The Thankful Tree

This is our thankful tree this year! So every year we make a tree and every night we each get a leaf to write one thing we are thankful for that day. Then on Thanksgiving after dinner we take the leaves off the tree and read what we have been thankful for that month. It's a great reminder to us of our many blessings and reminds us to say thank you.

Happy Halloween

I love the look on Jacob's face! He was a trooper and cleaned out the guts by himself!

Daniel and Jacob shared a pumpkin this year. This was Daniel's side. Jacob carved on the back of this pumpkin, so I guess you could say this pumpkin is two faced!

Kendall and Noah joined forces on this one. Noah drew the face and Kendall did the carving. As you can see it's puking up its guts!

Daniel was a shadow man.

Jane was a princess (I'll call her sleeping beauty)

Emma with her treats from the cake walk.

Jacob was a tiger.

Noah was a box.

This is our trunk for the trunk-or-treat. Everyone loved the pumpkin puking the candy up!

October Fun

 

This year we joined a home school co-op called LEAF. The kids take classes every Friday and we go on little field trips together. It's been great for the kids and they love making new friends. We went to the plant farm's pumpkin patch again this year. I love that they bring the pumpkins in and put them on the lawn so we don't have to trudge through the muddy fields to get our pumpkins!

They have a little tractor train ride.

Hello PINK! Emma just had to climb on this tractor!

Kendall and I have a tradition of going to a corn maze every October.  We went to a corn maze 13 years ago on our 3rd date. It was a special date, cause he held my hand for the first time that night and he told me he loved me on that date. We usually make it a date night thing, but this year was so busy and the kids really wanted to go so we went as a family. The kids had a great time running around the maze. This is them at the entrance to the maze.

Wild Children

 As a parent of 5 children some times (okay, let's be honest, from the time they get up to the time they go to sleep) the kids can be a little loud and not listen to what you say. So last night I jokingly said something about hog tying our wild children to settle them down. It turns out they do listen to us! (I call it selective audio disorder, all children have it) Emma and Daniel ran out  to the garage and grabbed the rope!

Once they are all tied up we have a little peace and quite while they work and wiggle to get themselves untied. And we get a good laugh.

 Emma was the first to get herself untied! They had so much fun and got all tired and were in bed and asleep by 7pm! (Part of that was due to the fact that the time changed and 6pm felt to them like 7pm)

Temple Leaves

 Every Fall I take the kids to the temple and we look for leaves to bring home and do crafts with. The kids love running around the little trails they have and try to  find the best leaves. I always bring the camera and force them to sit for just a few minutes for pictures.

 My boys are so handsome! Noah was a little miffed at me when I told him he couldn't wear any camo cause I wanted to take nice pictures today. That boy would live in camo every day all year if I let him! It reminds me of Kendall when he was that age!

 I love the girls blue eyes!

 My mom came with us this year!

 My kids can't just do nice smiley picture.....they have to have at least one silly picture! Ha, and you can't really tell in the picture but we noticed after the pictures were all taken that Jacob not only has his shoes on the wrong feet, but both his pants and underwear were on backwards! Sadly, that's not abnormal for him!

 I even got out from behind the camera and let my mom take one of the kids and I.

This has always been my favorite tree!

Encampment

Noah is an 11yr old scout so he was able to go up to encampment Friday and Saturday. They had a great time hiking

They hiked to a rock garden and had fun climbing around.

They even got to go to the shooting range and shoot 22's. They had a great time and he can't wait til next year when he can go to camp the full week.

Noah Meets Elder John H. Groberg

Have you ever seen the movie The Other Side Of Heaven? If you haven't, I highly recommend it! It is one of Noah's favorite movies. It's about a guy, John Groberg, who goes on a mission to the Tongan islands in the 1950's. It's an amazing movie! Noah has always wanted to meet him. Well we found out that he was going to be a speaker at encampment this year so Kendall took him up to hear him speak. After they went up and met him. Noah asked him if he had ever eaten grasshoppers. He said that he's eaten insects before but he didn't think he'd eaten grasshoppers.

They both came home super excited about the whole evening. I love that Noah got to meet him and speak to him!