July 2025 - State Baseball x3

Alexa, Tyler, and Tad's baseball/softball teams all qualified for State this year! Marmie came to one of Tad's game and repped her A's gear. Grandpa Swingle was able to cheer Tyler on during one of his games as well. Tad and Tyler had State the same week so we had to divide and conquer to run around between games at the same time.

I happened to be in Milwaukee for work the week after Jeremiah's birthday so we met up for dinner. We had a great time catching up and visited for a couple of hours we ate. The next day I gave Jeremiah a tour of Thrive's freeze dry plant in Milwaukee and then I got a tour of Milwaukee Tools where Jeremiah is interning for the summer. The icing on the cake was that Michelle, Eliza, and Danny came up on Friday and I got to see them before flying home.

Alexa was a sharpshooter at Girls Camp and had a great time up in the mountains.

Audrey and Jeremias, our renter's son, are great friends and love playing together. She even got him to play dress ups together.

Aden went through the temple and it was a really special experience to be gathered in the celestial room as a family.

We set up a new chicken coop and built a fence in the pasture to start the backyard makeover. The goal was to get fill, sprinklers, and seed in the backyard before we left for Indiana so it could sit untouched for 2 weeks without kids running around on the seed. We started with a 5' fence around the chicken coop but some of them kept getting out so we added another 2'. We still have one salt and pepper chicken who loves parkour so she gets out and then yells that she can't get back in, but all of the others stay in their 7' fence.

Here's how the yard looked when we left, when we got back 2 weeks later, and then 3 months later (in October after I mowed). I'm very happy that it came in so lush and green. Hurray!

Random happenings:

Buzz Lightyear tucked in for a nap

Dad gives the best cuddles when the boys are feeling sad

Videos:

Alexa softball hit: https://youtu.be/UIG9jUc2xLM

Tad baseball hit: https://youtu.be/rq1BA9XblsA

Audrey cheering for Tyler: https://youtube.com/shorts/bt4FWSdFRlo?feature=share

Alexa swinging at Girls Camp: https://youtube.com/shorts/I4AQVvjgNsY?feature=share

We burned all the scrap wood in our backyard and had a big bonfire: https://youtu.be/iZQq3s024-8

The kids loved having flat, groomed dirt before we planted grass seed because they could race each other every day: https://youtu.be/44RAyCM4DTk

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December 2024 - Christmas Fun

We were so happy to have Marmie and Grandpa fly out for the Swingle Christmas party. Emily is the best party planner of all time and had really fun games, prizes, and yummy treats despite her whole family being sick. Craig and Chelsea gave us a fun Christmas lantern aquarium pass for Christmas and it was amazing! They had entire habitats full of lantern animals from all over the world. Tyler and Alexa had their violin Christmas recital at a local care facility, which was such a great idea on their teacher's part. Sadly, I had to join via FaceTime because I was out of town. But they did great! We were excited to hear Ian Beagley play viola on Temple Square. He and Alexa also put together another amazing family recital. It gets better every year! Ian played viola; Alexa played violin and sang; Tyler played violin; and Tad, Liam, Lincoln, and Sawyer played the piano. One of my best friends from high school, Katie Cutr...

stairs and a silly little girl....

I forgot to mention a few August updates in my last post, and have some more Alexa stories (as always)...First, Kyle (with the help of Uncle Paul and Todd--thank you!!) finished the stairs and they look awesome!! He completely rebuilt them (ripped them down all the way to the drywall). Second, both Kyle and I were supposed to be in this work athletic competition in August, but I had to back out for obvious reasons. Kyle still did the tennis and basketball tournaments and made me oh so proud. He even got this funny little basketball trophy for taking third place. The other tournaments that week included horseshoes, ping pong, foosball, golf, Wii dance, volleyball, and a triathlon. We went to Ikea for breakfast last Saturday (so delicious and cheap!) and bought Alexa a stuffed puppy while we were there. She now takes it everywhere continuously saying "puppy, puppy, puppy!" Speaking of the puppy, she even dragged it through toilet water l...

Good news!

I'm excited to announce that we went to the doctor yesterday for another ultrasound and I now have all my privileges reinstated!! Tear is healed and baby looks good, so we are very grateful. As promised, I took Alexa to the park to celebrate. We went swinging and ran around looking for flowers (dandelions). She has to stop and touch every flower she finds :). She insisted that her puppy come along. Maybe because she's a lazy bum and wanted to use him as a pillow!! We didn't get any really good ultrasound pictures from the tech (I should have made special requests!), but we saw lots of baby! This was the ultrasound (20 weeks) where they check every little thing developing - every section of the brain, spine, chambers of the heart, kidneys, diaphragm, fingers, toes, blood flow, placenta, cord, measurements of head and waist (baby is 4 days bigger than the due date), etc. etc. It's so fascinating to see all of that already developed and so teeny tiny...

La felicidad que se encuentra: Kyle, Jenny, Alexa, Tyler, Tad, Liam, Nathan, and Audrey

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