Monday, October 1

Tuesday, October 2

Wednesday, October 3 - Happy #14 Adam!

Thursday, October 4

Friday, October 5

Saturday, October 6

Sunday, October 7

Every year Timpview cross country makes a cool shirt and an ugly shirt. These yellow shirts are the ugly ones. The team wore them for “Matchy Monday.”

The kids’ favorite Halloween decorations by far are the pictures I put on the walls of our family from every past Halloween. They will show every visitor which Halloween was the best for each child in the family. So cute.

Since Adam asked for (easy) pancakes for his birthday breakfast I made him a stack of 14 half-size pancakes with a candle on top. He loved it!

How cute are all these cross-country girls for “Thurple Purple Thursday”?!

I recently finished a meal magnet project! I’ve used this calendar for our monthly meal plans, but use languished because I was using dry erase markers and I didn’t want to constantly erase and rewrite meals when I changed them. I already take pictures of all of my recipes for my recipe book, so it was really a sizing project. I added holiday and event magnets to go by the dates. I am having so much fun with this and the kids love seeing what’s for dinner!

I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning finishing my Mini Conference Center Board for Lindsey’s daughter. I was perfectly rewarded when Amy and I took it over to their house. Lindsey was in California on a business trip, but Paula took me upstairs to where her granddaughter was. As soon as I showed it to her and gave her a little demo she was all over it! She immediately taught her dad in a very excited voice how to put the pictures where they go and choose the topics. I was amazed that out of 48 topic pictures she immediately noticed the pictures she was in! It made my heart so happy and overjoyed to see her excitement! Paula told us later that this 3-year old wanted to “do conference” every minute of the day! Success!

The kids loved the apostles treats during the Sunday sessions of conference.

Carrie Nelson, Jen, and Shalauna Barker

I did something out of the ordinary on Monday night. My friend Shalauna Barker signed up the 3 of us for a class at Gardner Village: Witch in the Kitchen.

After walking around the village, admiring the witch displays and doing a little shopping, we went to the class. I was skeptical at first, but the main lady really warmed up to me and I ended up thinking she was hilarious!

Although she used funny witch lingo, she taught us how to make 4 different autumn soups and two side breads. At the end we got to taste them all... twice along with some hot chocolate. We all liked 3 of the 4 soups and the Gouda cheese bread.

I had such a fun night with these ladies! Shalauna has taught me a lot about being a selfless person She is always serving or helping someone else. (Her sister recovering from cancer, an old friend in the memory care unit, a single mom in the ward, etc.) She rarely talks about herself, and is always asking others’ questions about themselves. She spends money on others, but rarely herself. She is amazing.

Adam started to attend coding club after school.

Mark had his last soccer game Tuesday night. He played awesome!

Jon coached since Weston was coaching his older team at the same time. Consistent with Jon’s record coaching this team (of either tying or winning) they tied the game.

Since Andrew’s game was an hour later and we didn’t have time to go pick him up, he rode his bike to the school rather than wait through Mark’s game.

Will, Weston Smith, Quincy Hafen, Mark Lund, ?, ?, ?, Micah Bott and Hudson Reese

Andrew played super well in this tight game. Close to the end the other team pulled ahead. In the last minute of the game Andrew made a goal that tied the game and then it ended. It’s nice when everyone is happy with no winners or losers! Andrew’s game ended so late that it was dark and we couldn’t get a team picture.

Amy’s cross-country team dressed for “Bluesday Tuesday”

“Wacky Wednesday for cross-country. Can you spot Amy?

Amy won the prize for “Wackiest” on “Wacky Wednesday!”

Tyler played in his last soccer game for fall season. They creamed the other team by I don’t know how many points. Tyler is a fantastic defender, amazing striker and awesome assister!

Adam requested spaghetti for dinner. I added cheesy garlic bread and a Caesar salad, which he gobbled up. He wanted strawberry cheesecake for dessert. I almost forgot to leave some without strawberry for Tyler, so he got the random-shaped edges. Jon added some rhubarb to some of that for the bravest kids to try.

For mutual Adam chose to stay with the deacons one last time. The activity was at our house working on the Game Design merit badge, which he needs for another palm. Rob Christensen (teachers quorum advisor) brought over a chocolate mint brownie with Josh Hansen and Carter Middleton. They sang Happy Birthday to Adam and welcomed him to the teachers quorum. That was so nice!

