Boo!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Perfect day for a sPoOkY lUnCh.

{Ghost sandwich, Bat cheese, Jack-o-lantern peaches & Oreo Witches}

Logan specifically told me last week that he didn't want to buy lunch on Halloween because he wanted a special lunch. 

Moving Day

We took a last family picture at our old house...

...and then called in the troops to help us move. 

Not only did we hire a moving company to move the stuff, but Ashlin and Dallin were awesome and got 10 of their friends to come help.  And my brother in law Eric and his son Derrick came with their truck.  It was such a blessing, I don't know how we would have done it without them.  I ran out of steam and time to pack, so they just got these big bins and would go to old house and fill the bins, and come to new house and dump them out, and did that back and forth.  Ha ha, it was a little crazy. I saw a picture on facebook later of one of the teenage boys wearing a bunch of crazy stuff he found in my master bedroom closet.  It cracked me up.  I was so desperate I didn't even care that all these teenage boys were packing my master bedroom closet!  Who knows what they saw, ha ha. 

 I had scheduled movers to come on saturday, Oct 13th.  I called thursday to verify they were coming still saturday, and found out he had the date wrong and scheduled us for sunday.  >STRESS<  I said NOOOO!  Not only did we not want to work all day sunday, but the new people were moving in monday, so we needed more time to clean up afterwards.  So he said they could squeeze us in friday afternoon until night.  I was stressed, cuz I didn't have everything ready to move yet and now it was a day earlier.  UGH.  The movers got to our old house at 12:30pm on friday, and did not leave our new house until 1am that night.  CRAZY.  But we DID IT!  In 1 day we moved everything from  old house to new house.  We didn't end up having time to move anything over earlier, because the house was not complete.  We had to move in to a construction zone, because we had to be out of old house.  We didn't even know for sure if we would get the "Certificate of Occupancy" from the Town of Gilbert until 2 days before we moved.  There was still a chance we would have had to move our stuff in storage and not live at the house.  Bruce and I prayed and fasted wednesday that the inspector would pass the inspection so we could move directly to new home.  I cried when I found out he passed it and we didn't have to move twice, I was so thankful.

Then saturday Eric, Chrissy, Derrick & Zack came to help us more. 

Mostly Chrissy and my girls cleaned the old house...

(so so so thankful to them for helping so much)

 Sunday night, after we had made every last trip from the old house and finally had it emptied and cleaned we went back as a family for the last time.  I wanted to have one last Family Home Evening in that living room.  Lily officiated and stood on the hearth (like the kids took turns doing every week) and conducted family business.  Then I gave the lesson.  On our way there I had found a picture from a lesson manual on the floor, one side had a picture of children playing outside and the other side was a picture of Jesus.  I cried as I showed my kids what I found.  I felt like one side represented all of the wonderful family memories we had had at this home, and then on the other side I showed them the picture of Jesus and said that no matter what home we live in, no matter how big or small, the only true happiness comes from serving the Lord.  It was a really tender last family meeting in our old house.  It still makes me cry. We sang hymns and prayed there for the last time.

 Then our last family activity there was... 
hunting for lizards in the backyard.

The boys had been on a mission for the last many weeks of collecting lizards in our old backyard and taking them to the new house backyard.  They were afraid there weren't as many lizards at the new house. 

They brought many jars of lizards over.  We all had our different moving priorities... ha ha ha.

Homecoming

 October 6th was Homecoming

(My blog is officially updated to within the month- woohoo)

Even though it looks like it below, Ashlin and Vanessa were not each others dates, ha ha.  She walked over right before their dates came to get them to take some pictures together.  (They didn't go in the same group)  We love Vanessa, these girls have been friends since they were 9, and now they're seniors.

Ashlin is all grown up and responsible and one day I came home and she had already ordered her dress online and paid for it herself, and her coordinating shoes/belt/earrings.  Woo hoo for not even asking me, but taking care of it on her own.

 And then seriously, my camera blitzed right when her date came (so pretty much every dance this happens) so my pictures once he came are fuzzy.  UGH!  I hear they got pictures as a group somewhere... but I haven't seen them yet.

