It's getting colder!!

Fall is in full swing around here. We need jackets to go out, the leaves are changing and we're busy with all sorts of fall activities. I've always thought of Halloween as the kickoff of the Holidays. After Halloween it's just a blink of an eye until Thanksgiving and then comes Christmas!!!






We hosted a Halloween party on Friday for Savannah and some of her girlfriends. Alex also had a friend over. The little boys were running around yelling and screaming but they were nothing compared to the girls who were playing a clean version of "Truth or Dare". Jeremy was amazed at how crazy girls can be. They all had a great time.






Saturday we had family pictures taken. Hopefully they turned out well. It was a lot of work to get the kids to cooperate all at the same time. It will be worth it I'm sure!

Tonight we took time to carve the pumpkins that we picked out last Family Home Evening (or Family Out Evening). It always amazes me at how exited the kids all get at the smallest things. It is always such a huge ordeal, I can't imagine not following the tradition. The pumpkins are carved and sitting out on the steps and the mess is finally cleaned up! The kids are in bed and I'm sure they are dreaming of their Trick-or-Treat buckets overflowing with candy!

Other news: Alex lost his second front, bottom tooth. Gray is now in the Nursery at church, but he won't go alone so I'm going with him. He looks like such a baby compared to all the big kids who will be Sunbeams in January. Hopefully he'll do better once they have all moved on.

PS Could someone please tell me how get a cute background for my blog, put slide shows and music on? Thanks!

Conference Weekend

I was planning on updating every week, but............well, you know how it goes. We had a wonderful weekend listening to General Conference. I loved the talk by Elder Wirthlin about how to handle adversity......."try to laugh". I also enjoyed the talk by (??? can't remember now) about living in the here and now and being thankful for what we have. The kids did great and stopped to listen to our Prophet whenever he spoke. They kept entertained with their "Conference Packets" which had lots of fun activities and pictures to color.

I did have to pause the tivo a few times on Saturday to take Savannah to ballet class and pick her up and I had to take Alex to a football game (he made a tackle!!!). A few weeks ago, Jeremy and I went shopping to buy the supplies we needed to put together 72 hour kits. During the break between the Sunday sessions we assembled our kits. I'm amazed at how much stuff we needed for a family of 6!!!! Hopefully if anything happens that we would need those kits, we'd be able to use them at home or use our car because I don't know how far we'd get on foot. Hopefully we'll never have to find out, but it a peacful feeling to get that taken care of. (It only took us 12 1/2 years.)

As for other news for the past few weeks......Savannah has been doing lots of homework. I finally cut Alex's hair. He also lost his first tooth and is $1 richer!!! Micah got his foot caught in the spokes of a bike while getting a ride from a bigger boy. It is gruesome to look at but he's ok. He and Gray have been playing a new game where Gray lays on a blanket and Micah pulls him around on the wood floor. Gray got some new teeth in and has been busy finding pencils and writing all over the walls with them. He also had his first hair cut and is big enough to wear the much loved "cow suit" !! ( I thought you'd like to know that Ben and Megan!) I've been busy cleaning walls (and everything else). I'm also attempting to make "quiet books". Wish me luck!! Jeremy, well, you can guess what he's been doing. Working and crying over the Cubs.