The return of the blog!

Um, okay, wow.  Apparently I don't blog anymore??  I guess I just kind of forgot how behind I was. :)  But now I"m thinking about Christmas and making another blog book, and I would like the months of October and November to be featured in it.  Plus tons of great stuff happens every day and week and I take a fair amount of pictures of it... so I would really like it to be documented forever on here!  Even if no one reads it anymore because we see all of our family members like every month now it seems-- which is great obviously!  But I digress.  Here's where we left off.

Halloween Activities.

 Took the kids to Jakers Pumpkin Patch while Eric was on a campout.  Not the smartest because we had a hard time getting the pumpkins to the car, but thanks to Katelyn's resourcefulness climbing over the hay bale fence and me handing them to her, we made it!

Anyway it was fun.  I let the kids take turns choosing which activity we went to .  Here's Owen's hay bale maze:

 Whitney picked the petting zoo of course, and got to pet a kangaroo!

 She really does love animals.  And this pig was GIANT!

 Then Kate picked the corn pit!!  Such a funny/gross/odd thing!

 silly ostriches.

 Owen trying to copy haha.

As you will see in the end of this post, it was the year of many costume ideas.  Here was one of Owen's.

 Dad helped him make this great Batman pumpkin!!

 I made Maris a cat.

 And unlike I think any of our other kids at her age, Maris LOVED the pumpkin guts!  She wouldn't stop playing with them!  So funny.

 Whitney made a cute face.

 And Katelyn tried to be real artistic with hers!

 For school the day before Halloween they could only dress up as things they were learning about in school.  So Whitney was a butterfly,

 and Katelyn was a medieval princess. :)

 New ward= new Halloween traditions!  We have never been in a ward that does a Halloween party on actual Halloween!  It was pretty fun though.

We ended up kind of dressing up in pairs:

Bruce Wayne and Spiderman,

 baby Jedi and Darth Vader,

 and McGonogall and Hermione. :)

 Kate and Brett ( a boy in my Primary class) were matching Darth Vaders :)

 Maris was obviously thrilled with the candy and kept asking for her bucket "buttet"

 Then she had a hilarious jumping around on the couch sugar high!

 Pics from before the party:

 My facebook post:

Happy Halloween! It's been the year of costume changes. Kate went from pirate to Darth Vader, Whitney was going to be a Japanese princess but switched to McGonagall for year 2. At the last minute Owen wanted to be Spider-Man instead of Batman, and I couldn't find the monkey costume for Maris and she refused to wear the elephant one so she ended up being a baby Jedi! Eric was Bruce Wayne and I got to be Hermione. I might be Hermione every year from now on haha!

 And Owen's candy organizing the Monday after. :)

early October highlights

Before Grandma went back to japan, she took us and Ryan, Cortnee and Cleo bowling!

Cleo is very sweet to Maris.

And these two are getting better at playing together! :)

Jenae came to Utah for Conference!  (and to visit her boyfriend from the summer who goes to BYUI, Joseph!)  So naturally Jonathan caught a ride down with Joseph and we had a big shindig at Allison's.

After dinner, dessert and lots of fun, Jenae requested that we sing!  We haven't done that usually when all the Utahns get together, but who can say no to Jenae?  Especially when we all love it and we had 6 siblings together?  Of course we sang.

And it was beautiful.  Here's my attempt at a panoramic:

Also in early October the van passed 77,777 miles haha.  Yes unfortunately I took this picture going 50mph.  totally should have pulled over but there was no shoulder and I didn't want to miss it!!

We did the BYU race!  Tragically Owen freaked out at the starting gun again and didn't run, even though he was adorable and fast when we practiced on a track the last couple of weeks beforehand.  Maybe next year...

Whitney ran the 800 for the first time; it's a long way for her!  She didn't even train because it was right at the end of soccer season so I figured she was in good shape and she has historically hated training. :)  And she did great!  stopped and walked for a few seconds a couple of times, but finished middle of the pack as a 7 year old in a 7-9 year old race.  

and she had a great kick. :)

Derek and I challenged each other to run the 5k again, but this year I actually trained; trained harder than I have since I was coaching at Provo High before having kids, so like 10 years ago!  And this time Derek hardly trained at all so I SMOKED him, and everyone else, and actually medaled in my age group!  I remember running this race a few years ago and thinking about how much faster I'd have to be to medal.  And I did it!  I had done at least 3 speed workouts a week for a month, after starting out in half marathon shape.  And it was awesome.  Eric and the kids and Melissa and Raycelan were all there to cheer for us and it was so fun.  I love feeling fast!  And I got to stand on a podium for the first time ever!

A 21:34 5k, a record that may never be broken! :)

Then we caught the end of the BYU Homecoming parade and got to see Karl with the School of Accounting making balloon animals!  Super cute.

What is Maris doing with that cone? lol.

I love my sister Katrina.  And Phillip and the kids.  They came and Katrina took pictures of my kids with their nice camera last time they were up here.  So I had new 8x10's printed for my wall and it's crazy the difference a year makes in my kids!  Red=last year, stone wall=this year.  Sorry Kate's is blurry.

And last but not least, I took a few pictures one day when I was color-sorting dirty laundry and Owen and Maris were playing in it.  They are so cute.

And then Owen came out a few minutes later wearing 4 ties and laughing.  Hilarious!

I'm so happy to be a stay-at-home Mom!!!

I guess a lot of fun things happened in September...

We went on a homeschool field trip to a farm with our MacKay cousins, and Owen loved following Caleb around.

Maris loved following ME around :)  I love my baby girl.

Natalie wanted me to take this picture to show my girls who were at school!

Maris enjoyed the chicks, 

and Owen liked the goat milk we got to try!

I liked it too, it was really good!

Also in September I organized a girls trip with some of my Santaquin friends, to see our old friend Melanie Holm who moved to Liberty 2 hours away almost 3 years ago!  She has a business called "SPlat and Chat" where people come and have painting parties in her barn and she teaches them to paint something!  It was SO FUN!!!

Melanie is the cutest person ever.  her barn is adorable and she was an excellent teacher.

I had so much fun, and I felt like a real artist!!

But mostly it was so great to see Melanie, I have missed her!  She was so influential in my life as a young mom.  So kind and such a good friend.  We did preschool together and she would always throw these fun girl parties (hence the business!) and she is so GOOD.

And driving up and back and having lunch with all these girls was half the fun, I love them so much!!  Anna Shaw, Chelsea Rowley, Sara Olsen, Crystal Wallace, Michelle Peterson, and Melanie!  All wonderful women and examples to me.  

And here's my painting!  Love it.

Also in August Owen finally finished his potty chart and was done potty training, hallelujah!  And it was so cute, for his prize he picked going camping with Dad.  :) :) So finally in September they had a chance to go.  

They are too cute together.

And last but not least, we took our good friends here in Salem, the Petersons, on a hike up Santaquin Canyon.  It was way fun, we get along great with their family.

Oh yeah and we got to see Elizabeth, Kjarom, and Jayda!