October Happenings

October really went by in a blur.  The first two and a half weeks were Fall break so I didn’t have to worry about getting the kids up and going in the mornings until October 19th.  This was very nice if I do say so myself.  We had a delightful time just hanging out and coloring and doing projects.  I worked on making Vivian’s Halloween costume with some scrapes I had since I didn’t want to buy something when I already had materials….the sad thing is that I did end up at the store for some random items like thread, and a zipper, etc. so after that, I’m actually not sure if I saved myself any money though at least I wasn’t wasting anything besides this way Christian could have Vivian be a princess so he could be King Peter from the Narnia series and Vivian could be Queen Susan (because as Christian says, she’s the prettier one).  Christian is so thrilled to have someone join him in dressing up to play his Narnia game.  I love this picture of them together…she’s pushing him away so she can have some personal space.

The only problem with dress-ups though is: they get itchy!

After pretty much just hanging around the house for two weeks, I decided the Monday before Christian needed to go back to school to drop off Jared so I could borrow the car and take the kids out.  My fabulous friend Christina took us to the Zoo with her pass (I let mine expire when we moved so far away though I’m considering renewing it again).

Of course we had to do Christian’s photo on the frog (which they move around each time we’ve been there). This way we can see how he’s grown.

October 2011

 

November 2010

September 2009

 

We also played in the Little People Farm play area.  Vivian was very difficult to take photos of but she did stand still enough to let me get this of her with this pumpkin…

And she held still enough to pet one goat for a moment at the petting zoo. 

 

She was thankfully interested in posing in the clam shell on the children’s walk which I love her expression in.  She looks so delighted.

Christian, being the boy he is, wanted me to take his photo on everything….Not that they all turned out.  I had to laugh when we were approaching this statue, the minute Vivian saw it, she started walking away backwards and saying “Ouch, ouch!”

James looks a little nervous in this one too.

I think this one of Christian with the Lion is great because he LOVES Lions and the Narnia books are his most favorite books.  He and Jared are in the book “The Last Battle” now, I’m amazed that he has the patience to listen to chapter books the way he does.

This photo on the elephant shows Vivian’s true fillings about heights…she hates them!

Ember and James were very cute and just enthralled with this Wart Hog though she was insistent that it was a “Rhino-Saur-does” (or something to that effect) which made us laugh a bit.

 

After our lovely morning at the zoo, we went home and I put the kids in the tub and then put them down for naps.  We picked up Jared from work when he got off and went to “Mother Nature’s Farm” to visit their pumpkin patch and festivities.  Vivian was very excited to play in a bouncy house for the very first time.

This isn’t the best quality photo but I love how Christian looks like he’s leaping out of the photo.

Vivian was cutely walking around eating a green apple that matched her sweater (I had to cut myself out of the photo because I looked like a mom who’d taken her kids to the zoo and then to the farm all in one day ).

This is my serious brood on the hay ride and yes, Vivian is still eating her apple.

Here are the kids holding the pumpkins they decorated.  I didn’t get a good photo of it because it was getting so dark, but it was adorable to watch Vivian walking around everywhere with he little pumpkin in her two little hands.  She was so proud it was darling.

I Love these photos…

Love the orange tractor!

So on the third Friday of the month of October, I held my 3rd Craft night.  So here’s the spread…the pictures I took of the girls are all of their heads turned. *sigh*

 

When I brought Christian back to school after break, Christian’s teacher cornered me and asked me if I was crafty.  “Hmm…” I thought “I’d like to be”.  But I just said “Yes”.  Because sometimes you just have to fake it.  Ha, ha, so because of that, the next week, I spent some time at the Elementary helping Christian’s teacher with her bulletin board.  She said she wanted it to be of a corn field so this is what I came up with.

The kids have since put up pictures they made of scarecrows with little poems about them.  I thought it was a cute idea.

This is a little bit of a random photo, but I thought it was really cute of the kids watching a show together.  We got “Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman” from the Library the week of Halloween.  I never remember watching the whole thing before.  Maybe it’s because I have a short attention span.  During the whole “scary” part where he’s being chased I almost fell asleep.  Vivian actually did fall asleep into the very first part of the movie but I didn’t take a picture for fear the flash would wake her.  We watched it at 5:30 that night and she slept until the next morning (don’t worry, we moved her to her bed).  She missed out on all our other activities such as making and decorating treats, carving pumpkins and “booing” our neighbors!

