Pumpkin Patch

We went on a beautiful nature hike up Logan Canyon to 2nd Dam on Friday and enjoyed plant identification, geo cashing, snacks and friends. We so enjoyed the colors of fall and the clean fresh air. We loved feeding a few ducks, with zoo approved pellet's, and explored a pond.

Saturday we went on another mini field trip as we explored a local pumpkin patch in search of the perfect pumpkins for the girls. Stetson stayed at home during this outing helping Dad in the basement paint doors. We didn't just buy pumpkins as you can see we found all sorts of delicious squash to cook up all winter long. I love the shelf life of this beautiful produce. 

We missed Co-op this week due to the three youngest having very runny noses. We are on the mend though and look forward to going this week. 

CTC Math is going well for all of the kids. Some math concepts are a little hard for Hailey to learn on her own so I usually sit near by during her time. Evelyn is doing great. She and I both really enjoy the feature that allows her to listen to the questions simply by pressing a button. I think that makes her feel more independent. Stetson at time gets frustrated with the program but it is more that he gets wrong answers and needs to keep learning the concepts. I hope that his patience will improve as the year goes on. 

 

Grammar is going really well. I love the cursive that Stetson is doing and how hard he works to make it look just like the examples in his book. Hailey has so much fun with her exercises and drawing and is eager to do her assignments. Evelyn is reading much better and we are excited for her improvement. She did a reading assessment and struggled through a lot of the words but I know her time and understanding will improve this year. 

 

 

Field trip to see the Salmon

We went to Porcupine Reservoir and saw the fish swim up stream and explored the area. 

We were joined by our friends the Hayes and enjoyed walking over logs for bridges, climbing up mountains,  making new friends, eating snacks, catching fish with our bare hands and also gutting a fish. We walked for a long while and saw where the stream meets the reservoir. We also saw duck, deer and raccoon tracks. 

 

Soccer is going well for our three oldest and the rest of us enjoy watching and sometimes practicing with our little athletes. This picture shows Evelyn at a practice. We had practices and games last week. Hailey was a champ playing her whole game in the rain on Saturday. We all went to cheer her on!

CTC math is going well. We are starting to get into a rue-teen. All of the kids are liking it so far. I am loving it! I set the percentage that they need to get right, on each assignment, to 90%. Some are not happy about how well they need to do on each assessment. 

We received our science and language arts curriculum this week. We started our first writing assignment today. Stetson is working on cursive and Hailey did preparation for writing, basically drawing, one of her favorite things. 

We also received our new computer set up today. Stetson is super excited about setting that up. I hope he will let his father help him. 

We are still working out the details of music lessons and hope to have teachers all lined up soon. 

 

Visit's from Grandparent's

 We are getting along in our home school adventure. 

We have purchased all of our "Good and Beautiful" curriculum and are all signed up for our CTC math. Each of the kids completed assignments and time in math today. 

We have been reading more stories and Evelyn and Hailey have been making sure to read to me each day. Stetson's love for reading has not decreased over the summer. He is working on "Uncle Toms Cabin" for a school assignment and "Wings of Fire Legends Dragonslayer" for entertainment. 

The soccer season has begun and Stetson has had two games and Hailey one, while we are still trying to work out details regarding Evelyn's team. Hopefully we will have that all together by the end of this week. Hailey was a rock star at her games and won 8 of the goals. Stetson also played hard and had fun but was unfortunately not on the winning team either games. 

We were so blessed to have both grandparents visit over the weekend. We always love seeing them!

We worked very hard in our yard due to our natural disaster wind storm on Monday night. We lost nearly a third of our tree limbs. We are so grateful for our trailer we hauled 3 loads to the green waist. Grandpa Weyerman helped some with this. I received blisters from all of my hard work. 

Grandma Weyerman helped the girls fold most of our 10 loads of laundry while others were outside working. She also helped to prep many, many, many peaches for freezing as all of our peaches fell from our tree during our terrific wind storm. 

The kids are really enjoying the chickens again as they have begun to lay eggs. Spencer made nesting boxes for the coop this weekend. Those chickens are so smart and have started to lay in there no problem. We knew we needed to make them as the chickens were starting to lay their eggs in the grass. 

We also have two kittens that the kids love to play with and care for, Tiger and Skittles. They are playful and fun. We acquired them because mom found some mice in our house. We hope that they will be good mice catchers! 

The Weyerman grand parents are preparing to move to the Cache Valley. We are so excited to have them close and be more involved in their lives. 

