Fall Ya'll

 Last Saturday I didn't want to sit home and waste a warm day with cold weather looming so we went for a nature walk / picnic in a park near Twin. We enjoyed spotting the different colored trees and the wonderful nature around us. Kendal mostly just wanted to know when lunch was and Peter did well, but often whined to be picked up or was stubborn and would sit down refusing to move. We enjoyed our picnic and the fall outing.

This week our preschool group combined with another group from our ward and went on a field trip to Tubbs Berry farm. Kendal was excited to have so many kids around and loved that her primary buddy Kya came. We went for a hay ride around the farm. During our ride the owner was explaining their rough year with the rain in August that ruined a lot of hay and the hail storm that came through and damaged / wiped out a lot of their pumpkins. They had their straw maze sectioned off so we could go into it to a gigantic slide. Kendal and Peter were intimidated by the slides size but once the mommies joined in they were all for it. Some kids loved it and others decided it wasn't for them. After the giant slide we went to the kiddie area of the farm. The kids played in a kid straw maze, two small slides, pumpkin bowling, a corn box, water pump races, and they fed pigmy goats. It was cute to watch Peter run through the straw maze. He'd have to pause and stand on his tip-toes to see where he was, then he would run ahead. His favorite part was the water pump races. Each water pump had a gutter under it so the kids could race rubber ducks against each other. Kendal was all about the slides in the kiddie area. I had to pull the kids out of the kiddie area so they could see the rest of the farm animals and pick a couple of mini pumpkins with our preschool group. After that we returned to the kiddie area for a while. I had a hard time pulling them away from the fun time they were having.

Thursday evening we went to Casey's last home football game this season. The kids had fun roaming the bleachers, eating snacks, cheering with the cheerleaders, spotting Daddy and Uncle Brett, and asking a million questions. The seventh grade team pulled out a win making their record four wins, one tie, and one loss. They play their last game next week in Filer. Casey has his fair share of complaints with football, players and parents alike; but as I watched him last night I could tell there are many moments where he was truly enjoying the game and coaching. Casey will get one week off at the end of the month than November brings on girls basketball.

Feasting

We decided to go to Raft River for conference weekend. Since it's harvest season we decided to count tractors on our way to Raft River. (Our tactic to occupy Kendal ; ) Casey counted 105 tractors on our way (he was counting broken down tractors along with tractors out in the fields.) Kendal gave up around thirty something but was amused with Daddy and Mommy trying win who could spot the most. We went Friday night so Casey could watch the USU vs BYU game at his parents instead of listening on the radio. The Aggies pulled out an unexpected win! Casey's dad wasn't too thrilled with the win, but Casey and Cody enjoyed watching the game. (Casey's family are BYU fans; Casey still is, but USU trumps BYU.)
Saturday morning before conference Casey took the kids to ride on a tractor with Grandpa. We figured Peter would be over the moon to ride in a tractor because he's very into tractors lately. We were proven wrong when Casey got there and Peter was scared of Grandpa's tractor. He wouldn't ride with Grandpa but Kendal did and enjoyed herself. Peter and Kendal did ride with Casey on his parents ridding lawn mower without fuss though.

Saturday we listened to conference while the kids played around us. I look forward to conference and was happy to listen to the apostles and prophets words that were shared over the weekend. While I felt like I gained from conference I am excited to go back when conference is published and re-read and glean more from what was said. Our apostles are such wise men, I know all that they are saying is inspired and meant to touch our hearts and help us better our lives.
The boys cleaned the front porch on Saturday while the kids played around the house. I killed countless flies during our stay (I'm getting quite efficient at it which is sad when you think about it but a talent nonetheless.)
On Sunday we had a full house Nicole and her kids joined us, and Brett, Vanessa, and their kids joined us to watch / partially listen to conference. It's always nice to have a house full of family to spend time together. After both conferences were done we let the kids loose outside. We picked pumpkins and picked over the remains of the garden so we could take home some great vegetables.
The grumpy look from Peter below is because he was out of sorts all weekend and didn't get enough sleep. 

