Halloween Happenings!

We've been a little busy around here, but that's nothing new! I wouldn't have it any other way!

We got together with the T-J's to carve pumpkins. We had a blast! And we learned some new pumpkin carving tricks from them!

Poor Mark, he is always the "digger"

Jayce's cute jack-o-lantern design.

 

Yes, that is my expensive Cutco knife in that pumpkin. It's actually two knives. Don't ask.

I've never seen someone put Mr. Potato Head type things on a pumpkin.

But it turned out so cute!

And this one was done so the stem was the nose...clever!!

On display!

And, the artists.

The big night!

Jayce's haul! Twelve pounds!! (Yes, he went upstairs to the bathroom scale to weigh it immediately.) 

It doesn't beat Cody's record of fourteen pounds! 

But, sheesh! A lot of candy!!

And, I had to mention, because it is newsworthy, that Jayce finally let us cut his hair. 

Before...

And, after! 

What a cutie!

What a fun time of year!! It happens to be raining today, so it actually feels like fall!! We love it!

Waters of Mormon

I have been absent from my blog for a couple of weeks, much to my sadness. I have been swamped with school, which I love. And I have been preparing for the Waters of Mormon. What is Waters of Mormon, you say?

About 150 years before Christ's birth, the people of America were mostly wicked. A bold prophet named Abinadi preached the Lord's gospel before a wicked king. One of his priests was a man named Alma, who believed Abinadi's preaching. After Abinadi died a martyr, Alma taught the gospel in secret and through the priesthood authority, baptized "a goodly number" who had gathered at the Waters of Mormon to hear him preach.

Our ward has prepared a spiritual feast for the youth of our ward. We do this every 4-5 years, so each youth will have an opportunity to participate at least once during their high school years. The Book of Mormon, ancient scripture, is broken down into ten parts and is taught over ten hours by ten different teachers! To break up the spiritual feast, we also give the youth a culinary feast with yummy dinner and snacks.

I have the privilege of teaching 3-4 Nephi, which is the account of the Savior's visit to this continent. I don't know how I can possible do justice to it. What would the Savior have me say if he were here. That is what I've been praying to know as I've been preparing. I am nervous, but oh, so excited! Mark is teaching the books of Mormon and Moroni - he gets to be the culminating teacher!

I will get back to my regular family picture stuff as soon as I can! In the meantime, I am grateful all my time has been devoted to learning.

Fall Stuff - Apple Picking and Pumpkin Patch

Years ago we went as a family to Julian, a small town up in our mountains, to pick apples. It was one of the most fun family activities we have ever done. We tried again the next year and, for some reason, there were no apples, or we missed the picking window, we never knew. But for some reason, we never went back. Until this weekend! Jayce really wanted to go, so made the trek up there and had a blast!

 We had to really commit...and get in the tree!

 Jayce really got into it!

 There were tons! I wish we could've picked more than two bags!

 We had to get creative to reach the big ones up high.

Oh, they're so yummy! I'm gonna make me some apple crisp!

A couple of weeks ago, actually on October 1st, Jayce said, "It's October, we can go to the pumpkin patch." Even though we told him it's open for the whole month, he insisted we go that day!

 He had to have a big one...and could barely carry it!

 Tractor Ride!

 Corn stalk maze!

 Token farm animals...

 My boys...so fun to have them...

The things we do for our kids...

Caitlin is in an entomology class at BYU. That means bugs, if you didn't know. She has to collect 300 bugs and display them by the end of the semester. Serious. So, we have been collecting bugs and I totally feel her pain because after a couple weeks of this, I am over having containers of bugs all over. She has been working hard, too. 

The boys have been very helpful!

Bug finding expedition...

Bug containers all over...

Yes, even on the living room coffee table.

We're pretty much done, I think. I'm getting them all packaged up to send on Monday.

If ANY of you have bugs from your area, particularly Texas, please send a few to Caitlin. She would be so grateful and relieved!

Blackout Birthday

I am very late in posting this (see below for my really good excuse*).


Jayce's birthday was September 8th.  And we had an historic power outage - a blackout - that day which covered most of southern California. Cody and Jayce also happened to be very sick that whole week and Mark was gone taking Derek to Idaho. So we were truly homebound.

 We were completely without power from 3:30 pm to about  12:30 am. When the sun went down the house was very dark. It was a good time to pull out all of our preparedness stuff and assess how ready we really are for an emergency. We had great camping lanterns, and Jayce really loved wearing a head lamp. We did pretty good; just needed a few more batteries if it lasted any longer.

You can't really tell how dark the house was because of the camera flash. But look at the bright lantern. It was the only light we had in the house.

On Monday, September 5th, we had a birthday party for Jayce. He wanted to go to Pump it Up and that's what we did. Everyone had a blast!

I'm looking all over for his birthday cake pictures. I know I took some even though we didn't have it until Sunday, when Mark was back. Maybe they're on Mark's camera. But I gotta get this post done and move on to homework!


*I am very late in posting this...I have started back to college...in earnest. I am taking 12 credits and it's about to kill me. Not really. I really, really love it, but I am swamped. I love blogging, though, and want to continue because it is a great way to keep track of our lives in a family history sort of way. I just have to be quicker at blogging.

I am also thinking of starting a new blog for a project for one of my classes. I have been thinking about this a lot, way before I got this project assigned. It will be about my experiences of raising a child who hasn't chosen to love the gospel as I do. What do you think? I thought maybe there are others out there who may need some comfort or a place to share their pain and learn from mine. I certainly would welcome the comfort from others to help heal my pain. It could be an avenue to explain our feelings and learn to forgive. My professor hasn't approved it yet. It's just in my thought process right now. But I'm thinking I do want to do it.