Happy Birthday, Princess Rebekah!

Who knew it would be so fun to have a baby born in October!?!?!? Six years later, and Rebekah plus all the sibling still love the Halloween theme that we celebrate her birthday with every year!
this year was especially fun, because we had two back to back days of birthday excitement!


Because Momma's belly is as round as a pumpkin, we scaled back on the festivities a bit, but still had all the fun! Instead of a house full of families and friends, Bekah chose 3 little homeschool cuties to join her yesterday for an afternoon of games and girl bonding time!

So cute it's scary!

Halloween Bingo!

Mummifying Kamberlynne!

A "spook"-tacular time was had by all!

And then today....

We took a birthday field trip to this crazy bouncy place that has every state fair inflate-able slide, obstacle course, and jumpy thing imaginable!

And then Grandma joined us for some birthday fun!


Later on it was pizza party, presents, and pumpkin pie time!

Uncle Dave joined in on the fun (and the theme, posing in his halloween costume! (Reach out with your feelings, Luke...)



And one last birthday surprise...In anticipation of the new little sister, Rebekah and Briella got moved into the same bedroom (now if only Briella would sleep in there...that's another blog). Rebekah was thrilled to see her new bedroom complete with girly bedding and sister pictures!


And after those two big celebration days, this momma is ready to snuggle into that new bed, too! But let's just get one more birthday love from my sweet six year old princess!

What a blessing to have such a spunky, loving, fiesty, darling, dramatic, adorable red head to call my own sweet daughter! Just what will the next six years bring?!?!?!?

Quick trip to the.....

Pumpkin Patch!

And I mean, really quick! We've had weekends full of rain, and this one was no different, so we took a hasty outing Thursday to make sure we had pumpkins ready to carve for family night tomorrow! The farms don't even run the tractors during the weekdays, so we tromped out on foot...only to find a field full of very green pumpkins. The kids found a few good ones, and what we were short on, they went back to the farmers market and chose pre-picked ones! I keep telling myself, "hey, it still worked out, even if it wasn't what we usually do!" We all still went home happy!

Here is the condensed version!

We search.

We find.

We smile.

Oh, and let's not forget one for the baby! (yep, our little pumpkin is growin'!)

Happy Harvest, Everyone!

Oh, NO! Where did she go this time?!?!?

Briella has this gift of disappearing on us in a flash and within minutes has made a real mess somewhere! You've probably read about that unique talent on the blog previously! Nail polish, glue sticks, cat food, etc! Well, we are definitely on to her little scheme, and have kept her close at hand nearly all the time, but she still manages to get her hands into something, the little darling! Yesterday she went missing on us during school, and the children I was working with immediately scattered to the four corners of the house in search of the mess we knew would be waiting, but instead we found this....




She had joined Jonah for his Spanish lesson! There she was sitting so nicely with him repeating his vocabulary words! I have to say, her spanish wasn't so bad!



We all breathed a sigh of relief! Situation under control....at least this time!

General Conference Favorites!

What an amazing couple of days! So many messages were so incredibly powerful and insightful and hopeful and encouraging and amazing and...... you get the idea!

So here are some of my top picks:

There really is a prophet on the earth! And after his talk today, we'll be asking a new question around the dinner table! "How have you served today?"


I always love Elder Bednar's addresses. Another great one...Expressing love in the family, testifying to those we love most, and constancy in living the gospel in our own homes!

Just LOVED Elder Burton's talk on the "ity" virtues.... can't wait to re-read that one!

I was stunned by the beauty of the choir's rendering of President Monson's favorite Song "O Divine Redeemer"....just so lovely....here is a link to see an earlier performance of the piece..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuBx94tpoN4

I had tingles down to my toes as Elder Holland shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon and proclaimed its truthfulness to the whole world. I can't wait to put a link in to that talk...it will be one for the ages! What an amazing teacher!

And I don't have a picture for my last favorite, but wasn't it great to stand together as one of the Saints and sing "How Firm A Foundation"? Brian and I stood next to each other holding hands and rejoicing as our children sang in harmony around us. It was a beautiful moment!

Ok, friends...so what were some of your favorites!?!?!?