 I'm grateful for the spiritual upliftment I received and the family time we shared this weekend! This weekend I truly feasted on some wise words during conference and some yummy home cooking from the family : )

This week. . .

It was my turn to host preschool this week. My plan was simple (compared to Joy school). On Monday the kids learned about seasons. I read a book and made a season book with the kids. We also did our name in corn kernel's. We (Kendal and I) sang the days of the week song. We talked about the letter C, and let the kids do free play with cars and puzzles. On Wednesday we played with chalk paint outside and went on a leaf hunt around my cul-de-sac. We came back and read books about leaves / fall; then made wreaths with leaves we gathered on our walk. We also made a candy corn craft because it starts with c and has three parts (3 was our number for the week).
I knew going in this group would need simple and I was right. I have an almost three year old and two reserved three year old's, then Kendal. They are also at different learning levels. At one point Kendal was going around trying to get each kid to play "with" her and wasn't succeeding. These kids seem to be at more of a co-play stage. Again not our ideal preschool situation but we're working with what we have.
We did go on a field trip to the pet store this past week. Kendal ran around with her primary buddy (a preschooler's sister who's in kindergarten). The kids had fun looking at the fish, birds, and other creatures the store had. Peter loved the fish and hamsters but hated the birds. Kendal loved it all, and was sad there were no dogs or cats.

Casey had his first home game this week. It's been a cooler week and it was windy so the game was cold, but the kids didn't mind to much. They enjoyed spotting Daddy and Uncle Brett on the field. Vanessa brought David and Becca so they had fun with them wandering the bleachers and eating fruit leather. The game ended in a tie (no over time because JV needed to start their game). So the record so far for Casey's team is 2 wins, 1 loss, and 1 tie. Go Boodog's as Pete would say!

 A few more pictures:

 I took the kids on a lunch date last week to the park.We were trying to soak up the last of the warm days.

 Kendal is a princess, hero, fairy, cheerleader; 

and just one more of my silly duo

Bread is the king of the table

Summer is giving us a nice send off by giving us some decent weather lately. Sadly summer has to end so let the fall fun begin. We decided to get apples this past week so I could make apple sauce with Vanessa this week. My parents came into town on Saturday to end their mini vacation with us. We all went and picked apples at North View orchards. It's a huge place and we've enjoyed the fruit we've gotten there so far. We happily tasted the many varieties of apples they have on right now and picked a few boxes full of apples to buy.
My parents joined us for our ward harvest dinner on Saturday night.  Lots of soup, lots of little kids running around. I made a bunch of rolls to take and kept some to enjoy at home (I kept 2 dozen to savor the rest of the weekend.) To end our night Kendal convinced Grandpa to watch Frozen and he couldn't refuse such a cute little blond. Sunday morning I turned on Church music to start the day with. Kendal convinced Casey and my Dad to dance with her around the living room. She was overjoyed to have dancing partners and get twirled around. My parents joined us for church and we spent the afternoon relaxing and enjoying some down time.

This week I took our car to get worked on. I was hoping for a quick alignment and maybe a new tire. However many hours later and 700+ dollars out of our pocket; the shocks and struts, alignment, new tire, and a trip service were done. The brakes weren't the best either but we'll work on those in the spring. I lasted a little over an hour and a half at the Tire place with the kids (Thanks to snacks and a tablet). Luckily Vanessa was my hero and rescued us from spending three more hours there.
Vanessa and I had planned to make apple sauce Tuesday so we spent the afternoon at her house making apple sauce while the kids watched a show and had fun outside time together. I'm grateful for Vanessa's knowledge and willingness to help me with canning. Doing it together is so much more fun than canning alone. While I'm not a major apple sauce eater. I do bake with it often and the kids enjoy it a lot!


