For FHE a couple weeks ago we had a lesson on testimonies. Afterwords we each went around and bore our testimony-this is what Tyler said:
I have a testimony that I believe Jesus and…
I have a testimony about the church and…
I have a testimony about Pres. Monson who is my prophet and…
that’s all.
In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.
So I was going to go through and write captions for all the pictures, but 1-I think they are pretty self-explanatory and 2-I have about 4 other posts I'm in the middle of editing and trying to get up here before I get super behind so how about you enjoy an *almost* wordless post-probably will be my first and last!:) These are from the week my fam came up for the weekend in Oct. Most of these are from the one day we went to the American West Heritage center for their Fall Festival!
"One year older and wiser too, Happy Birthday to you!"
As the primary children sang that line of the primary version 'Happy Birthday' song to Bobby the Sunday before his birthday I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Oh so wise, so very very wise is my Bobby! If you have a question, Bobby has the answer. About anything. And if he doesn't know the answer he will make something up that sounds so good, and convince you that he is right, that you wonder how in the world you could be so dumb as to not think of it first. He is a GREAT BSer (thats Bull Shooter in case you were wondering) and can in no doubt talk his way into-or out-of anything! I love him so much I can't even stand it.
This year for his bday I got us tickets to see BJ Novak (Ryan, the temp, from The Office) at the Kent Concert Hall on USU campus. The show was about a week before his birthday and was AWESOME! We had great seats since I got the tickets as soon as I heard the advertising for it. If I had remembered to bring my camera (hello?!) you would have seen the sweat on his face from our 2nd row seat! He is much shorter and stalkier than he looks on TV (I always thought he was tallish and skinny) and I don't know if it was our angle, or the lights, or the lack of glasses, but he looked much older to both of us than he does in the show.
It was an 1 1/2 hour stand-up comedy followed by a 1/2 hour of audience questions. He said a couple times throughout his show that the student union asked him to give a "clean" show so he censored and he really was SO funny! During the Q&A at the end he was really friendly, personable (giving hugs, taking pictures, signing autographs) and an easy-going guy. It's not very often that Bobby and I get to get out and be just...Bobby and Angela. It was nice.
On his actual birthday Bobby was SO sick-thanks to a cold I've been carrying around for a couple weeks- so we wanted to do a little something to cheer him up. Kylee and I picked out some balloons and tied them to the pillar outside our house and then Tyler and I made him a birthday poster that we hung in the window. (I LOVE to embarrass him!) Then I picked him up from school and we went to lunch and a movie-thanks to some birthday money! We picked up the kids, came home, opened a few presents from the kids and had the Elletts over for cake and ice cream.
We went to see RED and nobody was sitting in front of us...
and nobody sat behind us...
We were THE ONLY people in the theater. Apparently a Tues. afternoon is the best time to go. (NOT matching on purpose-Bobby would want you to know)
Kylee giving Daddy her gift
Bobby was apparently really stoked about getting beef jerky, gum and chapstick!
Tyler is LOVING birthdays-anyone's birthday. So this year I gave him $10 and let him pick out his own present for dad. He told me he wanted to buy him a gun.
This was the only one in his price range. They played with it all night and only managed to lose one dart.
Birthday hugs!
He wanted Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. We were running super late on time ('cause I'm a procrastinator) so it turned into cupcakes with sparkler candles. Tyler loved them, Kylee just kept saying, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" (like in a worried way, not in a weird pyro way).
Singing to dad
Mace and Ky really enjoyed their cake! (Tyler only licked off the frosting)
The picture of him above is deceiving. He looks happy, but was pretty sick so he didn't even try to say No when I offered to put the kids to bed bymyself so he could go to bed too. By 7:30 he was OUT, but woke up feeling lots better the next day. Happy Birthday to the greatest guy I know!
At the beginning of Oct. (and actually all the way up until this past weekend) the weather here has been BEAUTIFUL -with the exception of that one day that it snowed :)- so we have been able to enjoy a lot of time outdoors at the park, taking walks, playing on the "hill" by our house (their current favorite place to be-and will be awesome come sledding time!), and going to the Logan River trail. It's a mile long trail that is about 2 min. from our house and runs along, non other than, the Logan River. It is pretty and the kids love to find the perfect walking stick, run their little hearts out, and throw rocks into the river.
We don't get out of church till 4:30 on Sundays and since Kylee misses her naps these days we're always trying to find something to do to keep her from 1. falling asleep the second she sits down and 2.to keep her attention on something so she doesn't have a melt down every 5 minuets because she is soooo tired. (we are eagerly anticipating our time change in Jan.!) So walking the Logan River trail was a fun family sunday afternoon activity that we did several times.
The kids love to stop at this point along the trail and throw rock after rock into the river.
