October: Pumpkins and Crashes

I love driving around Midway to see the fall colors! I feel like my life has gotten away from me and everything is too busy and too fast. I'm trying to slow down but it is really hard.

I'm still trying to get in a rhythm with activities for the kids in Midway. The library does a cute story time for toddlers on Mondays and I took Amelia to one. At the end they did bubbles- Amelia's favorite thing! 

Jessica had a party to watch the new Hocus Pocus movie. I waited to watch it until this night and it was definitely worth the wait! It brought back so many fun memories and it was actually way better than I thought it would be. I got there earlier than anyone else and we watched part of The Nightmare Before Christmas!

Henry finished up with his soccer team this season. He loved it and he did great! It's fun watching him get better at this sport that he loves!

October means Cornbelly's time! Rusty was getting a special award for his ERC company that night so he couldn't come with us, but we met up with the Bartons there. I love coming here- it just feels like the epitome of fall. We hit all of our must do's on the list including the dress up area and the train rides.

ERC was recognized as the second start up business to watch! He has worked really hard for this business and I'm really happy that they were recognized. He deserves a million awards for how well this company is doing!

Red Sign did their annual party at Jaker's, and even though the trip is longer now we didn't want to miss it. Well, the kids and I didn't want to miss it. Rusty did want to miss it. But he was a good sport and we all went. We did the corn pits and the corn maze and even did the tractor ride for the first time here. 

Bryndee had her baby! I was so happy to be able to go to the hospital and meet baby Everett. He was so sweet and absolutely perfect!

We decided to try the Wow Trail again with a lot more time so that I could get the whole way down haha. This time it was beautiful, but it wasn't as loamy and cool as it was the first time. We had a great time and were almost all the way down when my pedal hit a rock and I flew off. I hit my knee on a big boulder, and it hurt really bad but there was nothing to do but finish going down. So we got down and then went and got some lunch and went home to shower before going to Uncle John's house for a football game. When I was getting in the shower I looked down at my knee to check it out and noticed that it definitely didn't look good. I called Rusty in and he looked at it and told me that we'd have to go get stitches. I'd never done that before so I was pretty nervous, but it was fine once I was there. Henry even came in and sat with me so I wouldn't be alone! Then they all got ready to go and Henry got me a big plate of treats to leave with me by the bed. 

Another fall tradition is to go to the scarecrow festival! We went and walked through all of the different ones and voted for which ones we liked best. When we were all done we got some hot apple cider and a pumpkin cupcake. Henry had a hard time choosing which ones he liked the best and wanted a picture with almost every single one haha.

After the scarecrow festival we went over to the Butterfly Biosphere to see what was going on for their special Halloween things! The kids hunted for pumpkins and even held some creepy crawlies! The surprising thing is that Amelia was super into and willing to hold them! She has been obsessed with bugs and looking at them and finding them, but I was surprised that she would be willing to hold them. But she did and she loved it!

The first part of when Rusty was gone the kids and I went over to Mendon to spend some time with my mom. We went and walked through the Pumpkin Walk, which was my first time since I was about Henry's age! I was so impressed with people's creativity! Some people are so talented! The kids loved walking around and see the different scenes. 

The next morning we went to the Heritage Farm and did the corn maze! I love fall so much, and it was a beautiful, sunny fall day. We tried to do the maze without cheating, but Mom had a meeting she had to get to so we had to cut some corners at the end which was very distressing to Henry haha. But it was so much fun and we had the place all to ourselves!

Our cousins came to visit! While Rusty was in Morocco I invited Kelsey and the kids to come out and stay with us. It was fall break for my kids so it would be a great fit! They drove out and we had a great time! We went to Wasatch State Park and fed the ducks, to the skate park and rode bikes, played games in the house, and played with water beads outside. It was fun to see the kids bonding and having such a great time, and it was a blast for me to spend more time with Kelsey!

One day we went over to the Dairy Farm and did a tour! I have been wanting to do this since we moved out here so this was really cool! It is actually really fascinating, and I learned that they don't milk the cows manually at all anymore but they have machines that do everything. The machines can detect if one of the udders has mastitis and it will pump it more to clear it out and then it discards all of that milk. The cows also get to choose when they want to be milked and they just walk in. If it hasn't been long enough the front opens so they leave and come back later. It is so interesting. I did feel really sad for them, because I kind of imagined that they got to go be free outside when they weren't being milked but that's not true. They have to stay in the barn. And we saw these little calves and they were so cute but they were tied up to a little igloo hut thing and they had to stay there within that little two foot radius for weeks without leaving. I hated that. They were adorable and tried to eat our shirts and shoe laces and I loved them.

After the dairy tour we went over to Howloween Town right next door! They had different things like a corn pit, a straw maze, a bounce house, and a sandbox. The kids played here for a long time and we got some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and they were SO good. Like so good. They had a great time and we did too! I love fall days! 

