Picking Pumpkins

For our FHE activity on October 6th, we decided to go down to the garden and pick our pumpkins.  I wanted to see exactly what we head, so I would know if we needed to buy any.  They hide among the vines and the other plants down there, so it's hard to know how many or how big they are until you find them all and cut them loose.  It was a beautiful evening perfect for pumpkin picking.  Kirk drove his truck down the hill, so we could put all the pumpkins in the back to haul them up to the house.  Lauren and Whitney enjoyed riding down the hill in the back.

Last year we purchased a small bumpy pumpkin at the pumpkin patch.  Kirk saved some seeds from it and planted them in the garden this year.  I think we had some crazy cross pollination going on because we ended up with some weird looking pumpkins/gourds.  We had lots of bumpy pumpkins like the one below.  Plus we had other types of pumpkins that ended up with some bumps on them too.  Then we had some really long skinny pumpkins and some that looked like striped gourds.  It was definitely the craziest crop we have had.  I should have taken pictures of all the crazy pumpkins that we got.

We picked them all and loaded them up in the truck.  When we got them all unloaded in front of the house we washed them all up.  We had lots of smaller pumpkins and about 3 large pumpkins.  It was a fun little evening out in the garden.

Beginning of October

We ended up with a super busy October this year.  It seemed to pass in a whirlwind of activity for me.  Here are a few tidbits from the start of the month.  We had gorgeous weather for the first half of October.  It was warm (actually hot on many days) and sunny.  It kind of felt like summer except we were all in school or going to work. 

October started off with General Conference.  I always look forward to conference and it was great.  (The last Saturday in September Shannon, Lauren and I went to women's conference.  We had an early dinner at McDonalds with some friends and then went to conference.)  General Conference was on October 5 & 6th this year.  It was a great way to recharge spiritually and be ready to face life and the world again.   I watched the Saturday sessions at home while I cleaned and organized my kitchen.  Between sessions Whitney and I ran to Walmart to get a few things.  While we were there we noticed they had a few of their 18inch dolls on clearance for $13 and then they were running a 50% off on all clearance toys.  So Whitney bought herself this doll for $6.50.  A really great deal, since they are normally $28.  She loves it.
  
On Sunday we all got dressed up and went to the church to watch the morning session.  It makes it feel a little more like the sabbath day to put our church clothes on and go to the church.  We came home and ate lunch and then watched the afternoon session at home.

On October 7th I took Evan and Lauren to the doctor for a well check.  Evan grew 3 1/2 inches in the last year and Lauren grew 3 inches.  I knew Evan had grown a lot.  He went from wearing size 12 pants in the fall of 2013 to wearing size 16 this fall.  He is now taller than me.  Lauren and Whitney are the only kids that are shorter than me now.  Maybe I will end up being the shortest one in the family.  We also stopped on the way home and bought Whitney's Halloween costume, Frankie Stein from Monster High.

I also helped with Super Saturday for our ward this year.  I was in charge of the Jewelry holder.  It is basically a picture frame with chicken wire stapled to it.  I went to the thrift store on conference Saturday and  bought two picture frames for less than a dollar for both.  I then painted them and stapled chicken wire to them.  The pink one in the photo below I use for hairbows/clips and the blue one Shannon uses to hang her necklaces on. 

 A couple of things from September that I forgot to blog.  At the end of September Kirk finished the wall on the bank and planted grass seed on the middle level.  The grass grew in nice and thick and it looks great.  It is a bit of a pain to mow because it still has some slope to it, but hopefully it will be much better than the weed patch we had before.

Also, they started a new math curriculum for K-2nd grade in our school district this year.  It is much more rigorous and Whitney has math homework every night now.  Even on the weekends.  Luckily the curriculum hasn't been too challenging for Whitney.  She just hates to sit and do the homework every night. 
 

Shannon's New Smile

I really didn't take too many photos during the month of September.  I spent the month trying to get used to my new "normal" of working 4 hours a day.  I have to have myself & Lauren and Whitney ready to go out the door by 7:20am.  My second full week of work I had to work full days.  I worked 6 1/2 hours, so I guess that is not technically full time, but it was a bit much for me.  Between getting myself and kids ready to go out the door and packing myself a lunch plus the kids lunches it was quite the week and I was glad when it was over.  I also had a bad cold the whole week, so it really wore me out and it made me realize that I definitely don't want to work full time right now.  We were doing testing all week. We tested the whole school on reading and then the kinders and 1st graders we also tested for math.   On Monday the secretary came and got me and told me that Lauren was in her office and said she wasn't feeling well.  She had been sick the previous day, so on my lunch break I ran her home. Along with the testing on Friday the school had an evacuation drill.  They evacuated the whole school to a church that is nearby, so we got to help with that.

Shannon's last photo with her braces on.

At the end of the month Shannon got her braces off.  I think it was on Monday, September 29th.  She was excited to finally have them off.  She had them on for 23 months.  Kirk took her in to get them off.  I had to work that morning.

These two photos were taken after she got home from school later that day.  She had a temporary retainer for a couple of weeks and then she got her permanent one.  It is a clear on that slips over her teeth.

Stake Day of Service & other September Tidbits

The second week of September I started working every day.  My job is a little bit different this year from last year.  Last year I was a classroom assistant and I worked in the classrooms.  This year I am a Title assistant, so I work in the title room.  I pull small groups of kids out of class 4-5 in each group and work with them for 30 minutes on math.  My first week I didn't work with the kids.  The teachers wanted to wait until the kids had been tested before we started pulling kids out.  So my first week I worked on prepping stuff for when we actually began teaching our groups.  It involved lots of copying, cutting, organizing and things like that.  I have my own little area in the classroom, which is really nice.  I have my own table, bookshelf and some small bulletin boards to decorate. I had to spend some time setting up my little work area.  At the end of the week I ended up coming down with a bad cold.  I couldn't believe it.  My first week of work and I wasn't even working with kids and I get a cold.

