Zac and the tomatoes

One day last week we invited some of Zac's friends over to play.  There were probably about 6 boys (including Zac) playing out in our backyard.  That morning we had pulled out our tomato plants and put all of them along with the tomatoes in a big pile.  I should have suspected something like this would happen:

After all the boys went home Zac come up to me and said "Mom, we accidentally threw a bunch of tomatoes down into the pit."  I had to keep myself from laughing.  "Accidentally" throwing a BUNCH of tomatoes.  ha hah ha  It wasn't that bad when I went outside to see the damage.  But we had him clean up the mess and talk to him about making good choice.  Then Rob asked him if it was fun to see them explode.  HAH!

Playdate with friends

 We visited our friends the Hatch's again.  It worked out that our kids had the same Fall break this year, so all of our kids got to play together.  Yay!  We hung out at their house and met their new baby sister.  She is adorable.  I got to hold her for a good long time, which I loved.  :) 

 Charlotte and Riley.  Two 2 year olds playing with baby toys.  Love it.

 Sharing a rocking chair.  They were so cute that day.

 All the kids outside playing "crack the egg".  

On the way home Riley fell asleep and She stayed asleep when I brought her inside.  She never does that.  Sadie kept sneaking in my room and saying "she is so cute!"  Then she offered to take a picture of us.  I love it. I let her sleep on me until she woke up (which was about 15 minutes).  I loved every minute of it.  My kids don't fall asleep on me anymore!

Piano Recital

The kids had their fall piano recital a few weeks ago.  They were allowed to wear their Halloween costumes so that was fun.  I wish I had suggested taking a group shot.  There were some cute costumes.  This was Zac's first recital and he did great.  Sadie did great too.  I accidentally forgot to push record on her individual song, but I got her duet.  :)

Maybe I'll post the videos later...its taking forever to upload to Youtube.  They are too big to post directly on here.

https://youtu.be/od6GTQBzKaU

https://youtu.be/I5ZgnDBPHKw 

https://youtu.be/tiZBuiDF3dU

General Conference

We had our general conference weekend at the beginning of October.  The kids did pretty well and I feel like I heard most of the talks.  I loved all of the messages and if you want to find them and read them yourself, go here. 

These gel pens that I bought at Costco about a year ago have been so awesome.  They keep the kids busy coloring for a long time.

Snuggling in Sadie's "softie".  

Riley made herself a little bed under the tiny table. 

Dinner in the canyon

A few weeks ago we decided we wanted to drive up the canyon to see the fall colors.  We went up Millcreek Canyon and while we didn't see too many fall colors, we had a fun dinner.  It was kind of a spur of the moment decision, so we weren't really dressed for walking around in the woods, but it turned out fun anyway.  We got KFC for dinner and found a picnic table to eat at.

The kids started exploring right away.  Here they were checking out this little tiny river.  I love Zac's "help" with Riley.

We had to force the kids to sit down and eat before they ran off too far.

Riley loved gnawing on the chicken.

The kids climbed up this steep hill.  It was pretty scary.  The dirt was really loose so it was slippery.  And this was the view we got of Emery.  ha ha!

It was a fun night.  We wanted to go back and have a campfire there, but we haven't yet.  The weather still isn't too bad so maybe we can still go!


When we got our food out and started eating we realized we were missing something rather important...so we improvised.

Around the house

Some of these pictures are really old and I might have already blogged about them, but I'm trying to catch up so oh well.

Sometimes when I want to stay in bed a little bit longer and the older kids are already awake, I walk into Riley's room to find them like this.  I love it.  Sometimes Riley is really grumpy when she wakes up and only wants mommy, but sometimes there is a party in her crib.  

Here is Sadie helping Zac with his piano practicing.  She has already learned all of the songs that he is now learning, so it's kind of fun.  And he likes having her help him much more than he likes me helping him.  

I may have already posted this picture, but this was after Rob got home from his long backpacking trip.  The kids were so happy to see him.  

