Meridian Temple open house and family pictures

Yep, we went. We drove the five hours to be able to go inside. Being in the temple is so awesome and I love being in there with our littles. I always pray that they will be able to feel the spirit while we are in there. We try so hard to teach these little humans the gospel. We try to help them know that the only way to find true, lasting happiness is through living the gospel. We talk about getting married in the temple and being sealed together forever. We talk about the basics of the gospel a lot. The only wrench in this little plan is that dang agency. We hope and pray that what we are teaching and what we are doing, like reading scriptures and praying and going to the temple, will be enough. We hope that all four of these strong, amazing little ones will choose to live the gospel and have strong foundations in our Savior. We also pray that if they choose another path that they will still know that we love them. They all loved being in the temple and thought that the chandeliers were beautiful, which they are. It was really hot inside and so in an effort to not pass out, we kind of hustled through. The heat and the fact that there were a ton of people in there. The temple was exquisite and there weren't too many protesters on the corners of the parking lot either. The ones that were there were kind of weird anyway, like the guy dressed up as the devil waving to people. He wasn't even standing up, he was sitting on a lawn chair. Weird. Or the guy holding the sign that said, Jesus created Satan too.  Things that make ya go, huh. Anyhow, my grandma Kent used to live in Meridian and when we would drive to her house when I was a wee lass, I always knew we were close when we saw the yellow water tower. Meridian is huge now and I don't recognize anything, except for the water tower. When I saw it I couldn't help myself and I shouted,"We're almost there!" It's still Yellow, it still has the word, Meridian, painted on the side but everything around it has changed. I miss grandma Kent a lot. I miss her red house and her giant bunk beds and her container of Kix that she kept in the red room. I am so thankful for temples and the sealing power and that although grandma wasn't in Meridian for us to go visit, I know that we will see her again. Next item of business, family pictures. We do family pictures every year. Let's be honest, I'm anal about a lot of things. Family pictures once a year is one of those things. We love to do it in the fall because of the colors and sometimes we get really great colors like this one from a few years ago.

Or this one from last year

This year I was hoping that we would get good colors. I waited until the leaves started to turn. Now, bear in mind that we don't live in a beautiful place. Far from it actually. There are hardly any trees so when I say the leaves were changing I mean that the tree in the church parking lot was yellow so we were on the hunt for more trees to stand in front of. The lady taking our pictures told us that she found the perfect spot. We drove and drove and drove. We passed some beautiful spots so I was thinking that we had hit the ugly valley jackpot. Nope. instead we pulled up to a cement bridge. Now, I do love taking pictures on a bridge too. The lady had just misunderstood me. She thought that I only wanted the bridge as the background. She knew we have a baby so she said she would be fast. She was right. She took two family pictures, one of the kids and one of B and I and we were done. It took us waaaaaay longer to get ready, and we aren't fancy folk so getting ready included putting on clean clothes and brushing through our hair, and drive out there than it did for the actual picture taking. 

There you have it folks. These are the ones that we have. I am still happy that we got them. I do wish that we had more to choose from, but At least no one's picking their nose or crying or making a pooping face so it's a win! I love my family so much and love having family pictures taken every year.

I think I'll run a half marathon..... in two weeks

Once upon a time, B and I ran a half marathon. The idea was exciting and we trained hard for it. Looking back on the experience, I'm pretty sure I peaked a few weeks before the actual race. It was the day I did my ten mile run. I felt like I could have run all day. I felt so good that I was sure that the half wouldn't be a problem at all. Wrong. It. was. awful! I did fine until mile nine and then I wanted to die. I did make it across the finish line, dry heaving and vowing that I would never do that again. I have stuck to my guns and the longest I have run since that fateful day in 2012, is 7 miles. 13.1 is just too much for me. However, my amazing boyfriend views the running world differently than I. He loved the half that we did and was talking about doing another one on the car ride home from the race. Well, time passes and two babies later, he hears about a half that's here in this stinky city we live in. He was kind of wishy-washy about doing it until two weeks before the race. He has been running pretty consistently for a really long time. His normal run is at least four miles. Two weeks before the race, he decided to do a long run to see if doing the half was an option. He ran a measly 11 miles that morning. When he told me that, my mouth fell open, literally. He had run 4 miles everyday for a while but to go from 4 miles to 11 is no small task. The most annoying part is that he was totally fine with the mileage upgrade. Not that I wanted it to be hard for him, but come on! He's some kind of super human to not be effected at all by almost tripling his distance. Maybe I just truly suck as a runner, but there's no way I would be able to go from 4 miles to even 6 miles and be fine, let alone 4 to 11. Anyway, he got done with his long run, got home and registered for the half that was taking place in seven days. He took most of the week off of running so that he would be well rested for his short little jaunt the following Saturday. I happily volunteered to be on kid duty so that he could go run his race. He went, he ran, he kicked fanny. He finished 39 overall and felt amazing the entire time.

