Friday November 9

Dad and I donated some stuff today so we can start getting to work on the basement.

Makes me excited :)

Dad got lots of leaves picked up.

We got ready and headed to the school to see Porter get a Wildcat Way award.

He's such a sweet boy.

Gosh dang, I love him :)

His teacher said such nice things about him.

He kind of melts my heart.....

Anyway, we brought him home after the assembly (5 minutes before school got out).

He came home and helped dad with more leaves......and there is still LOTS more to go :)

This evening Port went to the school movie night with the Edwards boys.

Madi took a bus with the school to Pocatello for the state football game.

She should get home at about 3 a.m.

She sure is playing up this Senior year :)

Cassi and Elsie hung out while Dad and I went on a date.

It has been a long time since we went to The RAM, so that's where we went.

Thursday November 8

I helped in the office today.

Kind of a slow morning once I got home.

Dad went to the gym and then worked on winterizing the trailer and other outdoor stuff.

I did get some planning done on some stuff I am in charge of for YW in Excellence next week.

And also finished up some editing.

Dad took Cassi to PT after school.

Madi did a big grownup thing and took herself to her dr appointment.

Her jaw has been hurting her and now her ear is hurting, so we wanted to get it checked out.

Also she needed to get a flu shot.

Dr said her jaw doesn't have any clicking and she cant see anything and also the ear looked good.....so they want to get an x-ray to make sure they aren't missing something.

So hopefully we can get that done soon.

I had a dr appointment as well, and it looks like I am fighting a small kidney infection.

So we are all falling apart over here :)

Wednesday November 7

Happy birthday Cass!!!!!

This one here, she's a fun one.

She's a spit-fire and has been from day one!

She's always had big personality, amazing talent....and has been a great friend to others.

Cassi is an advocate for those around her and has more friends than she can count.

She's the kind of girl you want on your team.

I am loving watching who she is becoming.

I spent the morning playing with my friends little kids while she took her newborn to the dr.

Dad did some work outside.

When I got home, we worked in the basement, getting glue up off the floor and the brick hearth taken off.

I am excited to see it some together down there!

When the kids got home from school, Dad took Cassi to Dutch Bros and Walmart so we could get her out of the house.

She had a few friends who wanted to come and decorate her room for her birthday :)

So that was fun.

Tonight we had YW combined with YM and we had a stake activity.

We did a church building tour.

Each ward was in charge of one part of the church.....our ward was in charge of the YW program.

And then the idea was to have people not of our faith rotate through the stations to learn more about the church.

We also put our kids through so they could all see it as well.

I think it was a good night.

Tuesday November 6

Dad had another full day of helicopter training.

He has had a lot of fun with it, he loves this kind of stuff.

BUT, I sure am excited to have him home tomorrow!!!

I did some more good cleaning around the house.

Seems like stuff should stay clean...why isn't it just staying clean???

I got a good run too.

Today was piano, so I took the kiddos.

Picked Porter up halfway, after his lesson, to go to basketball.

I stayed at the school so I could vote.

The line was pretty long, so I was a few minutes late picking up Elsie, but no big deal.

Elsie's toe is still hurting her a lot.

She thinks the boot was helpful at school, I still think her Keen shoe would give more protection....but she's the boss :)

Tomorrow is Cassi's birthday.

Kind of a lousy day to have a birthday!

Wednesday's are busy days!!!!!

But I think we will still have fun celebrating her.

Monday November 5

This morning we had our cow, Dinner, butchered.

Brent is working, so Justin came to handle it all while I got Elsie off to school.

He brought his boys and they had quite a story to tell the other kids in class, ha ha ha!

Then everyone was off to school.

I didn't feel very accomplished today, but I stayed busy.

I mostly worked on editing and laundry.

So not the FUN stuff I would have liked to do......but still needed to be done.

I picked Elsie up early from school, a little earlier than I usually do on Mondays, so we could go and pick up her new glasses :)

They are so cute!