After mutual Adam opened presents. Adam was excited about his hammock since he keep asking Natalie or Andrew to borrow theirs. And green is his color! He was very excited about the new Nerf guns... which I groaned about knowing the balls would be all over the house.

Adam had a great birthday!

Mary sent me this adorable picture of Andrew playing with Oliver during Alice’s violin lesson. She said my boys were so cute with him. How could they not be? Ollie is a doll!

Adam and Tyler were giving me a heart attack with this setup - running Tyler all over the yard. Ah!

Amy set up chocolate chips for Mark for each line of music he worked on. Lucky boy!

Amy texted us as the Philharmonic orchestra was entering the stage. Jon and I ran over and made it just in time. Natalie had an amazing solo in Dance Macabre. After the tryouts Mr. Bowman told her she was by far the best soloist he told her that he wanted to spread around the solo opportunities, so he split the solo for this piece into 4 parts. When she played her sound was incredible! She added depth and feeling to the piece and she really stood out in contrast to the 3 other violinists who soloed. Go Natalie!

I also spent hours and hours creating a Mini Conference Center board for my new friend - a girl down the street to whom the girls and I now minister. Her family is dear to my heart and I felt like I needed to do something extra special for her (she has 2 little kids). This was definitely a labor of love and I thought about her as I reformatted all of my pictures, found pictures of her family to customize her topic pictures, printed, cut, laminated, cut and glued it all on the board.

Jon debuted his rhubarb sauce... which made everyone gag! John Marshall brought over a bunch of green rhubarb rather than the pink we are accustomed to. He insisted that they taste the same. The problem was that it looked so bad that when Jon put it on his pancakes and dubbed them “blow your nose pancakes.” He insisted that Adam try some, which was quite a test for the birthday boy.

Since Adam only has a 20-minute lunch he asked for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at home. I prepared it all so that when he came to the office I already had him checked out and we could rush home and get him back in time for his next class, which was a hard one.

All the kids who were home (Adam had coding club) surprised Amy at her last cross country meet for the season. Jon rode his bike and met us there a few minutes later.

She only expected me so she was really surprised and it was super fun!

This was a first for the other kids and they got into running to the next cheering spot, which we got to repeat since this course does 2 laps. We had a blast! She beat her PR again by quite a ways. Like me, she gets nervous before every race, but she is always happy at the end. We are sure happy with Amy!

We didn’t plan to take the same way home as Jon, but we passed him riding his bike up the ultra steep hill in the tree streets! He had taken his black shirt off because it was so hot (and he was wearing jeans to boot). He grabbed onto our van for a bit, but that was sketchy. Instead of hitching a ride he beat us home!

The next day Natalie spotted Amy on Timpview’s Instagram page.

The Barkers invited us to dinner at Carrabas, which we thoroughly enjoyed. The more I get to know the Barkers the more I love them! They are so fun!

Jon got an emergency text from The Wash. Both he and Weston were out to eat when they got the call. The funny thing is, when we pulled up to the light to exit University Place, Weston and Sue were in the car next to us! Brady drove to our house first so Jon could grab his laptop. Weston dropped off Sue and met us there. Brady, Shalauna and I chatted it up and Sue Kang (the owner from our ward) visited with us too. Then she sent out a ton of desserts to us. We were already so stuffed from Carrabas, but ate as much as we could anyway. I had never had an official pizookie. It was amazing!

Because I was so busy on my friend’s mini board I had to enlist Amy’s help to prepare my boys’ conference binders, which she happily did. Phew!

General Conference was absolutely amazing! I loved every minute of it!

I am so grateful that my kids love it too.

The girls and I attempted to set up their checking accounts in-between sessions, but the wait was so bad that we gave up and came home.

That evening we had “Conference Chili” and cornbread for dinner.

Aunt Janis and Lanae Rowberry joined us for the Women’s Session of conference. That was also an amazing meeting!

Uncle David joined us for some delicious Pumpkin Dessert afterward. Oh how I love my aunt Janis! Both she and David are such marvelous people whom I wish to emulate!

I soaked up every word from both days and left feeling like I was on Cloud Nine!

Feeling promptings from conference Jon and I made some big plans to implement in our family starting immediately. Jon also met with the older kids individually. This is definitely the start of a new era for us.

We are so blessed to have living prophets and apostles to lead, guide and inspire us!