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xhfazaqwedcbnmq--Something one of my kids wrote.

Here are just a few Fall updates.  Last week I made some rolls and the kids love having their own piece and rolling it out.  I need to get three more rolling pins!  The girls always have fun with dough. As you can see they pulled out other kitchen tools as well....










Our biggest news....Elden is officially walking!  YAY! He's been using "push" toys for quite some time, but didn't venture out much on his own (maybe 3 or 4 steps at a time, 2-4 times a day).  I guess he wanted to start walking when he knew he had it down.  Even the physical therapist said that is walking is more advanced than a normal child just learning to walk.


Lee and the kids got all of our green tomatoes out of the "garden" and they are ripening.  I love having tomatoes in November!


Saturday we met up at the St. Louis temple with our good friends the Shakespears.  If any two families are alike...ours come pretty close!  They have two older boys and then twins also.  We swapped babysitting while we each did sealings.  The kids had a fun time and their twin babies were soooo easy to watch.  They hung out all cozy in their stroller the whole time.  THANKS FOR COMING SHAKESPEARS!!!  We loved seeing them and their family. 
















Sorry Hunter!  I should have moved your hood!  Is this a future match?


Two videos: one of Elden walking and the other of a few of us at the park in St. Louis right by the temple

Ghosts, ghouls and goblins...okay, well, a Western Hunter, a Firefighter, two Fairy Princesses and a Giraffe

A lot of things have been happening lately. On Monday we had a "party" for a Family Home Evening night. We rarely do things like that for FHE so I think we were all looking forward to it (well, I was!). The kids had the day off on Monday and that afternoon we started the party preparations by making sugar cookies.




Party time!  Eating candy and decorating cookies during scripture reading...
























Pumpkin carving time! Lee was a trooper and carved most of the pumpkins!  Thanks!


The pumpkins!




Elden was fascinated with the lit pumpkins


We wanted a picture with the kids and for some reason they all laid on the floor (minus Elden). 


Change of gears...this past week it was my turn for preschool.  It seemed to go well.  On Thursday after preschool I had invited a bunch of moms over for a potluck lunch.  I really enjoyed it.  Thanks for coming ladies!  Thursday night I met up with my Relief Society President and we hashed out Visiting Teaching routes yet again.  Whew!  Heidi, you're amazing!  Friday Lee surprised me with having the day off and getting a babysitter for the day! Thanks Andrea and Nathan!  (Sorry, lots of "!"!) We went to the outlet mall and out to eat at Panera Bread.  YUM! It was my first time there.  Oh and Gianetta, I went to Chipotle this summer and it was soooo good.  After we picked up the kids we went Trick-or-treating at the hospital.  That is one of my favorite places to trick-or-treat.  It's quick, warm and they always have a fun little party at the end.  Saturday we went on a bike ride to do some errands and Lee's chain broke.  What is funny is he got home before me.  Also on Saturday I stopped at the commissary and bought 30 things of cheese (2 canisters of Parmesan cheese and the rest 8 oz. packages of shredded and blocks) and 4 boxes of cereal.  Averaging everything out, each item ended up costing about $0.64 each. Not too shabby!

That night we went to the ward (our local church congregation) Trunk-or-Treat & Chili Cook-Off.  Kristi and Jenny and whoever else did a fabulous job!  LOTS of people attended--it was great!  We had a fun time and got more candy--thanks for the chocolate kids!


Cal wanted to bring the spray bottle I use for fixing the girls hair to "put out fires" or something along those lines...(3rd year use of this costume!)


Shanna and Haley were fairy princesses or something like that...


Pretty creative, eh?  Thanks for the idea Daniel!


Our Western Fighter or something...




The girls!  The girl in the pink (her name is Hailey actually!) looks a lot like my Haley!


Elden was so content with having a little lollipop in his mouth!






My decked out van, ha ha.  I did have some creepy music playing!


Haley and Shanna with their buddy Talan.  He's such a cutie!




My back again


Today Elden has been a walking machine!  He and Haley were playing this afternoon.  It was so cute.


The whole afternoon the boys were playing in the play/toy room.  Our friend Colten gave my boys his Legos after church today!  Clark and Cal couldn't be happier--especially Clark.  This afternoon Clark and I were talking about it and he jumped up and gave me a big hug.  Clark even consented to getting just one Christmas present!  I think I'll do two, maybe three things per kid, but I think three will be the max.  I don't want them to expect a lot.  But now that I could spend extra money on them, it's a little challenging mentally to keep things at a minimum--hence why I want to stick to the no-more-than-three presents rule.  (I am in the Christmas mood a lot sooner this year than normal...keep Christmas in your hearts all year round, right?!)

Tonight a few kids stopped at our house to trick-or-treat.  Since trick-or-treating was held on Sunday (today), we didn't go and of course didn't hand out candy. We thought it was funny that people rang our door bell even with the porch light off. Someone even rang our bell three times. Hope you all had a fun Halloween and a Happy Nevada Day!