They seem pretty monstrous compared to her other glasses (which were getting way too small for her face!)

She loves them and cannot wait to show everyone at school.

Then I took her to speech and she worked really hard.

She is making some really great progress with swallowing and also making her top lip a little less tight :)

Back at home Madi worked and Cassi hung out and watched Porter while we were gone to speech.

He and the boys are building stuff outside.

Those boys are just the greatest.....I am equally excited and terrified for when they are all teenagers!

When I got home, Porter had basketball practice.

I dropped him off, then went grocery shopping, then picked him up.

Poor Elsie seems to have hurt her pinky toe.

She fell on it a couple days ago and it is starting to looked more and more bruised and swollen :(

I am hoping it isn't broken.

She is gonna wear her boot tomorrow to see how it feels.

Poor girl.

It is her automatic reflex to cushion her fall with her foot underneath her.

I don't know how to protect it unless I MAKE her wear shoes at all times!

I just feel so bad that I can't fix it.

*meat hanging pictures included*

Sunday November 4

We had stake conference today.

It was a good day.

A lot of talk about time management and how we feel like we don't have any time for anything that we want to do.

Our stake president talked about how we have so much more time available to us than our ancestors....he gave us all kinds of statistics.

But it is more how we choose to manage our time and it does seem like we just don't have enough.

I know that is something I would like to work on.

Lots of other great stuff was talked about.

But the main point, manage your time, love the gospel and do missionary work :)

We got home and had lunch.

Madi had a meeting, so we left her there and brought Avery home with us, that's why she is in the picture.

The kiddos invited a few friends for games and treats, so Cassi and Avery made some sugar cookies.

We had the Hall's, Morgan's, Edwards and Leavitt's over.

It was a fun night.

And we all still got to bed at a pretty good time.

Oh, before our little game night, Madi and I made a yummy dinner.

We made sheet-pan fajitas.

They were so yummy and pretty simple to do once she is gone to college :)

Saturday November 3

Today has been a ridiculously busy day!!!!

And a day that Brent and I have been stressing out about!

I hate when we have so many things going on!

I'm a 'one big event a day' kind of girl.

I got up early with Porter today and we went and passed out bags for scouting for food.

That took about an hour and a half.

I spent time doing laundry and getting kids to put laundry away.

Elsie finally got her stuff put away.

And she even organized her closet.....by hanger color :)

Let's see, then Porter had his Y-ball game.

We took Max with us to watch.

Man, he's got a good team!

They won again, 51-12!

It is kind of funny, they have two Porter's on the team and BOTH of them are number 5!

I came back home and got more house stuff done.

Porter hung out with Max more.

We got to see Dad fly over during his helicopter training.

Well, I didn't, but Vern and the boys did.

These are picts he sent....(not ones we took :)

So he had a full day of helicopter training.

He got home in time to get ready to go to Cassi's banquet.

Porter went with the Edwards to the movies.

The plan with Elsie was for her to hang at home until the Morgan's got home from a baptism they were at.

Dad, Cassi and I left about 5:15 to go to the banquet.

Madi left at about 5:45 to go tailgating with work friends.

Dad was supposed to go with her, but he needed to be at the banquet.

Several weeks ago Madi got tickets from work to go to the BSU/BYU game.

She could have taken anyone....but she invited her Dad to go with her :)

This is the part that caused stress, needing to be in two places at the same time......and one of the places was in Middleton, the other downtown Boise!

So the girls made some compromises.

Madi hung with work friends.....Dad went with us to the dinner, and planned to leave as soon as the awards finished up.

Well, we got there at 6.m that is when dinner was supposed to start.

Well, they were running ate, which did not help with the stress level of Dad trying to get to the game on time!

So the time FINALLY came for awards.

This was pretty neat.

Cassi was awarded the JV MVP out of all the district!!!!!

