October Thankful Thoughts..

1.. SEMINARY -- Taylor and I have been teaching early morning seminary for 2 months now and we absolutely love it. Our students are the greatest and it's true you always learn more when you are teaching others. Getting up early hasn't been too bad -- Jake and Luke know 5 scripture masteries already just because they usually get up too and sit in the hall and listening. The whole family is learning, and our house has had a great spirit in it since we began this calling.
2.. DVR - it's a small but simple pleasure that deserves a little shout out
3.. HUMOR - my talent is to appreciate humor. I especially enjoy clever intelligent humor (30 rock, the office, scrubs). I really appreciate my husband's countless attempts at Humor. I'd say about 40 percent of what he tells me, really is funny! :)
4.. GOOD FOOD -- I gained 15 pounds at my latest 4 week doctor appointment. Yes, that is about 6 pounds a week -- can any of you top that?!! I would hope not. It's a miserable feeling when your doctor looks at you like the impossible has just happened. (I did take the glucose test and no diabetes -- just fat).
5.. CHILDREN'S BOOKS -- Jake and I have been reading James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda this month (thanks Amber for the idea). He absolutely loves it. It's so weird to have a child big enough to sit and listen to stories that aren't completely filled with pictures. It's been fun for me too. I think I may start Harry Potter with him -- that might be a little scary though. Does anyone have any good suggestions for what to read next?? let me know.

Our Halloween Pictures

It seems that Halloween is not just a one day thing, we have school parties, church parties, friends parties and then the actual day of Halloween Trick or Treating. My boys sure didn't complain once about having to wear their "Super Hero" costumes -- as you can see, they really got into character.

Jake started talking about climbing up buildings and Luke wanted to jump/fly off of them (when I caught them both on top of our Honda Pilot, I thought it best to remind them they were only wearing COSTUMES, and should leave the acrobatics to the real superheros.)

A few pictures of our ward "trunk or treat." the doughnut eating contest was a hit.

Noah Crockett, Luke, Peyton Cotton, Jacob

Halloween night was fun because our friends the Laurences invited us over for dinner and so that we could trick or treat with them on the "cool" street. Dinner was yummy and we saw about 200 kids come by trick or treating (actually I have no idea how many there were, it was a lot of kids though). It really is the cool place to trick or treat in Upper Arlington. Very fun!

Morgan, Luke, Jacob, Carly

More posing ................................ And, they're OFF!! thanks to the dads (Taylor, Noah, and Mike) for letting us pregnant women sit back and enjoy the night watching everyone!

Jake's first Primary Program

I was a proud Mama today. The primary had their annual sacrament program and since they know Jake is not shy, they asked him to share his testimony about being a child of God (in addition to the little one liners they gave everyone).

Here is a copy of his talk. They wanted it to be in their own words, but also wanted to have it printed in case the kids choked and needed some help. My friend Carolee thought of this idea to help Jake remember his talk. We put little pictures/stickers and when he saw them, he remembered what went along with it. (It worked great -- if you have non-readers giving talks soon try it out.)

I taped him saying the talk just so I could remember his sweet voice. I have such a crush on this little boy! BTW -- he told us his talk and I just helped him write it -- very cute. He is quite the intuitive boy.

He of course was so excited and wanted to invite everyone he knew to come see. We were so glad when our favorite next door neighbor Norma Gongwer was able to make it. They wouldn't cooperate for a good picture though -- surprise, surprise.

Another shot of my two handsome church boys.

Nothing better than a Sunday afternoon nap. :)

The witches brew... getting ready for halloween.

My friend Kirsten is quite the party planner. She invited us all to a fun girls night out. The only requirement was to bring a fun witches hat that was decorated by us individually.

L2R - Ali, Sarah, Kirsten, Jeannette, Me (26 weeks), Beth, Jeny

These girls are all in my ward and are such neat people. I'd make time whenever possible to hang out with them. Halloween is such a holiday for the kids -- it was fun to participate a little as adults. However, we probably act like kids a little too much when we are together! Thanks for a fun night Kirsten.

