What have we been up to . . . . end of August until now.

It's been a fun couple of months! We finished off August with Isaac reaching 22 lbs (and is about the size of Esther) and Scott and I celebrating our 10 year Anniversary!

We also celebrated Scott's birthday :-)

These girls sure do love their daddy!

First day of school!! Both Lily and Maggie are in the Spanish - Immersion program at school. We were a little hesitant for Maggie at first but now she is really picking up on the language and is doing great, she can already count to 100 in Spanish! Lily is also doing AMAZING and is getting ready to take the EXCEL CogNat test again in a couple months. Esther loves being read to and learning her letters and numbers here at home :-)

Isaac is eating real food! He is also working on getting mobile, just a little difficult with is cute roly-poly pudginess :-)

He also is making friends :-) Isaac especially likes to touch faces.

Esther is learning to play with Isaac too!

Peek a Boo!

Halloween 2016!!

Pumpkin

 Dinosaur

 Butterfly

 Ballerina

Pumpkin love! Maggie got to go on a school field trip to a pumpkin patch and bring home a pumpkin of her very own. We grew a lot of pumpkins in our garden too, so I have A LOT of pumpkin puree to make all kinds of yummy dishes.

Maggie really loves having a brother and likes to take time to have one on one time with him.

Did I mention that our children literally climb the walls?

Lily is actually able to touch her back on the ceiling how :-)

Can you find Maggie? She has a nightgown that really blends in with one of our walls in the living room, LOL.

Family tradition, pulling daddy's hair!

Esther's 3rd birthday!

She finally has her pink unicorn!! Esther loves to drag it around the house now :-)

PINK birthday party!

Strawberries and pink, all the girl loves!

Birthday decoration enjoyment!

We love our kiddos! It's been an adjustment getting  used to having four, but we are starting to get into the groove and learning our children's different personalities. We've had some rough times and a lot of lost sleep, but being parents is truly a learning process and there is always ups and downs when you are learning (practice makes patience). I forget that sometimes and get hard on myself and worry about whether or not I'm a good parent. But, my children's happy faces and joyful laughter remind me that as long as I have a joyful household, we must be doing something right :-)

Our Summer Adventures!

It's been an amazing SUMMER!!! We have had SO much going on!

First, our great friends the Lee family came to visit (they were visiting family near by us and we got to hang out for a little bit). We were together in SC and now here we are a few more years (and kids) later. Lily and Andy still play just like no time has past :-)

We celebrated Maggie's 5th birthday!!! She had a PJ party this year, so we had a movie and A LOT of sugar :-) Maggie is excited to start Kindergarten and will be joining her sister in the Spanish-Immersion program.

A couple days after Maggie's birthday party, we headed out for our family vacation to Yellowstone National Park and Utah . . .

Here we are in Yellowstone. It was A LOT of driving and walking around . . . not to mention almost getting hit by lightening in the middle of the night during a terrible thunder and lightening rain storm (in our tent in the middle of a small meadow)!! But, we had many blessings and tender mercies that night. Both Esther and Isaac slept through the whole thing and Scott offered a prayer by the power of the Priesthood and no more than 5-10 minutes later after ending the prayer the storm went away. Such an amazing miracle for us and our children to experience! 

Lily taking her Junior Ranger pledge right as Old Faithful blew!

We also got to meet some new friends from Canada :-)

We left Yellowstone in the pouring rain, but we got to see these beautiful Teton Mountains.

We made it to Dinosaur National Monument. And thank goodness we decided to stay in a Tee Pee because our tent had about a gallon of water in it because of the rainstorm in Yellowstone. 

Lily was in Dinosaur Heaven!!

We took this picture because the last time we went to Dinosaur was when Lily was 4 months old (see picture for comparison) :-)

4 month old Lily

8 year old Lily

We made it to Jason and Laura's home!! Yay for showers!! Anyway, while we were doing our laundry . . . I went to move our clothes from the washer to the dryer and low and behold there was this LIVE scorpion hanging out on the top of our wet laundry!! Must have snuck into our laundry bag when we were in the Tee Pee. Crazy!! We can't believe it lived going through the washing machine.

Anyway, we got to hang out in the SLC and Provo areas and visited many family members and friends.

Seeing these two playing together was the BEST!

Uncle Greg and Brett made us dinner too!! Yummy food from Mozambique. :-)

We also went to a Folk Dance Recreation Night at BYU, it was SO much fun and the girls LOVED dancing too (Esther mostly loved eating the brownies, LOL).

SLC

Love my brother!! He works for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the audio engineering department (so he gets to travel A LOT with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). He gave us a little tour of the soundboard underneath the tabernacle in Temple Square. The girls love pushing some of the buttons Uncle Jason deemed okay for them to touch :-)

(Not Pictured) We also got to visit with my brother Sean and his family for a little bit too. It was SO good to be with family!!

We went to Seven Peaks water park too!

BYU Creamery!

Bean Museum! I also got to go ice skating with my friend Melissa, it was SO nice to skate at "my" rink. The Peaks Ice Arena will always feel like home to me :-)

SCHACHTERLE FAMILY REUNION!!!! Whoop, whoop!!

Setting up!

Talent show!

Bubbles!

Swimming!

Pioneer Trek, younger kid style!

Fishing!! Maggie was the only one to catch a fish! They caught crayfish too.

Enchanted Forest!!!

Swimming in our pool!

Beacon Rock hike!

 Yay for Family Reunions!!

Once we got all unpacked and a little settled after all our trips, we headed to the fair:


Ventriloquist

Lily submitted a bag she sewed and won 2nd place and the Superintendent  Award in her division! Yay Lily!

Cow Girl Tricks!

Clowns!

Back at home we have had A LOT coming from our garden. This salad is completely from our garden!! Yay for home grown!

Our garden produce!!

Isaac is getting big! He is now 5 months old and probably weighs almost 20 lbs . . . he's getting better at sitting up too! He's very excited to get real food next month, he drools so much when we are all eating our meals :-)

Well, if you made it this far, congratulations!! Thank you for sharing our summer with us. Maggie and Lily start school next week and so life keeps plugging along and we are so, SO grateful for our blessings!!

Until we meet again!