That’s October for you.

Ken loves mowing.  It’s his favorite chore…I’m not kidding either.  And then on Sunday morning when he gets home from meetings his favorite thing is to go out on the deck and admire all the green. We took Rachel with us and went for a drive through the mountains to see the fall colors.  We packed a picnic lunch, but didn’t find a picnic site real easy so we just pulled into a camping place to use a table there and got in trouble from the manager….grumpy….oh well.  It was pretty chilly in the shade and we couldn’t move the table so we ate quick and returned to the van.  There were lots of people with the same idea and there were cars pulled over on the side of the road all over with people out taking pictures of the changing leaves. Afterwards the kids stayed at Rachel’s for a bit while Ken and I took Neil back to BYU for retakes of his birthday picture.  That funny boy!

After pictures Ken and Neil played “Pooh-sticks” with little twigs and leaves in the streams to see how far they would float along.  There is a little bridge at the top of the stairs when you get to the path and we waited and waited for there leaves to come out the other side….but they never did. Girls night in. Jessie and Abbie made masquerade masks together. Then they helped make dinner while wearing them. It was a royal evening! Rachel invited Jessie and Mark to a Harry Potter party.  Fun, food and games.  Here’s the chocolate frogs they got.  You can read all about it on Jessie’s blog here: http://jpsugarbaby.blogspot.com/2013/10/fall-break.html

"I'm too full to eat my dinner,” says Neil after one or two bites of his dinner.  So we packed up his dinner and took it with us to Grandma’s house. 15 minutes later at Grandma's house he served himself some cookies for "dessert." Doesn't dessert come AFTER dinner??  (and he sat and stared at his dessert collection while mom fed him his dinner, then he chowed the cookies.) Neil dressed himself up – all ready to play.

While the kids were taking turns having piano lessons with Grandma Neil and I entertained ourselves in the hallway with this huge exercise ball.  Abbie joined us and they had a blast playing together.

We finally got some button eyes so Jessie could finish her owl hat we started this summer.  (A lady in the ward came and gave Jessie and I “hat lessons.”  Mine still needs the beak and eyes sewed on.  But Jessie was excited to try it out on a baby and this doll was the only baby around. :-) Ken and Scott and Mark went to get us wood this year for the stove.  Now to find a free weekend to get it cut.

For Halloween Spencer wanted to be a dragon.  I got his tail made first.  Mark thought it made a great unicorn horn. And Jessie modeled the whole thing once I got the spikes sewn on the jacket. (You may have guessed that by this time it was really late at night and she was the only one left awake with me.) Neil and Isaac were also getting excited because the other kids had the costumes out a lot.  During the day they would cycle through most of the ones that fit.  I love this picture of Isaac with the bear head on.We celebrated Becca’s birthday at her and Rachel’s apartment. Isaac enjoyed birthday cake with Becca but made a bit of a mess on the table. So he got a napkin and wiped the crumbs off the table. He tried to get them in his hand, but most ended up on the chair. So he repeated the process with the chair... Onto the floor. Once they were there, there was nowhere lower for them to fall. But he was sure trying to clean up!  What a sweet helper!Abbie and the boys disappeared one afternoon after school.  Then she showed up and invited me outside.  They had raked up several piles of leaves on the side of the house and were jumping/burying each other in them. More bedtime stories…