Second Half of October

Bingham Mines! Another homeschool field trip in the books! I remember coming here as a girl, and it being a lot more impressive and interactive...but that was a long time ago. It was still very cool to see the huge open mine, but not as...interactive as I was anticipating. It didn't help that we came on probably the windiest day in history!! Ha!


Davy Cuteness!



Gardner Village- We made our annual stop at Gardener village to hunt for the witches! We took the kids "cousin" Reese with us, which made it lots more fun. And we just so happened to go on a super busy day. I've never seen it so busy, or had to pay for parking etc. But still a good time. I love that my kid's expectations are relatively low, so they were pretty happy wandering around looking and everything, and then getting a 50 cent snickerdoodle- and never once complained about not doing the bouncy houses and countless other extra things.



It was time to put our garden to bed for the winter. We finished pulling out all the old plants, which turned into an old tomato fight...naturally. :) Richie knows how to make chores fun. :) The kids had such a blast and there were minimal tears. :) Since all viable plants were now gone, we let the chickens in to search for food. We've been letting them in the garden a lot lately, and they are in total heaven!!




I planned for us to go on a little hike for homeschool group on Thursday, only to find that the trail was closed! So we quickly regrouped, did our little discussion and craft at the Draper temple, because they had lots of leaves to choose from. The kids started using jackets to carry big piles of leaves to one central location, and then took turns diving in. As with a lot of homeschool plans, it wasn't what I was planning on or expecting, but this ended up being much better. Such cooperation and excitement! Eventually we pulled them away to take a very small "hike" on another close by trail, just so we could see some pretty fall leaves.


There's an account I follow on Instagram that I've really grown to love. Ralphie from @Simplyonpurpose shares such great ways to be a positive parent. She does workshops throughout the country, and months ago, I saw she was coming to Lehi. Long story short, I snagged two tickets for Richie and I. He graciously consented to go, although it's not his favorite thing, and even though it was really expensive. I loved every second and was a little star struck to see/meet her in person. :) Hopefully Richie and I are both better parents for it!




Davy in the sink. Clean baby in one side, dirty dishes in the other. :) That's how we roll.



Carving pumpkins!! Always way more work than we feel up to, but we still do it every year anyway. It's worth it. Both Gwen and Lindy chose scary faces, Benson wanted a dinosaur, and Miles carved his own Charlie Brown design. :)


If one of my kids was ever going to get picked up by the police, I'm not surprised at all that it was Benson. It was a super cold Tuesday, Richie had taken the girls to extracurriculars, so it was me and the boys at home. Benson whined and whined to ride his bike out front. But with no one to go with him, I kept saying no. Eventually I gave in and told him he could ride it up and down the street once, and then to come inside because it was cold. I felt pretty confident in his ability to follow those instructions. He's never once gone past the end of our street. I watched him go half way up the street, then I bent down to help Miles look under the couch for some lost Money. When I looked up, Benson was gone. I strapped Davy to my back to walk up the street-still nothing. I brought Davy back inside for Miles to watch him because it was so cold. I did another run up the street and saw nothing, so I started to panic. I jumped in the truck and starting driving around and also called my friend Mandy. She immediately got in her van. When I had checked 2 culdesacs, I came back to ours and started knocking on my police neighbor's door for help. Right as I did, another friend called me and said she had him. A minute later, they came down our street in a police vehicle. !!!! He had decided to ride his bike to find Lindy at Karate, and was almost to 13400S, a major intersection. Luckily 2 neighbors saw him, stopped him, and called the cops (before Sarah realized who he was) He was upset and scared, (good! So was I!) but after the terror wore off a tiny bit, I snapped this picture for posterity. HAHA!! He got several lectures from Mom and Dad, and a teddy bear from the police officer-which he loves and calls his police bear. :) Please bless this never happens again. It was terrifying.