Garden Watermelon

Whoa!  The first freeze of the year came, which meant just before that it was time to pull everything from the garden before the plants died.  We had a good haul that will finish ripening in the house, but we also harvested our watermelon.  It was growing great at the start of the year, but stunted and stayed about  the same size the rest of the year.  We cut it open this past week to see if there was any red, and there sure was!  It tasted great too!  Here we all are sporting our pieces.

We continued to have a great time in the leaf pile this week.  Grayson kind of like it, but was never as excited to be in there as I thought he would be.  That's okay, the girls still love it!  They're really into somersaulting into the leaf pile, which results in a LOT of leaves in their hair, and then throughout the house...  But at least they're having a great time, right?

The girls also love to rake the pile back up.  I'm glad they're great helpers, but it's usually a bit worrisome for whoever doesn't have the big rake.

I put Grayson on the slide a few times while we were outside.  It took a few times, but he is really starting to love the slide.  In fact, this weekend we drove out to Utah, and stopped at a park on the way.  I put him down a large slide, and he really liked that until he tipped sideways and bonked his head.  He didn't hit it hard, but was still rather sad.

Sometimes when I head into the basement, like for work, Grayson will follow me and get stopped at the gate.  He likes to grab and shake it.  He's typically not too crazy with the gates, but sometimes he really goes at it.

Winry has a book about animals she likes to have us read to her.  She really likes bunnies, and loves a good bunny fact.  Did you now that bunnies can see behind themselves without turning their heads?  Did you know Winry can do that too?  Well, she tries at least...

Um... just found this in Monica's pictures, and I really liked Winry using a banana as a smile.  Pretty cute!  If there's more story then hopefully Monica will add it here.

Since we were heading to Utah on Saturday, we had to clean up our leaf pile on Friday.  We had a last hurrah jumping and somersaulting in, and then put it all in a bag.  Of course the girls had to sit on the bag, as is tradition.  Honestly, I'm a bit surprised how small it all looked once it was in the bag.  This might be the smallest leaf pile we've had.  The good news is that one of our trees loses it's leaves first, so we should have leaves waiting to become a pile when we get back! 

We stopped in Grand Junction on our drive and played at the big playground.  There were rocking things that fit two people!  The girls loved that.  They also went on the swings and played around on the playgrounds.  We only had to make one stop, so the drive went as well as it could have!

Here's Grayson with his cousins watching the BYU football game.  It was exciting that we made it in time to watch the game... until we actually watched the game.  Not a fine week for BYU...

On Sunday we made a dinosaur island cake.  The requirements were that it had to have a volcano, lava, water and a dinosaur.  We made a baking soda volcano, as I thought that would be an original idea.  We were one of 3... so that was a little disappointing.  I thought when our volcano went off we'd be the winners hands down.  I guess redemption came in the form of none of us winning, but instead Cameron picked his mom. :)

We're having a great time out visiting family.  Grayson was a bit unsettled during church and I spent basically all of it in the halls.  During second hour he was pretty loud, so we went to the hall and eventually outside.  We walked around to the trees and I let him hit the leaves.  He LOVED it and would get the biggest smile on his face when he played with the trees.  We had a great time, though the lesson was hard to follow for me.  It started with the saints having a square mile of land to build a new city, I headed into the hall and came back to hear about a lady that was eaten in the Donner party...  I cannot connect those dots...  I think I missed a bit.

Anyway, It's currently Tuesday evening, and there have already been some great things to put into next weeks blog!  We're having a great time with family.  Oh, on Sunday I asked Andrew if he wanted to come over for dinner.  I went and picked him up and brought him back to Monica's parents house.  I think he had a fun time, and I know I had a lot of fun catching up with him!  Sounds like he's having a great time at college, and also it sounds like he could use the well balanced meal!

Leaf Pile

Hooray, it's Fall!!  We've had a pretty decent number of leaves fall off our trees in the backyard, so we got to pull together our first leaf pile of the year!  I raked it all off the grass so I could mow the lawn, but raked it all back into a pile when I was done!  Everyone was very excited to jump in and play!  Grayson was a little unsure, but was enjoying himself until his sisters started dumping loads of leaves on his head... then he started to cry and that was the end of his first leaf pile excursion.

Rolling all the way back to last Sunday, we really wanted to head out for a family walk/bike ride, so we did and just joined my family call on my phone while on the trail!

On the way out, we headed over a bridge then up a hill and down the other side.  Winry took off going down the hill and left us in her dust!  Winry really loves to ride her bike and likes to go fast.  We're often jogging to catch up to her.

Here we are on our way back to the car, heading over the bridge right before we make it back to the parking lot.  On the way back, Winry got off her bike a few times to run, and I had to chase after her carrying her bike.  By the time we were heading up the final bridge-hill she was quite tired and I had to help her make it to the top.  On the way out, Brooke was a little hesitant on the bridge and Winry crashed into her a few times because she kept stopping...

Monica and I made it to the temple this past week.  We set up appointments to go together a few times before, but Monica ended up with really bad migraines or we had sick kids each time.  This past week we went separately and were both able to make it to our session!  It was great to be back in the temple, and it had been a LONG time.  I'm glad they're open again, it was great!

Monica and the kids headed to play group this week with some other people in the ward.  While going through pictures from the week I found a fun video of the girls rolling down the hill!

Winry started E&E preschool this week!  She was so excited!  I mean, she was super excited a month ago when it was first going to start, and then absolutely heart broken when it didn't happen because we were the only ones to sign up.  Well, there are two other kids in her class with her now, and she is loving it!  She has so much fun and loves to show us her crafts and tell us about what she did each day.  Also, on her first day when filling out the sign, she said she wanted to be a school bus driver.  That's a new one.

