October

Conference Sunday was the first day of October.  We just stayed home all day since Gene and April had gone to visit Camille in Atlanta.  It felt very nice to be home and have a low-key day.  I wore my sweats.  We had sticky buns for breakfast.  We did puzzles while we watched the sessions.  In between sessions the kids made monster marshmallows and monster socks.  They made a fabulous mess.  We ate delicious steak tacos for dinner and had a picnic in the living room since the table was occupied with crafting stuff.  We watched Hocus Pocus before bed and it was a great day.

I finished reading Nancy Drew Big Top Flop to Ivy.  This was the last book of the series that we own.  She didn't want me to see if the library had any more and wanted instead to go right onto the second book in the Harry Potter series.  Yay!

The kids got a little crazy Sunday night after conference.  Stockton was running football routes with Ivy (with a soft football) and Ivy jammed her pinky on the wall.  She went to bed in some pain but slept all night with some Ibuprofen in her.  Her pinky was swollen and bruised the next morning...and looked a little crooked.  I got all the kids off to school and took her right to the Instacare.  They took x-rays and determined that she did break her left pinky, right at the base.  They gave her two numbing shots at the bottom of her pinky and then set the finger.  They did a second round of x-rays to make sure it was set correctly and then soft-casted it to her other three fingers.  Once she was taken care of and doctored up, I took her to school and got on with the rest of the day.  Our kids have had four total broken bones with Ivy having three of those (Stockton has the other one with a broken foot).  Poor girl!

The soccer team has a traditional "Rising Stars" game at the end of the regular season.  They have the JV players scrimmage each other and invite sophomores and freshmen to join the game as well.  The Varsity team does the half-time show.  They practiced a Just Dance dance and performed it during halftime.  I didn't attend the game since Molly wasn't playing but I did get photos and a video after the performance.  They are all dressed in black so it's super hard to pick out who is who and which girl is actually Molly.  Molly had a blast doing this with the girls she has become so close to.

*I believe Molly is the 8th in from the left, just to the left of the 50 yard line.

Ivy was our one and only kid in the Primary Program this year.  She wore her baptism dress and spoke about her baptism day.  I sat on the stand with the kids as part of my primary calling and then got released the next week to get put in as Stake Young Women's Second Counselor. 

Justin took Ivy to her follow-up pinky appointment the week after she got her wrap.  I figured that we would be done with having her finger wrapped, or that maybe she would get a smaller wrap.  Nope.  She ended up with another cast.  Green this time.  Apparently, a pinky is more important than you might think.  The doctor was happy with how it was looking but it needed a few more weeks to heal all the way.

The regular soccer season ended.  We were going to state.  We actually had had a great season and ended up going into the tournament ranked third in the state for 5A.  Because of our high ranking, we got a bye through the first round and ended up playing Woods Cross in the second round.  We moms tried our best to make the lead up fun and positive-they got a treat/goodie everyday, team dinners before games, and we secretly decorated all the girls' cars.  Go Wasatch!

Stockton has a green Nike hoodie that he wears often and Molly's friend, Regan, was always commenting on how much she liked it.  I knew her birthday was coming up so Molly and I went up to the outlets to see if they still had the same hoodie.  They did.  Molly gave it to her for her birthday and, a couple of days later, Stockton and Regan were twinning in the cafeteria.

Stockton and Regan Heywood

We played Woods Cross at home in the second round of play-offs and beat them easily to advance to the quarterfinals against Olympus, also at home.  We had played Olympus during pre-season and they beat us 5-2.  It was not a good game for us so we knew that this would be a tough game to win.  It was also freezing cold that afternoon.  We played hard and we played well.  We ended regulation time tied 0-0.  We went into two ten-minute halves with the golden goal rule (whoever scores first wins).  We were still tied at the end of that 20 minutes.  It was a well-matched game!  After the two tens, it was penalty kicks, the worst scenario in any game let alone a quarterfinal match, and the possibility of being knocked out of the tournament.  Unfortunately, our PK's did not go well for us and we came home with a loss that night.  The girls were devastated.  They had high hopes of making it further than that-there were definitely some tears shed that night!  Such a heart-breaking and devastating way to lose and be eliminated.

after beating Woods Cross-Brett, Gene, Molly, April

lined up for PKs-Molly is third in from left

Molly and Regan Heywood-sad after being eliminated

 Molly was sad for that night, and she will miss playing with those girls, but she woke up the next morning full of excitement and motivation for club season.  I know a lot of girls were feeling the same way.

After the temple announcement two years ago and the ground breaking last year, there has been little to no progress on the temple.  There has been a whole lot of opposition and we have been a little worried that it actually wasn't going to be built.  There were two really important council meetings this fall concerning the advancement of the temple and they invited all the youth in the valley to show their support by gathering in the field just across the street from where the meeting was being held.  Molly and Brynn went (Stockton had a game) and were two of the 500+ youth who showed up in support of the temple.  I would have liked to be there, such a neat and rewarding sight.  The council meeting that night went well past midnight and they voted to recommend that it passes.  Then it had to go to another council vote a couple of weeks later and after another lengthy meeting, the temple was unanimously approved.  Such exciting news for so many of us who are anxiously waiting for the temple!

