Monday October 7

My little family has been on my mind all day.

So thankful for the sweet spirits and the things they do to make me and each other happy.

Ya, they are more often fighting.....

If only they knew what it did for my heart when they got along.

But today they have been very helpful to me and got along pretty well.

I love each of their individual faces....and personalities.

I need to try heard to listen to them and what they are saying to me.

I love the time I get to spend with each of them at night.

It makes for a long night routine....but it is worth it.

Elsie goes to bed first, we read a book (Junie B. Jones right now) and she says her prayers (well, I say it for her :)

And I turn on her heater and say "Goodnight bug".

Sometimes I have to go back in and rock her if she is overtired.....

And I might complain about that sometimes, but it really is a sweet precious time.

Then it is Porters turn, usually after Dad has given him his hot chocolate milk with a straw.

We read from two books with him.

One is just an easy reader book and then we are reading out of an illustrated Book Of Mormon.

Then he says his prayers (with my help) and I tell him "Your my Boy" (cause dads my MAN :) and he says "Your my girl".

Then it is Cassi's turn.

I read to her, right now we are reading "the Magicians Nephew".

Then we talk about happy things and I give her ideas of things she can dream about and then I tell her I will be back to check on her soon and to say her prayers.

Madi is usually writing in her journal or reading a book by the time I get to her room.

I scratch her back and she recited the Young Woman's Theme for me.

And we talk about how things are going.

We have had some great mini conversations at this time of night.

Then it is my time with my man (unless he is at work).

...and my blog...ha ha....

I am so blessed to have Brent.

He is so caring and loving and thoughtful and handy and handsome :)

He always wants to be there for me and our family and he always wants the best for us.

Plus he tells me every day that I am beautiful :)

Just feeling very Thankful tonight.

 

*****

And I am so excited about this!!!!

This is Cassi's early birthday present....that she doesn't know about yet.

Tickets went on sale at 9:00 this morning so I set my phone alarm to ring at 8:30 so I wouldn't forget....well dumb me!

I was in the shower when it went off and Cassi got it.

It said 'Mindy Gledhill tickets'.

She asked what it was....I had to lie.

HAD TO LIE!!!

I told her that if I went on line I could be entered to win a bonus track of hers.

She fell for it and I was in the clear, I think.

It's not so bad to lie so it can be a super exciting surprise, right???

Anyway, Cassi is a HUGE Mindy Gledhill fan!

HUGE!!!!

I am so excited about taking her to this concert.

It will certainly be the highlight of her year!

I am gonna wrap a box up and tell her in a fun way....so be waiting for the video :)

 

Sunday October 6

Ending today with the resolve to be better :)

I love General Conference.

I love the messages we hear, I love the time spent with the family.

I just love the chance we have to grow and learn and try to be better.

We took more notes today on our word bubble page.....the girls are excited about hanging theirs in their rooms.

A good visual reminder of what we heard.

After Conference we went outside to enjoy the beautiful day.

Since it has been two years since we moved in, we wanted to take some pictures again.

Not a whole lot of change except for more grass, and the fence.

The fence that we spent so much of our time this summer building :)

I will put pictures up when I have time to go through them....

But I did take a fun panoramic from on top of the shop.

Oh, and dad is super excited about having a basketball hoop to play with his big girls.

They love it too!

 

Friday October 4

Dad had the old dryer torn apart to get the new motor in...which wasn't the problem.....

We ended up getting a new cheap dryer so this one got thrown in the trash trailer.

But then dad and Porter thought it might be fun to try to roll down the hill.....

Well, it is a big hit now.

*****

We mowed lawns and weed-eated the whole day.

It looks so good around here once we get the yard work done.

It does take an entire day to get it all mowed :)

*****

Madi left early at school, she missed the jog-a-thon because of some bad shin splints she has.

Her friend Natalie also did not do the jog-a-thon....and her Mom picked them both up early to go hang out at Natalie's house.

Later that night, they went to the Meridian High School football game.

Natalie's mom is the cheer leading coach there.

She had a fun time but got home really late and was super tired and cold!

*****

Cassi and Elsie were best buds after school.

The build a little fairy town again.

Super cute :)

They did chores together too.

Elsie is becoming a good helper with chores!

*****

Porter wanted to go for another rock hunt....but he ended up finding Scooby, and he got side-tracked.

Silly boy.

Then we got the girls to come and join us in the canal.

Fun times :)

*****

 

 

*****

 

Saturday October 5

Cassi took the little kids out to do the chores on this cold cold morning.

It was pretty cute.

Cassi got them all bundled out to go.

Good little helpers.

Madi slept in, cause she had a late night last night :)

*****

It was General Conference today.

I love watching General Conference.

The girls had a new way of taking notes.....thanks to Pinterest.

They put a little question in a word bubble in the middle of their page and then wrote down things that helped them with that question.

It made for a great conference session.....

And I loved reading what they got out of it :)

Elsie kept herself occupied by coloring....and making a raisin sandwich to go with her yogurt :)

Silly girl.

*****

And the new favorite toy around here....the inside part of our dryer that broke.

Pretty much the best toy ever :)

It has grooves along the side that makes it perfect to hold onto without getting your hands smashed.

The kids had a blast.

They did it for a long time before they thought of putting the pillow in it, and that made it even better.