I taught my kids how to make funny faces in the window.  My windows are never clean anyway...

Emery's faces were definitely the best.  I couldn't stop laughing.

These two girls keep me good company while the bigger kids are at school.

So Riley likes to put her blanket on the vent when the air is on.  It floats up kind of like a pillow and then she lays down on it.  

Sadie got head gear and an expander in her mouth to get ready for braces. Fun.

Riley loves this baby swing.  She will lay in it with the music playing for 30 minutes.  

Before church lunch.  We are loving our new counter stools!

This must be some kind of cupcake or cookie with frosting.  I can't remember.

At a friend's house and it was just these cute girls!  It was so fun!

I got an optical illusions book from the library and these two loved it.  THey kept reading it for days and days. 

Peppermint Place

 ONe of the last days of summer we went with some friends to check out this little candy shop.  It was cool because there was a place where you could watch the workers create their candy.  Kinda fun to watch.  So we watched for a bit and then let the kids pick out a treat. 

 Cute kids!

 I love that we were able to do this on the last week of summer.  It was a fun little outing.

This was the treat that Zac picked.  He ended up not liking them (they were pure sugar) but they are such cute little ninja guys!

Mystery Box Date

 My dad invented this mystery box.  It's a lot of fun and when he came up to visit he brought it with him and sent us out on a date. 

 Here we go on our adventure!

 We made it to the location fairly quickly, but this time there were a couple extra things we had to do.  

 One of the things was pick this lock.  We were standing out at the trunk trying to pick the lock for a good five minutes, but then we brought it into the car, because we thought people might think we were trying to break into the car or something.  Ha ha!  It took us a good 25 minutes to get that lock opened.  We did it totally wrong, but we didn't want to give up!  And we finally did it!  My dad showed me the trick to picking a lock when we got home and then I could do it in about 2 minutes.  Ha ha!  

We ended up going to Joe's Crab Shack.  It was a yummy lunch.  Thanks dad!

Gardens with friends

 We went to the Thanksgiving point gardens with some friends (it's been like over a month ago...I'm a little behind!).  Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  The gardens always make me happy and make me want to plant a bunch of flowers at my house.  Someday I will. :) 

 In this picture, Emery was being so helpful.  Charlotte (the girl whose hand she is holding) had layed down on the ground and wasn't going to budge.  We started walking away to see if she would follow, but she didn't.  Ha ha.  Typical 2 year old.  Riley pulls the same stunts!  Anyway, I told Emery to go hold her hand and see if she that would work.  And it did!  They held hands and walked for a few minutes.  So adorable!  And Emery felt so important.  I love it.

 There was a short moment that these two were holding hands.  I didn't snap a picture quick enough, but Jake's mom and I both saw it and silently squealed. So cute.

 All of our kids.  Since this picture was taken, my friend had her baby, so add one more into the mix!

 Pretty flowers.  

 Family picture.

 Emery requested this picture.  :)

Feeding the crazy fish!

Thanks for the good time Laurel and fam!

Grandparents and peaches

My parents were in town a few weeks ago and I found these pictures and wanted to post them. 

Here we are at a stake activity the church put on.  It was pretty fun.  Free snow cones and hot dogs.

While they were here, all of our peaches were ready to be picked.  Talk about good timing!

 

 Our tree produced so well this year!  We got so many big juicy peaches.  I wish our tree could produce like 10 peaches a week so we could have them all year long, but I'll take this too!  One day it was really windy and the peaches started blowing off the tree, so my mom helped us pick the rest of them.

 It was fun!

 Riley sorted the chalk while we worked.  

 I ended up freezing a lot of them and making some peach pies and just eating them until they were gone.  YUM.

 

We also went to great grandma and grandpa's house.  That is always fun. Here is Riley wearing my dad's safety glasses.

Quick picture with the kids before they went to school. Grandpa was making a trip to the dump for us so he isn't in this picture.  Thanks grandpa!

Right before they took off.  That's always a sad time.  We miss them!