Khloie Kelsey and Molly

Molly had her soccer banquet.  They give out awards, highlight the seniors, and do some other things.  It was sooooo long and a lot of that fluffy stuff could have been cut out or done with just the girls. But oh well.  Varsity got awarded as the Academic State Champions which means they have the best average GPA for 5A soccer in the state.  So that is really cool and something they should be super proud of.  Molly also highlighted senior Caroline Turner, who Molly has played with since she was in 4th grade.

Molly is second in from right

Ivy woke up one morning with a headache, fever, and achy legs.  I made her a bed on the floor and got her set up with anything and everything she needed that day.  I was so glad to be home so I could take care of her.  This is the exact reason I stopped teaching preschool.

The only thing Stockton really wanted to do for Fall Break was go to a corn maze...and then we ran out of time. So I promised I would take him the Friday night after Fall Break.  He took Kelton, I dropped them off, waited in the car until they were finished, and then drove them home.  They had a great time.  I told him I needed a picture and the first picture he sent was of the ground.  This was slightly better.

Stockton and Kelton Webb

Sadie's was the last Saturday in October.  Molly was going with Micah.  Initially she was nervous to ask him right after he had taken her to Homecoming but she really wanted to go with him and she was able to find a good enough reason to justify it.  Micah's best friend, Caden, had asked Molly's best friend, Regan, to Homecoming but Regan had already been asked by someone else so he took Maggie instead.  So Regan was going to ask Caden to Sadie's and that ended up being the excuse Molly needed-the originally-intended Homecoming foursome could go to Sadie's instead.  They had a blast.

Regan's mom and sister, Wendy and Savannah, were so awesome to put together an Amazing Race/scavenger hunt activity all around Heber for the day date.  They had clues that led them to each location and then at each location was stationed a parent that gave them a task and a new clue when they completed the task.  They also played assassin at the same time and were given nerf guns and assigned targets at each location.

Molly's group is on the far left: Molly, Regan, Micah Morgan, Caden Lundberg

I had told Wendy that I was available that day and would be happy to help with anything...and then she told me that my job was to dress as a granny and stand by the apples at the grocery store until the groups came through.  The thought of doing that mortified me!  I stressed out for a couple of days and then I found another mom that would do it with me and it wasn't so bad.  It was actually very fun.  I don't think I did a great job dressing as a granny but I didn't want to be too conspicuous...Elisa is a preschool teacher so she wore her 100 day outfit and I was so glad to have her with me.  We switched off playing the part of "Granny Smith" and when the kids came to us, we gave them four packs of Smarties each and their test was to do four acts of kindness each, hand out the Smarties, and say "Happy Halloween".  Brynn and Elisa's daughter walked around with them and judged how good their kindesses were and gave them a score out of 10.  I loved meeting all the kids.

me, Elisa Bingham

Molly, Regan, Micah, Caden

Mckenzie Bingham, Brynn

The final clue took them to Main Street Park where they finished their assassin game and hunted for the treasure...which I believe was their pizza lunch.  Brynn and I went over for a minute but didn't stay.  I think Molly's team ended up winning but no one really cared who won.  Molly had a great time.

me and Brynn are on the front row, Molly is in the second row to the left of the skeletons

Molly, far right

Regan, Molly, Caden, Micah

The theme for Sadie's was "Halloween Bash" so it was basically one giant costume party.  Molly's group was so big and they struggled for a while trying to come up with a costume that everyone agreed on.  Finally, Molly suggested that they do dynamic duos and each individual couple could do what they wanted.  That was the idea that stuck.  Molly and Micah went as Steve and Nancy from Stranger Things.  They pretty much look like normal teenagers but if you compare them with what they were going for, they look close to the part!

Molly and Micah are in the back, about the 3rd couple in

 

What they were going for:

They did a decent job, I think!

They had dinner at Carol Ritchie's house (I provided an Olive Garden salad) and then hung out at Carol's for a while playing games.  Molly's group (her and Micah, Regan and Caden) went to the haunted alley car wash (Micah works there so could get them in for free-they were in my car so I got a free car wash, woot woot) and then they ended up at the actual dance for an hour or so.  They went to Regan's house after to watch a movie although Molly's group stayed upstairs and played games.  Again, Molly had such a great time with Micah.  After a few days of awkwardness when they had to decide to be friends only, they are back to a good place and are comfortable just hanging out with each other.  The dance foursome tries to get together and hang out every weekend or every other and they really get along well. (Molly and Micah definitely like each other-they know each other's schedules and make a point to go out of their way so they can "bump" into each other periodically throughout the day.  It's pretty funny to watch her get a little goofy and silly when he comes up in conversation-and she can't help but grin anytime he does. Hahahaha!)  Personally, I hope this relationship continues for Molly, it has been really positive for her.

Stockton, Brynn, and Ivy spent an entire Sunday setting up a spook alley in the yard.  When it was dark enough, they took the rest of us through it.  They missed doing the Plain City spook alley since we weren't there at night, so this was a good alternative for them.  And it kept them entertained for an entire afternoon which is always a huge win in my book!

Ivy got her cast off the day before Halloween.  Happy day!  The fingernails on her pinky and ring finger were so long!  She had to wear a wrap around her pinky and ring finger for another week after that but that was easy compared to the cast.  We are crossing our fingers that's it with broken bones for this girl.