September…back to life…

When we got home from Utah, it took a while for me to get back into doing anything.  I was so blessed to have had friends who were willing to help with Ginger, our dog while we were gone.  Jessy, was an absolute angel and left dinner in our fridge for the first two days since I was basically non-functioning.  She also was a life-saver and pushed me to keep going to the gym with her every day which really helped to boost my spirits.  I had some dear friends come and bring me flowers and plants too.  Here is one arrangement I got from my great friend Julie (not the same one in SLC).  I enjoyed having it brighten the room on my console table.

 

I did pull myself together enough to bake a bit.

 

As well as get Christian caught up on some major homework.

Vivian, however, was not much help…

And I even pulled myself together enough to hold my monthly craft night.  With Apples as the theme…

The rest of September went by pretty quickly.  Which was nice.

The last phase of our trip…(September 2011)

I won’t go into the emotional drama of everything that I was going through after my grandma left us.  Jared came in on the plane early (I mean 12 am early) Saturday morning and my uncle and aunt were kind enough to caravan with me so that I didn’t have to drive the car alone to pick up Jared after two days without much sleep (good thing I’ve had two infants or I wouldn’t have been sane at all ).  I felt very blessed that I was able to be at my friend Kristen’s house while she let me blab all I wanted to and we just hung out.

We did decide that we would go stay at my grandma’s house so that we could get some things cleaned up  and it wouldn’t be vacant and it could just be our family there.

The funeral was scheduled for the next Thursday, so we had some time to visit with family and since it was Labor day weekend, it worked out pretty nicely.  We got to go to the annual Buhler family Labor day picnic at the park which was nice.

  

My brother Eric brought my niece and nephew that live in Ogden so it was great to get to see how big they’re getting.

Jared was tossing the football with the kids and I love some of these shots and how their personalities come out in the photos.

 

We also got to spend a morning hanging out at my brother Bill’s house with his wife Megan and their two cute girls.  They recently got this very nice playground set and I couldn’t get Christian or Sandy to stop playing for a picture.  This is the best one I got… Kind of whimsical though…

Here’s Megan and cute little Abby (she’s my baby clone with darker coloring so I think she’s perfect ).

 

The Funeral was Thursday September 8,  2011 and it went very nice.  I was asked to play the Violin but the problem was that I didn’t have one so I had to get on Facebook and ask if anyone was willing to loan me theirs.  My dear friend Shawna was amazingly trusting and loaned me hers and so because of her, everything worked out really well.  Thank you so much Shawna for trusting me with your violin!  I am so grateful!

That afternoon after the funeral, we (Jared and I) mostly poked around grandma’s house looking at albums and things, it was fun, but somewhat emotionally draining.  I was grateful when my friend Julie called to see if I wanted to come with her to go shopping and then to a wedding that her husband wasn’t really wanting to go to.  It got me out of the house and it was so fun to be with her and just acting like girls and not moms for a moment.  Thank you Julie for the great time!

The next morning, Friday, we packed up the car and got ready to go.  I was very emotional trying to part myself from my grandma’s house with all the memories that were there and not knowing if I’ll ever see it again.  So I cried as I walked around and took pictures for an hour and the kids played in the yard in all the “secret” places I used to play in.  I had to take some pictures of them as well in their exploring (besides relishing the beautiful weather and actually being able to play outside).

Once Jared finished packing up the car, he joined the kids in a game of leap frog.  Which produced some funny photos.

Here’s a photo of my grandma’s darling house.  This place has held so many memories for me, I’m very sad to have to leave it.

Here are the kids enjoying hiding under the forsythia bush so they didn’t have to leave either.

We drove home that day.  Poor Jared drove the vast majority of the way home because I was so emotionally exhausted I kept falling asleep and couldn’t pull myself up for air.  I can not express how grateful I am that Jared took the time off from work to be with me and help me come home safely.  I’m so blessed to have him for my husband!