First half of November

Saturday November 1st:  We spent the day cleaning and taking down Halloween stuff.  Georgia had to be taken to the hospital because she was in serious pain.  Turns out she had gall stones and had to have emergency surgery to get them removed.  During that, they decided that she probably needed to have her gall bladder removed, but decided to wait and do it later--in December.  

Wednesday November 5th:  My mom flew up for a visit and to go to Time Out for Women with us on Friday and Saturday night.  I was so excited that she came for it.  

Thursday November 6th:  My mom and I (and Noah) spent the day going to different quilt shops in the area--I think we only got to 3, but it was fun.  We also went out to lunch at Chevy's and made it back right when the kids came home from school. 

Friday November 7th:  Tonight was the evening session of TOFW and we wanted to get dinner before we had to get down to the convention center.  Maggie and Lydia were going with us to the Time Out for Girls that they have in the same building, just upstairs.  It is so nice that they have the TOFGs so we can all go together!  So, we picked up Maggie from school and headed to eat dinner at 5 Guys Burgers.  We love their burgers!  Then we drove to our hotel first and got checked in.  (We didn't want to drive home that night and then drive back the next morning.)  We walked over to the convention center because it was starting at 6:30.  They have different presenters for the youth and for the women.  I guess sometimes they do have the same speakers for each, but their messages are different.  They gear their thoughts toward what teenage girls are going through and I love that!  Maggie has been before, but this was Lydia's first time going.  The presenters from Friday night were:  Josh Wright (an amazing pianist), Sandra Turley (a broadway singer) and Elaine S. Dalton (former YW General President)

 Mom and I during one of the breaks.

Emma and her sister were there with their mom, so Maggie wanted to hang out with Emma, but she also included Lydia too, which I was grateful for. 

It ended about 9:30 and as we were walking back to our hotel, we passed a Burgerville and stopped in to get a milkshake.  (Along with almost all the other women!  :))  Then we read for a bit in our room and went to bed.

We got up early so we could all get ready and we ate breakfast in the hotel--we had their buffet.  We got lucky because there was a lady next to us who was just leaving that had a voucher for 2 free meals.  So that was nice.  

The theme for this year's TOFW was "Inevitable Light" and the scripture was:  1 Timothy 4:14-15:

As usual it was a great meeting.  Some of the speakers were:  Mary Ellen Edmunds, the singing group Mercy River,  Whitney Johnson, D. Kelly Ogden (He was my Doctrine and Covenants professor at BYU), Tamu and Zandra--two ladies that run the blog: As Sistas in Zion--they were funny!, and Laurel Day.  

 Love these two and what good friends they are becoming

 Me and my girls

 All of us after the lunch break

Leaving the convention center and heading home.  It was a gorgeous day!

While we were gone, Garrett took the 3 little kids over to grandma and grandpa's house to do some work outside.  Originally I invited to Georgia to come with us, but they were supposed to be in California for Hannah's baptism.  But then she had that emergency surgery and wasn't OK to travel.  So, she missed out on both things.  

 Paige got a chance to drive the tractor since the older girls were gone.

After everyone got back home, we had Maggie babysit and mom, Garrett and I went out to dinner at PacThai.  Yum!
Monday November 10th:

The kids didn't have school today, so we hung around doing crafts and putting up Thanksgiving decorations.  That night we went to eat at Old Spaghetti Factory and watched "Star Wars"
Tuesday November 11th: The kids didn't have school again today because of Veteran's day.  Mom had to go home today, so I drove her to the airport and ran some errands while I was out.
Thursday November 13th:  Today was my birthday.  School was also cancelled today because supposedly there was ice, but it didn't really effect us, so we just had another day off.  It was nice though because the kids were busy playing and doing things to keep themselves occupied, so I spent quite a bit of time reading.  We went out for dinner at a Teriayaki restaurant and then came home and opened gifts.

 me and my kiddos

I thought it was cool that my watch recognized my birthday and displayed a birthday cake all day.  It's the little things that entertain me. :) On Friday night Garrett took me out to eat at PF Changs and we went to see the movie, "Interstellar" which was a really good movie.

 Garrett helped the kids decorate for my birthday the night before.  It was cute!

Saturday November 15th:  By some great miracle I remembered that I needed to get pictures taken for Christmas cards before the middle of December.  I told my family that we would be taking pictures on Saturday.  So even though it was ridiculously cold that day we went out to take family pictures.

Some of these didn't turn out so great--with me half in the sun, half in shadow and Bella crying because she was cold.

 Way too much sun!

 Noah not participating and Garrett and I trying to tell him to turn around and smile.

This is the one we used for our card.

 I liked this one but Garrett didn't for some reason.

 This one was pretty cute

 I love this one of the kids shoes.

 Making silly faces

 Fun poses.  Maggie and I did the same thing.  Oops.

 These two wanted their picture taken together.

 We were done and walking back to the car and one of the kids snapped this one.