Bryce Canyon Trip

With hiking boots on and water bottles in hand our family explored Bryce Canyon National Park this Labor day weekend. We stayed in a forest service cabin and enjoyed plenty of outdoor fun and wildlife.

We started a cook fire for tin foil dinners, roasted hotdogs, went fishing-caught a fish, went on some great hikes, watched wildlife, climbed to over 9100 feet and loved the views, watched the stars-saw shooting stars, eat lots of yummy food and read great stories together. 

This was a great end of summer family trip to focus are family on unity and prepare us for the fall school time ahead.  Spencer loves geography and gave us all good instruction about North, South, East and West. The Big and Little Dipper and how to find the North Star. Family time is my favorite!

Siblings

I think that the blog people might be at the point that they will kick me off if I don't post something soon. 

So, here are a few pictures of Evelyn and Stetson together.

These two love each other and have loads of fun together. 

Evelyn is already 9 months and is growing like crazy. 

Time just keeps on flying by!

We have been busy and happy. 

Life never seems to get slower only faster and more complicated.

Thank goodness for pray, the scriptures and personal revelation. 

That is the only way I don't go crazy, at least not too crazy.

Evelyn Joyce Wade

Evelyn Joyce’s Birth Story

After working with a great midwife out in Tacoma for my entire pregnancy and two attempts at turning Evelyn I realized that my baby, little Evelyn, was truly breech and didn’t want to go head down. Thankfully the breech presentation that she was in is the most common and least complicated position, frank breech. Meaning that her bum was down in or close to the pelvis and her feet were up by her head, near my rib cage.

Having delivered Stetson at home naturally and knowing that I am perfectly capable of delivering a child as large as 9lbs 3oz I didn’t want to just be signed up for a cesarean. I wanted to do all that I could to get this child here naturally, without intervention as long as there were no complications.

I discovered, through a friend who delivered her first child breech, the only midwife in the state of Washington willing to deliver breech babies. The only problem was that she was in Africa until the day after my due date, August 28^th. I did a lot of calling around, met with another great midwife, talked with my current midwife, looked at my hospital alternatives, prayed and hoped that this little lady wouldn’t come before a midwife willing to deliver her was committed to assisting me.

Thankfully I talked with the midwife, who was in Africa, the Monday after my due date and she assured me then that she would attend my birth and assist me with delivering my breech baby. I met with her in person for the first time two days later on Wednesday August 31^st. I finally felt prepared to have this little one and comfortable with who was going to assist me. I had a midwife willing to deliver breech and I knew the risks and alternatives.

Saturday morning at 2am I woke to a very wet experience. My water had broken, which is the first thing to happen in 80% of breech deliveries. I checked the fluid, checked for a cord nothing abnormal on either account. Spencer set up our birthing tub, I cleaned up and we both tried to acquire more rest by returning to bed after that.

From approximately 3am until about 5am I breathed through contractions while remaining in bed. Spencer timed them at about 7 minutes apart and lasting 30 seconds in length. By 5am they started to intensify and I retired to our bathroom. Spencer aided me through contractions that came every 2 minutes and lasted approximately 90 seconds in length. I was feeling the urge to push at this point but knew I needed to resist due to the advice given me by my midwife to resist pushing as long as possible. Plus she wasn’t there yet and I was sure Spencer didn’t want to deliver this little baby on his own.

Somehow Spencer was able to sneak away from me and fill the pool in-between my quick contractions. He also was keeping our midwife notified of my progression and informed her that she better come quick.

I thankfully was able to get into the pool just after 5am and felt more comfortable but was not relieved of contractions in the least. Evelyn was determined to arrive. At this point I remember looking at the clock and thinking she would be here before 8am. My midwife and her two assistant midwifes arrived at about 6:15am and gave Spencer peace of mind, I’m sure.

My midwife checked for our baby’s heart beat to make sure that she was doing okay and then checked to see if I was completely dilated, I was. So that meant that I could stop resisting my urges to push and begin working with them, pushing felt much better.

As I was not able to observe the view of Evelyn coming out I will just tell you what my midwife told me. Evelyn’s bum came out just fine then as her legs came into view she rotated of her own accord so that both legs were released and then she rotated again to release her arms. After that her head came right out and I was able to hold her in the pool as we waited for her cord to stop pulsing. It seemed to take about 8 minutes for this to happen.

Holding Evelyn in my arms for the first time was amazing. She was wide eyed and very aware of everything around her. She had her mouth open and was working at breathing immediately but didn’t cry until after the cord was cut by Spencer.

