October 2018

The kids have been on a crafty kick lately. The girls watch You Tube videos about how to make Barbie houses, clothing, and props out of household materials and then they try to crate their own fun stuff. I rearely see them actually play with what they made. I think they enjoy the process of creating more than playing with it. It is fun to see what they come up with.
Another favorite creative game involves our train sets. The kids build a track that goes down the hallway, circles around in the girls' room and circles around in either the boys' room or the living room. They write notes to eachother, send treats and toys to teach other, and custom decorate the train cars for each other. It is so cute to sit with Tommy while writes to the girls. It has been great for developing his writing skills.

Since Joey can't read or write, he is the transportation engineer. He makes sure everything is running smoothly and arrives at the intended destination. I love seeing them play together like this.

One of my friends offered me plums from her tree. I asked when I could come and pick them, she said she had boxes of fruit already in her garage. She gave us 20 pounds of plums. Jeremy was so happy. He likes to eat plums and he loves plum jam. I was able to get three batches of jam and 18 pints of canned whole plums. Yummy, but sticky work.

Every October the elementary school hosts a fall carnival. All the funds raised from the carnival go to the teachers for classroom supplies. The games are fun, but it is so chaotic that the event gives Mommy a little anxiety. Daddy met us for dinner at the school and helped shepherd the kids around from game to game.

The boys loved the bouncy slide. They didn't want to leave.

Another favorite was this pick a prize station. Joey kept punching more cups because he thought it was so fun. We burned through a lot of tickets here.

The toilet paper toss was Mommy's favorite. The teacher made a cardboard toilet and we had to throw rolls of toilet paper into the bowl. Joey was surprisingly accurate at this game.

Lily saw her 1st grade teachers selling cotton candy - so of course we had to stop and buy some.

Then we played a few rounds of Plinko. Look at the concentration on Tommy's face.

After this point we had to divide and conquer. All the kids wanted to try different games so Daddy took a few and Mommy took a few. The most painful part of the night was the bake sale counter. There were hundreds of treats to choose from - all worth different ticket values. Bless the parents who were helping at that counter. After being there for 15 minutes with Annie watching kids slowly decide what to buy only to discover they didn't have enough tickets for that item so they had to choose something else........Mommy was ready to pull her hair out. On the plus side, all 48 cupcakes Mommy made and donated to the bake sale disappeared in 30 minutes. Woot woot!

The girls sold cinnamon rolls for General Conference weekend. We had 12 orders. That's 144 cinnamon rolls. It was a lot of work, and a lot of mess, but the girls did a great job. They had a day off from school on Friday so they worked from sun up to sun down getting all the rolls ready.

Lily couldn't believe the mess.
Tommy is already starting to create his Christmas wish list. He wanted to give Santa plenty of time to get his gifts ready so he wrote his letter early this year.

"Dear Santa, Tommy wants all the Hot Wheels toys." Not just a Hot Wheels set or a few cars - ALL THE HOT WHEELS TOYS. ALL...OF....THEM! We'll see kiddo.

This year we let Annie come to the Women's General Conference Broadcast since her 8th birthday was so close. Both girls loved Sister Franco's talk about chocolate cake (really about love and service). Mommy loved Sister Jones's talk about serving others for the Lord. It helped give Mommy some perspective for her calling as Relief Society president and was an answer to prayers. After conference the girls asked to go to Applebee's for a treat. We ordered mozzarella sticks and a chocolate lava cake to share.

Pure heaven! We had a great talk about what we learned about conference and agreed to take President Nelson's challegne to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. We also agreed to heed his counsel to fast from dsitracting media for at least 10 days. I hope we will all see blessings from listening to our prophet.

After telling my friend Katie how much we loved her plums, she gave me another 20 pound box. We made a lot more jam. That will be our gift for neighbors and coworkers this year. Next year we need to find a discount place to get jars so we can do even more jam and plums. Mommy also found fun recipes for a plum chipotle glaze and a savory plum Asian sauce. We will definitely try canning those next year too. They would make good gifts for our friends who like to grill and get adventurous with flavors.

During General Conference we tried to motivate the kids to listen or at least make it possible for us to listen. We played General Conference bingo. Each time the kids earned a bingo they got to choose a little candy.

Between sessions on Sunday we escaped to the mountains for some fresh air. Annie was feeling under the weather so Daddy stayed behind on the trail with her. Joey was ready to run. We couldn't catch him. He even gave a Barbie doll a piggy back ride up the mountain.

It was such a gorgeous fall day. This is the most beautiful time of year.

We found Daddy and Annie on our way back down the trail. The fresh air helped Annie a little bit.

When we arrived home, Annie threw up and spiked a fever. She took it easy the rest of the day and was feeling better by that night.

The kids really enjoyed the conference bingo. They also each had their own conference activity packet with mazes, crosswords, and coloring pages.

One of the best momens for us was hearing the temple announced for Puebla, Mexico. Mommy and Daddy want to take the whole family to the open house so they can see where Daddy served his mission and celebrate the growth of the Church in Mexico. Seeing all of these temples in places we never thought they would be built is so amazing. The urgency of moving the gospel forward and helping others to receive their necessary ordinances is swirling all around us. It is humbling and exciting and exhausting all at the same time.

