Dear Friends and Family,

Hard to believe but a storm moved in yesterday bringing rain and wind and today it is snowing. Kids were excited to see a world of white and its not even Halloween yet! Our kids are liking the cold, turning on the fire last night and requesting their hot chocolate and pumpkin bread. I heard the weather report early this week and decided I needed to take advantage of the last week of sunshine and spend it outside. So I spent a good portion of this week outside working on the yard. Took a truck load of sunflowers (I had to use a saw to cut them down!) and pumpkin vines to the dump on Friday.

Got some stuff done with the basement this week. Fielded a bunch of bids and had our window sills installed and ordered our counter top for the bathroom. Its nice to get closer to being done! Jeremy is enjoying his "dungeon" downstairs. If he closes the door it stays warm and cozy and VERY quiet. He has been putting in a lot of late nights and weekends working on the Osmond book that is hanging over his head. He is back down with a cold and is constantly hacking, blowing his nose and feeling miserable. Seems like he hasn't been sick free very much this fall. Luckily everyone else seems to be immune to his germs so far.

Jeremy sucked it up and took Spencer, Jason and Garion to a Real soccer game up in SLC. He was given tickets and a photo pass for some work he did plus a jersey for Spencer to wear. Spencer was so proud of his jersey that he wouldn't wear his sweatshirt he brought because he didn't want to cover it up. By the end of the game he was numb. Jason kindly herded boys up in the stands while Jeremy got to roam the side lines with his camera. It was a really late night for a school night but they all had fun and Spencer quoting Grandpa Jim, "if you're going to hoot with the owls you better be ready to screech with the eagles" was up at 7 the next morning with bags under his eyes and a smile on his face.

Meredith was out of town this weekend so we had her come Tuesday and we attended ward temple night. We haven't gone on a mid-week date or to our ward temple night for a long time. It was quite nice. Our kids thought it was great because we were able to just hang out this weekend. Our kids and Jeremy seem to always work hard to let me sleep till I wake up on Saturday and I happily oblige. I think my body plays catch up every weekend for missed sleep. Saturday I started working on mounting some art prints for the kids' school. It turned into a bigger project than I thought so our dining room is still covered. I keep having visions of Robyn with a Sharpie out there. Each print was $50 and there are 50+ prints out there. Scary prospect!

Thursday morning Robyn helped me find things for Lauri at her house and clean for a while. I am trying to pace myself better and just set aside a morning a week. I figure it will slowly get done - just like eating an elephant! We took Lauri to meet with a senior financial advisor about getting VA benefits only to have the nice surprise that Lauri has many more assets than she thought. She isn't ready to splurge but we no longer have to worry about how she will pay for assisted living. So she obviously isn't qualified for any assistance at this point.

Robyn continues to be my constant shadow and is usually amazingly good for a 2 year old. She wants to "help" at all times which is hard at times but very cute as well. She has discovered princesses now and is always wanting to watch Cinderella (her favorite) or any movie with a princess and a prince. She has the gender roles down as the princes are always the daddies and when the princess finds her prince she starts yelling "she found her daddy, now she can be a mommy". Robyn enunciates very carefully now and its funny to hear this little voice coming out "yes, please". She continues to ask every day if she can go to school and will load up a backpack, ready to leave. I am planning to paint her room purple and Jeremy was a bit taken aback when he saw the paint samples. Perhaps I need to tone it down a bit.

Allison moved up a level in gymnastics which she was excited about. So she will be in a new class starting this week. She was assigned a new song in piano that plays both hands at the same time which was a big mile stone for her. She took her hamster to school this week for show and tell. He thought it was great and was running around playing the whole time. No one else has brought in animals except for her, although her friend did bring in her baby brother for show and tell. Allison has entered this drama stage. "What we're having zucchini casserole for dinner?! Wahhh! The world is ending!" Face burried in the couch, screaming out loud. 10 minutes later, "let's go play" and off she goes back to normal. I hope the dramatics die down soon, before Robyn starts copying her.

Spencer has ben busy this week making up missed homework in math and bringing his grade back up. He has 2 new books he really likes and has been busy reading in his spare time. We watched Holes for our movie night on Friday which he read last year. He had stopped reading for a while so its good to see him back to it.

Taylor laughed this week at pack meeting. It has been a few months since he last giggled so we were all smiling at him. I cut his hair this week so he doesn't look all shaggy anymore. You don't realize how long his hair is until you start cutting.

Our home teacher introduced me to a new series of science fiction books so I got one this week and ended up staying up late too many nights in a row reading. Every morning as I get up in the dark I just chide myself asking why but its like eating chocolate, doesn't keep me from doing it again!

Love to you all, Heather