I am so grateful to have had this great birth experience, for the midwifes that worked with me and for a very supportive loving husband who feels the same way I do about bringing our children into this world, at home.

Matching Pajama's and Man Time

I made these matching pajama pants for these guys for Christmas. Now that Stetson is a little more aware of cloths and other things he always wants to wear his pants that look like his daddy's when he see's that Spencer is wearing his. Its pretty cute!
He also loves doing anything with his Dad. In this picture they are fixing a tree house for our back porch. (Don't tell Stetson but after he lost interest in the bird house I stashed it in our DI pile.) But at least we have pictures of him fix'n it with his Daddy.

Spencer has to work long hours and if it were not for us living so close to the office there would be many days that Stetson would go the whole day without seeing Spencer. Being as he wakes up sometimes after Spencer has left for the office and goes to bed before Spencer comes home. Those days are hard on all of us.
We are constantly dreaming of a day when that will not occur and Spencer will be able to eat dinner before 7:30pm or 9 and will have more time to play with his little rascal.
That is why when he does get time it is so meaning full to me and them.
It is so meaning for to me because of the break it gives me and it always good for me to see them wrestle around, which is something that is not easy for me to do right now.

Last night we went to the park just before dusk and were playing on a toy set. Spencer was chasing Stetson all around and every time Stetson would run to me to save him. I would set him up back on the toy set and the chase would begin again. They were having so much fun.

I sure am grateful that Heavenly Father designed families the way that he did. A boy needs his Dad just as much as his Mom and we both fill completely different roles.
A Mom needs her man and a few minutes each day to talk with him and share the adventures of the day. Because when you are a Mom there are always adventures to tell!

Summer Vacation

This may be one of the longest post seeing as I have not posted anything for so long.
All of these pictures are backwards in sequence of events but I don't want to change them. So you get a reverse story of what happened on our two week summer vacation.

Story
About 15 minutes after taking this picture the top of our car top carrier that you see in the back ground flew off into the middle of I-15 in SLC.
As well as a lot of our camping supplies that were inside.
Amazing part!
We were able to grab everything off of the 5 lanes of free way and securely re-attach our cartop carrier without any more mishaps the remaining 800 miles that we drove back to Seattle. The car top carrier was not run over and all of our camping supplies were spared any real damage.
The Funny Part
Just 5 days previous to this our cars water gasket broke in this exact location of the freeway.
Six hundred dollars later and thanks to amazing family our trip still continued as planned.
So when we got in the car Spencer said "We are not home free until we have passed... exit"
Stetson was in his car seat watching Peter Pan and wasn't even aware of what had happened.

These are our great friends Ryan & Annette Udell and their daughter Hope. They met us in Huntsville after our Wade family reunion and showed us around town. They also let us walk through a house that Ryan is a foreman of and took us out to dinner.
Stetson and Hope had a great time together as did we catching up with good friends.
Spencer lived with the Udell's in Colorado before we were married during his summer jobs.
They have remained the best of friends to him and now me.
Both are truly amazing people.

Stetson enjoying a water gun at the expense of one of his cousins.
He loved camping in our tent and playing non-stop with his cousins.

One of the only pictures that Spencer and I got together during this trip.
The other one being the first one shown in this post. We are at Bear Lake with Spencers family enjoying a beautiful day at the beach. Evidently with all the extra water Bear Lake was higher than it had been in 20 years. We all got a little too much sun. Especially my man! Stetson made sand castles for over 4 hours straight and had a wonderful time playing with lots of cousins.

This is my oldest brother Scott and 5 of his 6 kids. I was privileged to see them while in Idaho visiting my parents. All of his children have grown up so much. I hadn't seen their family for over two years before this. It is amazing how fast time fly's away from you.

My sister Brittney due date was 8 weeks apart from mine so my sister DaVette and my sister-in-law Cynthia threw us a combined baby shower while I was at home. As you can probably guess from the blanket colors Brittney is having baby boy, actually she already did his name is Johnathan and he is beautiful. And I am going to have a baby girl, supposedly. I had a dream last night that I was going to have a boy. I will let you know for sure when I deliver.

Stetson and I spent 10 days without Spencer due to him needing to work. We missed him greatly but I think that Stetson also had the most fun he has had in a while. He got to play with great cousins everyday. We had family BBQ's went to parks, pools and he just loved playing none stop everyday until he was completely exhausted. Thankfully he is getting to an age that he is better on his own and I didn't have to hover as much.

