6 more days

Only 6 more days

 until Justin comes home !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fall Fun

We've been having some super great fall weather

Mostly sunny and not too freezing cold a majority of the time.

We have had a little snow but it doesn't stick around, thank goodness

A week ago we had a great Saturday - no college football games to watch, no soccer, just a full day to get stuff done.  We did a lot of work in the yard.  Jared and Kamryn were great helpers to get all these leaves raked up.

 They wanted to rake all of them into a gigantic pile and then jump in them.

I love fall!

Happy Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year - lots of chances to dress up.

Jared knew a long time ago that he wanted to be a zombie.  We looked up ideas on Pinterest and got some good photos to figure out his costume.  He found some old pants and a shirt that he tore up and got all dirty - that was fun!

Kamryn was trying to figure out what to be and I suggested she could be Mulan (because I had made that costume for Brooke several years ago).  Kamryn said "I don't want to be a princess anymore" - sad :(

I guess she's growing up.  She decided she wanted to be a vampire and we looked online for costume ideas and found some photos and decided she could wear an old princess dressup that we have and add a black cape that we have and some jewelry and make- up and voila - she was a vampire.

The first time they dressed up was for the ward trunk or treat.  My friend Julianne is AWESOME at doing makeup and was so kind to come over and do the make up for Jared and Kamryn.

We had a few cousins join us for trunk or treat.

Brooke even got into it this year and figured out her own costume, ordered the hat and mustache -

doesn't she make a great Charlie Chaplin?

Brooke and Andre (as an assassin) dressed up
to go to the Haunted Village at Heritage Park

Jared and Kamryn dressed up on Halloween day
ready to go to school for the parade

 Brooke filled in as make-up artist this time and did a great job too.

This is one of the greatest costumes I've ever seen
a 4th grader with his head in a jar. So cool!

Our principal always get into it and always has a fabulous costume!

On the way home from school Jared said he didn't want to be a zombie anymore and wanted to be a nerd.  We still had Paul's work to go to and night time trick or treat, so sounded good to me.  Luckily a nerd costume is super easy to come up with and he made a pretty great nerd.

At Paul's work they have trick or treating from cubicle to cubicle - a super great way to get candy fast and where its warm.  We never miss it.

Two nerds together :)

 Taylor had Juliane do some zombie makeup on him for Halloween and it turned out fantastic.  I'm just sad I didn't get a photo of him in his full costume.
It was great weather for Halloween - not too cold and fun to be out in the neighborhood.  Kamryn's friend Olivia even came with us this year.  The kids got A LOT of candy.

When I got back from exercising the morning after Halloween this is what i came home to - all of Jared and Kamryn's candy all sorted out.  They picked out their favorites and made their Christmas countdowns that day.

New Glasses

Jared didn't pass the eye test at school. We weren't too surprised.  He'd been complaining of not being able to see the board for most of this school year.  So I took him to the eye dr and sure enough - he needed glasses.  Not too much of a prescription, just -1.5 or so but still enough correction that glasses would help a lot.  We went to Shopko and he picked out these really good looking glasses.  I think he looks super handsome and SMART!

Family work day

My brother organized a family work day at my parents a couple of Saturdays ago.

It was a beautiful warm fall day and nice to be outside. 4 out of my 5 siblings were there with their families.  The main project was to split and stack all the wood from their big pine tree getting cut down. We also did a lot of other yard work.  All of the grandkids were great at helping on this big project.  Granddad had promised them dinner at Golden Corral after all the work was done - I'm sure that helped all of us work hard.

 All of the grandkid helpers in our newly cleared corner of the yard.

Kamryn enjoying her chocolate dipped strawberries
 at Golden Corral

New Room Update

Soon after Justin left on his mission we started on some home projects - namely finishing this bedroom from an unfinished area in our basement.  At first it was going to be an office/craft room for me but as its getting closer for Justin to come home I decided it should be his bedroom.  I'm sacrificing and letting him have the brand new and nicest bedroom in our house - nicest because Paul has done the work on it and he is a perfectionist. (plus the room that will be my office is bigger but 1/2 full of a lot of stuff and it was easier to think about getting a room ready for Justin that isn't full of stuff).

