It's Fall...

 Fall isn't my favorite season, though I do like it better than spring.  Fall means that summer is over and that winter is coming.  That's a sad thought.  Though we are enjoying fun activities in the winter.  I do like that summer lingers into Fall, so summer can be extended.  Spring tends to be cold and rainy, with random snowfalls thrown in too!

Haley bought these shoes in Costa Rica and is getting ready to paint them!  Can you see the dice on the toe?

These are Shanna's knock-off Nikes.

The big project after we got home was moving Haley out of Shanna's room, down to Clark's room.  We also went through the attic and special items that the kids might want to keep.  I got them each their own bin.  The Minimal Mom (who I like to watch on YouTube) calls it a memory box.  They can have one of those and then when they move out they can store stuff in one huge container and then a big-ish container, plus have their memory box.  So three containers.

One night for a youth activity adults dressed up and hung out in different stores.  The kids went in groups and had to find them.  This was Lee's "costume". 

Fun at the Petersons!

I started getting ready for Christmas as well. One thing I set up was a Zoom hot chocolate party with my sisters, sisters-in-law and a couple friends.  I sent them a hot chocolate packet, a peppermint candy spoon and I think some chocolates.  It was something that they would use in December.  Lately I've been trying to get ready for Christmas in November.  I need to start sooner in the month.  But it is nice paying for Christmas and getting prepped for it in November.  Though I still haven't found that sweet spot where things don't feel rushed.  

Renovations started on the church building! Random pictures included throughout this post.

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.  They sent a Thanksgiving card. I thought their picture turned out great!

Shanna taking a nap on a Sunday I believe...

Hanging out at the Gold's house!  Shanna and Haley with Jayna.

We went to Franklin Ward one Sunday. Lee and I both spoke.  The Copelands invited us to come to their house after church.  It was fun getting a tour of their little farm and visiting with them.  We had a fun pancake lunch as well!  

On to the room!  I wanted to completely repaint the entire room to freshen it up.  But that meant a lot of prep work that I never account for and seems to take longer than I think.  Thankfully Haley helped a ton and really wanted to move it, so that motivated me to get the painting done. 

Elden and Cal doing trick shots.  We have two camping type mattresses that we keep under their bunk bed.  They like to pull them out and run and jump on them from the living room. 

Hanging out with the Peterson's at our house!

Though Fall isn't my favorite it is pretty!

The girl's room with Haley moving out.  Such a mess!

One afternoon we did a little walk with Eva and Xavier.  We went to the Storybrook Trail.  We didn't have much time so we had to hustle. 

Pumpkin cheesecake muffins are always great in the Fall!

That morning I had stuff set up for friends to come over....but they never did.  That was sad. 

2x4s going up at the new office building!

The Deacons having a nerf battle with the activity day boys.

They washer didn't work for some reason.... Lee took it apart and found a pencil. A pencil.  Ugh. Elden didn't check his pockets and the pencil came out in the wash and slipped behind the wash tub somehow.  Crazy! 

Elden and Cal I think, finished this puzzle!

More stuff coming down!

We went to the Shepard's one evening for dinner and hanging out. 

Something that the new office building has that we don't at our house....trees!  Lots of leaves in the fall! Okay, we have one tree at out house. A little apple tree. 

More building pictures.

I thought this was funny...Elden making his own appointment card.  A shack on a creepy ally way.

Snuck in a little hike to Bear Fence with Christian and Liam!

Haley's amazing hot chocolate afterwards!

Lee had some continuing education that he needed to do in person.  He needs to do half of his continuing education in person and then the other half he can do online. He went to Boston for a conference.  I thought about going with him but it was right after Nicaragua.  So these pictures are really out of order, but he snapped some of the hotel and the conference center. 

His fun lunch one afternoon. What is cool is he wore this badge and every time he walked into a room it would automatically get scanned (there was some sort of equipment in each room) and he would get credit for the class.  One of the classes he went to didn't register that he was there for it. He had to email "them" and contest it. Thankfully he got the credit for it!

More Christmas stuff! 

I got these cute stockings at Hobby Lobby. I paid a friend of mine to embroider names on them and gave them to my niece Ila and her husband. 

I got this stocking for Clark and wrote "Elder Robertson" on it in some form of Japanese.  I drew the characters with a sharpie then went over the symbols with tacky glue. It turned out better than I thought!