Uncle Bob

This post is for my uncle Bob. He passed away from Thursday from a brain tumor. I'm so glad he was able to make a trip to Utah and meet my kids, before he got too sick. I also got to see him when I went to Chicago in April for my cousin's wedding. At the time we thought he would recover from surgery to remove the tumor. It is really crazy to think how short life is and you never know when the last time is you will see someone. I really wanted to go to his funeral in North Dakota with my parents but there was too much going on at home. I'm amazed by my aunt Rose's strength. She has endured her own parents passing, she has survived breast cancer and she has taken care of my uncle through it all. My cousin Alex was able to take time off work to be with her dad this last month.
It is sad to lose him but I think he was welcomed by my grandparents, aunt Debbie and cousin Lindsay.

Weekend With Cousins

We love having cousins over. Katelyn, Drew, and Lucy stayed over Friday. These three put on matching night gowns. Don't they look beautiful?!

They had a big pajama party in the basement. Marshall is finishing some projects in the basement bedroom/office so the mattress is in the movie room. It was nice having two mattresses so everyone had a spot.

The next afternoon Ali had all the older kids at her house. Marshall and I took the minis with us to run errands. They were pretty entertaining.

Except that they kept untying the shoe laces on the mannequins.

Taggart's Morning

The snow was all melted by the next day. Taggart wanted to go outside and play the second James and Lynnlee went to the bus. I kept an eye on him while he was outside. He jumped with his baby on the trampoline. Then he gave her a ride on the spinner.

Then he spotted me and so I pushed them both on the spinner. He is so cute!

First Snow

We had our first snow two days after it was 70 degrees. The kids went out and played before school.

The minis didn't remember snow so they thought it was pretty fun.

70 Degrees

Last week the temperature got up to 70 degrees! We all wore shorts and after school we went to our favorite park in American Fork.

Pure happiness!

Monkeys Jumping

The weather in November was so nice and warm. These monkeys love jumping on the trampoline all afternoon.

Storks

The good thing about living in Utah County is all of the discount movie theater options. We picked up James and Lynnlee from school one Friday and they each took a friend to the movie. We saw the movie Storks. It was really funny!

The best was looking down the row during the funny parts and watching all the kids laughing.

Side note: Lynnlee gets hurt a lot! She brought her friend home to play and while they were playing Lynnlee got hurt on the slide. Ouch!

Doubt Your Doubts

I feel so sad when I think about all my friends and family who have left the church. Yesterday I kept thinking "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." Then as I kept thinking about it I also thought about how Satan knows our weaknesses. It's not enough to put on the whole armor of God but you have to keep it on and make sure there are no holes.
It's a scary time to grow up. I hope I can teach my kids that if they read their scriptures daily, attend church weekly, go to the temple often then their armor will be strong. I hope they never lose their faith even in hard times.

Changes

On Monday I mentioned to Marshall that I was thinking about changing the minis to beds. He said he had been thinking the same thing. So within a few hours the minis cribs were taken down and the minis had new sleeping arrangements. It wasn't quite that simple though. Taggart's was simple because we had a toddler bed in storage that we set up in James's and Kaden's room. Taggart was so excited for his new bed! Sienna kept asking us where her new bed was.

We didn't have a bunk bed yet for the girls. I had been browsing KSL classifieds for the last few weeks but didn't have any luck finding one. I found one online at Kmart that I really liked but only the one in Salt Lake had it in stock. We could have waited and picked it up during the week but Marshall was up for getting it right then so he did. We set it up that night and the girls were so excited.

It was getting late and the kids were tired so they were all in their beds except for Sienna and Lynnlee who were in my bed reading books. Marshall and I were just finishing up the last few things when Sienna threw up all over herself, Lynnlee and my bed. So it's funny because after all of that we got her new bed set up and she didn't even get to sleep in it. Instead she slept on towels in my room next to my bed and a throw up bowl.

She was feeling much better the next day and so I got this picture of them. She has been sleeping in it ever since and its been really fun for both of them!

The old nursery is now a sewing/craft room. I'm so excited to be able to leave my sewing machine up. I haven't been up for doing many sewing projects because of the inconvenience of getting my machine out. Now I can finally tackle some new projects.

Thankful Tree

We made a thankful tree for our first family night of November. Usually we make turkeys out of Halloween candy but Kaden was getting over the stomach flu.

I'm so grateful for the good year we've had. I look back to the trials we were going through with our renter a year ago and it was so hard. I'm thankful to be through that.

Girls Weekend

Ali planned a girls weekend in Salt Lake. I took Lynnlee with and it was a very memorable weekend! It started with giggles from the parking garage where we went up the wrong elevator and had to walk through the kitchen to get to the lobby. Then it was so cute to see how excited Lynnlee was about every detail of the hotel room. We don't stay in hotels much since having the minis so this was like a first time for Lynnlee. She was bursting with happiness the whole weekend. She thanked me over and over for such a great weekend.

Our hotel was next to City Creek. We ate at Blue Lemon for dinner. We had a great view of the temple outside the restaurant.

Then we went shopping. We could have spent hours in Sephora. Lynnlee tried on some blush, eye shadow and lipstick. I'm not as girly as some so Betsy helped Lynnlee put the make up on.

Lynnlee is obsessed with Shopkins and we struck gold at Claire's.

Next we went to the pool.

Saturday morning Ali was teaching a class at Pinner's Conference. We met up with her and walked around the booths.

The large couch was in the lobby.

View of the Salt Palace.

View from our room.

We ate lunch at the Grill at Nordstroms to finish off the weekend. They had the best sweet potato fries I've ever had.
It went by too fast. It was a great weekend and we hope to do it again next year but stay a few nights.

Fall Soccer 2016

Fall soccer wrapped up for James, Lynnlee and Kaden. It was a good season for each of them with fun teams and good coaches. Kaden enjoyed it this time and wanted to play compared to a year ago when it was a fight to get him to sub in.

We thought it was funny that they were standing next to each other in order.