October started out with General Conference weekend. We enjoyed our traditional "conference rolls" for breakfast. This year I bought a jigsaw puzzle for us to work on while we listened to conference. It was a good way to sit quiet and stay alert. Then that night, we had Maren and her girls, plus Jeremy & Cheri and their kids all over for a Brazilian dinner! Both Maren and Jeremy went to Brazil on their missions, and Maren makes such good Brazilian food!
The following Wednesday (Cedric's birthday), my dad and Suzy came home from their mission! Even though I'd visited them just a few months ago in England, it was still exciting to see them come home.
We did family pictures with Tom's family the end of September. We just had our brother-in-law, Dell bring his good camera instead of hiring a photographer. Well, I didn't really look at the pictures, until a few weeks later, and this is the family picture we got. It's good, especially since it was free, but it would've been nice to have other options. And the way it's cropped makes it impossible to order a picture without cutting someone out. :(
The big group picture turned out pretty good! We have a few missing, but got all of Tom's siblings and spouses and most of the grand-kids.
A few weeks later, we did the kids' pictures. My old neighbor was doing a deal, which was really good. However, I didn't take into consideration the cost of finding clothes that match, ironing shirts, forcing kids to wear clothes they didn't want to, Sophie falling asleep on the way, the 40 minute drive to the place, and running late because Sophie got home from her girl scout field trip late. So all in all, it was more stressful than worth it, but we still managed to get some good pictures.
I literally woke Sophie up as soon as we got there and while the other kids were getting their pictures done, I got her dressed and did her hair in the van. It was cold that evening, and when you wake Sophie up from a nap, you never know what kind of mood she'll be in. Luckily, she was good for the first few minutes, so her individual picture turned out fine.
But when it came time to do the sibling picture, she was done.
First she was cold (Jeff is pulling a "cold" face too).
Then she just refused to smile. We tried bribing her, logically talking to her, everything. She was just too stubborn to care.
She even ran off and ended up in tears, which never resolved. So when Jeff asked if we could get ice cream after, Sophie perked up and I said she was not getting any ice cream because she made me so mad that after all we went through for these pictures, she didn't cooperate!
We did go get some dinner though, and she said it was our fault she didn't smile because we kept bugging her. It was hard for us to enjoy our meal.
Ironically, the following Saturday (two days later), we had family pictures with my family. The kids were done with pictures by then, and Jeff refused to wear jeans. So I let him wear basketball pants, which was luckily the only problem we had with kids that day. I brought giant gumballs to bribe smiles, and it worked! The kids were so good for their pictures!
First, I just took a few pictures with my new iPhone 8 camera...
I grabbed a few family photos too, my brother Mike took them for us.
Then we had a few minutes before the group picture, so the photographer took some of my kids too.
If only I'd gotten one of our whole family by the professional photographer.
The same day as the kids pictures (where Sophie wouldn't cooperate), ended up being a bad luck day. On the way home from school, a car hit the school bus my kids were on. The kids were ok, but a little shaken up. The problem was, they wouldn't let the kids off the bus until the police came and everyone was accounted for. Sophie had her girls scouts field trip that day, but luckily Jeff was able to call me from the bus drivers cell phone and once they were accounted for, they allowed me to take my own kids and Sophie made it to girls scouts on time.
The weekend of October 6th, Tom was gone and I had Charlotte Friday night and Saturday. So Friday I took the kids to do the witch hunt at Gardner Village (Jeff opted to stay home).
On Saturday, we went to a party at a pumpkin patch for my cousin's real estate company.
I brought two rainbow unicorns, the neighbor from "Hello Neighbor", a dead guy and a cat.
The kids loved the corn maze. Jeff and Lily did the maze several times.
I took the little kids on the hay ride, and we all had donuts and juice or hot chocolate.
Everyone got to pick a pumpkin too.
Meanwhile, Tom was in St. George running the marathon there for the 11th time. He ran with Teresa and Eric.
Maren couldn't run because she broke her ankle last summer, but she went down to support them.
Tom and Eric spontaneously decided to drive to LA to watch the LA Rams play on Sunday. They stayed the night somewhere en route Saturday night, then after the game on Sunday afternoon just drove straight home. He arrived home Monday morning around 7:30 as I was getting the kids up for school. He went to bed for a few hours before going into work that day.
Angel figured out how to climb the trees. It took her a little longer to figure out how to get down. She loves playing outside whenever anyone else is out there.
Dad and Suzy had their mission homecoming. They spoke in their Sacrament Meeting, then we all went over to their house for lunch. They'd brought us all socks from England as a souvenir, so we wore them that day.
I can't help very often at the kids' school, but one Monday they needed help with the hearing screening. So instead of going back to bed as I normally do, I got the kids out the door and then headed over myself to the elementary. I was glad I went, since I was the only volunteer, besides they PTA president who came. I was able to help with both Jeff and Sophie's classes.