Its taken quite a long time and Paul promised me it would be done by the end of the summer - but we had too much fun during the summer and played a lot.  So now that we have a real deadline coming up Paul has been working on this room a lot.  Luckily his work has mellowed out for awhile now and he's had some free time finally.  He's been up until at least midnight every night this last week working on this project.

The painting is done and the lights are in.  Tonight he is working on the trim and we still need to order some carpet.  We should be able to make it.

he's amazing - he's done ALL the work on this project
drywall, tape and mud, painting, electrical

He did all the framing and created a closet where there wasn't one

 I got the funniest text from him the other night.  The night before we had been to Home Depot to pick out paint.  We agreed on a color we both liked - kind of a goldish tan named Crepe.  He sent me this photo and said "were we on drugs when we picked this color?"  He had just started cutting it in but could already tell it was going to be bad.  I said just paint that wall and we will see how it looks.  By the time I got home he'd painted almost the whole room.  I walked in and at first it didn't seem too bad but the longer i was in the room the more I didn't like it.  He hated it. The picture below doesn't do it justice at all - it was a PEACH room.  At the store we'd looked at several colors and I said I didn't want peach but that is still what we got.
Luckily Paul doesn't mind painting and paint is relatively cheap when its comes to decorating.
So he's repainted the room and I will add more photos when the the trim is all up.

Happy Birthday to me :)

I had a fabulous birthday this year!

It started out with subbing at BHS for my one of my favorite teachers and friend.  She teaches 3 english classes so I was done by noon - perfect.

Paul and I met at Einsteins for lunch and then went golfing at Mulligans.  I actually had some decent shots which made me happy.  It was a gorgeous fall day and it was so great to be out in the sun with Paul on a weekday afternoon.

After golfing we went to Kohls and did some shopping (mostly for Paul but I got a few things.  I have to take advantage of getting him in a store which he only does about once every 2 years).

In the evening I met one of my sisters at Jordan Commons to see The Saratov Approach and have dinner.  It was a real treat to go to a first run movie AND to eat in the theater - something I've never done before.

And then to top off an awesome day - I came home to many gifts on the table that had been dropped off while I was away playing all day.  I have such great friends.

Paul even had a gift for me - he told me it was something I had asked for. I couldn't think of anything I had asked for.  It was a collapsible garbage can - mostly to take camping.  I LOVED it and was so excited.  I had asked for one but it was in the summer of 2012.  Impressive memory he has.

Trafalga FUN center

Last Monday my kids were off school and Susan's kids were off track so we had a day where we could go to Trafalga in Lehi and use our pass of all passes. We had never been there before so my kids didn't know what to expect. Luckily it was a nice day so we could enjoy the outside rides and mini-golf.

The kids loved going on this frog hopper ride over and over. Just watching it jerk up and down made me feel sick. I think the most fun for them was the coupons we had for tokens and playing games. They all had fun playing the games and collecting prize tickets. And then taking forever to decide what (junk) to buy with all those tickets. They all had a blast and want to know when we're going back again (probably never)

Fall

I love the beauty of fall.  I'm always sad to see summer go and have it get colder but I do love the colors of fall.  Paul and I have been able to go out for walk/runs a few times over the last week because he's finally taking some much needed time off from work.  We have really enjoyed the weather and scenery - its so nice to be out in the sunshine running instead of the dark early mornings when I go with my friend Jenny.

Another Ute Game

Paul was given 4 tickets to the Utah vs UCLA game.  I chose not to go (I know, crazy right) since Brooke had her wisdom teeth out that day and I felt like I should stay around and take care of her and not abandon her.  So Paul took Taylor and Susan's 2 boys - Jadon and Jaxon.  Their seats were as far from the field as you can get but they didn't care - they all had a great time.  It was a great game even though Utah didn't win.

