October

If I am being completely honest, September threw me for a loop.  Soccer and baseball, the house being torn apart, starting preschool, piano, Molly's birthday...I had a hard time figuring out a schedule.  It wasn't until the last week in September that I started to feel like I could handle things and shortly after that, Ivy and I made an activity jar for the two of us.  We try to choose an activity each day that we aren't going to preschool.  I try to make it a priority because I've always cherished those times when I did the same thing with the older kids.  I don't take pictures of every activity we do, but I'll post here when I do.  We made princess perler beads.

We got a couple of decent pumpkins in the greenhouse.  We'd like to plant more and have more of a variety of pumpkins in the future.

We had borrowed my mom's cotton candy machine for Molly's birthday party but we never used it.  The kids were dying to try it so I pulled it out one night and we tried it out before we gave it back.

Ivy and I played with dolls one morning.

Our good friends, the Howard's, came for a visit one night.  We were neighbors in Spanish Fork and they moved to Arizona about a year after we moved to Heber.  I felt bad making them come to our torn-apart house but we had a couple other things going that night and needed to be close to home-so they came up.  I made Mexican Haystacks and they brought June Pies.  Hazel and Rhys and Lance went to baseball practice with my boys for a little while.  The kids had no awkward moments and got right down to playing.  It was a fun night and so good to see them.

Kel, Leanna, Brynn, Calla, Ivy, Hazel, Stockton, Rhys-no Molly since she was tied up with soccer all night.

Lance, Leanna, me, Justin

We traveled to Vernal for another soccer game (we've never traveled so much for soccer but we're in a different division this year).  I had to take the little girls with me this time since Justin and Stockton were at baseball games.  That requires lots more stuff.  Good thing I have this wagon that Justin won at a golf tournament.  It has been used so much!  The girls were trying to pull it up a hill together which produced lots of giggles.

We usually go to Gene and April's in between Sunday sessions of Conference and watch the last session with them but we didn't make it this year.  We had planned on it but plans changed so I had to scramble to make some special Conference foods.  I had done sticky buns for breakfast and so, for lunch, I pulled out any sort of snacky thing that I could find and made a version of a charcuterie board-nothing too fancy but it filled everyone's bellies.

Ivy fell off one of the bar stools right onto her head.  It left a nasty goose-egg with a nice purple and then yellow bruise for a couple of weeks.

 Ivy and I made a fort in her room and ate lunch and played games in it.

The preschool had a field trip at Hee-Haw farms one day instead of school so Ivy and I drove down to meet her class, my class, and several other classes.  It was a nice break from teaching.  The wind was cold that day but we just bundled up-Ivy was excited to wear the "new" coat that Maive (neighbor) had handed down the week before.  Slides, corn maze, wagon ride, and pumpkin patch made a fun morning...followed by lunch and shopping with mom-I never waste a trip down to Utah County!

some of my class-Benson Thomas, Ethan Hernandez, Charger Moorman, William Goulding, Ivy

While we were off field-tripping, Justin took Stockton to the orthodontist to get his new retainer.  It was green and blue and had a Jazz logo in the middle.  It was a little bit of an adjustment for him to get used to, but didn't take too long to acclimate.  It did it's job for 7 weeks or so and he has since had permanent retainers put in on top and bottom.

I was at the school one day and was able to see Brynn's cute Statue of Liberty art.

The reason I was at the school was because Stockton's teacher, Mrs. Vanhouten, had invited Molly into the classroom to talk about how she gets her writing ideas and share a story that she had written (Molly also had Vanhouten in 5th grade).  Molly was excited and then she was nervous.  She had made an awesome power point presentation but then cut a lot out of it because she was feeling self-conscious.  What she did was great.  I am still constantly impressed by her creative brain.  (Also, I had to add in that second picture.  Did you know there are only four words in the English language that end in "dous?"  Try to guess them before you peek at the picture.)

We had missed seeing Eric and Heidi and their kids on General Conference Sunday so we had them up for dinner the following Sunday.  Heidi brought some ribs that April had sent home with her and I had stuff for a salad that I was supposed to take.  We supplemented with a few other things and the kids and I made caramel apples that morning so we cut them up for dessert.  The kids gathered around while I cut them up and divvied them out to bowls.

Tiana, Ivy, Luke, Jake, Brynn, Eli, Evie, Stockton, Justin, Molly

While Justin and I were on vacation, Charlotte ran away.  We felt bad for Coconut so we let him sleep in the laundry room with Cash for a few days.  Then we went and got a new kitten from one of Justin's tellers so Coconut could have a buddy (Hagrid also disappeared a month or two before Charlotte so we were down to just the one cat).

The kids had a random day off of school so I let them paint pumpkins and make a monster door.  I also made them help me rake leaves.

Final game for KT (premier) soccer team.  Love the coaches.  Love about half of the girls.  Love a couple of the parents.  Haha.  I'm not going to get into the details of this...Molly loves playing soccer and that's what's important.

#10

#10 (they say a prayer before each game-maybe that seems weird but I remember doing this with my high school team 20 years ago)

she's on the ground, first one in from the right behind the girls with their legs up

second in from the right on the bottom; coaches are Kris (mom) and Seder (daughter) Thacker

Coconut is the sneakiest cat. Always trying to come in the house when the door is open-probably because we've let him in with Cash a few times and he's testing his luck.  For the majority of the time, cats are outside.  We need them to catch mice, which they do.  He must have snuck in one day and then we found him in the dishwasher.