Their last morning I thought I would be the fun aunt and surprise them with some donuts for breakfast. I had heard that Judy's Donuts in Midway is amazing, so I went there. And it was like one minute away. I told the guy at the drive through window I'd never been there before and he gave me a menu. The menu doesn't have prices or anything to offer scale to the size of the donuts. I order two dozen, because I figure there are seven kids and two adults so if everyone wanted two I'd get 24. And extra donuts are never bad. So I ordered them and he left, and then came back and handed me a box. And then another box. And another. And another. At this point I realize that I had made a grave error. He tells me that my total is like $75.00. Um WHAT ON EARTH JUST HAPPENED. Then I went home and turns out that Judy's donuts are massive. So I decided to just lean into it and I cut them into smaller pieces and then put them on the table for the kids to eat. My kids were just so excited haha!

Rusty went on a really cool dirt biking trip in Morocco! They were gone for a little more than a week and rode their dirt bikes across the Sahara Desert. That's pretty sweet! He had a great time and loved getting so much seat time, even if it ended up being a little too much and he got sore haha! He went with my dad and a guy from our home ward in Meridian named Justin Wilcox. Justin invited some other friends, and Rusty spent a lot of time just hanging out at the back mother henning everyone. 

My friend Amy threw another Hocus Pocus Party and it was awesome! She decorated so well and she made the coolest food. The frog on the charcuterie board is actually made out of white chocolate and she painted it. She's crazy amazing! We watched the movie and it was fun! I like the people in this new ward a lot!

For Beckie's birthday this year, Rusty was in Morocco and I was here with Kelsey and the kids. I took the morning to go to her grave and nobody was able to meet me there because everyone was out of town except for Mom. I picked up a pumpkin pie on the way and we ate that and talked about her. It was really short and felt more empty than normal because it was small and rushed, but it was fine. I miss her terribly and normally her birthday is a goodish day because I'm remembering all of the good things, but this year it was just awful. I hated it.

My homeschool friends told me that they were doing a field trip to Hee Haw Farms. I decided to pull the kids out of school and we went on the field trip too! It was so fun and it made me so excited to homeschool next year. They each had their favorite things- Henry loved the corn pit and got in it so crazy that his whole face looked white like a ghost haha. Amelia loved the sheep and she kept calling them dinosaurs. I told her they were called sheep and she said no, they're dinosaurs haha. Della loved the train ride.

I took the kids to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point after we had gone to Hee Haw Farms with the homeschoolers. We were already on the front side of the mountains and we hadn't been to Thanksgiving Point for a very long time. We even splurged this time and watched a 3D movie there! We had the entire museum pretty much to ourselves, and the movie theater really was just us. This helped me remember why homeschooling is amazing haha.  

One night we were all sitting at the kitchen table playing Hi-Ho-Cherry-O and the lights went out. Immediately Henry and Della start to scream, which means that Amelia soon follows. The power had gone out and so we gathered some candles and our head lamps and finished our game, read some books, and then got ready for a sleep over. After a couple hours the lights came back on and by then the older kids were having fun and wanted us to keep the lights off like it was still shut off haha.

One day Amelia and I went for a nice walk along the path behind the green space! I'd never ventured over there before but the weather was nice and I was getting tired of our normal walking routes. Amelia loved being able to run ahead without me yelling to her to be careful of cars- and so did I! Also, she had this cutest outfit on with these bell bottoms. I mean seriously. 

We found this poop and couldn't figure out what animal it was from!

It was time for the ward Trunk or Treat! We signed up to bring something sweet, so the kids voted and we decided to make rice krispie treats. We would decorate half of them to look like mummies and the other half to look like Frantenstein's monster. They turned out so cute! And the kids were so proud of themselves. The actualy trunk-or-treat was FREEZING cold and so we all just hustled through it as quickly as we could haha. But I love seeing my kids in their costumes any time, but especially on Halloween it is just so fun! Or I guess around Halloween-time. You know what I mean.

I always love holidays, but this year my Halloween food got a little more carried away than normal haha. I had a lot of fun surprising the kids with different things and seeing their reaction. And it's fun to do something special for their lunches!

We painted pumpkins this year instead of carving them and it was glorious! I was having a really hard time going through some things (next month's blog post) and didn't feel like I had the bandwidth to do carving. But the painting worked out great and they had fun! It was fun to see how they all chose to decorate their pumpkins.

We have loved living out in Midway, and this month we found another reason to love it! With hunting season opening, lots of deer have been moving down lower. We see some really beautiful bucks in the green space quite often!

I went on a Harry Potter date with Alyson and I had so much fun! We started by going to the Copper Onion in Salt Lake which I had heard so many good things about. I got the beef stroganoff and it came with wagyu beef. It was my first time having that kind of beef, and it seriously just fell apart in my mouth. It was delicious. And the sauce and the homemade noodles... Ah! So good! After dinner we went and saw the first part of the 7th Harry Potter movie with the symphony playing the score live. It was really cool! Afterwards we talked in the car for a little bit before we had to drive home so we could go to bed! Ha!

