I feel like Fall has finally arrived. It has become more and more clear these last couple weeks. Nathan, Aubrey, and Emily all took class field trips to a local pumpkin patch, and brought home these three beauties. They are very proud of their pumpkins, and are looking forward to carving them in the coming week. I also went to parent/teacher conferences for my three older ones who are in school. I was glad to hear that each one of my kiddos are doing amazingly well in school. It does a mommas' heart good to hear that her children are succeeding and behaving well.
During that week, I got to help out my wonderful sis-in-law and watch her 14 month old son, Thomas, while she and her sweet family enjoyed a trip to Disneyland. JEALOUS! But, he was such a joy, and I was so happy to help them out. He is such a great little baby, and I enjoyed my time I had to hold and rock him. I have to admit that our family has fallen in love with sweet Thomas Tenney. I would be more then happy to watch him again. He is such a wonderful, fun baby boy! On Friday the 15th, I ran around like a chicken with her head cut off. I cleaned my house spic-n-span, and packed for a five day mini-vacation to Mesa. We got on the road about an hour later then we had planned, but that seems pretty normal around here. We arrived in Mesa safely, after only one pull-over for a sick tummy (she gets that from me).
One of the major highlights of the trip was that my mom, sisters, and I got to attend Time Out for Women in Phoenix on Friday night and all day Saturday. It was an awesome, fun, spiritually uplifting, and surprisingly casual type of an event. We had lots of fun laughing, crying, and being together. It was great! I was SO excited to run into one of my dearest and most special friends, Julie Potter. She happened to be there on Friday night, and we ran into each other, even in a room of over 2,600 women. It was wonderful to see her! On Sunday I got the chance to go back to my home ward. I was raised in that ward, and it was SO good to see faces that I have known my whole life. As I sat there in Relief Society surrounded by people that helped raise me, I felt right at home. I love the feeling of "coming home", and I especially feel it when I go back to the 46th Ward.
Sunday evening all my family meet together at my parents house for our monthly dinner and Family Home Evening. I usually miss those, so it was so wonderful to be there with my family. Uncle Jacob gave a lesson on peer pressure (geared at the kids, of course), and then the kids played 'Cut the Flour'. (Josh, Nathan, and Brenan are pictured). I had completely forgotten about that fun game. It brought back a lot of memories of my childhood, watching my children and nieces and nephews enjoy it.
Monday and Tuesday of this week was our "Fall Break". It was a fun couple days to spend with my parents and sisters. We went to the Phoenix Zoo on Monday morning, and had a pretty good time looking at animals. The kids were fascinated at Monkey Village, where the squirrel monkeys swung over our heads! Here is Betsy in one of the interactive displays. She is being a cute little (okay, BIG) tortoise. Tuesday was spent doing laundry. My mom always insists that I go home with a suitcase full of clean clothes, as apposed to dirty... I love my mom. =) We also cleaned out my van, and washed all the car seats. I also got the privilege of adding my signature as a witness to my dads mission papers. I was honored, and pleased to be there when their official missionary papers went in. SO exciting for them! We can't wait for the blessings....We drove home, after dark, back to Snowflake on Tuesday night. It was a pretty slow, scary drive. I usually don't mind driving in the dark, but coming up over the rim, I had four different occasions of people flashing their lights at us, signaling danger ahead. Two of the four times, traffic came to a screeching halt due to deer in the road. No cars that I was traveling near hit them gratefully, but it keep my adrenaline high and I was pretty worn out and tired when I pulled into our driveway.
Wednesday the kids all went back to school. At 1pm I pulled them out for a dentist appointment up in Show Low. Nathan went in and got that silver tooth he was so excited about and one other cavity filled. He did really well, and I gave myself the title of "mother of the year" for hauling all five kids into that small dentists' room, and keeping them all under control during Nathans visit. They did really well, and all earned a token for the prize tower. Nathan got two tokens, because technically he was the one being worked on! I should have earned a token or two myself! =)
Both Thursday and today have been a pretty quiet and relaxing. I love the days when there is absolutely nothing on the calendar. They seem to be getting more and more rare, so I really try to enjoy the times that I don't have anything to do, and/or nowhere to go. Looking forward to a productive weekend....we shall see.
1 comment:
Gee Valerie, what do you do in all your spare time? lol It makes me tired just reading about your busy life!
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