I stumbled across the following quote that made me smile and had to preserve it here. If you know me you know I love bread; I crave it more than sweets. (I even have a top five list of bread's / rolls i adore - yep I'm that odd ; )
"Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad but bread is king."  - Louis Bromfield

Kendal and Peter updates

Kendal
We were finally able to find a preschool option for Kendal this school year. After so many preschools being full, others too expensive, and being put on a waiting lists we finally found a Mommy preschool group in our ward. I'm perfectly fine doing a preschool group my only reserve is that Kendal is in a group with three other kids and they are all three. Their moms want them learning abc's while Kendal has the basics well covered. Even though a preschool with kids one to almost two years younger than Kendal was not our ideal we decided to go with it. Kendal craves the social aspect of preschool and kids learn best by playing with each other and interacting. I had started doing preschool with Kendal at home and I will continue to supplement throughout this year with things I feel Kendal wants to learn / needs to learn.
We have started using tech tokens with Kendal. She's given three tokes a week to use for the computer or tablet time. One token is for free play she uses this on daddies tablet, video games, or fun kids websites. The other two tokens are for educational based tech time. Casey and I pick websites or tablet games that teach skills and knowledge. We're working more on reading lately and Kendal is doing very well reading beginner books. We've been borrowing ABC books from the library and she has read each one. We are on O, P, and Q this week. Kendal is a smarty pants ( I attribute it to her constantly asking questions). She's always more than willing to share anything and everything with everyone around her.
Kendal is our busy bee. She can talk your ear off like no other. Her day is full of constant questions and comments. Casey took her to a football game the other week and said she didn't stop talking for the whole two hours they were gone. (No surprise there.) Kendal has a love of singing. She knows and sings many primary songs. She has also taught her self the snowman song from Frozen and has a good 80% of Let if Go memorized. Kendal's imagination is expanding every day. It's funny / amusing to hear her play with her doll's or toys. Kendal also likes to help around the house, which is nice and helpful (to a point; i.e. bossing her brother around, and making the mess bigger).
Kendal is super excited for fall to come because it means her birthday is fast approaching. She's very set on having a Frozen birthday. She has a lot of ideas for her birthday on cake / gifts / happenings. I just hope I can deliver.

Peter
Peter is still as mischievous as ever. This past month as you saw in a previous post he has learned to scale our cupboards. He then found an easier rout by opening the oven door and climbing up to get food / make messes. I can definitely say he is testing his limits and pushing boundaries lately.  He will pull Kendal's hair, or try to break into our room while looking at us with an "I dare you to get me" look. He also tries to break out of his room when he should be napping and sleeping. We had a nice one to three a.m. put Pete back to bed session the other night that was frustrating. He is still waking up too early and then gets grumpy around ten in the morning. His naps are getting more difficult. While he definitely still needs naps he's been fighting them lately. He takes a while to go down, tries to escape numerous times, and doesn't sleep for long because he has chosen to sleep by the door lately so any noise he hears or when he rolls over into the door he is up.
Peter has picked up the questions mode from his sister. "What's dat?" and "whatcha doin?" are heard throughout the day at our house. Peter is very curious and likes to take apart and rebuild things. He's finally branching out with his Legos and no longer is obsessed with building the train every day. Now he'll build airplanes, and crazy looking houses. He still loves cars. He has his favorites and loves to drive them around the room and sometimes take them to bed. Peter and Kendal are still my play dough kids. They can create, imagine, and play with play dough for long periods of time.
Peter can peddle and steer very well on his tricycle now.  He loves peddling around our neighborhood. I now have to take turns about who leads on bikes because both Kendal and Peter want to take the front and be in charge. (Lots of power struggles with these two.) Peter has a bucket on the back of his trike that he's been collecting rocks, twigs, and leafs in. He's also into putting rocks and toys in his pockets which is fun in the moment, but adds a few minutes to laundry day so i don't have rocks banging around my machines.
Peter is enjoying story time lately. He'll sit on my lap and enjoy the book. He likes to point and ask over and over for me to name the character's / objects in the book. His favorite books to read lately are tracker books. I think we've exhausted the library's picture books on tractors. He has me read them daily when we get a tractor book, and if we don't find one he pulls out his truck / vehicle books for me to read.
With Casey being in back to work and coaching the kids love any daddy time they can get. I'm grateful the football season isn't too demanding so they get to see daddy most every day. (FYI Casey's team won their first game of the season last week against his old school Declo!) 
With naps dwindling and becoming more difficult I'm loosing the beloved hour or so of free time (aka mommy needs a break for sanity reasons; time to chill out or clean). But I have to move with the times and that means two active kids, lots of questions, lots of play, and a plethora of good times. 
I wish I could add some cute pictures of the kids but I left my camera in Logan on our last visit, and my phone can't transfer pictures.

