Fall is seriously the best! Everything about it is just delightful! The cooler weather. The beautiful colors of leaves. The fallen leaves scattered around the ground. The wearing of sweaters, jackets, and coats. The bounteous school, church, neighborhood, and family activities. It’s all just so happy! Here’s a little taste of our autumn so far.

School
Back to school time is pretty magical for me. I love hearing about the kids’ new teachers and friends. I LOVE it when they bring their school pictures home! (Seriously, though. Check out how beautiful my kids are!) I love the school activities and field-trips. It’s all fun.

So far, we have had two preschool field-trips–to Wheeler Farm and the Schmidt’s pumpkin patch–and the elementary school jogathon. Oh, and parent-teacher conferences which I also love! I haven’t gotten to help out in any classrooms yet this year; but I hope to do so in coming months.

Neighborhood/Church Activities

The ward had a fall festival with a chili cook-off. It was fun and yummy, and I frankly wish I could have tried more of the chilis. But alas, my stomach was the limiting factor. Our cornbread was a favorite, though! Josh made muffins in cute Halloween wrappers, put them on pumpkin platters AND provided honey-butter. So, it was not-surprisingly the first to go.

We were also invited to a Halloween block party. It was super fun for the kids because our neighbor has a giant garage full of arcade games! On the invitation it specifically said “costumes encouraged”, so we went all out! Josh and I both dressed as vampires, and I did my make-up super cool for the occasion. When we got to the party … we were the ONLY people in costumes!!!! One other 7 year old girl was wearing leopard leggings, a leopard t-shirt, and leopard ears. But that was literally IT. It was thoroughly embarrassing at the time; but now I’m feeling very proud to be, obviously, the coolest family in the neighborhood.

My current calling is Activity Days leader (so. much. fun!) and for our activity we painted pumpkins. The girls all did such cute designs; but I only got a picture before they really began. Aren’t they such cute girls?!

Family Fun

Just to make double-sure that we really are the coolest family in the neighborhood, Josh continued his tradition of providing interactive Halloween displays in our yard. We put it up on the side of the house for the first time this year, and it is so nice. I feel like I can come and go as I please even if the sun has gone down! This was Josh’s first year to reuse an idea for his haunt; but the 2022 version of Pumpkin Palooza is a lot fancier than the original back in 2015. A fun fact is that if you are in one of the rooms on the west side of the house in the evenings, you can sometimes hear people outside playing it. It has been really fun to know that people are enjoying it!

Early in October, Christina and Colton invited us over for dinner and hanging out with their poultry. It is so funny that Christina impulse-bought two ducks, a chicken, and a turkey! But it was also a genuine thrill to cuddle with ducks and have a turkey perch on my shoulder. Thanks for the great time, Steemer!

Last week, Lacey hosted a girls’ night of learning to decorate cookies like a pro! And, even in spite of my severe lack of skill, my cookies turned out so cute!!!! There was a jack-o-lantern too; but I was too excited to eat it (and destroy the evidence of how poorly that one turned out), so it didn’t make it into the picture. But Lacey is seriously such a good teacher! Thanks a million!

We went to Frightmares! I know I mentioned that in the last post; but it was just too much fun not to mention again! On the left is when Josh and I went for a date (thanks Mariel!) and FINALLY went on Cannibal! It was so fun to be at Lagoon with just Josh. It’s honestly really fun to be just about anywhere with just Josh.

Back on September 22, in honor of the first official day of fall, I decorated like crazy! It was so fun! I love the way my mantel turned out. The next week, at WinCo, I saw this cute little ghost decoration thingy. It was $8, though, and I just thought “no way.” Besides, it was pretty small; and I like my decorations nice and big! So, Josh and I went through some scrap wood in the garage and recreated it–triple+ size–to put on our porch for FREE!!!!! Josh drew the shapes, cut the wood, and attached everything together. I painted the ghosts and made the ribbons for the bows. And Josh and I both worked on the letters. It was such a fun little project and I am so pleased with how it turned out!

One of my favorite fall traditions is driving up Big Cottonwood Canyon to see fall leaves. But this year, I took a silent vote from the family to see who else wanted to do it (I had been getting vibes from Josh that maybe it’s not on his favorite-list) and the only person who said they were interested in going was Helen. So, one morning when there was no preschool, Helen, Bianca, and I drove up the canyon and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful colors!

It has been an unfortunately warm fall, until last weekend when we got snowed on! I was totally confident it would never stick. I was wrong. But it was lots of fun!

