October

Well, I'm using a new format now and only posting once a month. I think this will simplify my life a bit. I didn't miss blogging for the past month, but I still want to have a record of our day-to-day stuff, just more concise.

Trips and Activities

General Conference: We made our "Munchies" mix and enjoyed the talks. James took the younger 2 kids to see the salmon spawning.

Esports competition: James and Joseph were gone for a Friday, and their team did well. Joseph placed 2nd in his bracket.

Fall Break in Rexburg: We enjoyed a trip to Bear World, watched Big Joseph in a band thing, and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. James helped Angie on her tiny house.

Grand Ball: This was for Samantha. We all dressed up and got to meet Cinderella at her school.

Holidays and Birthdays

Katie turned 11! She got her ears pierced and has been enjoying her knitting machine. I think she's made 15 hats already.

Halloween: The Trunk or Treat was a success, and the kids got tons of candy. We had the right amount of treats, pizza, and hot chocolate.

Katie finished up basketball, which she had been doing since September. I think she liked it okay, but not as well as tennis.

James took a random day off. He took wildlife pictures, and then we went out for lunch. It was a much-needed break from life.

Weather

Beautiful, no complaints here.

Sickness

Minor, 1 day missed for Katie and 1 for James

Repairs and Projects

a pipe under the house, which just needed some glue

canning, lots of it

another shelf for the boys' room

a small blanket for Katie for Christmas, made from scraps she got at a yard sale

FanX, Painting

James ended up staying home last Thursday due to illness, but he and Joseph felt fine and went to FanX on Friday and Saturday. While they were gone, I painted the master bathroom, including the cabinets. It was a busy, exhausting weekend thanks to that project, but I'm so glad it's done. Kenny helped me give the bathroom a good scrubbing on Saturday after we put all the cabinet doors back on. Now that it's been a week, I appreciate the new paint more. It's nice not to be covered in paint, climbing up and down the ladder, or dealing with all the clutter in my room from the bathroom cupboards. It was completely worth the effort.

This week, I did a ton of canning: 6 quarts of winter squash and 17 pints of salsa. I also fixed the toilet in my bathroom, which needed a new fill valve. It was ridiculously easy, and I wish I'd done it sooner. The toilet has been making noise every since we got back from Ecuador. I also went to a basketball game for Katie. She did well, and I should've paid more attention.

Homecoming, Projects

James had a lot of work to catch up on, so I took the kids to the carnival alone. We enjoyed the games and free meals from the food trucks. It was a pleasant day, and I'm glad I got to spend it with the kids.

On Friday, James took the younger kids to the Homecoming parade. Katie and Kenny both had parties to go to. I canned tomatoes that the Binghams brought over.

Saturday, we went to a shrimp boil with the Warburtons and several other families. It was so delicious and lots of fun, even though I ate too much and had a stomachache afterward. James took Katie and Samantha to Homecoming until 8:30, and the boys and I watched Thor.

I still felt crummy Sunday morning (stomach cramps), so I stayed home from church to rest. I started feeling better by the end of the day, thankfully.

I had a busy Monday prepping the master bathroom for painting. James fixed our water heater, which took all afternoon, and we're all grateful.

Tuesday morning, I had a presidency meeting. It went well, and I got a lot of stuff done for Primary.

Wednesday afternoon, I had a random idea to build another shelf in the laundry room. It turned out great (less than 1 inch of clearance for the washing machine lid) and perfectly fits some storage bins I got cheap a few weeks ago. I spent an hour on the shed cleaning and organizing. Today, I spent 4 hours organizing all the small tools and supplies into the bins. They are neatly labeled, and I even got rid of a bunch of stuff we didn't need anymore. There were lots of duplicates and trash. It should be a lot less frustrating to do projects now.

I want to change the way I do this blog. I feel like I don't WANT to do it as often, but I don't want to give it up entirely either. I'm going to switch to once a month and cover just the highlights. I need to figure out what those will be, but the goal is to simplify my life.

A Great Fall

We went to our ward's harvest dinner last Thursday, but I wasn't feeling amazing after eating, so we went home after only an hour. I won't feel bad about it either. Sometimes, parties are just too dang long.

We did playdates on both Friday and Saturday (Navy, Blakely) because it felt really important to see everyone. I'm really glad I did both. It was really good to see my friends and remember, once again, that I'm not the only one struggling through mom life.

We started our fall movie marathon on Saturday evening. We're doing Marvel this year, our 9 favorites, and then all the Spiderman movies after, a total of 19 movies. I don't care if it's silly, but it makes me excited for fall. I love that the older boys like the same fandoms that James and I do.

The kids had a lockdown at school (no one was hurt) on Tuesday so I didn't volunteer, and the temple is closed, so the past few days have been kind of quiet. I used that time to finish my digitizing project, including sharing links with relatives for pictures, videos, audio, etc. It feels really good to have that done, just in time to paint the master bathroom next week. It'll be a little more work than the small bathroom, but it won't be so claustrophobic either.

James and I did our date last night. We got some burgers and ran a few errands. This afternoon, we're going to a community carnival.

I've been reading a book called Introvert Power, and I'm really grateful James got it for me. It's been enlightening. I have noticed that since school started, I've been feeling a lot more peaceful at home since I have a lot of time to myself. I've been able to reflect on lots of things and make some small tweaks to my schedule to make it work better and get more done. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm happy to be here at home right now.