Simple yet powerful

"Think of the purest love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount - that is the measure of God's love for you.
God does not look on the outward apperance. I believe that He doesn't care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completly. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost, God's love encompasses us completely.
He loves us because He is filled with an infinite amount of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed or awkward. God's love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.
What this means is that, no matter our mistakes, our infinetly compassionate Heavenly father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us.
I testify that God is in His heaven. He lives, He knows and loves you. He is mindful of you. He hears your prayers and knows the desires of your heart. He is filled with infinite love for you."
- Pres. Uchtorf (Friend Sept. 2014)

I love it when messages like this come along.  It is a reminder to me that my Heavenly Father is listening, and through messages like this I can find peace, guidance, and love. They are simple, yet powerful.
I am in my third year of being apart of primary. The lessons I teach, the songs we sing, and the sharing time messages are all things I've heard and know. I have been trying to glean more from the simple messages that primary can offer. There have been many times during singing time that I've had to stop singing and let the words sink in. They share such wonderful messages and lessons. I'm grateful to have the opportunity for my spirit to be touched in these small moments. I am grateful my Heavenly Father is reaching me through my primary calling right now, and other simple ways like the children's Friend magazine. I am grateful to be apart of this Gospel. It is true. It is wonderful. It is powerful.
 Don't let the simple things pass you by; sometimes they are important and quite powerful.

Back to school

Casey had training/prep all last week plus football started so it's felt like school has started but today was his official first day with students. Last week prepped the kids for seeing daddy less. They asked every day where he was and we thrilled when he popped in for lunch a couple of days. Football and basketball season takes out some more daddy time for the kids. Casey gets smothered when he's home and we are always happy for the weekend to come. We did our second annual back to school cookies and gave Casey updated pictures of us and the kids for his classroom, plus a small bag of sweets for those days when he just needs something sweet amongst some sour students. Casey's looking forward to this year; he's going into this year knowing what he's teaching and how he wants to manage his students and school load.
We headed to raft river Friday and spent all of Saturday picking, husking, blanching, cutting, and bagging corn to freeze. We ended up with over two hundred bags of corn (each bag had 2-3 cups of corn). It was a lot of work and the kids happily went crazy playing around us all day. We were all exhausted and grateful when the job was done but the heaping pile of corn, along with a newly cleaned deep freeze was awesome.
For labor day we went and had a picnic lunch at a park in Twin to end our summer.
Casey got up early this morning. I lay there half asleep trying to ignore the other door slams and car starts of our departing neighbors (which starts at 5:40 in the morning ending at 7:45 when the flock of tweens thunders down the stairs to school.), and listening for the unmistakable door being cracked open by Peter (no crib means earlier mornings for Peter and we're not loving it). Casey got a sleepy kiss goodbye and my day started with the kids.
Today was also Kendal's kind of sort of start to preschool. We were told last week that we're still on a waiting list for preschool so I decided to just start doing preschool with Kendal. If she gets into the preschool great, if not I'll continue what I'm doing and try to add a playgroup in our week on top of preschool library time we already do. It's sad to see our summer slipping away but that's what happens.
 Bring on school, football, apple cider, pumpkins, and leaves!
My attempt of a picture of the kids during our preschool time today.