The FOOD table...

It was fabulous and so yummy. Little cupcakes with witches hats, witch broom cookies, other tasty items and to top it off the brewing homeade rootbeer. My favorite.

The Pumpkin Patch..

Our Favorite Fall Activity is to go to a nearby Pumpkin Patch at Circle S Farms. Here is a string of pictures of our fun outing. It turned into a ward activity and was fun to have friends there with us. I love the free doughnut and Apple Cider -- YUM!

The farm has a ton of fun activities. They have tractors and hay bails and many picture op places.

The kids LOVED the hay barn.

Oh the fun of being free to jump and wrestle!

My Boys... Pretty cute eh?

And off to find our pumkins ...

Success!

Now Off to CARVE the great pumpkins...

I have never liked carving pumpkins, and now that it's over -- I still don't really like it. But I think the kids had fun. That must be one of the things in life you do, just because it's the festive thing to do. Does anyone really ENJOY it? I'm curious to know. :)


We are glad the Dehners were with us, it makes so Taylor and I can't argue as much over the dumb things like -- who's pumpkin is cooler than the other's? Why is it taking you so long? and why do I have to help scoop out the gross stuff from the kids pumpkins?

All in all -- I thought they turned out quite nice. Each child was definitely proud of their creation!

Enjoying Fall

I had to steal this picture from our friend's (the Crockett's) blog.

This is a picture of the river and trees just down a couple blocks from our house. We are lucky to look out our windows to this......

As you can see from this picture, Fall is absolutely beautiful here in Columbus. And the greatest part is that it surrounds you wherever you are. The streets with homes on them and the running paths all look like this! You desert foke are jealous I know. But, you won't be when we are FREEZING here in a couple months. I have to enjoy this scenery and weather while I can!

Grammie and Grampie come to Visit!

There is NOTHING my boys like better than to get a visit from grandmas and grandpas. Anytime they talk to either side of our families on the phone, the first thing they ask is, "when are you coming to our house?"

We filled our weekend with as much as we could. Soccer Games, apple picking, rugby movies, and OSU football, women's conference and lots more just hanging around, eating and talking. It was so great to have Grammie and Grampie all to ourselves for a few days.


Lynd Farms was great -- there were sooo many apples and they were YUMMY. look how many are on the ground, it took about 5 minutes to fill a 20 pound bag. Much better than strawberry picking. :)


Jake and Luke loved that the trees were small enough to pick the apples themselves. This apple Jake had was almost as big as his face.

Taylor using any second he can to pick his dad's brain about school, work and his views on ANYTHING that Taylor can think of.

The game was great fun. It's so amazing to be in the Horse Shoe (the name of the buckeye's stadium). It holds over 105,000 people. The band is the highlight for us women, but even Taylor and his dad were impressed. I am glad they got to experience true FAN'sm here in the Buckeye state. It is pretty amazing.

NOTE: prego belly week 24. not a great picture -- I just look fat. :)


As we were leaving the airport from dropping off Steve and Margaret, Luke asked when they were coming back. I said, "we will have to wait and see, but at least we will see them at Christmas." He said, "It's just so hard to wait." I definitely agree with that statement.

Jake's Soccer team -- The BURN.

Having a 4 year old is so much fun. Jake is finally old enough to be on some organized teams and loves every minute of it.

I learned that Jake is not a quitter. He was DEFINITELY not the fastest or the biggest on the team, but he kept running the entire time he was in and just stayed with the ball. He really only kicked the ball a few times each game, but that never kept him from trying. Even though he is just 4, I was proud to see him work so hard. He is a scrapper for sure!

Taylor helped Mike Dehner coach the team -- They were pretty enthusiastic about it and LOVED when we scored. It was fun to see the dads getting involved.