Thursday of that week was back to school night at the elementary school.  I went by myself and visited Whitney and Lauren's classrooms.  It is nice to get the scoop on how the teachers run their classrooms and what the expectations are.  It was that evening that I felt the first signs of my cold coming on.

Saturday was our stake day of service.  Luckily it was close by and we didn't have to travel to the other end of the stake this time.  I wasn't feeling to great, but we loaded up the clan and headed over.  We weren't sure what we were going to be doing, so we weren't really prepared with the adequate tools.  Kirk dropped us off and headed back home to pick up some tools for us to use (rakes, wheelbarrow, clippers and then gas weed whacker).   I didn't take my camera, so Shannon took the photos below with her ipod.

We worked for a couple of hours and then went home for lunch.   I was not feeling very well by this point, my congestion was starting to settle in my lungs.  I spent the rest of the weekend resting.  Lauren wasn't feeling well Sunday, so she and I stayed home from church.

Back to School!

We left Boise Saturday morning and arrived back home around 3pm on Saturday.  It was nice to have two full days to recover before starting school.  I found out when I got home that I was technically suppose to work that week and I didn't know that I was suppose to (oops!).  The principal knew I was out of town, though, so everything was fine.  I also found out when I got home that I only had to work one day (Wednesday) during the first week of school.  That was really nice and a bit of a relief for me.  My house needed some serious cleaning, since I had been gone most of the month of August between girls camp and our trip.  I originally thought I was going to have to do it all on Labor Day, but it was nice to have more days to get it done.

School started on September 2nd for the three younger kids.  Shannon didn't have to start until the next day.  Evan's first day was an orientation for the 7th graders, so there were no 8th graders at school that day.  Evan started middle school this year.  I think he was a bit nervous, but handled the transition well.  He didn't have any problems with his locker or changing classes, so that was nice.

Lauren is in 5th grade this year.  Her teacher is in our ward, so she knows her well, which made an easy transition for her.  Whitney is in 2nd grade this year.  She has a teacher that both Lauren and Shannon had.  The teacher told me about a week into the school year that Whitney is a little spitfire and not nearly as shy as Lauren and Shannon were at that age. 

They all had good first days at school.  I dropped Lauren and Whitney off at school, ran home and picked Evan up.  His school starts about 30 minutes later than theirs.  At Evan's school I had to run in and turn in his registration stuff, since we were out of town during registration time.   Since I didn't have to work I was even able to go walking with my friend that morning.  It was nice to catch up with her.

Shannon's first day was on Wednesday.  I had to work that day, so Kirk took her to school and I didn't see her before school, so I wasn't able to take a photo of her.   She took of selfie that morning, so I will post that as her first day of school picture.

My only day of work that week was just some training.  I had to work from 8-11am, so it was a little shorter than my normal work day.  I was a little nervous about starting work, since it is a different job than I had last year.

Our Final Days in Utah (Ogden Temple Open House)

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were our 3 last full days in Utah.  Sunday morning Steph's family left to go back home.  We went to sacrament meeting in my parents ward and then late afternoon we headed to American Fork.  Kirk's family was having a get together since we were in town, so we could see everybody.  They had a BBQ at Mark's house.  It was fun to see everyone, some we hadn't seen in a couple of years.

Monday afternoon we went to Scheels.  We hadn't been there before, so the older kids wanted to check it out.

Tuesday morning we had tickets to go to the Odgen Temple open house.  I was excited to be able to take my kids to see the inside of a temple.  Tyler and Shannon had been to the Oquirrh Mounthain Temple open house, but the 3 younger kids had never been in a temple.  There were lots of people there, but things moved quickly and we didn't have to wait around at all.  We first went into the tabernacle and watched a little movie about temples and then we went to the temple and put our little booties on before going in.  Whitney didn't enjoy the booties very much.  It is a beautiful temple and it looks totally different on the outside from the way it use to look.

If you look closely you can see the family on the other side of the fountain.

My Mom and Dad

The whole family except me.

The above photo someone volunteered to take a photo of all of us.  This photo cracks me up because my native Oregonian kids can't handle the bright Utah sun.  My Mom, Dad and I all seem to be able to keep our eyes open in the sun.

Walking back to the car.

Wednesday morning we did laundry, finished packing up and helped my Mom wash sheets and get things cleaned up a bit after our stay.  We hit the road right after lunch.  We arrived in Boise around 5pm. 

Hiking in the Uintahs

The boys left on Tuesday morning to go on a hike with Mark and his boys.  They had been looking forward to it and had fun for the most part, I think.  Kirk did say he doesn't want to do it ever again, but was glad he did do it once with the boys.  They had lots of rain while they were gone, which made things not very pleasant at times.  We had thunderstorms down in the valley every afternoon and evening while they were gone, so I worried about them a bit and how they were faring.  Mark rented a satellite phone, so Kirk did call me on Thursday evening.  It was good to hear from him and to know all was well.

I think they hiked in and set up base camp and then they went on day hikes each day. 

My three guys

Mark and Kirk

Mark and his three boys

Kirk and our boys

Evan and Tyler

The last morning (Saturday) they woke up and went out of the tent to discover it had snowed overnight.  Once they saw the snow they decided to pack up right away and head home before they got stuck up there.  It was an adventure for them that's for sure.  They definitely weren't expecting snow in August.  It was pretty cool down in the valley too.