Then I ran over to Kneaders to meet Aimee and Dad for a birthday lunch. My birthday was the following day, Tuesday, but I had to teach that day.
Grandma Kay wanted to take me out to lunch for my birthday, so we went to Thai Delight and had a super delicious lunch the Friday before my birthday.
It was so fun and we both loved the soup on flambe!
I'm sad I forgot to get any pictures, but on my actual birthday I went to dinner with my friends, Tiffany and Chris to Zupas. Then we met up with the guys at the movie theater to see "Happy Death Day". I really don't like scary movies, but I ended up enjoying this one better than I thought.
The following Thursday and Friday the kids and I didn't have school because of fall break. So Thursday, my friend Kristi and I took our kids on Trax and went downtown.
We ate lunch in the food court at City Creek. Which was a joke, since all the kids wanted different restaurants. But we managed and compromised a bit. It was still a stressful lunch though.
Then we walked over to Temple Square.
We went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building first and explored their new Family Search Exhibit. The kids had so much fun we ended up spending our whole afternoon there!
They had all these fun photo backdrops and we had fun getting photos. Here's me and Kristi pretending we are on the beach in Haiti, not in Utah with seven kids.
The only bad thing was Lily was trying to stand on a box for a photo (she loved the old time photos), and fell through the box! It broke and bruised/scraped up her leg! She apologized to the staff for breaking the box, but it wasn't until she had me feel the tennis ball sized lump on her leg at the Trax station that I realized what had happened.
We went to the baptism of one of our friend's daughters and Cedric wanted to wear a suit like his dad. So Tom put him in Jeff's suit. He looked so cute walking in with Tom, I had to take a picture.
October was Jeff's month for a date with Mom and Dad. He chose to go to a shooting range and then to Swig to get drinks.
He had a blast! (no pun intended). And even got to see a 50 BMG being shot!
Lily had her first choir concert of the school year. One of her friends in choir is the son of my best friend when we were in middle school, Launi. Here we are with our kids.
And here we are at the same age as our kids now. It's crazy how fast time goes and how old we are getting!
Cedric loved raking leaves. I paid the kids $3 per bag they filled. He and Lily did a lot of raking and earned some money that way.
Cedric's enjoyed his hermit Crab, Gary.
In fact, he bought another one with some birthday money and named him Perry.
The kids had Spirit week at school the week before Halloween.
One of the days was wear something from a sports team. Sophie has a really nice BYU jersey Tom had bought her, but that morning refused to put it on. She said everyone would tease her because only boys like BYU. She was much happier wearing a Jazz jersey instead. I was not disappointed at all, and we ended up giving her BYU jersey to her cousin, Charlotte.
Another day the kids were supposed to have crazy hair and socks. Thanks to Pinterest, I helped create some fun hair dos.
I didn't have time to get good pictures of the kids. The bus was literally coming as I snapped these ones. Jeff had surfer hair, Sophie had rainbow hair and Cedric had spider hair.
That same day (the Friday before Halloween), we had Tom's work Halloween party.
This is always a fun tradition and the kids get lots of candy and play games. It was nice that this year didn't seem as crowded as in the past years.
Grandma Kay got to join us again too.
Sophie's teacher has an app where she posts pictures and other things the kids do in class. Here's one of Sophie creating a spider. She loves school.
The next day, Saturday, was our ward Trunk or Treat. Tom and Maren were at the BYU game and I had Maren's two girls that day. I had also been very sick all week with bronchitis, so it was a long day. Needless to say, this is my least favorite party. It's more stressful than fun and being a single parent with extra kids and being sick didn't help. Luckily Tom and Maren showed up part way through the party.
Halloween this year was on a Tuesday. I had my preschool parties, and as usual, I was a scarecrow. Lily didn't want to stay at school for her party, so she came home early and went with me after preschool to pick up jack-o-lantern pizzas. She dared me to wear my costume there and then posted this on Snap Chat. She was a bit disappointed that there were several other adults there also in costumes.
That night, Lily stayed home and watch "Split" and I stayed home to pass out candy. I was so sick that day! I think I got a flu bug on top of my bronchitis. I was a total medicine head while teaching preschool and just in survival mode. Tom was starting to get sick too, but I made him go out with the girls (everyone but Cedric got it and I'd taken Sophie to the doctor the day before for an ear infection).
Tom, Maren and our neighbor, Neil took these five girls, Abbey, Sophie, Alyse, Amelia and Charlotte (plus Lorelei) out trick or treating.
Cedric went around with his friend, Jacob and his cousin.
Jeff (the skeleton) went with his buddies Xander and Ray. They all came home with pounds and pounds of candy!
October was a pretty good month.
