For Halloween Taylor was Waldo.  He was not happy about the glasses, I think he wondered why he had to wear glasses again as he used to hate having them on.  So the glasses lasted for maybe 5 minutes.

Spencer carved his pumpkin in sculpture class but the girls and I did ours at home.  Allison and Robyn tried giving their pumpkins a crayon hair do.  Which later involved scraping much crayon wax off of our floor and counter but they looked very cool.


I got to go to Robyn's halloween parade.  Story of a mom's life, wait and watch a bunch of little kids go by so you can have your five seconds of you kid smiling at you that you made it!  So worth it!  It was fun to see how imaginative some people are.  I got to spend the afternoon going to Halloween class parties for my practicum.  We cooked up bones, brains and blood for dinner.  Jeremy set up an outdoor screen and showed short Halloween movies to kids.  Spencer went to do CrossFit in a Ranger's Apprentice costume - wish I had a picture of that.  Allison went with friends to "help" a friend's little sister go trick or treating and ended up at our house with their pity candy, eating popcorn and watching movies.  Robyn for the first time went with a group of kids trick or treating by herself (although Luke's 15 year old sister ran point which made me feel much better).  So Jeremy and I got to hang out, pass out toys and visit.  It was awesome.

This week got just a little bit busier than usual.  Robyn went to a leadership conference with student council at BYU for a day.  She loved it and has a big book of quotes from taking notes all day.  Robyn also had a school musical program Friday night that was super cheesy but she was beaming and laughing away sitting with her class.  (To get to said program, involved Jeremy taking her over early.  Me driving Allison and 6 friends plus Taylor down to BYU to attend a BYU men's choir concert then rushing back, parking 2 blocks away and running in to stand in the back with Taylor the whole time.  That is how it has gone this week.  To attend one of Allison's choir performances Jeremy was there filming and I ran in just in time to watch her sing and then literally ran to my car to get to class.)

Allison had 3 choir concerts plus some friend stuff.  She really has a great group of friends.

Spencer had a Utah State open house down in Provo on Tuesday.  He is all registered for school now, got his scholarship, dorm room reserved and just has to sign and send in his acceptance letter.  He is fasting about it today to make sure that is really what he wants to do.  What will I do without my movie buddy around?  Saturday morning we went to see Dr. Strange which Spencer has been looking forward to for awhile.


Saturday afternoon I got to take Taylor, Robyn and her two friend Nylie and Luke to a pumpkin patch style farm.  It was a great afternoon to hang out.  (Robyn has spent the morning at a school educational program called Bright Ideas.  She did not think school on a Saturday was a good idea but Hee Haws plus a lunch at Wendy's with Jeremy seemed to make everything better.)

There was a kitten who adopted Taylor for the afternoon.


So trying to fit in time with each kid plus activities and school just keeps us busy and out of trouble.  It also makes me really look forward to 6 weeks from now when classes are over and I student teach!  Jeremy made arrangements with the company of his shake to work on muscle building and weight maintenance and write blog entries for them.  So gives him increased motivation to keep up the good work.

We have been taking advantage of this fall to get out into the beautiful canyons around us.  Which means that Jeremy has had several family shoots lately.  On one outing he took a couple candids of our kids and their cousins which I loved.


I told Jeremy we need to figure out to get a good picture of Taylor!  Here is his last couple of weeks:

Going to his school Halloween carnival:

 Going to his sisters' piano recital.  He looked up when they played their songs (plus for a few others that he liked)


And going to Gardner Village for witch fest with Allison, her friend Kaori and me:


 He never looks exactly thrilled to be there!  But he sure smiles when he gets tucked into his beanbag or bed after going out somewhere.  I am not sure if he enjoys the outings or is just relieved to be back home snuggling.  On the other hand Allison and her friend seemed to enjoy all the witches:




Robyn has been enjoying being on student council and doing the announcements at school and helping deliver birthday treats.  She has been busy learning all the states and their capitols.  She has been practicing to try out for the archery team again.  Spencer has been busy getting college applications ready, homework plus doing rec volleyball.

Jeremy has still be rocking the exercising, eating little, spin classes and even went to Hot Yoga with Kelly Hall and me at 5:30 one Friday morning.  He liked it so much he went back one more time when I couldn't!  I do like the class even if you are surrounded by a lot of super, sweaty people.

For Fall Break we put Taylor into respite and went to Bryce Canyon along with Jason and his family.  They recently bought a new trailer and this was their inaugural family trip.  Bryce Canyon was beautiful!  It was 25 degrees in the morning and 68 in the afternoon!  Our battery had some problems right after we got there which since Jeremy just got the heater repaired caused some teeth gnashing.  But our friend's parents who live down there and run the inn, found out and brought us over a space heater to plug in.  Because it was super cold at night!  We hiked a bunch including this long slot canyon called Wall Street, and explored the whole park.  We took bikes up to the top of the bike trail in the park and coasted down which was awesome.  Robyn and Kayla bit it as they learned not to slam their brakes on during a turn and Robyn's road rash was quite painful looking but she hopped back on afterwards and was grateful she had pants on.  Jeremy, Spencer and Garion did it again a second time without girls making them go slow which was a testosterone highlight for Spencer.  We went out for pie one night which was delicious and one night we stayed up late talking and roasting marshmallows.  Sunday we checked out Tropic's sacrament meeting and then explored Kodachrome Basin before heading back.  Bryce is now on the top of my list of places to visit again.  We all had just a great time.