October

The first weekend of October found us watching General Conference (yay!) at home (not yay). We missed our Utah comrades quite a bit, but we found ways to distract ourselves.

Namely play-doh and naps. And of course, conference itself was wonderful!

We found ourselves feeling a little stir crazy by Sunday afternoon, though (which is weird since we probably would have watched almost that much TV in two days anyhow with football factored in) so we went for one of our last warm bike ride/walks of the year.

Over the course of the month I was able to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes:

borrowing other people's daughters to get my 'girl fix' in! These are our sweet friends Ivy and Addie who came over and played after playschool one day (the girls and Will are sporting the super hero masks they made that day). Suuuuch cute girls.

We also got to have Maysa, Reagan, Hallie and Brehner over one day, which was really fun. We did arts and crafts and painted nails and Brehner and Jack (who are about four and a half months apart in age) were hilarious together.

 After we picked Clyde up from school I decided to brave a walk with seven kids. The babies did great in the double stroller and everyone else happily marched along and got some energy out, wooo!!

 As Cubmaster, I get to put together the pack meetings once a month that families are invited to attend along side their Cub Scouts. I combined the October and November themes of responsibility and citizenship for an election/voting activity.

 I was semi in love with the little voting booths that Chuck helped me put together and the ballot box I fashioned out of an old fruit snacks box.

 I made two different ballots - siblings and parents voted on a future pack meeting activity, while the Scouts voted for a future den meeting activity. And of course there were 'I voted!' stickers, because isn't that really why we all exercise that particular right anyways?

Funny/thought-provoking story: As I was explaining the ballots, I got real serious and said, "Okay boys, I need you to really think about this decision, because if you vote for the light sabers then you can't be friends any more with someone who votes for sugar cookies." And their eyes all collectively widened until I added, "Wait, is that right? Or can you still be friends with someone who votes differently?" And they all chimed in with "Yes, of course you can still be friends!" And then I said, "Okay, well then, if you vote for light sabers and sugar cookies wins then you have to stomp out and say that you don't want to even come that night... right? Or should you make the most of it and still come and have fun even though what you voted for didn't win?" And then all chimed in with, "Of course you should still come and be a good sport!" I just loved how innocent and sweet they all were - hopefully that attitude sticks around when they're old enough to really vote! 

 Ohhh I love my Scouts. We also did an activity to match eight political offices with the politicians' names and random facts about each of them - did anyone else know that Congressman Mike Simpson used to be a dentist??

We spent a bit of time at the doctor's office in October; Clyde and Jack both had check-ups and Clyde and Will both had strep and all three boys got flu vaccines, wooo!

 I sure don't have Jack's nine month stats in front of me, but he was 19 pounds and some change and absolutely perfect in every way.

Chuck's parents came up for a weekend in October to see the Boise Temple Open House and spent a bit of time with us, which was lovely.

 Some shots of the gang on the shuttle up to the temple; Will and Clyde were totally in their element.

 

 Cute boys with Grandma and Grandpa!

 

 Clyde got lots of bonding time in with Grandpa as they played Stratego and made biscuits on Sunday morning, yumm!

 

Oh, and we were so happy when we saw cousin Victoria at the soccer fields on Saturday! This happened to Chuck and me a few weeks ago so we were hoping for a repeat occurrence. Despite living in the same town, we hadn't seen Victoria and her family since our wedding (eight plus years ago!) so it was fun to catch up and we were excited that Dave and Terri got the same chance :).

 Clyde's school had theme days for Red Ribbon week and we're very anti-drug abuse//pro-looking ridiculous, so this was right up our alley.

Mismatch day, backwards day, crazy hair day, 'blue' day.

Chuck and I usually count our Costco outings as our weekly dates (we go while Will's at preschool so we only have Jack in tow) but during October we managed to fit in two more REAL dates (in addition to our Twin Falls temple date, woo!)

We hadn't played tennis since August, but when we found out our babysitter had a Friday off school, we promptly secured his services for a couple of hours that morning... turns out tennis in October is waaayyy different than tennis in August (haha, thanks Maren!!), brrr!

 But we still had lots of fun, especially since I pulled out the victory after going to deuce pretty much every game.

Our other date was actually to see Jared in his high school play:

 The drama department put on 'The Foreigner', which was hilarious and sooo well-done! Jared (in the plaid shirt as Ellard) did awesome, as did the rest of the cast.

And that's a random smattering (super awkward word, am I right?) of our October!