Leaves are Falling All Around

Well, not so much in Arizona. It seems like some of the trees decide it's finally autumn somewhere in November, and the rest wonder if they might have missed it somewhere in February or March and drop a bunch of leaves... Anyway, we've had a very busy fall.

With Reilly turning 12 at the end of September, he was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood, and also was able to start going to the temple to perform baptisms for the dead. Our Mesa temple (less than a mile from our house) has been closed since spring as they completely redo it and its grounds, AND the Gilbert temple was closed for like a month, so Jeremy took him up to the Phoenix temple for that.

Katy was due for a parent-child trip, and since she turned 8 this year, she got to attend General Conference with Jeremy in Salt Lake City. They made a trip of it, and were gone for like 4 days. They stayed with and visited with a bunch of friends, and saw some different interesting places. Katy really enjoyed having that time with Dad! We tried to have our own Conference fun at home, including making donuts in between sessions!

We started enjoying the weather more in October, and the kids really love to get out. Riverview is a popular destination, with its big awesome park. They weren't too excited about our plan to walk around the little lake that's there first, but it was really nice. :) After that we let them spend a while on all the playground and climbing equipment.

With the cooler weather Reilly's Scout camp outs also resumed, but his first experience as a 12-year-old scout wasn't so great. They had a ton of wind that ended ripping their tents up over and over, and he only slept like 2-3 hours that night! He came home and took his first nap in about 9 years, not counting illness. :)

Some Halloween highlights included having Grammy come down to do a bunch of crafts, the girls had a Halloween party in their dance class, and parties at school, Shawn helped made pumpkin Halloween muffins for his pre-school class, and their Halloween program, etc.

Of course we got some trick-or-treating in, after the traditional meal at Chipotle. It was weird not having Jaina there for dinner, because she was at her friend's little Halloween party before joining us for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. It was the year of reusing costumes, as I think most of them are ones we wore before or for another occasion (in the case of mine and Jaina's), Katy's was found at D.I., (She was NOT Elsa, she was a winter fairy...) and Bridget's adorable little candy corn witch was passed down from one of Jeremy's cousins. We struggle with Halloween since we avoid sugar so hard a lot of the time, but Jeremy traded the kids quarters for a bunch of their Halloween candy, so that made them happy.

November was a little calmer, and had even nicer weather. We actually went down to the Gila Valley for Thanksgiving, and spent time with Jeremy's family members.  It worked out really well, because David and Nicole are living in my parents' house while they're on their mission, but they were coming to Mesa for Thanksgiving, so we were able to stay at their house for the weekend. The two older kids and I did the Turkey Trot with Jeremy's dad, sister, and co, and we did a fun Thanksgiving breakfast with them. A couple hours later we went up to Thatcher and did Thanksgiving lunch/dinner with Jeremy's mom and sister, and then we took some family pictures afterwards at the golf course. They turned out pretty good for taking ourselves with a tripod and a timer!

March Facebook-isms

March 5th:
Family Home Evening was more success than fail this evening. That is not often the case lately, so we’ll take it!

March 18th:

Fun little Facebook quiz - 

• Favorite smell - homemade bread, or movie theater popcorn
• First Job - babysitting?
• Favorite pizza - Spinach bacon artichoke with white sauce
• Birthday - July 29th
• Favorite dog - Collies or Golden Retrievers
• Favorite foot attire - flip flops
• Roller Coasters - Yes, but less so than 15 years ago...
• Crowd or solitude - Some of both
• Favorite ice cream - butter pecan
• Ideal vacation - Something Disney-ish
• Shorts or Jeans- skirts
• Surgeries - wisdom teeth, c-section
• Color of eyes - blue
• Favorite holiday - Christmas
• Night owl or Morning - Night owl
• Want to skydive - Some. Less since I had kids.
• Tattoos - No, thanks.
• Do you like to cook? - Not so much
• Can you drive a manual shift - Nope
• Do you like vegetables - Some
• Do you wear glasses - No
• Favorite season - fall
• Favorite vacation - In recent years, San Francisco with Jeremy

March 19th:
Just scheduled well-child appointments and dental appointments for all 5 kids over the next month. Do I get a sticker or something for that? (Or not until I actually get them to all these appointments?)

March 24th:

At Dinner tonight:

Reilly: "Mom, these are my favorite way you have made these."
Me: (thinking he was talking about the chicken fajita meat I had spent an hour preparing/cooking) "Oh, really? The chicken?"
Reilly: "No, the green beans."
Me: "Reilly, I literally just dumped those out of a can and stuck them in the microwave."
#cookingforpickykidslife

Also in March:

We took a trip to Pima, since we had the option of a big place to stay one last time before David and Nicole are going to be living at my parents' house for the next year. It was great to go visit my Grandma, let the kids spend some time with Abbie, and we spent a few hours visit with my cousin Leisel's family at my Aunt Joyce's house, which was really fun. Of course, being Irish (adopted, in my case, haha) we had to break out our St. Patrick's day pride. ;-)

"The rain came down and the floods came up"

So, it's been a long month. Jeremy's been working hard getting his office up and running, There have been lots of setbacks and frustrations, and his x-ray equipment is still a headache and not fully functional. It's been exciting, but nerve-wracking and frustrating at the same time. It would probably be easier if he could just concentrate on that, but we've had other craziness going on with our townhouse. (Well, we rent, but still, we try to take care of everything that we can in exchange for really good rent.)

A large branch from the big olive tree out front fell on our roof and within a few days it rained and the kids' bathroom started leaking. The HOA's roof guy said it wasn't the tree's fault and that roof just needed to be resurfaced.

 So they did that, and then last week the kids and I ended up staying at my mom's for 5 days while they expensively and messily removed all the wet sheet rock, which was full of 60's asbestos. And the bathroom has been sitting all torn apart since then, which has been exciting. Really looking forward to it all getting sorted out, but I’m not sure when that will be!

