Welcome October

What a fantastic start to the month! We enjoyed watching  General Conference from home. Our kids were even a little better listeners than usual. I especially enjoyed the talks given by Elders Uchtdorf, Bednar and Ardern. I find it very interesting that last night as I was going to bed I decided to take a month long break from Facebook. I spend a lot of time on the computer each day and I don't feel like it is very productive at all. So to have Elder Ardern address that very topic made me feel all sorts of inspired. I know that I am going to miss out on all sorts of fun updates from my friends who live so far away, I will miss feeling connected to you all. However, I feel like I need to be the master of Facebook and not let it be the master of me. Since I seem to have a compulsive need to check it every time I am near a computer I know I need a break.

Today I also finished (well mostly finished) repairing one of our two bookcases that were badly damaged in our move here. It actually fixed up must faster and easier than I expected. I bought some backerboard, sanded it, painted it black to match the bookcase, and nailed it on. It only took me about an hour of active working time. I still need to put some L-brackets on it for extra stability, but I don't really have room for it in my bedroom just yet. We plan to move Alyssa out of our bedroom semi-soon, and I'm sure that by the time that happens I'll have both of my bookcases completely fixed and ready to go. I have been itching to work on a project lately, and this fit the bill quite well.  That and the candy corn costume pictured above. I just hope it still fits by the time Halloween rolls around.

This evening while the men of the house attended the Priesthood session we went to a dinner at the pumpkin patch hosted by the farm that Jon's parents have been getting a summer produce box from the past 4 months. The event was kind of a "thanks for participating in the veggi club" thing. I had a really good time. We got a farm fresh dinner, 50 pound of pumpkin (which turned out to be less than my head imagined), a trip through the corn maze, and little goodie bags for the kids. The girls loved climbing around on the hay bales that were set up as seating/decoration. I took the following video while laying down between a gap in the hay bales.

Alyssa slept through almost the whole event, which is how she usually experiences new things. I have pictures of her sleeping at the park, watching her first parade, hiking Cascade Springs, and all sorts of other fun new places. I think this picture is so cute though because she woke up when we were lost in the depths of the corn maze. I pulled her out of the car seat and she seemed rather confused. It was almost as though she was asking with those pretty blue eyes, "Where are we and what is up with the green walls?"   Another kid moment in the corn maze happened because we let the girls tell us which way to go at the beginning. Kaelyn took the first few turns picking then Kylie. After we had been in there for awhile and determined that we had missed the first two stamp stations Kaelyn said in a rather dejected tone, "It's my fault. I picked the wrong way." It was at that moment I realized that I had forgotten to set her expectations. She would have been fine if I'd told her before hand that the point of a corn maze is to go in, wander around, get lost, and eventually find your way to the exit. Despite our repeated reassurances to the contrary she was convinced that it was her fault we were lost. 

She cheered up substantially once we made it out of the maze and went to pick out our pumpkins though.



All told I'd say it was a very good day for us. Here's hoping the rest of the month follows suit. The potential is there, after all Jon got an unofficial job offer. In theory he will be starting on Oct 10th. Wouldn't that be nice?  I'll end with the only picture I have attempted to take of my 3 girls together since the first one of them taken in hospital on the day Alyssa was born. I have a couple with grandparents, but none with just the 3 girls. I plan to change that this week when I take our family pictures. (Really Ann I promise I will actually do it this time!!)