Back at home--the boys watching football.
Monday November 17th:  Maggie really liked playing basketball for the rec center, so she decided to try out for the high school team this year. Tryouts were for today and she was really nervous.  But everyone that came made it onto a team.  They have JV2 (which she got onto), JV and Varsity.  For the next two weeks, she had practice every weekday for 2 1/2 hours.  Usually from 6:30-9 pm.  It was a rough two weeks because they were conditioning which was really hard for her because she hadn't been exercising regularly.
Tuesday Nov. 18th:

Playing cars with Noah

The end of September

Well, here is a smorgasbord of pictures from the end of September.

Sept. 15

 Lydia got new glasses.  She calls them her nerd glasses because they are quite a bit bigger than her old pair.  I think she looks really cute in them.  She was very excited to get them and knew exactly what pair she wanted.  

Sept. 16th

 Noah doing a craft.  He is making an apple.

 We had soccer that night and I think it was the first game.  Going in for a team huddle and cheer at the end.  

 Then coming straight back to mom

 She finally got that crooked tooth out.  Cute little smile.

 On Monday I got 50 lbs of apples at a really great price, so I thought I would try to make stuff with it--like applesauce and apple butter and apple pie filling and dried apples.  Then on Tuesday, I got another 50 lbs just because.  I've never done anything with apples, so this was a new experience for me.  So, for the next week I worked on those apples.  

This is Garrett one Saturday helping me peel apples.  I usually put the kids to work peeling apples.  Bella and Noah were my biggest helpers.  They loved to peel.  Then Garrett came and showed us how a man peels apples.  :)  It was quite a bit faster though, and I really appreciated the help!

 When it was all said and done I made 21 pints of apple butter, 14 quarts of applesauce--which is really yummy!, 5 frozen apple pie fillings, at least 4 batches of dried apples--which my kids devoured, and 2 loaves of apple cinnamon bread.  Most of it was quite easy, just a little time consuming.  I'm so glad I tried and I'm looking forward to doing it again in the fall.  

September 18th

 More soccer.  Noah and his friend Kyle

 I love how he uses his hand to stop the ball before he can kick it.  

 Sept. 19th

 Our new niece was born!  This is Garrett's sister Meggin and her new baby girl--Hazel Lois.  She is adorable.  Meggin also has 2 other little girls.  

 Beautiful Sunsets

 Sept. 20th

The Activity Day Girls had a daddy daughter hike in the morning.  They didn't get any pictures of the dads and daughters together, but Lydia took this picture of her friend Kali on the hike.  Later that evening, Kali and her sister Ashley (who is good friends with Paige) invited Lydia and Paige to go to John's Incredible Pizza with them.  (Kinda like Chuck E. Cheese, but better from what they've told me.)  

 These are pictures from there.  Lydia and Kali

 Paige and Ashley

 Lydia and Kali (again)

Sept. 24th

 These next few pictures are from Noah's preschool.  I love that the preschool teachers take pictures of the things they do there, so the parents can see.  They can't take pictures of the kids faces because they do post them on Facebook.   But this tower is definitely built by Noah, Cooper and Eli--his friends that we carpool with.  

 fingerpainting

 And these are just pictures of the rooms they get to play in.  It's a great school.  

 This is their teacher, Miss Christy reading them a story.  She's great! 

Sept. 25th

 Cooper over to play with Noah.  They both love playing with cars.  Noah's kind of going through a weird phase where he's really terrified of going to other friend's houses to play.  I'm not sure why.  Like he will freak out if he thinks he's going to someone's house.  So, I try to have friends over here once in awhile so he's not completely bored.  Hopefully, he'll grow out of this fear because he used to love it.  

 That afternoon, right before we were supposed to head to soccer--it poured!  Lydia had to go out and play in it.  My kids love the rain for some reason.  (True Oregonians!?)

 I dropped the older three at soccer and went home because I didn't want to sit in the rain and watch the little kids play soccer, but after it cleared up, this beautiful rainbow came out and so did the sun!

Sept. 27th

 I found out that our Parks and Rec has Family 5K's throughout the year.  We had missed most of them, but I got us signed up for this one.  It was just in a park and you had to run around the park 6 times.  We brought bikes for Bella and Noah, which they rode for the first 2 or 3 laps, but then they got tired of them and so walked the rest of the way.  Sometimes very slowly, with Garrett or I trying to encourage them.  They were pretty tired, but we finally made it.  We didn't have very good times, but at least we were out trying.

Sept. 28th

 Hanging out in our backyard after church

 Don't mind the pool, we hadn't put it away yet.  The grass came in really nicely.  It looks so much better than it has in the past.  

 Paige finishing her dinner

Sept. 29th

 Maggie and Lydia are always taking selfies.  I thought this one was cute.

 Another beautiful sky

Sept. 30th

More soccer!

 Love the sky

 Lydia (on the left)

 Lydia going after the ball.  Lydia didn't want to play at all this year, but then Kali joined her team and so she was OK playing one last year. (They can only play until they are 12)

 Maggie coaching her team in a game.  Garrett couldn't be at all the games because of work meetings and such, so it actually turned out well.  Maggie made coaching the soccer team one of her YW personal progress projects.  She really had a good time.  

I love this picture of Paige doing some stretches out on the field in the middle of a game.  Silly girl.

And we're onto October next!!!