On Saturday we made our first leaf pile!  We had so much fun playing in the leaves.  Here's a picture of Winry jumping into the pile!

And this just ended up being the cutest picture I've taken in a while, so I had to include it!

And I caught Brooke in the air as well!  As I mentioned, the girls were having so much fun jumping in, throwing the leaves everywhere, and then raking them back up.  I wish I got a picture of them raking... maybe I will this next week.  Brooke got a garden tool set for Christmas I think last year, and it had a little rake in it.  Winry would use that, and Brooke used the big rake.  It was nice that they took care of everything themselves!

Jelly joined us for the football game in the afternoon, though I'm not sure football is really Jelly's thing...

Grayson enjoyed watching the game with me.  We cheered as hard as we could!

You can tell this picture was taken before the 4th quarter.  In fact, judging by the smile it was probably in the 1st quarter.

And that's a wrap for this week.  Brooke went up and bore her testimony today, and that was GREAT!  I was in the primary room walking around getting Grayson to take a nap.  I like going in there because no one else goes in there, and I can turn on the chapel audio.  So I still got to hear Brooke, and Monica told me Winry also ran up and started bearing her testimony.  She made it to about "I want to bear...." and then stopped.  Good start!  I'm very proud of both of them, and Brooke's testimony was wonderful!  One of Brooke's friends got up when she did too, so there was a whole little children's block!  Well... that's all I've got, have a great week!

NSA Fun Run

Well hello!  This past week on Friday, Brooke had a fun run at her school!  All the kids go out at a certain time with their class and run laps around the school.  There are people along the way with bottles full of chalk stuff that spray colors on the kids as they run by.  Brooke's shirt is slightly colored.  It's a pretty fun activity for the school.  We got to come to school and watch Brooke run her laps.  I guess each class counts the laps run, and the school competes for which class ran the most laps.  No news yet on if Brooke's class won ;) (just as a note, the school goes up to 8th grade).

Grayson keeps getting more mobile, and keeps looking for new toys.  He still refuses to stick anything but his thumb in his mouth, which is a blessing and a curse.  But as for new toys, well... we're starting to leave more and more doors closed.  The first great toy in the bathroom was the girls potty seat... yuck... but now it's the toilet paper!

Winry has still been wishing for preschool.  Fingers crossed, but we think she'll be starting a class tomorrow!!  She doesn't know yet just in case it gets cancelled again.  Anyway, in the mean time Winry has been teaching her own preschool to... preschool activity supplies...  At least she's made some new friends! :)

Fall is coming, and the weather has been nice around here lately.  That means spending time outside!  One night the whole family headed to the backyard to hang out.  Monica was probably trying to get a video of Grayson standing, but you can definitely see me pushing the swing in the back.

Jelly found a new sleeping spot in the girls stuffed animal pile.  Honestly, I'm surprised this didn't happen earlier.

The girls love doing Pokemon Smile, a tooth brushing game.  In addition you can take a picture to decorate with Pokemon stickers.  It's a really big hit, and I also use getting to take a picture as a reward for being good at getting ready for bed.  Brooke likes putting the pokemon on her shoulders, or cuddling with her.

Winry likes to have Squirtle spray water in her eye.  Every night, same sticker.  After a few days she did find a new favorite, which is Charmander shooting fire into her eye...  At least she's excited about brushing teeth.

As mentioned, Friday was Brooke's fun run.  It was a lot of fun to go watch. We even saw Emy, who we know from church, but is in a different kindergarten class, running laps as well.  I think Brooke ran 5 laps in total, and I'm pretty sure it's at least a quarter mile around the school, so she ran pretty far!  She stopped to take a break a time or two as well.

After, the class headed around to the back of the school to watch a dunk tank and eat otter pops.  I don't know who was in the dunk tank, maybe the principal...  Anyway, it was fun to watch for a few minutes before we took off, and Brooke had a lot of fun.

On our way out we saw Polaris, and had to stop and get a picture.  It's too bad Brooke was at school/with her class so she missed our picture.  Polaris did run a few laps around the school, and Brooke saw him while he was out and about, so she got to say hi as well.

Grayson has a new favorite toy, which is a bottle of glue...  He loves to hold it and smash it on things.  I don't know where this started, probably from a craft project, but the glue has been a main stay upstairs for most of the week.

On Saturday I was instructed it was time to get our bathroom closet space updated.  I was able to get my morning run in and a trip to Home Depot before the morning session of conference.  Then we cleaned out the garage so I had a place to work, which involved running a bunch of errands, between sessions.  I was able to get all the boards cut and nailed up just in time before bed, and had dinner after all the kids were asleep.  I definitely didn't finish in time for the evening conference session, which Monica and I both had thought was done away with for some reason, so we totally missed the evening session... Oops, guess I know something I'm doing for scripture study this next week.  However, that extra 30-40 minutes was just enough time to finish up these shelves!  Hooray!

I've really been enjoying General Conference.  Something that has stuck out to me with President Nelson is that I feel every time he speaks he always gives a challenge and a promise of growth.  My memories of President Hinckley and President Monson are more about the stories they told, but the thing that really sticks with me from President Nelson is that he is always challenging us to do better.  I really like it, and I love the promises he gives us too!  I love our prophet, and I know that if we follow him we can come close to Jesus Christ.  I know that the promises he gives us can help us grow and reach a new and higher potential in our lives.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.