And actually, we are the only district in the nation that is school sanctioned....

So she is the FIRST girl to ever receive this award which is basically JV MVP in the whole nation!!!!!

So cool!

It was fun to have her recognized for something that she loves so much!!!!!

Cass and I drove home, picked up Elsie from Stacia's, and Porter from the Edwards.

Then we had to stop by and show Bubble the award :)

She was pretty proud too!

Then I took Cassi to a friends to hang out.

These little ones were exhausted.

Elsie got to bed, but Porter needed some wind down time, so I let him hang with me.

He is currently sleeping on the couch :)

Madi and Dad are still at the BSU game...

It is late, but at least we get to gain an hour of sleep tonight.....right?????

Friday November 2

Got a good 5 mile run this morning, with a bit of rain drops on the way :)

After some laundry, I went with Dad over to Stacia's.

He helped her by moving some plumbing up for the new counter they are having put in the bathroom.

He did a good job, and while we were there, Stacia and I got some YW stuff done :)

After the kids got home, Stacia and I went and visited our friend who just had her baby.

She was just the tiniest little thing!!!!

The big girls had plans at the football game and here at home we watched a National Geographic show called 'One strange rock'.

OH, and the boys were all over for a while this afternoon.

They got started with picking up leaves...……..but that didn't last long, ha, ha, ha!

Thursday November 1 (add pictures)

It is a late night.

Brent and I went with Billy, Vern, Bubble and Eldon, and Bob to go see the Lion King musical.

This is a musical I remember seeing commercials of and thinking it looked so magical!

So different from other musicals.....

And it was even more than I imagined!

During the opening scene I started tearing up....

This was a bucket-list item for sure!

So that is why it is so late now…...we just got home a little bit ago.

Today I went for a run and helped in Porter's art smart, then grocery shopping.

Dad worked outside and took Cassi to her dr appointment.

Good news, no surgery!

She dislocated her knee cap.....so that is causing weakness, so she needs to work on that, but yay for no surgery!

Madi didn't work today, but she kept busy by cleaning the panty and organizing it....

She also cleaned the fridge out while we were gone tonight.

I guess Elsie was not good tonight....stinker!

She was asleep when we got home, hopefully she is doing better tomorrow.

Port had fun hanging out with Max and Graham all night :)

Sounds like they had a lot of fun playing in the leaves.

Wednesday October 31

Happy Halloween!

So, I have a fun time scaring the big girls when they come home from school.

Today I wanted to throw a Halloween twist on it.

Dad ran to the store and got a scary mask, because I couldn't find anyone who had one I could borrow!

It was perfect and I scared Madi pretty bad when she walked in the door!

Elsie thought it was great and wanted to try it on.

She wanted to try and scare Mater, but he knew it was her :)

Madi had to work a few hours, but she left for some parties with friends.

Still waiting on her to get home.

Cassi also had plans with friends, and Dad is on the way picking her up now.

The little ones went with Dad and I.

Bubbles invited us to her church Trunk-or-treat.

They have a chili cook-off and then they do fun trunk games.....each trunk is some kind of bible story :)

Like the Garden of Eden, they had a dum-dum tree that you pick the sucker and if it is colored on the bottom you get an extra treat.

Stuff like that, it was cute.

We left there and went to Tuscany to do some trick-or-treating.

We were only out for an hour and they got a lot of candy!

It was a fun night.

Funny how things have changed as the kids have gotten older.

It is still fun though :)

Madi's senior picts came in the mail

It is so funny how I can see a mix of little toddler Madi mixed with future adult Madi!

What a beautiful young lady she is!

 Cassi went as 'Prison Mike' from 'The Office'.

Madi and her friends wore Boise fire shirts and hats.

Unintentionally, we have costumes that work together!

Elsie is a Yellowstone park ranger, and I am her buffalo.

Porter is a Native American….and I am his Buffalo :)

See how that works out!