He's Legal Now

Taylor finished his road driving and passed his road test with a perfect score!  His teacher said he was one of the best drivers he'd ever gone out with :)  Luckily 2 days later there was no high school that day so I made an appt for Taylor to get his official "temporary" drivers license.  It is awesome that you can make an appt to go to the DMV - we were in and out of there in 10 minutes.  Someone at Paul's work asked me if I was nervous for him to get his license and I said not at all, I'm thrilled.  It is so great to have another driver around to help out with getting the twins places, doing errands and most of all driving himself wherever he needs to go.

15

Paul has worked for Layton Construction for 15 years.

His boss recently had a little celebration to honor him at work

He invited me and Brooke came along too.

It was nice to see so many of his co-workers congratulate him

for his years of hard work.

 At the milestone years - 5,10, 15

the company also gives a nice gift

Paul's boss enlisted my help in getting Paul

an actual gift instead of just a gift card

I think Paul was pretty surprised when one of the project assistants

walked in with this guitar case

It had a beautiful 12 string guitar inside

 Paul with his boss, Steve

and the new 12 string guitar

 Congratulations on 15 years of hard work !!!

Taylor's Eagle Scout Project

Taylor did his Eagle Scout project this last Saturday.  Yeah!

He'd planned to do it over the summer and at the end of a super, super busy summer for him he hadn't done the project.  And then school started and I worried that we'd get to next summer with it not done again.  Then I saw a post on facebook from Cottonwood Heights city requesting a scout to do an Eagle project for their emergency preparedness department.  Taylor contacted them and met with the lady in charge to find out about the project and it sounded like a perfect project.  Very needed but not too overwhelming in what it required.  And there was a short turn-around for the project and a quick deadline, which is always good in helping to get it scheduled and done.

flier Taylor made to give to youth in our ward
and his friends

A big part of the project was building this contraption.  The project was to cut specially printed caution tape ribbons for the city for emergency preparedness.  These ribbons are distributed to residents to use in the event of a natural disaster.  They tie the ribbons out in their front yard to signal - green they are ok, yellow they need help but not emergency, red - someone is not breathing or has severe bleeding, black there is a fatality.  So Taylor needed a contraption to hold the rolls of ribbons and then they needed to pull off the ribbons and cut them and staple them together with the printed instruction card supplied by the city.

contraption Taylor and Paul built the night before the scheduled project

Taylor with his "unit Leader" Spencer Grider

Taylor getting everything all set up before everyone got there

The contraption with the ribbons all loaded up and ready to go

What a good looking scout :)

Jared and Kamryn got to help out for a little bit
before going to the Primary program practice

Taylor with Bart Fisher, new YM President

Paul helping out at one of the stations

Taylor's friend Whitney folding ribbons to go in box

The ward station crew
Paul, Andy Smith, Gabe Maxfield, Spencer Grider

Mallie, Becca, Chandler and Taylor enjoying working together

the friend station

Mallie and Becca did a great job folding and boxing the ribbons

The work area
Everyone did a great job getting the project done in 1 1/2 hours

It was so great that Grandma even made it out to help on the project

Merrick Maxfield and baby Jaxson even helped out 

Taylor loading up the next spools of ribbons

Some of the finished product

Grand-dad helping out with cutting the ribbons

I mostly did support - first-aid and picture taking
but i did get in and help some of the time


 Everyone that helped on Taylor's project:

Lindsey, Leah, Grandma, Taylor, Ethan
Mallie, Becca, Luke, Whitney, Kate, Paul, Granddad, Spencer, Grant, Chandler
Not pictured that were there during project: Gabe and Merrick Maxfield, Bart Fisher, Andy Smith, Jared and Kamryn Adams