After conference we made sugar cube temples. Mommy made a big batch of royal icing and just let the kids do whatever they wanted.

Annie felt well enough to join in the fun. Tommy and Daddy went with the Idaho Falls design. Daddy got creative and molded a lemon Tootsie Roll to resemble Angel Moroni.

Joey wanted the Rexburg Temple. He was really good at putting the pieces in place. He ended up wanting double spires on the temple so it looked more like the Brigham City Temple when we were done.

Good job JoJo. He was so proud of his temple. Lily also went with the Rexburg Temple design. She took it a step further and added windows to her walls.

Joey noticed the angel on Tommy's temple and kept whining that he needed a "mer mer mer" or "mur mur mur". We couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Finally after some gesturing and lots of questions, Mommy realized Joey wanted Daddy to make an Angel Moroni for his temple too. We're still not sure if he was trying to say Moroni or if he was making a trumpeting sound. We're just glad we figured out that a "mer mer mer" was the crowning touch Joey was looking for.

Annie's temple was supposed to be the Idaho Falls Temple, but we think it looks like the Mexico City temple.

She can't see the resemblance. We totally see it. What do you think?

With snow season around the corner it was time to don an inventory of our snow and ski gear. Tommy liked trying all the boots.

Lily tried getting dressed in the dark and got both legs in one pajama pant leg. The other let looked like a little tail. She thought it was hilarious and came out to show us.

Tommy's kindergarten class got to have a pumpkin patch field trip. Joey and Mommy tagged along for the morning. We are so glad we did. It was a fun experience.

The boys took turns being little piggies and playing in Fairy Tale land.

Joey has been in a baby phase. He loved babies and always talks about babies and wants to carry babies. He asked me to swaddle his baby doll so he could come to the pumpkin patch with us. Joey carried his little baby boy all around the pumpkin patch. It was just darling.

Baby did get set aside for some serious cowboy time.

Tommy's favorite part of the day was the sliding hill. He rode it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Did we mention how much he loved the sliding hill?

He got so hot from running up the hill that he had to take his jacket off. Joey was very timid about the hill. We couldn't even get him to ride with Mommy. Oh well. More fun for the rest of us. After bruiding our bottoms on the hill, it was time to choose our pumpkins and take a hay ride.

So many pumpkins...so little time. It was really hard for the boys to choose one.

Tommy settled on a teeny tiny one just in time to catch the last tractor hay ride.

Joey opted for a stop at the snack bar over a tractor ride.

Then we stopped at the photo booth with our baby doll.

It was a beautiful morning with the boys. Days like this make being a stay at home so much more fun.

For Lily's last and Annie's first Activity Days activity in the 8-10 year old group, the leaders asked Mommy to come teach the girls to make bread and frost cupcakes. It was a messy and fun activity. The girls were so proud to have Mommy there and all the little girls loved taking home their own baby loaf of bread and a few cupcakes.

Daddy tried making a bench out of the wood from our fallen tree. It looks great but is not good for sitting on. We'll have to sand down the ends of the sticks and make a cushion for it. To celebrate the arrival of fall and burn all the boxes from the girls' birthday presents, we had a fireside Family Home Evening.

The kids loved running around in the dark, toasting marshmallows, and being silly outside. It was a fun night.
Once or twice a year our local Wendy's hosts a school fundraiser night. A portion of the money that comes in goes toward the elementary school. The kids had fun ordering for themselves and trying out the new soft drink machines.

Tommy like the prize in the kids' meal. It was a pretend scuba mask and lots of cute little fish and shells.

October just flew by. Pumpkin carving night seemed to come so quickly.

All the kids are getting better at cleaning out their own pumpkins and carving their own pumpkins.

Annie wanted to create a barfing Zombie. I think she nailed it. Yuck!

The girls also had a Halloween piano recital. They got to wear their costumes and play a fun spooky song. They both did a fantastic job. Lily's song was especially challenging and was causing her some stress. She was so happy to have the performance done.

To celebrate piano success we made a stop at Jamba Juice.

Everyone was happy about a sunny smoothie.
That night Mommy and Daddy went to see the comedian Ryab Hamilton. He was a riot. Our throats hurt from laughing so hard. The kids did great with the babysitter, but Tommy wanted to be closer to the girls at bed time, so he set up camp in their doorway.

The last week of October was Red Ribbon week at school. The kids had themes for dressing up. Monday was crazy hair day. Tuesday was wear a hat day.

Wednesday was wear your costume day, Thursday was sweat and socks day, and Friday was school spirit day. The kids loved hat day the most. They looked so cute heading off to school in their ball caps that morning.

Between General Conference, birthday celebrations, and Halloween events we were pretty busy in October. Joey loved all the parties. He especially was feeling festive after Annie's party. He danced and sang for an hour in the living room. It was quite a show.

 Maybe one day he will be called to serve a mission in Mexico - this will be the picture we blow up and display while he's gone - Viva la Mexico! Look at that huge smile.

 Tommy was a little more reserved, but still joined in the festivities. We sure love these silly boys!

That's that for October. Halloween pictures are coming soon.