Pumpkins and Pizza...

For Family Home Evening, we made pizza and carved pumpkins.  This was our jack-o-lantern pizza.  :)

While scooping the guts out of a pumpkin, Jack's I think, I found this:

One of the pumpkin seeds had sprouted and was trying to grow!  I love carving pumpkins and in all my years, I've never seen one of the seeds sprout and try to grow while it was still inside the pumpkin.  Weird.  I didn't take any pictures of the pumpkins.  Juliet and Jack carved traditional jack-o-lantern faces and Maxine created a crow and carved it out.  Happy Halloween!

Spooky Hollow...

Our little town started a corn maze this year!  So we headed over and took pictures with the headless horseman.  

The kids got a free horse ride.

Mikayla rode around with Merril and had a good time.

Juliet liked the headless horseman.  She kept calling him the headless horseguy.  We went through the corn maze and bought some hot chocolate and glow sticks.  It was a fun and easy family home evening.

Camping for Fall Break!

Juliet wanted to go camping one more time before Winter.  Fall Break seemed like the perfect time and some friends, Darryl and Shauna, were camping out at the lake so we crashed with them.  

We got there in the evening and played in the sand.

Jack wanted me to bury him, but I said no.  So he started to bury himself.

It dipped down to the mid-50s at night, which wasn't too bad.  Jack kept rolling off the air mattress and waking up.  Then he'd wake up Maxine.  I put Mikayla asleep in the Tahoe so she'd be away from the noise.  When I got her at 7:30 a.m., her little arms were so cold!  Looking back, I should have had her sleep in between Merril and me.

Juliet trying to get out of the tent.

After we woke up, we made egg, bacon and sausage mcmuffins.  Oh yummy!  We had cantaloupe too.  Mostly so we didn't die of a heart attack from the muffins.

Mikayla warmed up and was happy.

The kids got dirty and had a great time.

Mikayla had fun helping me take down the air mattresses.

Merril had some work on Friday so we packed up and headed home to veg.  Then we went back out to the lake with the boat and dinner.  It was a good time!

Mikayla is 8 months old...

Mikayla is 8 months old and last month I was able to add everything back into my diet that I've been avoiding: dairy, chocolate, and corn.  I've also been able to phase her off the Prevacid for acid reflux.  How do you think she's doing?

Yep, she's a happy kid.  She's down to 2 naps a day and sleeps from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  She's just starting to get some anxiety when I leave the room.  She's so good and seems always content no matter what we're doing.  We won the baby lottery with her.

Merril's Mt. Whitney Hike...

Merril has wanted to climb Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states, for quite a while.  Months ago he reserved a permit and it was time to hike on October 3rd!  The peak of Mt. Whitney is 14,505 feet about sea level.  He was a good husband and even took some pictures of the hike!

Merril on top of Mt. Whitney.

Merril's friends, Darryl and Ryan, went with him.  Darryl is pictured below.

Merril said there were little lakes along the way.

Merril trained well for the hike and said he was hardly sore afterwards.  He did comment that his lungs hurt when we got home.  I told him he can't ever climb Everest because I can't arrange to air lift him out if things get dicey.  But Mt. Whitney is just fine by me.  :)

Living like it's 1970...

For Young Womens, we had a modesty fashion show through the generations.  Girls dressed up like pioneers, 1920s, 1950s, 70s, 80s, 90s and current.  I got the 70s.  This was my hippy look for Young Womens.

My hair sat in spongy rollers for most of the day and boy did it have some volume at the end.  I'm wishing curly hair would come back in.  My hair digs curls.

Maxine on a wakeboard...

I don't remember how it happened but Merril convinced Maxine to try wakeboarding.  To my surprise, she popped right up.  Then Merril started looking at the end of season deals and scored a kid wakeboard.  Maxine's pretty good at it!

The rest are just lazy lake pictures.

Jack's not really going anywhere on the jetski.  He just likes to think he is.

Mikayla is a crack up to me.

Having a good time!

Maxine chillin' on the tube.

Sadly, lake season is coming to a close.  :(

Grandma's rocking chair...

Grandma C. has a rocking chair that's for little kids. When we were up for Sunday dinner recently, Mikayla was sitting in the chair in her Sunday dress. The dress looks vintage and her cousin took a picture. It inspired me to borrow the rocking chair and take a few pictures back at the house.

I think some of them are absolutely adorable!

I don't know why but I really like this one of her looking down.



I can't believe she's 7 months already! She started inching forwards on her tummy the other day. She's actually achieving forward motion! Unbelievable.

The perfect picture...

I decided to take some pictures of all 4 kids together. It's quite the feat. But the kids and I set off after dinner to get some pictures taken! The first one fired off was pretty great! I swapped Mikayla's head because she smiled better the second shot. Hooray.

Here was another good one, except for Jack. He was done by now and didn't want to participate. He was swapped out and looks pretty good.

The kids wanted to take pictures of me and Mikayla so I agreed, mainly to keep them cooperative. I like this one.

The overall experience was good. Even without photoshop, I would've had some pretty decent shots.

No wonder people didn't smile in the old days; it was just too hard when you had 19 kids.

Juliet's Dance Class...

