Crazy October Begins and My Birthday

October seems to be a busy month. This is the order of the busy months: December, May, then October.

I had Parent/Teacher Conferences the first week and it happened to be my Friday to work as well so I worked every single day that week. On Tuesday, Nate coached Logan's soccer practice. On Wed and Thurs, I worked until 7. On Wednesday, the kids went to Cindy's to be watched until Nate picked them up and brought them to the school for Logan's Conference. I just stepped out and didn't do my last 1 or 2 conferences so I could go to his. Mrs. Ortiz had good things to say about Logan, thank goodness. She said he is doing very well behavior wise. We just need to work on getting him up to speed with his reading. But that was a relief!

Friday was my birthday! I was so tired, though, from all the conferences that I just wanted to relax. So we all went out to eat at Kneaders then came back, put the kids to bed, and watched Jason Bourne. I have a bit of a celebrity crush on Matt Damon. I'm sure Nate made chocolate syrup cake as well but he didn't journal that I don't seem to have any pictures of it. The amazing gift I got was a Roomba! I love it! I bet this is how mothers felt when the washing machine or dishwasher was invented. I realized I can have dishes washing, clothes washing, floors being vacuumed, and clean a bathroom all at the same time! It is amazing and life changing!

That weekend was General Conference. We went to my parents' house after Logan's soccer game (so in between sessions) on Saturday. They announced that we would be moving to 2 hour church to leave more time for parents to teach their kids at home. There is a whole new curriculum. I am very excited about this change, but also feel a bit of a weight for more of the responsibility to be on us to teach our children the doctrine.

It was also the first time they had the Women's Session on Saturday night in place of the Priesthood Session (that one will be in April). So all of us women (and girls 8 and older) went to dinner first (to celebrate Cambree's birthday, which was that day) and then to the conference. The men held down the fort at home and ordered Dominoes pizza.

Monday the 10th, Nate and I went to his mission reunion with Elder Stevenson. It is always cool to have this little time to spend with an apostle. He talked about the growth of the church in Vietnam and about the home program. He said it has been in the works since Pres. Hinckley. They had tried it out in other areas, but realized that they needed something extra at home with losing that hour of church, so they came up with the study guide and have been piloting that in certain areas of the church.

Friday we went to the pumpkin patch at Pack Farms. It's a pretty fun pumpkin patch with a lot of pumpkins, a hay maze, tractors, and cardboard cutouts for photo ops. The kids always enjoy it. We skipped the paid portion of the patch though. We figured the kids had enough fun from the other things and it is such a far walk out to that section! We got one big pumpkin for carving and two little pumpkins for Logan and Kylie to paint. After the patch we went to Blaze pizza for dinner.

 I had to put 3 of the following pictures because a different child is looking at the camera in each one.

Don't mind me. Just holding Ethan so he can be in the picture.

They're showing their strong muscles

Gage had his birthday party on Saturday, so Logan chose to miss his last soccer game in order to go. Nate still coached without him and said it was rough because another kid was missing too so their weren't any subs. I took all the kids to the party. Logan and Kylie dressed up for it and played Halloween party games. They had a blast!