This is me with my great sisters. Brittney is mother of 5, Davette mother of 3 and I am about to be mother of 2. I wish that I lived closer to these great women.

I am sure that there are a ton of details that I left out but I better run and wake up Stetson before he keeps us up way late tonight.
Hopefully I will post more before our new arrival appears.

New's Update

I added a little something to my blog today.
So i guess I better say something about being pregnant.

I Am!

Spencer, Stetson and I are so excited!
Every time I ask Stetson "Do you want a sister or a brother?" he says "a sister."
I wounder if he know something?
I would love to have a girl but just want to have this baby.
I will take either sex just the same... gratefully.

The baby picture is of Stetson and it is so i can remind myself of how adorable Stetson was... and still is.

On another note our lives just got even busier. Spencer was set apart as the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric for our ward, last Sunday. I am still not sure how that will all look but I do that it will mean less time with him and no help with Stetson during Sacrament meeting. :(
Those are just minor things though. I know that I can handle Stetson and manage on my own.

I am however very grateful for Spenser's worthiness to serve, his willingness to serve, him holding the priesthood, the good man that he is and how he is constantly strives to become better.

I love being married to you Spencer!

Stetson

I just love this little man! He posed like this all on his own. We are at the Seattle Stake Center waiting in the hall with some of the youth from our ward and he striked this pose when I pulled out the camera.
Stetson's vocabulary is growing so fast. He can repeat almost everything that I say to him. His Dad does a good job of putting words together for him. One of our new favorites it "I'm a cowboy, baby!" or he was also taught another one that all Mom's need to hear "I love you , Mommy"
I Love hearing those words and I especially love hearing his Dad teach them to him.
Stetson is learning what it is like to have two younger sisters. I have been tending 7 month and 20 month old cousins. The 20 month old girl's name is Lila and she is bigger than Stetson. They are learning a lot about sharing and being nice to each other. Hopefully some of it will stick sooner rather than later.
I am grateful for the challenge of being a caregiver to 3 but I enjoy being able to have those one on one days with Stetson best. It's just a taste of whats to come.
I love my little man!

Merry Christmas

Spencer Wade Family Christmas Letter

Our year began in California where we lived for the last three years while Spencer completed chiropractic college. We enjoyed many fun outings with our fellow students and ward family; all of which were great people whom we have come to love and cherish. We will never forget our friends and the memories we made.

In June Spencer graduated from school…YEAH!!! And we packed up our belongings and moved to Seattle Washington. Moving is a lot of work! We took a little break in-between the packing and unpacking and took a much needed trip to see our beloved families. We spent time in Idaho and Utah enjoying the outdoors and making memories with those we love so dear. We also enjoyed a beautiful drive to Logan, UT to visit a sister and dream of days to come when we are able to settle down, buy a house, and open our own chiropractic office.

Here in Washington we have begun a new life with Spencer working for Dr. Aaron Collins of Collins Chiropractic. He is a great teacher and is giving him the added knowledge that is needed to run a successful chiropractic office. Spencer works long hours but he is so glad to be finished with school and all of the stress that came with it. Spencer serves as the Youth Sunday School Teacher and is so impressed with the faithfulness of the youth in our ward. He and I both love to be among the youth.

I am also privileged to serve with the youth as I am in the Young Women’s Presidency. Our youth are small in number but they do have great strength in their testimonies. I am quickly learning the area and making friends as I do marketing for the office Spencer works in. I also participate in child play groups with other mom’s in the area and attend library story time with Stetson.

Stetson just celebrated his 2^nd birthday and is getting so smart. Just this week while eating lunch he pointed at himself and said “me boy.” He didn’t learn that from me. Stetson loves to be outside, whether rain, shine, cold or warm. Just the other day we headed to the park to play in the rain and after enjoying the slide at least a dozen times he was drenched. This is the way many of our days go together. I am so grateful for this little boy!

As this year draws to a close I am reminded of the beautiful blessings that life offers and am so thankful that Heavenly Father has blessed me and my family with another year together. This year had its own set of challenges, but the Lord has sustained us and strengthened us to come through them better than we were before. The Christmas season helps me to be more grateful for Jesus Christ’s birth, life, and mission. Understanding our Savior’s mission and teachings help make it possible for me to begin again, each and every day, striving to become more like him. May we all strive each and every day to become more like the child, who became our Savior, whose birth we celebrate this time of year is my wish.

Love, Spencer Natasha & Stetson Wade