The Boulton Blog: Getting Back into the Swing of Things

I recently realized it's been over a year since my last update to the family, so I'm finally sitting down to let you know what's going on in our corner of the world again.

This year has been a busy one! Just this summer 2 of my sisters got married, and we traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois for a reunion with Byron's side of the family. We were thrilled to have David and Keeley stay with us for Gabrielle's wedding. I finally got to meet my niece Isabella, since we hadn't yet had the opportunity, and after our Boulton reunion Caleb was begging for us all to move into the big house we had rented so we could live with his cousins forever. I'm so grateful for all of the time we got to spend with family and am looking forward to what comes next.

Caleb started 1st grade this year! Our kindergarten is only half day, so the first three weeks having to go to school all day were an adjustment for him. He would come off the bus looking exhausted and beg to spend more time with the family. He loves everything about school though. I went to his first parent/teacher conference of the year on Friday morning and was informed that he was right on the verge of being considered gifted. We just need to work on his nonsense word fluency and I'm sure he'll get there by the end of the school year. He loves Harry Potter and working on the homework packets his teacher sends home, and we might be supplementing some of it with pages from a workbook I have for him.

David turned five in August! He missed our school systems age deadline by 17 days, but I think it's for the best in his case. He loves helping with the twins and being the "big" brother when we have to go to the grocery store. He is so creative and loves bringing me his latest builds of Legos and magformers.

Ezekiel is almost three! I can't believe it. He's still so sweet and snuggly, and my most athletic thus far. He loves monkey bars and scares the other moms when we make it to playgroup with his climbing and swinging shenanigans. He is a mommy's boy through and through but only gets jealous of the twins being in my lap first thing in the morning when he's still groggy.

Hannah is a sweet little chatter box. She jabbers at anyone who will listen and has taken her first wobbly steps. She loves going up the stairs and is really fast, but hasn't figured out how to get back down them yet. Her favorite food is bananas. She polishes them off as soon as I turn my back and loves chewing on apples and peanut butter sandwiches. She has figured out that I'm more of a chump than Byron is so she's become quite a mommy's girl. She wants to be on my hip everywhere I go, seeing and doing everything that I do.

Gideon is the most calm little man. I love watching him observe all of the chaos going on around him and then just smile and go about his business. He loves being tickled and loved on. His favorite food is blueberries and can say banana. As soon as he gets in his high chair he starts in with "Ahna-na" It's so stinking adorable.

The twins celebrated their first birthday in August! My amazing mommy made them a beautiful (and incredibly tasty!) smash cake and took wonderful pictures of them even though by the time I got my act together they were hungry again and it was nap time.

Byron has been running several trainings for work this year. One of them about a month ago was in Washington, D.C. Besides trainings, Byron has been working on upgrading and configuring computers at work. This has involved learning about Ansible and configuration management as well as authentication systems for Linux. In church, Byron was released from Primary and called to be a Ward Financial Clerk. There are two Financial Clerks in our ward, so Byron is able to learn from Brother Dales who has had the calling for a year or two.

I have had an incredibly productive week. Last Saturday Byron was a saint and took care of the kids so I could drive up to Arcanum and spend some time helping a friend of mine with some housework. I felt so motivated after getting to clean with her that Monday morning I decided to work on my own house. It took a couple of days, but I started upstairs and deep cleaned and re-arranged furniture in all three bedrooms and the basement. Byron spent two nights this week cleaning the carpets in the basement and on the main level.

We got to have two lovely new families from church over for dinner last night. One of the husbands also really enjoys computer programming so he and Byron spent the evening nerding out with each other and playing Pandemic while I got to chat away with 2 new friends. All 11 of the children that were here played happily in the basement until it got too close to everyone's bedtime and we ran out of cupcakes, but overall it was a lovely evening.

Friday night Byron and I went to the local high school football game. We were playing against Wayne High school, the school district my Uncle Jason's daughter is in, so we sat with them on the opposing team's side and had a great time chatting and catching up with them while I tried to remember how the game is played. My favorite part was definitely the half time show though, band music is just so fun!