Dear Family,

This week there hasn't been anything big happening or crazy schedules and everything has just flowed. Which doesn't mean that Robyn wasn't crabby A LOT, or that kids didn't disagree, just that everything was just normal and regular and I loved it. Having some crazier weeks really makes you appreciate the routine, easier weeks!

Monday the kids were out of school for a teacher training day. We spent the morning shopping for new shoes for kids and shirts for Spencer. There should be a sport labeled shopping with kids. Awards given out for that mom who can help 3 kids at once who all need help finding their size right now! Or for that mom trying to explain why kids don't get to buy $30 shirts or for not going into shock when Spencer's shoes cost as much as mine. But everyone left happy with their new finds. Allison joined Jeremy for her birthday lunch at Chinese Gourmet. She was in heaven when she realized that they had noodles and shrimp - her two favorite foods.

Allison after eating a full bowl of shrimp!

Allison went to her fist Activity Days meeting. Didn't realize how nervous she was about it till Robyn and I walked to meet her afterwards. She was beaming saying that she knew all the girls in there already. They learned how to braid and ate licorice. She loved it. Rest of the week was full of piano, gymnastics, school choir and playing with friends whenever possible. She is deep into the Harry Potter books and is on volume 5 now. Whenever you see her, her nose is buried in her book. She was the very important student for her class this week so she got to bring in her hamster Storm for show and tell, make a poster of pictures of herself etc.

Spencer went to a local pumpkin patch/play zone called Hee Haws with cub scouts and came home very happy and dirty. He has been playing a lot this week with a group of neighborhood boys in games that involved a lot of rolling/jumping around. He started a new piano book this week - Hanon Junior that he thought was cool.



Robyn is refusing to go to sleep lately - hence the often crabby Robyn. She loves, loves, loves her preschool and we all hear the songs and stories from Miss Suzanne over and over again. She was so excited to have homework this week - a matching game. We hung up her birdie pictures in her room Friday. I was going to just hang them to the wall, Christina gave me a great idea on how to do it. But then I saw Robyn climbing a chair to draw on the papers on the bulletin board and I had an inkling of what would happen to those prints! So I found some frameless frames that worked great.




Taylor's teacher is working to find ways to slow down his seizures. It seems like the florescent bulbs are bothering him so he is wearing sunglasses at school to see if that helps. He always has more seizures at school than at home.

Jeremy had 3 photo shoots this week plus one photo group event. So he is keeping busy! He hung up an 8 foot bat with glowing eyes in our big window over our front door which the kids all thought was very cool. Yesterday he braced himself with a smile on his face and we went for this amazing 4 mile hike up in Provo Canyon, just past Sundance, up to Stewart Falls. It was a beautiful hike even at our 45 minute mile pace! But Robyn made it the whole way except for a 5 minute carry up one hill. Jeremy got some beautiful pictures we will post. Made me realize how out of shape we are as a family as all but Robyn were tired out and sore afterward. We hiked through gorgeous yellow aspen trees and overlooked the whole canyon full of red and yellow oak trees. Afterward the kids all had to recuperate with hot chocolate and trader joe's chocolate dunkers.



I cleaned out our vegetable garden this week and took a truck load of tomato plants etc to the green waste dump. It was the week of apples. We had Katherine's delicious apple pancakes with cinnamon butter. Taylor ate 4 of them and would have kept going except I thought his stomach would explode! We canned some more apple pie filling and made apple crisp. Allison commented that we were going a bit overboard on apples. I learned that I really like oatmeal with apple crisp sprinkled on top!

So just a regular, wonderful type of week. Everyone healthy, happy more often that sad. Love to you all, Heather






Our afternoon of general conference.