Right after we bought our house, we noticed that the sprinkler opening in the front yard was constantly filling with water. And soon after that, we started noticing that the ground around it was always super soaked and squishy.

So, one afternoon, Jon and Nathan decided to dig it up and see what was going on. Which, of course, meant that it immediately started raining.

It was insane. The water was flooding everywhere, Pops came to help, there was mud and just general filth all over everything. They finally found the source of the leak and got the water to stop, but ugh. What a mess!!

Meanwhile, inside, I was hanging out with these two:

IMG 2944 from Erynn Mangum on Vimeo.

Ha!! My FAVORITE is where she catches sight of her hand and frowns like, wait! What’s this?? Best ever.

So thankful for hard working boys and these silly kids. 😉

It has been so beautiful outside lately! So we packed up one Friday, took Uncle Bryant, Aunt Nicole, Gabriel and Pops with us and headed to the State Fair.

We picked this day because it was Firefighter Day! Nathan LOVES firefighters – always has. He has told us since he was super tiny that he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. 🙂

We probably spent a good hour, possibly two, looking at all the trucks and trying on all the equipment and asking every firefighter who would listen every question we’d ever had. 😉 Parker was pretty much done with firefighters for the rest of his life by this point. So was Gabriel. Bless their hearts.

And still we talked and tried them all out. 😉 At one point, I looked down to do something with Parker, looked up, couldn’t find Nathan and found him back talking to the firefighters again. Ha!

Nathan also got picked to hold the flag in the pig race, so basically, this was the BEST DAY EVER.

“Hey wook, Mom! Wook at dat horse over dere!” Parker did NOT like the characters walking around at first but warmed up pretty quickly. So cute. Meanwhile, Eisley was very content to be in the Ergo carrier the whole day. She would be very content to live in the Ergo carrier all day every day. She LOVES to be worn!

Such a lovely day at the fair!!

It’s September! How is this possible?

Eisley girl is starting to become a finger food fanatic! She loves getting to feed herself. It’s so cute (and super messy) to watch.

College football season is here! Parker dressed the part for opening day. 😉

Little Miss is SO close to crawling – SO CLOSE. She can get her little legs up under her and she tries to go! Neither of the boys did the army, worm-like crawl but Eisley totally is doing that right now. It’s hilarious.

A balloon landed down the street from us! Eisley had had a really rough night the night before, so I was trying to sleep in on Saturday morning and the kids all ran in yelling about the balloon. So I got up, pulled on a sweatshirt and was brushing my teeth to go and Nathan runs back in yelling, “What are you doing? We don’t have time for this!” We always have time to brush teeth, kid. Always.

She is coming for me – ha! She’s getting better and better at getting her tummy off the floor!

She got me. 😉

Love this of our little planker on Dad. She gets so proud of herself and just yells and babbles to let us know how excited we should be for her. 😉

It must be fall!! #PSL

Nathan was supposed to illustrate a little book about fall on this day and I read him the assignment, went upstairs and put Eisley down for a nap and when I came back down, he was wearing this little label on his shirt – “ILLUSTRATOR”. Ha! That’s my boy – excited about everything!

I know every year is like this, but this year seriously just seems to be flying past. I cannot, cannot believe that we are starting up all the fall activities already!

First up – and the thing that someone was SO EXCITED for – Awana started!! Parker could not wait and was ready to go about an hour before we needed to leave. Which, if you know my youngest son, this NEVER happens.

 Two excited boys who are also a little overwhelmed by the chaos in the hallways. 😉

I could just eat her up. We were like, “what do we do with all these hands??!” when we dropped the boys off. Ha!

I mean, it was a good try to get her own spit up, but she missed it by that much. 😉 She is trying so hard to sit up completely unassisted!

Building. Always building when Nathan is at school. 😉

He came running in to me like this and yelled, “HEY MOM, WOOK! I’M AN ASTRONAUT.” I think I died. 😉

Seriously loving this time with my middle. I had so much one-on-one time with Nathan and I feel like I’ve had nothing with Parker. By the time he was old enough to actually have time like this, we had Eisley. So, we are soaking up school days when Eisley is asleep. 🙂

He’s home!! I miss my biggest when he’s not around!! The house is most definitely quieter. 😉

This one got to try Puffs for the first time and she thought she was about the biggest thing in the whole room. Ha! Little sister cannot wait to be big like her brothers. 😉

I just cannot believe it, but my sweet baby is eight months old.

EIGHT.