Other things going on include Mariel (best cousin ever!) coming over two times in the past month to watch the kids so Josh and I could go on dates! The first time, she and the kids decorated the house with leaves and bats. The second time she came this month, she brought her big dress-up bin from her own childhood to play with, and the kids loved it! Mariel is the best ever! She has been blessing us with her babysitting and just all-around goodness for multiple years! <3 <3 <3

For fall break this past week, we honestly didn’t get too exciting. But we did go to the library together and do all their fun Halloween activities for which we were rewarded with treats! The kids worked so hard together on the sugar-skull scavenger hunt. I was very impressed with their efforts.

Also, here’s all the kids being cute together in their jammies on our new (to us) chaise.

Happy Fall, Y’all!

It has been too long since I have written an update on our goings on. So here are some quick high-lights from this past summer that seemed like it would just never end!

June brought us the end of school and the whole gang back home. This June was the most enjoyable month of summer for me since about 2015! It gives me hope that some day I might just enjoy the entire summer again! The best parts of June include Carter’s baptism (See this blog post) and the acquisition of two insulin pumps. No more shots for us!

July was when I got done with summer. ha ha! Usually I can last until my birthday, but not this year. I think a big factor in July’s difficulty was Portia’s adjusting to her new life on an insulin pump. It is just really hard for a six year old to accept that she will basically be connected to a device for the rest of her life. But we did do at least one fun thing I can find a picture for! We completed our summer tradition of reading a Harry Potter book and then having a party and watching the movie! This year was book 4.

August was our month of trips! I went to visit Christina and Colton in New York City! I had never been before, and I had never visited Christina in one her out-of-state home before, and I’m so grateful I finally got to do both! It was so fun to see New York from C&C’s perspective and have some quality sister time!

We also joined the Monson family for a reunion at Bear Lake! Lots of beach, pool, and cousin time!

The three oldest kids went back to school in August (Helen started after Labor Day). The kids all seem to like their teachers quite a bit this year. And I got to go to Portia’s class to talk about Diabetes. That seemed to be helpful for Portia feeling more normal at school, which is a blessing. <3

And though summer weather certainly didn’t cease with August, that is where I will wrap up the chronology. But there were two presences that really characterized the good parts of this past summer for me. The first was the fact that we got season passes to Lagoon! The second was my beloved garden!

When Josh suggested we do Lagoon passes back in March, I thought it sounded decently fun. But I have actually just LOVED our Lagoon summer! It has been something that the kids look forward to each and every time we go. It has been a fun date for Josh and me a couple of times. Going to Lagoon for us is just enough work that we went seldom enough for it to stay novel for the kids; but easy enough that we really only spent however long we wanted to there and didn’t feel bad about just going home when we were tired. And though we still have lots of little kids with varying interests and abilities, I still have all the good feelings every single time we go! We have gone to Frightmares twice now, and it is the BEST! If we happen to get passes again next year, I would be totally fine with that!

And the garden! I feel like gardens are some of the most magical things in the world! I love visiting flower gardens; but I definitely do not (as of now) have the patience and diligence to really cultivate one. Maybe someday… But a vegetable garden is something I could do this year. We decided to do raised beds because despite my 5 years of trying to improve our West Jordan ground soil, I never could get things to grow very well. We started with seeds inside in about April, but we didn’t give them enough room to grow and so they didn’t really work. But we bought some plants and we planted some seeds straight in the ground and we have been abundantly blessed by our garden this year! My biggest dream was pumpkins. I wanted an entire pumpkin patch that we could share with all the cousins and neighbors, etc. We didn’t quite get that; but we did get 3 pumpkins that were ready for the first day of fall. And we have two more that are beginning to turn orange. Five pumpkins is basically a patch, right? Besides pumpkins, we had 3 varieties of tomatoes, bell peppers, and golden zucchini (because they were out of green at the store). I’m so pleased with everything we have gotten!

One of the things I loved best about having a garden this year was that it reminded me just how good God is in providing for us all of the time. When I buy produce at the store, I just think of it as a given that I can exchange money for food for my family. But with the garden, I was reminded how everything is in the Lord’s hands. Will my plants grow? Will they produce anything if they do grow? All of that is in His hands. Naturally there are steps to take to ensure one nurtures the plants appropriately; but I am new enough at the gardening game that I could really see just how much God did to provide us with our bounteous harvest! And I loved remembering, each time I prayed over our garden, that it truly is our loving Heavenly Father who provides all the zillion things I take for granted every day.