Fall is in the air

My favorite time of year is here I could not be happier!  I love everything about the Fall and try my best to soak it all in and enjoy Fall activities.

The first one was General Conference.  I love having this weekend to just be together as a family and learn from the prophet.  The boys enjoy our word game where they get a snack when they hear certain words.  We learned from previous years' mistakes and made healthy snack be for common words and candy be for more difficult words.  It worked great!  No sugar high and more paying attention to get that piece of candy.  We got to spend a session or two with my parents, my sister Rachel and her kids, my sister Melanie and her kids and my mother in law and sister in law.  It was s full house and I wouldn't have it any other way.  We even got to celebrate my dad's birthday which is always fun.

Kneeling in prayer

Watching my boys work in the yard brings me so much joy and is something Mark truly loves.  Shortstop is so enthusiastic when he gets to help dad pick up leaves or mow the lawn.  I hope they always appreciate working side by side with their dad.  He is for sure teaching them what it means to work hard and have a good work ethic.

This year we decided to get season passes to Cornbelly's and I am so glad we did!  They were on a great sale and we made good use of them.  Whether a quick evening family trip or Mark taking the boys after work so I could have some quiet time or even a few hours on a Saturday…each trip was wonderful and the boys had a great time!  We even went one morning with my sister and her kids which was a blast!  Hopefully the sale is good again next year because I definitely want to buy them again.

One Saturday morning we made the drive down to Santaquin to go to the Red Barn with our friends the Garvins and McBrides.  We took a hay ride, went down the big slides, rode tractor bikes, picked out pumpkins, ate apple cider donuts and all in all had a great time!  The kids are best of friends and the adults are the same.  I get to do girls' night with these ladies each month and the boys get together as often as they can.  We are so glad we all still live in Utah and make time for each other.  Some friends you just don't want to let go of!!

One morning my sister called and asked if we wanted to join her at the zoo.  I was so happy she invited us because every time Mark and I tried to take the boys, something came up!  I was sad he couldn't be there but the boys loved every minute and these cousins get along so well.  We went to Trader Joe's on the way home and I ran into my best friend Joslyn at the zoo which lead to plans for a play date the next week…so basically the most successful zoo trip ever.

 For the Ogden temple rededication we could not figure out how to go since we have young kids and neither one of us like to go to things alone so we decided that without church we would spend the day at Temple Square.  I packed a picnic and we drove up in drizzly weather.  Once we got to Salt Lake the weather cleared up perfectly and we walked around Temple Square, sat in the Tabernacle for a few minutes and wandered the Visitor's Centers.  We enjoyed our picnic in the back of the car and made it home for nap time.  Shortstop loved telling Fullback "Hey, this is where mom and dad got married…can you believe it?! Isn't it so pretty?"

The weather and skies were very reminiscent of the day Mark and I got married.  It was very nostalgic.