Eisley is so overwhelmingly happy, sweet, loud, mad, silly and adorable all at once. 😉 Ha! She is finally loving her food and doing great with solids – and because of that, I think she’s had a pretty good growth spurt (finally!).

She is constantly, constantly babbling and she is army crawling all over the house. And she loves to laugh – at me, at Jon and especially at her brothers. She loves to be right smack in the middle of things and when she isn’t, she gets MAD. Not just mad, but MAD. 😉

She is grabbing for everything lately and it has made things very exciting between the boys’ little toys everywhere and the remodeling projects. 😉 She still LOVES her bows, loves to be dressed up, loves all things girly. Her favorite thing in the world is when I put chapstick on myself and then put a tiny bit on her lips. She thinks she is extra big then.

Oh how we love our precious girl!! She is just sunshine and we cannot imagine our lives without her. So thankful for these sweet blessings!

I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way, but since Jon is a teacher, it’s always felt like the year starts over in August instead of January. And it was just even more pronounced this year with Nathan starting school!

Little man quickly realized that when Nathan is at school and Eisley is napping, he has Mom’s complete attention and this was actually, not so bad. 😉 Ha!

School days at home – we are starting to get into the swing of things. He’s been doing so well on the home days!

This one started rolling and ends up everywhere – EVERYWHERE. Sometimes she ends up places that seem completely impossible for her to get to.

I mean. I just laugh all day long. She’s in such a fun, exhausting stage. 😉

This was so funny to us – we have been talking about Awana for years because Nathan has gone forever. Parker’s been talking about getting to do Puggles for MONTHS. Someone would ask Nathan if he’s in school and Parker would immediately start yelling, “I AM GOING TO GO TO PUGGLES”. Ha! On this day, it was finally, finally Parker’s turn for something. Puggles orientation! He got to pick up his shirt and meet his teacher and he held his shirt just like this the entire rest of the night. 😉

I mean, I could just die over the cuteness here. 😉 As soon as we got home, he immediately ran up to my closet to check out his reflection. (Notice our half-painted trim – much work to do still!)

He’s so happy. 😉

Our nightly snuggle time after she eats. I could just soak this up forever. I think with Eisley, I have a completely different perspective than I did with the boys – I know how fast it goes. I’m holding onto her babyhood with white-knuckled fingers right now.

This is why the Costco carts are so big. Though, I’m not sure where I’m supposed to put our groceries… 😉

One year ago, we found out this little was a girl and it completely changed our lives forever. So thankful and so blessed by this beauty. God has given us far more than we could ever imagine or deserve!!

We got up early on Saturday to do some work around the house and Nathan woke up and asked me for a cup of coffee. He looks so ridiculously old to me here.

The boys’ new favorite place – the dump. They can sweep out that truck bed in record time. 😉

Next, we unloaded the last of our storage unit! Yay! We have almost all of our belongings with us again!

Nothing like snuggling up on the super uncomfortable guest room mattress to read a book after a hard days’ work.

On Sunday night, I pulled Nathan aside, just me and him. We talked about kindergarten starting in the morning and how he’s so excited and so nervous and so worried he will miss us. And so, I drew little permanent marker hearts on our hands, so whenever he is missing me, he can look at his hand and know I’m looking at the heart on my hand and missing him and praying for him and that I’ll be here to hear all his stories when he gets home. I think the part that gets me the most, the part that made me start crying during bedtime prayers, is that it was just last week I was swaddling him and suddenly, he’s this adorable, smart, goofy kid who is big enough for this. Sweet dreams, little man. Time to figure out how to stop growing up so fast.

There’s school in the morning.

I have no idea how we got here. Friday, we woke up bright and early and Nathan declared he was “too nervous to eat”, so he had one piece of buttered toast because it was kindergarten orientation day.

HOW.

I seriously have no idea how we are doing this when he was only born eight months ago.

Somehow we corralled the nerves enough to get dressed and we all headed out the door, new school supplies for the classroom in tow.

We got to see his classroom and meet his super sweet teacher, Mrs. K. I know he is going to LOVE every second here!

He looks SO OLD. It kills me. He was SO excited. He could barely sit still! We dropped Nathan off for his orientation and Parker, Eisley and I went to a parent meeting for a little while. You can imagine how well it went with the both of them there. 😉

Oh this one. Someone is going to have a rough, rough time adjusting to Nathan not being constantly around to play. 🙁

Otherwise, though, orientation went fantastic. Nathan is SO excited!! Monday, school starts. I hope the weekend lasts forever.