They want to paint it up.....and they named 'it 'The Spin Cycle'.

Love it!

*****

When conference was not in session, we did yard work.

Took the pool down and cleaned stuff up around the place.

I put some more rocks along the grass line.....looks good I think.

Then Dad went off to the Priesthood session, and we cleaned up around the house.

All in bed now and looking forward to sleeping in on a Sunday :)

 

*****

 

*****

 

Thursday October 3

Dad worked an overtime shift today.

We figured since he was already there and had only worked the one day, he should try and get an overtime shift.

So it worked out good.

Today was 'Dress like a Farmer day' at school today.

I guess there were school all over doing the same thing and reading the same book....something like 'read for the record' or something.

I am not quite sure.

But they were so excited to be able to dress up :)

And we love Miss Jodie....had to get a picture of them all.

Then I had a doctors appointment today.

Took Porter with me and he was a good boy.

We passed the time by taking pictures and playing games :)

Then I took him home and we grabbed lunch real quick....left to pick up a little friend of Porters to take to preschool with us (she goes there too), cause her mom was out of town.

Then I headed to Cassi's class for Art Smart.

She is so excited for me to be her Art Smart teacher this year.

I think it will be a fun time.

After cleanup...I went and got Porter and his friend from preschool.

Then the girls got home and homework, chores and dinner and just like that the day was over.

Porter was exhausted and he fell asleep on the chair again.

That kid is missing his daily naps, whether he admits it or not :)

 

Wednesday October 2

I finally moved my pictures off my laptop and into my external hard drive.....

The total amount of pictures moved so far..........38,427.

Wow.

That is from July 2012 to now....and that includes all my photography jobs too.

But good grief....no wonder my laptop wasn't happy!

*****

I Got the girls off to school today and then I cuddled with Porter while he watched cartoons and I took a little nap.

Not feeling good again.

I wish we could kick this.

None of us are bad.....just not good.

Elsie has had a stuffy nose when she wakes up, but once she goes to school she is pretty clear.

The kiddos have complained of tummy aches here and there....

And headaches.

Just some little bug I guess.

Well, after laying down for a while, I felt bad and wanted to do something with Porter.

He decided we should go for a walk.

Good choice :)

We walked outside and saw a bunch of birds on the telephone wire out back, so we tried to sneak up close before they flew away.....

That is when he saw the empty canal and wanted to look for rocks in there.

heart rocks, for me :)

He knows I LOVE heart rocks.

We started walking and spotted a bunch of other fun things.

We decided to hop out of the canal and up on the canal road and went between the fields behind our house.

We saw two jets go by, grasshoppers, butterflies (green and orange), Ladybug, he discovered that goathead plants actually have a purple flower on it.

He was fascinated.

We found a bendable pipe thing, saw lots of bees, and he got quite a collection of cool rocks :)

We found me a couple heart rocks, one was in the ground though....and probably not a real heart once we dug it out, so we just took a picture of it.

But the other one was just perfect.

He's got a good eye :)

After he organized his rocks in his room, lined them up in their 'categories'.....it was nap time for him.

And clean up time for me.

He was so cute....when he woke up, he wanted to take another walk.

So we did, but not too far, and we ended up meeting Madi at her bus stop.

When Madi came home, she took Porter and did the chores.

I went and picked up Cassi and Elsie and Elsie had to stay after to finish her work....no green card today :(

So we were there for a little while.

We got home and Madi was making soap sculptures with Porter.

Pretty cute.

Madi is a peer tutor and the class she helps in had homework of making a sculpture out of soap....

It just sounded fun to Madi, so she did it, even though she doesn't have to.

Well, then it was off to Cassi's guitar lessons.

And when I got back from picking her up, Joanne was here for speech.

Cassi, Madi and Porter went for another walk....

I thought for sure they would have taken pictures :(

I must not have trained them well enough yet.

Yet....

Then it was dinner and Madi off to Young Woman's.

Wednesdays after school are crazy days....

That is why I am so glad I got to enjoy some sweet quiet exploration time with my little man today.

I have a feeling we are gonna be doing it more often.

I sure hope so.

 

Tuesday October 1

Dad left for work this morning......

But came home not too long afterwards.

When he was choosing vacation days, he chose this today as a vacation day, thinking we might go hunting this year....

Well, we didn't go.

Last week, Dad noticed and remembered the vacation day, and fixed it.

He got to work today and noticed that he was still off (so was another guy, who also fixed it after not needing the vacation day....)

So they sent Brent home and paid overtime to the guy covering for him, because you are supposed to cancel your vacation 96 hours beforehand....

(Which by the way, he did!)

Dumb.

Oh well....

But he was home, which was fun :)

Cause we got to play.

I was gone for some of it though, cause I went grocery shopping and also helped in Elsie's class.

He got the basketball hoop put together....and the kids thought that was pretty great :)

After school, Cassi and Madi made plans to go running again.

The rain and busy schedules have prevented them from running as much as they wanted to.

But they got out today.

They ran an 8 minute mile.

Pretty good girls.

Avery came over to play for a little bit before dinner.

And Elsie is being a big helper with chores :)

I can't believe it is OCTOBER!!!!!

I am kinda excited for Fall...but time just seems to be going by so quickly.