Sam patriarchal blessing

I've been saving this post for last.  Sam got his patriarchal blessing.  He is such a tender and sweet boy.  He prepared with lots of scripture reading and prayer.  I fasted for him the week before.  We made sure we weren't late, and the Patriarch asked to chat with us for a minute before the blessing.  He asked specifics about Jer and me but just talked to Sam about what the blessing is.  I was reminded how Heavenly Father knows us so well.  My blessing is specific to me and much of it has already happened in my life. Sam's was a very Sam blessing.  Everything was directed just perfectly to him and was beautiful. There were two things that stood out to me.  One was that Sam just started crying at a certain point in the blessing and afterwards he just broke down with happy tears.  The patriarch said that he's had lots of people in tears, but it was the first time in 16 years that he'd had someone in tears over that part of the blessing.  And it was so cute of Sam!  The other thing was that one of the descriptor words that the patriarch used to describe Sam is one that I use in my head to describe him too.  God knows His children.

Squinty into the sun before picture.

 

Orem Temple Open house

We met up with McKay and Sophie's family at the temple and got to walk through together.  That was fun.  I LOVED walking through with Evelyn.  Evelyn, Ada and Sam all were ushers in the lower floor of the temple.  Evelyn was telling me all about her experience while we walked through.  I took the time to talk to her about what it was like getting married in the temple and talking about the artwork and stained-glass windows. Evelyn says that the thing she's looking forward to the most about the temple is being able to sit in the Celestial room.

You might be able to see it looking closely.... there was a complete rainbow that ended just behind the temple.  

Cute Aubrey got a picture of up after the walk through. Look how big the kids are getting.

The 3 musketeers

Just our two families took up most of the shuttle.... There were only 14 of us.  I wonder how many the shuttle can fit.

 

Wilcox Thanksgiving Dinner

Because most of our Wilcox family goes out of town for Thanksgiving, my parents hosted a Thanksgiving dinner the week before Thanksgiving.  It was fun to see everyone there too. My parents arranged tickets to the Orem temple open house for us and we went in two shifts. Then Sharon had arranged some Thanksgiving activities for the kids that I didn't know about so we missed them.  We had gone home to change clothes and clean the house for daycare on Monday.  Whoops. 

Seth helped make a dinosaur apple pie.

Then the strong kids helped decorate the house for Christmas.

And since we missed doing HalloLan this year, Uncle Seth joined us on his night off to play video games.  I ditched out to sleep because I had daycare two weeks in a row and lots of stuff for Sunday that I didn't want a migraine for.

 

Robertson Thanksgiving Dinner

 This was the first time our entire family had been to a Robertson Thanksgiving dinner since 2017.  2018 Evelyn and I were sick and stayed home to not get Walter or Aubrey sick who'd just had back surgery. 2019 Grandma had cancer. 2020 Covid. 2021 Covid and grandparents went to the Hansens for dinner. 2022 Grandparents and Hansens drove to Becca's house for dinner.  So.... 2023 is our year back.  It was nice and I was a little out of the habit. We brought some pies and between Amy and Grandma (and grandpa), they made a great dinner.  My kids and I focused on helping put away tables and chairs and clean up toys.  Amy and I did the dishes.  It was great. I hope there wasn't that much left over for Judy and Jim to clean.  I enjoyed chatting with them and the kids playing laser tag outside. Seth, Isabel and Walter were cute little buddies running around. 

First Snow

The cats don't like the wet as much.  Sam and Evelyn have been bringing them into the kitchen to cuddle while we do scriptures at night.  Syl especially likes it.

Seth and the daycare kids had so much fun building snowmen and throwing snowballs.  I love that the first snow happened when the kids were off school and had friends to play with.

 

randomness

We came down the week before Thanksgiving to hang out with family.  We're always up for that.

Seth's battle

My last fall bike ride. It was still really nice and warm after I went to Ada's Career Prepardness meeting, so I checked up on the Lindon Temple progress.  It was getting it's weather coat on before the snow.

Seth has started swinging with the cats... one really doesn't like it and hides her head.  The other just hangs out while he swings.

This marvelous niece just went through the temple.  I'm so excited for her!  Love you Mariah!

 

Ada Art show

The last two weeks have been full of good things, but that means that I haven't had time to blog.  I pulled up my pictures and I'm going to blog by subject rather than time.  Ada had her first HS art show.  She's in Drawing CE and had three pieces in the show.  Her first was a Winnie the pooh print that she did.

Second was an acrylic painting

Third was this drawing that she did.  This one was her favorite. 

She had this one on display from her jr high stuff.  It's my favorite one.... so I bought it.  

 

Quick 2 week catch up

I only have a minute today, but I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks.... quick catch up.... I've been swimming with my mom at the rec center when I'm not working. It's fun and it feels good on my hip.

We'd promised the kids ice cream for trying to hike a little down the Narrows.  All of them tried it.... Ada and Dad did amazing.  So we got ice cream.

Seth got a free Yummy's meal from school, so I took him on a mommy son date.  He loved cooking all the food for us. 

My friend had an extra ticket to a Beatles music tribute night.  LOVED it!  I'm so glad I got to go.

The pumpkin patch near my mom's house was offering free pumpkins to the neighborhood.... We went and got a couple in the dark. 

We hosted Seth's friend, Jack, for a birthday party. Jack wanted to play with Seth for his birthday party.... so that's what we did.

I babysat for Emma twice in the last couple of weeks.  Peter's gotten really talkative and they're super cute together.

We got to go to the Utah Symphony Harry Potter 7 part 2 night.  That was fun.  All the kids loved it and we went and wandered the stores near by after.  

I made Salmon for dinner and Evelyn was in heaven

Halloween costumes

Ada was a witch, Sam was Uncle Ben and would "die" every time he met a Spiderman, Evelyn was a Peacat.... a peacock cat.  Seth was a dragon rider.

Sam, Ada and Jer were amazing for the Ward Fall Cleanup.  They really stepped up.  I took the younger two to my cousin Tiff's son's, Theo, baptism.  They play with each other at Bear Lake, so it was fun to see him be baptized.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for an applesauce making lesson.  It was fun and between batches I went and made a leaf pile for the kids to play in. 

My daycare partner's husband invited us to a her surprise birthday party.  

Seth made different houses for social studies.

I got to go see Seth's Veteran's Day program yesterday.  He did great.

Seth's activity days.

Evelyn reading with a cat for company.

Evelyn's YW's activity to Jakers.