General Conference Weekend Extravaganza

I belong to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.   Which means I'm a Mormon!  We have a living Prophet and Apostles who give us guidance and direction from our Heavenly Father.  Each April and October, we have a world wide General Conference of our church where we are able to listen to messages from those Prophets and Apostles.  It is one of my favorite times of the year.  We just had our recent General Conference this past weekend.  If you are interested in hearing any of those messages, click here.

We started General Conference the week before, on September 27th, at the General Women's Meeting.  After watching the broadcast of the meeting at our local meeting house, the girls and I went out to dinner.

Also the week before Conference started, I made and mailed out "Conference Countdowns" to each of our family members and some of our friends.  There was a section of the countdown to open each day for the week leading up to Conference.  Each section had a treat in it and a little message about Conference.

I loved this picture my Sister in Law, Lisa, sent me yesterday.  The last day of the countdown had chocolate eyeballs with a message to make sure to keep your eye on the Prophet while you watch Conference.  The caption Lisa sent with this was "Josh has his eyes peeled and Ed is watching Conference."  I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but Ed has his chocolate eyeballs in.

 On Friday, we kicked off our "General Conference Weekend Extravaganza" by seeing the move 16 Stones and going out to dinner.

Saturday morning we snuggled in and made ourselves comfortable so we could watch General Conference.  We had our Conference Notebooks and baskets ready to go.  We also had a tasty breakfast.  We ate a lot of yummy food over the weekend! 

I bought this Lego set of the Salt Lake Temple for the kids to work on during conference weekend.  Emily took it upon her self to be the chief architect of the project.

 Between sessions on Saturday, we stuck with our conference tradition of a picnic in the park.  It was absolutely the most gorgeous perfect day.  Some of us took it as the perfect opportunity it was to have a little nap.

Then it was back home for the afternoon session.

That night Steve and Zac went to the Priesthood Session of Conference.  They have a tradition of going out to dinner after the session.  We have a tradition of having a Girls Night while the boys are away.  My mom and Lauren came over for dinner and games.

On Sunday we watched them morning session of conference and then between the morning and afternoon session, we went for our traditional walk on one of our favorite trails.  Again, it was another perfect day outside.  We had a lovely time on our walk.

There was an apple tree along the trail and Zac climbed the tree and picked everyone a delicious apple.

 There is a part on the trail with some animals.  This buck was sitting on the ground sunning himself.  When he smelled the apples the kids were eating he came over and was trying so hard to get to the apple.  He kept trying to stick his head through the fence rails, but just couldn't.  The kids felt bad and wanted to give him their apples, but there were signs posted saying do not feed the animals.

 Addy made a friend.

I tried to take a picture of Zac in the tree but he blocked me.  I finally convinced him to let me take one.

 Back home for the final session of General Conference.

Emily worked on this temple for 3 1/2 sessions.  Then she was stuck because she was missing a piece.  I will post picture when it is finished.

It was a most fabulous weekend.  I loved spending time with my family.  I am so thankful that Heavenly Father has blessed me with my wonderful family.  I am so thankful he has given us a Prophet on the earth today to help guide and direct us.  I am thankful he is mindful of us.  I am thankful for the messages of peace, love and encouragement that I heard this weekend.  I am thankful for the renewed faith and determination that have come as a result of those messages.  I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the way it blesses my  life!

Right Now, The Other Night, During The Car Ride Home

(Disclaimer: This is not a picture of my van!)

So on Wednesday, the first day of October (what?)  I had to go get the emissions and inspection done on my van so I could register it, since it was now expired.  One of these days I might learn that you are actually supposed to do that before it expires.  But probably not any time in the near future.  Hey, doing it on the first day of its expiration is actually a step up from previous years!  So it's basically like I was doing it early.  Anyhoo...

After I had it all taken care of and the new 2015 sticker was applied to the license plate, I went to put the registration papers in the glove compartment.  And...it totally wouldn't fit.  You know why?  Because I had all the registration papers in there from 2007 on.  Because I'm awesome like that!  

So I decided it was about time to clean it out and make so room.  As I was cleaning it out, I happened upon my old Carrie Underwood CD that was stuck betwixt the registration for 2009 and 2012- hey, do you really expect them to be in chronological order under those conditions?  I was so excited!  My girls and I used to listen to that CD all the time, especially when we were building our house and were making the 30 minute trek between homes on a regular basis.  It kept us well entertained during those drives.  I stuck it in the CD player, and on the way home from Aubrey's volleyball game that night I turned it on.  We listened to the first few songs and then we just had to do it.  We skipped to song #7.  And then we played it 4 times in a row while we sang along.  Just like old times. 

In the middle of the third playing of the song we picked Zac up from a friends house.  He had to listen to us sing the song 1 1/2 times, poor boy.  So after listening to it 4 times, when the girls asked me to skip it back and start it over, I didn't.  For one thing, I had a major headache after belting it out 4 times in a row.  And for another thing, I love my son and just couldn't subject him to that one more time.

I am so thankful Heavenly Father has given me 3 beautiful girls, and I'm thankful for the fun memories we have together.  I'm also thankful for my wonderful son and the fact that he sat through what I'm sure was pure torture for him without (too much) complaint.

PS: Carrie, I'm sorry I voted for Bo Bice instead of you on American Idol.

Back to School

So I'm finally getting around to posting back to school pictures now that school has been in session for a month and a half.  Above is a picture of Emily and her friends the week before school started.  It was picture day and they were checking out their lockers.  It's hard for me to remember that she is a FRESHMAN because 9th grade is still in middle school here.  In fact, I really didn't comprehend that fact until after she had been in school for a few weeks.  I remember my Freshman year fondly.  I had so much fun!  It is one of my favorite memories.  And because I remember my Freshman year, I'm both excited and scared for her all at the same time.

Aubrey and Addy had to start school a whole week before their older siblings.  They started in a BRAND SPANKIN NEW school this year.  So far this has been a good change.  We especially like that there are so many kids from our neighborhood going to the same school. 

Addy is in 2nd grade and Aubrey is in 6th!  Her last year of Elementary!

I think it's awesome when teachers give homework before school even starts!  Here is Addy on her first day with her scrapbook page she made.

While Aubrey and Addy were in school, Zac and Emily and I did some back to school shopping.

I had a fun week with just these two at home.  One day we went to the Salt Lake temple to do some work for our ancestors and to celebrate President Monson's Birthday.  When we got there we found out we actually missed him, and the rest of the First Presidency, by 20 minutes.  They had walked right through the Baptistery!

After we left the temple we had a delicious lunch at the Lion House.

One day after school we decided to squeeze in one more swim session before summer was over.

A week after Aubrey and Addy started school, Emily had her first day of 9th grade.  Zac didn't have to go that Monday.  I think it was orientation for the 10th grade or something.  That was a month ago, so how am I supposed to remember?  Anyway.  Emily started school Monday and Zac started 11th grade on Tuesday.  It is strange for me to think that if he had been born just 2 days earlier he would be a Senior this year.  This was the best picture I could get of him.

I still can't believe that we are already into our second month of school!  Life has not slowed down like I had hoped it would after a busy summer.  We have been crazy with 2 soccer games, 5 volleyball games and a million different practices every week!  But we are hanging in there an surviving it.  I do still have this crazy home school bug that won't leave me alone.  One of these days I might be posting a picture of our first day of school with us in our pajamas....