This is Cassidy, AKA Cassinova.

He hangs out at our house all the time.  Him and his bestie Tyler, crack... me... up.

(we strategically aimed all the pictures towards the beautiful staircase and not all of the packed boxes in the living room, because this was 6 days before we moved)

Emma's Big Idea

Its weird to look at these pictures of what was home for so many years, and its not our home anymore.  Our new house is beautiful, too beautiful, its a weird adjustment.  One of my last posts 

from our old house...

Emma had been begging for me to buy cornstarch for a fun activity she had for the family. I had no idea what the activity was, but I bought the cornstarch anyway.  And even though they made a mess... the kids were entertained for a LONG time with the crazy feeling texture of just 2 ingredients:  CORNSTARCH + WATER.

It feels gooey and dry all at the same time.  If you put pressure on it, it hardened, but would then turn to a liquid as it sat.

 Super cool activity. 

Way to go Emma!

Excellence

"Young Women in Excellence" 

was in September.

I am so thankful for the Young Womens program.  When I think about all the ways this program blessed my life and now my daughters life, I am so deeply grateful.  From making goals to grow spiritually and increase their talents, to lessons on sundays and loving leaders, to service opportunities and friendships, to participating in stake sport teams (softball & volleyball), and going to girls camp each summer... I cannot imagine a program more vast and perfect to help these girls in every aspect of their life become better people.

And one night a year we honor them and their achievements.  We get together for an evening where the girls get to display something they've worked on.  My heart was so full of gratitude to have 2 beautiful daughters there.

 Emma played a beautiful version of "I am a Child of God" and did it practically flawless.  

 All the young women sang us a beautiful song.

I pretty much cried this entire night because of the powerful spirit of God that was present.  I could just feel how special each one of those unique young ladies are to God. And I was so proud of them.

 Ashlin and CariAnn got together and made cupcakes with each of the young women value colors frosting and the center one in white with a white chocolate silhouette of the temple they made, to display.

 (ha ha, Lauren above trying to lean out of the picture cracked me up)

 These are Ashlins 2 besties and I just love them.  

I am so proud of Ashlin who on her own started going to the temple every tuesday after school (now that she can drive and has a car to use) to assist with baptisms.  Then these girls started to go.  And now every week they text a bunch of kids and call it "Temple Tuesdays".  Last week over fall break she took her siblings with her, Dallin and Emma.  It made my heart so happy.  Yesterday while we were driving to church Emma said to me, "Mom, I love going to church".  My heart was full of gratitude all day long because of that statement.  Last sunday Dallin got up on his own to bare his testimony in sacrament meeting.  I cried when I found out I missed it.  Nothing makes me happier than to know my children feel in their hearts a closeness to God that motivates their actions.  I bare my testimony to them all the time and tell them through my tears that I promise that absolutely nothing will bring them happiness in this life more than serving the Lord and keeping His commandments.  Last night I laid on the floor in Dallin and Logan's room, and Emma laid on my lap, and we sang hymns that they chose, and I bore that same testimony to them again, and I cried and they listened and even each added their own thoughts and told me their feelings.  My children aren't perfect, and neither am I.  So I am so thankful for moments like that where we can all remember what really matters.

Bears

I am a Bear Den leader, which is fun stuff.

Last month the girls helped me make the cutest little "Bear" cookies for the new boy who joined our den.

 

Because I needed oreos for the ears, without the frosting middle, Logan and Lily collected all the frosting middles I was discarding (unbeknownst to me) and made 2 quadruple+ stuff oreos.  ha ha ha.

Last month in Bear Den we made paper mache masks.

I had never done that before, but thought is sounded way fun.

First we got heavy duty tin foil and made forms of their faces, then dipped newspaper strips in paste and layered them over the foil.

....Then a week later we got together and they painted their masks.

Then the next week in Pack meeting (when logan got tons of awards from his week at the Pueblo Day Camp) we displayed our masks...

We actually had the skit for Pack Meeting.  So they all brought flashlights, we turned out the lights, played some cool tribal sounding song and the boys came out one at a time with their masks on and did a little chant about the Bears being the best.  It was a cute way to show off their way cool masks.