I'm not happy about it being cold enough to wear socks for most of the day. :(

Down, Busy

For the past week and a half, the internet has been down somewhat. Our download speed was okay, but our upload speed was horrible, like .01 mbps. That meant we could watch TV okay most of the time, but trying to do any online shopping or uploading photos was either horribly slow or impossible. It really bothered me because I wanted to finish uploading some pictures to FamilySearch, but I couldn't without it timing out. I just finished today when I noticed the internet was finally working again. I'm officially done with all the old pictures. All I have left from my parents' house are 9 cassette tapes, most of which won't have anything special on them. I have the software ready to go to convert them to digital. I did cry when I had to re-set up the printer. It took me 3 hours and felt like such a huge waste of time.

James and I went to see the movie Reagan last Thursday. I liked it, but I'm not sure how much of it was true. I wasn't there when he was president. ;)

Katie started doing basketball 1-2 times a week. It's been a little crazy to add that in to what we already have, but she seems to like it so far. Joseph is in the robotics and e-sports clubs at school.

Saturday, I wasn't feeling super motivated to do anything, so I set a timer to work on sewing for an hour. I ended up spending 3 hours cutting up scraps, doing repairs, and organizing all my supplies. I need some tan thread to finish up 2 more hems, and then I'm done for a while. Sewing will never be my first love, but I appreciate it a lot more than I did 15 years ago.

We cleaned the church on Monday, and then James had a meeting afterward. Tuesday and Wednesday were both busy with activities for kids, and then I messed up our Wednesday evening a little by thinking we had tithing declaration when it was scheduled for a week later. Oops. I felt really bad, but it's not like I did it on purpose.

James and I have both been kind of tired since school started. The kids have already brought home 2 viruses, and it seems like we catch them all, even if the symptoms end up being mild. I hope this winter is better than the last few. I just don't recover from stuff as quickly as I used to.

Samantha's 6th Birthday, Labor Day

Samantha and I went to a play date on Friday, so that was nice. It's so hard to keep up with friends. Someone is always sick or busy. Samantha's birthday was nice. We had breakfast for dinner, strawberry ice cream, and strawberry shortcake. She loved her giant squishmallow, which was the main present.

We've been thinking about putting in a back door that would lead right to the patio. I thought it would be pretty straightforward, but we need an unusual size of door. Lowe's couldn't help and neither could Amazon, so we got a quote from a local place. I asked them a few follow up questions about it, so I hope they get back to me soon. We're still not sure if we'll be doing it or not. The quote with labor and glass included is outside of the budget we set.

We had a good Labor Day. For me, the perfect Saturday or holiday involves a small project, a meal out with James, and some time to relax. We accomplished just that by getting breakfast at Denny's, buying a cozy rug for the cabin (and getting rid of the big freezer), and then relaxing. We also watched Newsies with the kids.

It's been a pretty normal week. I scanned all the slides for the Heads and found some amazing pictures from 1996 when James went to Mexico and Ecuador. I'd assumed that these were the same pictures as prints from that year, but I was wrong, so I'm glad I took the time to scan them all. I finished a bunch of old pictures from my parents' house, and now I'm working on photos old enough that they're going straight to Family Search.

It's September, so I feel like it's officially fall. We've had some cooler evenings and haven't had to use the AC too much. I made my first batch of pumpkin muffins (one of the only pumpkin things I actually like) and some bread. My schedule right now is full enough that I haven't had time to get bored, and Katie starts basketball today, so that's new.

Painting, Lonely Weekend

I ended up painting the small bathroom completely on Friday, which was awesome. I love how the color turned out too. I had just enough time in between to drop the boys off for their campout and take dinner to the missionaries. James left for his "boys weekend" with Kenneth, Sam, and Nick in Salt Lake. I stayed busy enough on Friday that I didn't feel too lonely and had no problems sleeping.

Saturday, I touched up the paint and scrubbed the bathroom in the afternoon. While the paint finished drying, I took the 3 younger kids to Dino Soar Days. We looked at the farmer's market, got cookies, and went to the dinosaur museum since it was free admission. It was a little crazy and busy, but I think the kids had fun. I picked up the boys, and we didn't do much for the rest of the day. Things went a little downhill at that point and just weren't fun.

Sunday went all right, even though I ended up teaching a class last minute. James got home safely from his fun weekend. I had a mini breakdown because I don't know how to deal with the Sunday scaries yet and the school year is still new.

Monday, we overscheduled ourselves a little too much by cleaning our closet. It was a bigger job than expected. The new shelf for the bathroom came, so Kenny put that together for me. All that Lego-building has paid off.

I volunteered for the first time in Mrs. Batty's class this year, and it went great. I'll be there Tuesday afternoons.

I'm also trying to get to the temple once a week (on Wednesdays). So far, so good.

Today, I made whole wheat bread and pressure canned chipotle beef. For our date, we're doing sealings at the temple and getting dinner afterward.

I like my schedule this year so far. I hope everyone can stay healthy so I can stick to it. I haven't had time to get bored yet, either. I scanned some old pictures from NC and hope to finish that next week. Many are going to go on FamilySearch as well.