Here Tyler had his first lesson in how to skip rocks. Bobby is really good at skipping rocks and first he told them they needed to find the "perfect" skipping rock...
Showing tyler the proper form to skip a rock
Every week after nursery Kylee came home with her name on her back. I'm guessing since we're a new ward this was the way they learned the kids names but Tyler never had one. 2 Sundays ago was the first time she didn't have one. It really took them 3 months to learn her name? I'm not judging...just wondering out loud. :)
The next few are just random pictures that were on my camera in my Oct. picture folders...
Proof that these two aren't always getting into trouble! :) They both love to look at books, so sometimes when they're being quiet it's a good thing!
I love when we say, "Kylee you're so cute" she bends her knee in, cocks her head to one side and gives a shy little smile.
Oh shorts and flip-flops how I miss you!
*In the middle of Oct. (oct 15-18th) my mom, Alena, Alisa and Nate came for a visit. It was UEA so Alena was out of school and we were SOOO happy they spent their time off with us!! We had lots of fun but that's going to be the next post!
*Then I cashed in, what was debate-ably, the best gift ever; a trip to St. George ALONE to hang out with my mom and sisters! A weekend away was my mother's day gift from Bobby and I just now had the chance to use it, but it was worth the wait since I didn't just get a weekend but a whole week! I drove home with the family on Monday and rode the shuttle back to Salt Lake Fri. night. A HUGE thanks to Mindy for watching the kids several days, and of course to Bobby for being willing to take over and give me a much needed and appreciated break! (more on this to come in the next post)
It was a good thing I took a break then because from the second I got home it has been non-stop crazy until just this past Fri where all I did Fri night was watch show after show after tv show (i heart hulu). And then it's back to work blogging trying to catch up on it all before the next wave hits at the end of this week!
I came home on the 22nd and that next Tues. we had pre-school here for that week (the week before Halloween) and the week after-the first week of Nov. I think before I mentioned that in our "rotating pre-school" each mom teaches 5 times, but it's actually 5 weeks so it's a total of 10 times. 4 down...6 to go. It was SOOOO fun! Kinda exhausting, but seriously fun! I loved planning, putting things together, and using my brain in a way I haven't for awhile. We have a really great group of kids and they are so funny. I'm really glad I got to observe Tyler amongst a group of other kids his age so I could kinda gauge where he's at respectively and see what things I need to work on with him. I am so thankful for this group though as his social skills have drastically improved. Not that he was a social outcast before, but he's always been a relatively shy kid and in groups has always preferred to play by himself. I've noticed since his pre-school started he has really come out of his shell, for example on the playground now when there are other kids there he will be the first one to walk up and want to play with them. He stands up for himself when someone takes something from him or when he has an opinion or an idea where he used to just walk away or let the other person boss him around. He still is okay to play alone, but he LOVES to play with his friends (who is anyone he meets) and his imagination has just exploded.
So the first week our Theme was Autumn and Halloween. The Thursday before Halloween they all dressed up in their costumes (there's only 4 b/c one was sick and the other was at Disneyland).
Tracing/writing the letter of the day
For Rug time we talked about why we celebrate Halloween (because when the Irish Immigrants came to America they were afraid of ghosts so they used candles to scare the ghosts away, then masks were added, then costumes, to what it is today). So I gave each of them a candle to hold during our story in case a ghost came so they could scare him away!
Good thing too because there DID just happen to be a ghost wandering around our house!
The kids are yelling, "Go away Mr. Ghost, go away!" as they shake their candles at him.
To finish our day off we painted some pumpkins!
Now here's where I get really bad. That week was crazy, with planning pre-school, making costumes, babysitting, and visiting teaching, my brain was gone so I forgot to bring my camera to so many of the other fun things we did that week too. Like the pumpkin walk which is a huge park in logan where there are displays of different things that include pumpkins. This years theme was "toon town" or something like that so each display (which is huge) was a scene from a movie or book and the creators had to use pumpkins as part of the scene-totally cool!
And Mindy and I took the kids trick or treating to the dorms on campus and then to a party over where we used to live...no pictures!
But after that we went home, grabbed Bobby-and the camera!- and went to the place we went last year to pick pumpkins and go on a hayride, only this year they didn't have pumpkins to pick so we just did the spooky hayride...
Mindy and Kylee waiting for the wagon
Tyler excited about watching Ichobad Crane on the big projector outside
Kylee's hands were freezing so Mindy let her borrow her gloves
On Sunday (Halloween morning) Bobby helped the kids make pumpkin pancakes! (ONE nice thing about not having church till 1:30 is that Bobby always makes us pancakes for breakfast!)
Tyler rockin' the witch hat, snow boots look.
We got pumpkins before Halloween but ran out of time to carve them, so Monday night after Halloween for FHE (well minus Kylee who was already in bed) we carved them! One day late isn't too bad right?!
And then it was November...