Luke got to "PLAY" at every practice, but during the official games he was a great chearleader on the side. When Morgan wasn't playing, she helped him think of good things to yell! Pretty cute.

My favorite part is that the end of every game, the parents all line up to make a tunnel and the kids get to run through. I think that is a big highlight for the kids too -- it's fun. And we can't wait until the Spring to finish out the season! Go team BURN!

Hurrican IKE? in OHIO??

So, today we drove home from camping in PA and it started out a beautiful day. It was warm and sunny. I never would have imagined the next week would be spent without power due to hurricane IKE destruction!

We got home and went to church but the wind started blowing pretty hard and before church ended the power was down in the whole building. One of our bishopric members truck was crushed by a large branch blown down ontop his car. The winds kept picking up speed (up to 85 miles an hour) until late evening.

A neighbors tree fell on the next door house and crushed the roof.

A tree FULLY uprooted and lying across the street.

The strangest part was that it was still warm and absolutely dry! even with all the winds. It wasn't like the tornados we get here with dark and looming clouds. It wasn't scary at all -- which made it even more dangerous. People were outside and this tree actually landed on a car driving by (no one was seriously injured).

Anyway -- there was MUCH distruction in OHIO. In fact after Texas and one other state that was devistated by the storm Ohio was listed as most damage done ($550 Million worth of damage in the state - crazy)

I guess that is the DIS-advantage to having so many beautiful mature trees around. They all fell down. Here are some pictures (just on our street) of the damage done. Luckily the branch that fell in our backyard didn't hit anything but the ground. And the boys were helpful in cleaning up -- as always.

Being without power really made me grateful for the modern day luxuries. And reminded me how little it takes to feel USELESS! Motivation to get my food storage in order!

Our long awaited CAMPING trip

We love to go camping with our boys each year. This year, was exceptionally fun, because we got to go with some of Taylor's favorite friends in the world.

Sterling Fillmore, Dave Francis, Matt Selander, Taylor

To this day, Taylor would go back to his Freshman year of College if he could relive any year of his life (for fun). He and his buddies are little boys when they are together and it's pretty entertaining for the wives as well. They have all turned out to be amazing men, dispite their lightmindedness at times, and have great families. Here are a few pictures so you can get a glimpse of the fun we had!
The weather was forecasting rain all weekend and since we had 4 families traveling from DC, New York and Ohio meeting in PA to camp. We for sure weren't going to cancel the trip. So, we last minute changed our campsite into cabins. It was perfect, and we even pitched our tent in the front yard so Jake would be happy! (he was really concerned that the sleeping in a cabin was NOT camping).

Of course the guys made "MAN" games out of everything we did. I think here they found a cinderblock in the lake and were shot-putting it. There was also 500 going on and many other "tuff" things. The kids were entertained with swimming, the beach and getting to make new friends. They all got along so well!



Now, lets not worry that a BYU game and OSU game would be missed over the weekend. Even though no one had cell service, we lucked out (or the guys ensured) that we had cable to watch the games. The guys were able to prop the little kitchen TV in the porch window and everyone fit quite well on the deck to watch it. Yet another thing that made all the men happy this weekend.

Oh and how can I forget the yummy food and smores! That was my favorite part!
Dutch oven COBLER -- yum.


Smores and roasted starbursts for everyone!

Here is the first picture I have of my belly. I am 22 weeks here and you can definitely start to see the baby bulge. There were 3 of us pregnant on this trip -- but Eliza and Jessi were due in just a couple weeks. Need I say more about how amazing the company was? We had such a great time chatting and catching up while the guys did the same

In the morning the men made the best breakfast I've ever had -- well most the men.....

Here was Taylor during the "cooking" part...

I can't give him too much grief -- he had a great weekend and it was good for our whole family for him to get some rest. He was a great help in driving and setting up and cleaning up and playing with my boys. I'm glad he got a little R&R too, he needed it!

One last pose before we headed home! This will be a trip I will have lots of good memories from.