce house.  There were only a couple other kids there so they could enjoy it as long as they wanted.  

I just want to say how grateful I am for a company that has made Jeremy so happy.  He is happy to be at work.  He is excited to make new goals for the office.  He wants to succeed again.  Thank you, thank you Risas!