We have had a busy month in general though. Summer life with 5 kids is a little much for me! We have tried to stay busy, though. I was sad to not have the option of going to the cabin on 4th of July with all the fires. We're still worried about those, but hopefully our cabin will continue to be safe. :-/ We didn't do too much celebrating, but went to our ward's 4th of July breakfast at the Melser's, and did sparklers with the kids that night. I just wish it got dark a little earlier. It would be more fun that way, but our kids go to bed pretty early usually. Bridget was already in bed and didn't get to see them.

Towards the beginning of the month we also met up at Mesquite Groves Aquatic Center to help celebrate Chloe's birthday. My kids always love that place, and it's pretty cheap to get in. If it wasn't like a 35-40 minute drive we would definitely go more often!

Abbie was down here visiting when we did our traditional Chik-Fil-A fun.  We went for a pretty early lunch and it wasn't too crazy yet. I'm had to quickly make a shirt for Bridget this year, but otherwise the prep was already done from my sewing last year!

We had the opportunity to attend a double funeral for my great-Aunt Karen and great-Uncle Kent, and it was a great experience. I learned a lot about them that I didn't know before, and it was nice to spend some time with extended family.

We used the trip to Urban Jungle on our POGO passes, and the kids love that place! It was a little crazy trying to pseudo-keep track of all of them, especially with Bridget and Shawn to watch, but they all had a really great time. We should go again sometime!

And then one of the biggest events of the month: Bridget turned 1! So exciting and crazy! We had a fun relaxed day for her birthday, and did cake and candles that night with just family. Jeremy also got some light-up balloons that they all had a blast playing with.

Our second Bridget-celebration was a couple days later, when we were in Pima. It was more of a party then, with some grandparents and cousins. Both times were fun.  It's always nice to spend time in Pima, but with every child we've added, packing has grown more hectic, and... it's just a lot to travel anywhere. I'm hoping that will ease a little as they all grow and can do a little more packing for themselves. What do you think? :)

The other eventful thing that happened during that trip is that we found out Spencer was returning from his mission in Tampico, Mexico. He had some things he decided he needed to take care of better before he continued. That was hard, but good, and it was great to see him. I was glad that I got to be there when he came home, at least for a day or so, since we ended up extending our trip a day or two because of the crazy bathroom stuff. It is just such a mess!

So I spent my 35th birthday packing everything BACK up, and driving home with 5 kids. Not quite what I had hoped for... I tried not be sad about it, but I was a little bummed. When I got home, though, Jeremy sent me to the Gilbert temple (the Mesa one was closed briefly) and I got some (free) dinner at Joe's Farm Grill, which is also super tasty. And I got myself a piece of cheesecake to celebrate my birthday, which was pretty exciting, since I have been trying really hard to start losing this baby/nursing weight the last couple months since Bridget finished nursing. I haven't been having -any- desserts, and that cheesecake was amazing! Between that and the peace of the temple, it was a nice end to a crazy day, and I appreciated it!

A Different Christmas

For the last several years we have tried to spend Christmas at home, but this year it wasn't quite as exciting of an idea. I spent most of December like this, and the week of Christmas probably ended up being my roughest week of being sick. It was bad. Not the worst Christmas ever, but definitely the worst I've ever felt over Christmas. One morning it was bad enough that I was just hanging out in the bathroom for a while, and Shawn was excited that I was out of bed, so he kept bringing me toys to play with with him.

I managed to leave the house here and there (even making it at least sacrament meeting most weeks!) But mostly I just laid there and hoped it would pass more quickly! Jeremy was amazing and did most of the finding/cooking food, cleaning, and keeping things afloat. He is great that way. Being pregnant is a big sacrifice for me, but also for him in a different way.

We managed to all make it to our ward Christmas party, which was fun for the kids. The had a "Grinch Stole Christmas" theme and all got to wear funky colors/clothes. We kinda hoped to sneak out before Santa came and things got crazy, but we were too late. (Though I had to leave before they actually got to see Santa, I think) The food, which I didn't have to make or think about beforehand, was very good. :) Several different kinds of soups, lots of rolls (many homemade), and dessert. Yum. Reilly and Jaina sat on Santa's lap even though they had asked/discovered that "Santa" was more of an idea than a person this year.

A few days before Christmas we drove down to the Gila Valley to spend Christmas at my parents' (where my mom could at least feed us and the kids would have a little more excitement). It was really nice to be there, even though I actually felt worse that week than any other, I think. At least there were more people to visit with, and to be excited about all the Christmas fun with. Christmas Eve we even managed an off-the-cuff nativity scene (Spencer was so thrilled), and I can promise that wouldn't have happened if we were all home alone. Shawn wouldn't leave his costume on long, but he was the cutest little shepherd. :)

Christmas morning was fun, and everyone was exciting about their toys. Shawn was way into Minions (he referred to them all as "Bob-bob" and was excited to get a dancing "Bob" from Santa. There were many Legos, some dolls, a Star Wars chess set, and snacks to enjoy. And super tasty "Grandpa's waffles," which always seem like Christmas morning to me. I was just glad I was able to eat some of them! That afternoon we went to Jeremy's mom's house to exchange presents and eat Christmas dinner. I was feeling pretty icky by then and didn't take many pictures. :-( It was a good day though, and I'm glad there was some extra family around to make sure the kids had a good week.

Jeremy was able to keep the kids pretty busy during the rest of Christmas break. They did a couple movies, used a few more things on our POGO passes before they expired (including Makutu's Island), smoothies, the mall, etc. It was nice to have him home a lot that week to help them get out of the house and have fun. Definitely not my best December ever, but we mostly pulled it off, I think.