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!

November

November felt wonderful. It was finally cooling off and I loved it! I traded our older double jogger in for a newer single, and Shawn and I took lots of walks. We spent more time outside, and enjoyed the almost-fall weather.

Jeremy was really sweet and put kids to bed two Saturday nights in a row while I drove out to Maricopa with my parents and brother, Phil, to watch Spencer's play off and championship football games. Pima took the Division V (what used to be 1A) state championship, which was really exciting. The only sad part of that whole football-extravaganza was when I realized my phone was missing during the playoff game and finally discovered it two stories below, on the concrete, where it had fallen from my jacket pocket in the bleachers. Amazingly, it wasn't damaged, aside from a shattered screen...

On Veteran's Day the kids were out of school and wanted to do something fun. I took them to Tumbleweed Park in Chandler (which was a madhouse), and then we braved the Chandler Mall, and visited the Lego Store, Build-a-Bear, and the Disney Store. All sorts of craziness.

We spent a large portion of the month (and December, and parts of October and January) at the Budo Shingikan Japanese School of Martial Arts. There was a Groupon for a 10-week trial and we wanted to see if martial arts would make a difference for a few of our kids' impulse control and frustration. They have a great program there, and all three kids were in the same class, which is the only way we could have managed it, since they were supposed to go at least twice a week, and it was a 15-20 minute drive each way. They really enjoyed it, and if it had made a big difference, we would have tried to figure out a way to keep it going, even though the tuition for multiple children added up to a small car payment every month. Even though we didn't see many changes, we could see the value in it and we're trying to figure out if it was something we could swing.

This year we drove down to Pima for Thanksgiving, along with Emily and Phil's family. We really missed David & Nicole, who were stuck at home in Kentucky, getting ready to welcome their second baby. Reilly and I had signed up to do the Turkey Trot (5K) but our training had been a little lagging, and we did way more walking than jogging. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, even without pit-roasted turkey this year. I had to drown my sorrows with pecan pie, chocolate silk pie, and delicious cheesecake.:) it was fun to be together with everyone, if a bit chaotic. There was one particular night I think very few people got much sleep. I had also come down with a rather nasty cold a day or two before We headed down to Pima, so that put a little damper on things. Thankfully everyone else was mostly healthy.

We came back Saturday so we could be ready to put all of our Christmas decorations up on Sunday. Sunday's are crazy around here, especially since Jeremy has a lot of EQ responsibilities, so by the time we got to it it was a bit rushed, but it got done. Another slight expectations vs. reality. Those happen fairly often, but I've found it helps when I label them that way and push forward. :)

November ended with a bit of a bang when we found out that we were (very unexpectedly) expecting our 5th child. The way it all worked out, it's very obvious that this baby was in "the Plan," even if we hadn't been read in on it. It did help us make our decision about continuing martial arts. The way my pregnancies go, there was no way I would be able keep up the twice-a-week classes across town. And Jeremy stays pretty busy between working on his chiropractic business and EQ responsibilities. Not something that would fit in this year! When we have a baby, it kind puts us out of commission for about 18 months in many ways...

November 2014

Another fill-in from the future, haha.

November 2014?
Let's see...
*I got to go to Time Out for Women with my mom, Emily, Sophie, and Nicole. That was really cool. Kind of like a mom-EFY. I needed the spiritual boost, and it was nice to spend time with my mom and sisters. Shawn was pretty much weaned (if not totally - I don't remember the exact date) so it was nice to be baby-less for an evening and a day. Emily and Sophie had Logan and Hudson with them, but it wasn't a big deal. It was at the Phoenix Convention Center, and we got to hear Hilary Weeks, John Bytheway, and the Nashville Tribute band (along with some other great speakers), which I've always been fans of. :)

Not that much of note happened the rest of the month. Just busy-ness. The kids' school had their Fall Festival, which the kids all really enjoyed.

For Thanksgiving we went down to Pima and Thanksgiving morning I got to do the turkey trot again with most of my siblings. That was fun, and I did do some jogging. Emily and I mostly stayed together. It was nice to have the whole family together, and fun for the three little boys (Shawn, Logan, and Hudson) who were born in the last year to be together. Lunch was super tasty, as usual, and Emily made some super yummy homemade rolls. Later that afternoon we went down by the Pima Museum and took a bunch of family pictures, since it had been a while since we had one, and had added several babies since. The turned out pretty well for all of us non-professionals. Hard to mess up a colorful background and natural light. Ashley was there and helped us take the pictures for the group shot.

When we came home we put up some of our Christmas decorations (including the tree) and since they turned the Mesa temple lights on, went and enjoyed checking them out, as well as a really neat nativity display (sets from all over the world) in the Visitor's Center.