Have I mentioned enough times how much I am loving this new ward?! They are so friendly and inviting. There was a Halloween party at Katie Nelson's house that she invited us to, and it was really fun! I took the kids out of school early for it because everyone else there was homeschooling so it was earlier in the day. They played some Halloween games, ate Halloween themed treats and food, and it was so fun!

We had a really cool opportunity to get a cooking lesson from a woman in our ward named Janet Athay, and she is amazing! She showed us how to make an island pork chop with mango and rice and delicious broccoli. For dessert we made the most delicious bread pudding I've ever had. It was all custordy and delicious. Anyways, my friend Larissa got it at a church fundraiser auction and then was able to invite another couple and they invited me and Rusty! I was so happy because I really like her. Janet also showed me some cool storage things in the kitchen that I took pictures of so I would remember when we're building our cabinets. But I didn't take any pictures of the delicious food haha.

I had heard about the Witch's Breakfast at Thanksgiving Point quite a few times, and had always wanted to try it. We figured that this year would be a good year to try it! It was really cute- and the food was good! This year it was based on the Hocus Pocus sisters (or maybe it is every time, I have no idea) and they did a great job! They sang some songs and told their story while we ate and then they came around and talked to us. Mary came and started talking to my dad and saying that she needed some new dead man's toes for her recipes, and that maybe she should just wait around because he didn't have that much longer haha. HAHAHA I explosive laughed so hard I'm pretty sure food came out of my mouth. He started to laugh, and then looked at her and said, "what?" Afterwards they were able to see some cool creepy animals like scorpions and owls and a whip scorpion that looked just like one of the bugs in The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

After the witch's breakfast we thought it would be fun to take my parents (and Rusty) back to Hee Haw Farms to show them why we love it so much! I really wanted to take a picture of us all in our family costume, and it was hilarious. My hair wasn't quite so much Urusla as it was David Bowie from the Labryinthe, which was a bummer haha. And Rusty was absolutely furious with me about his costume. I will never be allowed to do this again- I pushed it too far and I will never get another family costume haha.

HAHAHA

I wanted a picture of all three kids together, but Amelia refused to be in the picture and Della was so embarrassed by the wig- which I paid extra so she could have because I thought she would love it!

I got one smiley picture of Amelia, but not with anyone else haha.

And then she refused to look at me

Like why is this my favorite picture of her ever

We went over to the house a few times over the month to check on the progress. We have run into some permit problems with the city so that is frustrating, but we have been able to get some more things done in the backyard. And, even with waiting for the permits they have been able to redo some of the things that were done poorly. It's coming along, even though I feel like it is taking forever!

Midway Elementary School does a yearly costume parade where all the kids walk around the block in their costumes so that all the parents can see. It was so cute! I had a little SWAT officer and a kitty. Henry got the giant dinosaur costume for Halloween this year, but I thought that would be a disaster at school so he chose this instead. Turns out other kids wore costumes like that, so he would have been fine.

After we saw the kids in their costume parade we headed over to the library for Storytime and trick-or-treating around the library and community center! Amelia thought this was pretty amazing and loved that she got candy. When the kids got home from school we got ready to go trick-or-treating. We first stopped at Kellie Gordon's house a few streets down because she came over and invited us to come to her house for some hot dogs and chili. Then we went around the neighborhood for a little bit and got some trick-or-treating done!

Henry's Highlights:

• He's my honest little boy. At the Trunk or Treat the boys he was going around with were taking big handfuls of candy when nobody was there and Henry was upset about that and only took one. Ha.
• He finished up his soccer season! He did a great job, really making a lot of progress and having a fun time!

Adeline's Adventures:

• Is very into how she looks and looking nice for school. She will tell me, "If my hair was like this I would be SO embarrassed."

Amelia's Updates:

• She loves Wild Kratts!

• She says "guggle" for snuggle, every color is "blue" and every number is "2"
• I asked her how she wanted her hair done and she said, "neigh!" I asked her again and she repeated it. I figured out she wanted a PONY tail hahaha.
• She says "I want YOU" when she has to go to bed and I obviously can't handle it
• She wanted to say the prayer once but she didn't want to stop eating so she kept her eyes closed and would take pieces of the roll with her fingers and put them in her mouth while nodding her head and talking

Extra Pictures:

She's such a treat to share the bed with

Amelia was very quiet and then I saw her playing with the toothpaste in the bathroom! She got it everywhere!

One night I turned off all the lights and read our Halloween books with a flashlight!

I don't remember how I ruined her life on this day- but I did

Amelia taking some selfies

Stitches are doing better!

I tried doing a redo of our family costume and it wasn't much better haha although I did hairspray my wig so it went straight up like Ursula's. And yes, that is a turkey decoration because I did this around Thanksgiving.

This month I had a really hard time emotionally. I'll write more about it next month, but I took these pictures this month and I didn't want to delete them. Life isn't always happy and these struggles are a big part of my life, especially these months of fall. These pictures show me a family that is willing to stick with me and support me at my lowest, and it shows me how far I've come. I am so grateful that I'm feeling better now.

Della's class did an ofrenda for the Day of the Dead and we brought a picture of Beckie