Ever since the summer Olympics, Juliet has decided that she's a gymnast. A flyer came around for the community center and offered ballet classes for $18 a month. Jules was all over it. She begged and begged to go. So I signed her up, bought all the cute ballet clothes and she's in love. This is from the first day of class.

She's been living in the ballet clothes ever since. I just have 2 rules, she can't wear them to school or eat in them.

She's also gotten really good at cartwheels and surprised me by doing backflips on the trampoline! How did she get so big?!

Hula hoops and 500th blog post! Wahoo!

Juliet got a hula hoop at the dollar store yesterday. She's been having fun practicing!

Hiking Oak Grove...

Merril and Ryan R. took the kids hiking up Oak Grove trail.

 I remember hiking it and thinking it was pretty steep but the kids did great!

Ryan and his kids brought stuff to camp out but Merril turned around with our kids after about a mile.  Good job kiddos!

A new robe...

A few months ago, Maxine and I scored some reduced price fleece for a sewing project: a robe. Maxine wanted a blue robe and we already had the pattern from a previous sewing project. The plan was to sew the robe during the summer. That didn't really happen. On Saturday, Merril took Juliet to a car show, Jack went to a birthday party, Mikayla took a nap, and Maxine and I sewed.

Maxine sewed some and I sewed some. To be honest, the fleece was kind of a pain.

But it turned out great!




I got to use my rotary cutter and mat from Christmas! Yippee! It looked like it snowed blue fleece at our house afterwards. We had blue floofies everywhere.

We cleaned up and Maxine wore the robe almost all day. And the day after that. Thankfully she can't wear it to school. :)

Wahoo back to school!

I had a great time this summer. The kids were good, we had reading and writing time almost everyday, the kids did chores and we had some great vacations. Then I went school shopping about a week ago and ever since then, I'm totally ready to kick the kids out the door. The kids were excited to go to school too! First Day: Maxine is going to 4th grade, Jack to 1st, and Juliet in Kindergarten.
Technically, Juliet didn't start this day but still rode the bus since I was going to the school to meet the kids and help them to their classrooms.

This is Juliet's first day of real Kindergarten. Her friend from Primary, Lauren, is in her Kindergarten class.

Every day Juliet comes home happy from school. Maxine's already bored. Jack is adjusting to the all day thing. He comes home and seems to unwind for about 10 minutes with a fit or two. Then he relaxes and everyone is happy again.

I'm really loving the mornings to myself. I play with Mikayla, clean up while she's napping and I've started some projects. Nothing fun yet, just organizing closets and ridding my house of the clutter that accumulates while I'm pregnant.

Mom's playdate...

My best friend from high school, Emily, now lives in Massachusetts. She called me last week and said she was flying out west for her sister's wedding and wondered if I'd mind driving for a few hours to meet her and visit. I immediately accepted and planned a road trip. We met in a podunk little town for dinner. My friend Emily is in the blue strips, her sister Laura is in olive green and Emily's cousin Andrea is sitting next to me.

We all brought our little girls. The moms chatted and the kids ran around and played. Luckily the restaurant had a back room that was completely deserted. Otherwise we might have alienated the whole restaurant with our kids. I'm always amazed how Emily and I can fall right back into old rhythms like I just saw her last week. We chatted for a long time in the restaurant and then for a while in the parking lot. Then we had to leave. Bummer. Thankfully, Juliet and Mikayla were super good the whole time and I was grateful for good kids!

Lemonade Stand on the Last Day of Summer!

Every time I see a lemonade stand, I pull over and support the young entrepreneurs of America. It was a goal of Maxine's to have a lemonade stand this summer. I said we'd do it over and over again until Monday night when Maxine in tears said, "Summer's almost over and we didn't have a lemonade stand." I said, "You're right and tomorrow is the last day of summer and we'll do it!"

Merril wanted the opportunity to teach the kids about small business and made them buy the supplies. Jack bought lemonade packets, Maxine bought cups, and Juliet bought poster board with their own money. Mommy donated sugar and water. They were super excited! (Jack's pulling another cool face.)

We set up a shade tent on a busy street. Jack and Juliet got bored after 45 minutes and Daddy took them home. They received their share of the profits, $2 each. Which they seemed happy with.

Maxine decided to stay for another hour and a half and her total profits for the day were $12, since she didn't have to split with Jack and Juliet anymore.

Maxine was super thrilled as we took down the shade tent.

Maxine said she was very grateful to me and paid me 50 cents. :) I gave it back. Hee hee. Later that night, I found a note on my pillow from Maxine saying she was so happy with the lemonade stand and that she couldn't have done it without me. Occasionally, doesn't it feel great to know that we're raising good, responsible kids?? :)

I'm loving peaches...

We've been eating peaches like mad because our peach tree has produced beautiful peaches. I prefer peaches fresh versus bottling them so I made a peach-blueberry tart the other night. Oh so yummy!

Don't you just want to eat it?!

I always feel so grateful when my plants produce food.

And as a total change of subject, can you tell where Juliet is?

She's sitting on top of the fridge. She loves it. The ledge isn't that big and she's the only one who fits. She's always asking Merril to set her there. Weird kids. :)