 This was after the race was over. The cheeseballer in the blue shirt over yonder is a guy in our ward. He's the one that told B about the race.

His goal was to do it under two hours. Not too shabby for a fella that only trained for two weeks.

I'm bursting with pride! There's a guy that ran the same race that saw B at the school, picking up M and K, one afternoon and stopped to talk to him about the race and tell him there's another one in March. He told B that he should do it. B doesn't know if he will but, thankfully he only needs two weeks to train, so he doesn't have to decide until the middle of February😉.  I am so happy to stay on kid duty so that he can run his little heart out. I have no desire to ever run that long ever again in my whole life. Being the cheerleader is an amazing spot to be in. 

October brings with it, a lot

Boys and using tools are like me and chocolate. They just need to be together. Well, B put a cement slab in our backyard for a shed. The next night after work, he went out there to take the cement forms off the cement. K and little B were out there helping. I'm not sure what happened really. I just know that he came in the house crying because he had taken a hammer to the face. I don't know what he was hammering, I just know that the hammer bounced off and hit him in the face. Thankfully he didn't hit his teeth. Poor kid.

Of course we made our tootsie sucker ghost's. This is one of our favorite traditions. They love to make their ghosts and hang them on the light above the table. 

We made our graveyards too but this year instead of putting the gravestones in no bake cookies, we put them in dirt and worms. A didn't care that she didn't construct a ghost or a graveyard but, she loved that M had her try some of the pudding. We think that this little one has a nut allergy.

This picture doesn't do justice. This was taken one night after we had made poppy seed muffins. They have almond extract in them. We gave her some and within minutes her eyelids started to get hives on them. Her ears swelled up really bad and she started getting a rash all over her stomach and back. She got hives on her back, legs and stomach. We said no more of anything with almonds or other tree nuts. B said maybe she was allergic to the poppy seeds. We gave her some Benadryl and once the swelling started to go down, we put her to bed for the night but checked on her every hour or so throughout the night. 

These ones were taken last night. At her nine month check, the dr had said that they have now changed food recommendations and anything goes. So, I had given her a peanut butter and jam sandwich for lunch. I didn't feed her the whole thing because as she was eating it, she would take a bite, swallow and then cough and cough. She seemed ok after her bottle so I laid her down for a nap. She didn't sleep well and when she woke up, she was totally swollen. Her face is puffy, her left ear is so swollen that it's sticking out. You can see she has a rash on her neck.

She's a moving target so you can't tell that these bumps were really big and she had hives on her stomach again. It's so scary! Thankfully Benadryl has taken care of the swelling but it takes several hours for it to go all the way away. No nuts at all for this little lady until we know for sure what the allergy is.  Anyway,

We tried to put our ghost's in the dirt, but they kept falling over and the tissue was turning brown. No one liked the idea of it looking like they had poopy ghost's so, we took the ghost's out of the pudding. We had done this as a FHE activity. They next day as little B was eating lunch, he started to chuckle and shake his head. I asked what he was laughing at and he said,"that really was a great activity last night." 

Next on the tradition schedule was pumpkin decorating. We truly hate carving pumpkins. We don't like the mess or the smell. Not to mention it seems like as soon as you carve them, they go schlumpy. So, we paint ours instead. 

I must say, that I love all of our pumpkins. However, whoever did that minion takes the cake! I think that's one of the best pumpkins I've ever seen.

We think this picture is funny! We were trying to get her to smile from behind the camera and she was trying to find us. We love our start of October traditions and that it's the start of the holiday season!