BBQ at the Richards'

I love our neighbors!  My sweet friend Remi lives around the corner and decided to just invite a bunch of the newer young couples/families in our ward over. It was the perfect FHE evening. Good food, friends, and the kids ran around silly in the dark having so much fun! (As a side note-- I decided to experiment with making my own pita bread and it worked beautifully!  I put the dough recipe in my bread maker, let it do all the mixing, rising, and kneading, then just took it out, rolled it flat and cooked it on a pizza stone on the grill-- it's supposed to cook at about 525 degrees! Turned out soooo yummy!  Jason made Greek yogurt sauce, we cut some veggies, I made hummus and we brought it all to the BBQ. Woot! woot!)

Alyssa and Kayce-- love these women. Our kids are all together at Discovery Charter this year:). 

May Harris

Emily & JT Champlin

It happened to be Will's birthday, so Remi got him a cake-  in spite of a little protest:)

Lydia & Kacob Hall with Remi

Aww yea!  Kickin' back with my soda.

Flying Airplanes with Grandpa

One of Grandpa MacKay's favorite hobbies is airplanes. We ran across this little beauty in Costco and couldn't say no for his birthday. Of course, whenever they come over, Grandpa's generous enough to let the kids have a try flying it too!:) Jake is actually pretty good!

Jakey Playing Soccer!

I love the park that Jake's coaches have chosen to practice at this year. It's so beautiful and has plenty of fun things for the other kids to do while Jake is kicking a ball.  (Usually if Jason is home, I just have him take Jake. But more often than not lately it's me and the c gang!  A little crazy but we make it work).  It was so beautiful the other night we decided to just take the whole fam to practice. 

Watching Jake's game on Saturday:) 

Go Wolves! 

Fall in Vegas!

Jacob is in school, soccer has started, and Jason is working double between his dad and Primera. Life is busy, but we still try to make regular outings to the park and library. Here's a few favorite picts. 

(By the way, yes, I still have to get in my yearly dig that it is now paradisiacal here with temps in the mid 70s! Hahaha!)

You go girl!

This kid could LIVE on the swings. I love this happy face and curly head!  Like Kimbre says-- Pure Joy! 

Climbing high!

To say Braden loves his new bike is an understatement. Once he gets on, he rarely gets off. If he is not seated on his bike, he is sure to keep his  hand touching it at ALL times just on case anyone should even think of taking it!!

Love out park friends. These women keep me sane. :)

Baby Suzy getting so big!

Superheroes at home!  I never need fear with these guys around! :)

Rode, Bray, and Calvin-- ninjas! 

Some days she's "Elsa" singing away, some days she's a super hero, today... maybe Princess Lea? 

We're staring to crawl!  Watch out world! 

It's a little hard to see in this picture, but Suzy is wearing a bow in her hair-- I don't think I was able to so that with Brook until she was about a year old! :)

Mom's House is Sold!

Mom moved out of her home on October 1st.  Today is October 9th, and we just found out that the people who looked at her house on Monday have agreed to buy it!  Steve had planned to list it next week, and did the research to determine a competitive price (thank you, honey!).  But suddenly,  here we are with an offer in hand.  It's a miracle, and Michele and I feel that divine intervention is definitely at work here!  (Thank you, Daddy, for helping make it happen.)

Michele and I have been cleaning out Mom's house since mid-August, going over a couple of times a week - until mid-September hit.  More days per week, with lists of items piled up on the patio to give away to grandkids and others, items to discard, and items to send to Goodwill.  Mark and Audrey came to Boise the weekend of Sept. 26-27 to help out.  Then we moved Mom in with us on October 1st, and took a well-deserved break on General Conference weekend.

Between last Monday and today, we managed to complete the deep cleaning and stage the house with a few pieces of furniture for showing the house to a couple who used to live in Mom's ward.  Funny thing is, last Monday we weren't finished cleaning everything, but the wife came through with a couple of friends who live down the block from Mom, and she LOVED everything about the house.  Knowing that she was going to bring her husband back on Wednesday to see the house, Michele and I spent all day and nearly all night on Tuesday to finish cleaning and staging.  (I arrived back home at 1:00 a.m.  -  that was a long day of work, but totally worth it.  The house looks GREAT!)  On Thursday, they made a wonderful offer with no contingencies, and we accepted their offer!  They will have an inspection done, which we worry about - knowing how old the house is.  But they assured us that the inspection was ONLY for them to know where to start with remodeling plans!  They are the nicest people, and have 7 children!  They want their youngest children to attend Adams Elementary school, and their oldest is a senior in high school, who will be leaving for a mission after he graduates next year.

Not only is this sale a series of miracles, but these people also sold their home in 3 three days - a brand new, 4200 sq. ft. home that they have lived in for about 6 months, but decided that it was located too far from everything, and too big for them after all.

EVERYTHING has fallen into place - more than I can relate here.  Truly, all of this is meant to be.  It's been a spiritual experience to witness all that has happened in the past few weeks.  We are so blessed in so many ways!

Family Night at the Farmstead

About 2 miles from our house is The Farmstead.  It is the the very first, original corn maze in the state of Idaho.  They have been doing this for over 10 years now and every year it gets better.  This year we decided to spend family night together getting lost in the maze, swinging, jumping, sliding, riding and more!

 First was the maze.  It is huge.  The theme for the maze was The Wizard of Oz.  This is a map of what the maze looks like from the air.  Did I mention it's HUGE!  

Drew held onto the map and let Ava and Brycen try to solve the maze themselves.  After about an hour and a few wrong turns, we made it through phase one.  At this point the kids were done so we moved on to some of the other attractions.

 This was the Idaho Potato slide.  That's right - climb to the top, sit on a potato sack and slide to the bottom.  Only in Idaho.  :)

 We couldn't miss the cow train!

 Or the Corn Box.  This is like a sand box but full of corn kernels.  Brycen was buried up to his ears!

 The playground also offered swings that looked like horses and another giant slide.

 Next to the playground is a large "pillow".  It's a trampoline of sorts.  

 It took some time to get his balance, but soon Carter was bouncing with the rest of them in style.

 After the bouncing we moved to the small petting zoo.  This little girl never misses an opportunity to pose for the camera.  :)

This was a great evening for our family.  Since it was family night I tried to round out the evening with a gospel lesson.  I tried to teach our kids that life is a maze of decisions.  We are constantly forced to chose one way or another.  Sometimes we get a little turned around and have to find our way back.  Thankfully Heavenly Father has given all of us a map.  This Map (the scriptures) helps us choose the right way and leads us to our goal.  When we don't consult the map regularly, we tend to get off course.  But if we keep it close, we will surely find our way back.  

I don't know if they got it, but it was still a good reminder for me.  I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of a loving Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me and has given me everything I need on this earth to make my way back home to Him.  

It's Good For My Soul

The trees are beginning to change, the air seems a bit crisper and the sweet smell of autumn floats in and out of my open windows.  Ahh...  This is one of my favorite times of year for many reasons.  But one imparticular is canning season.  I love to can peaches, salsa, applesauce, etc.  It brings me back to my roots.  It makes me think of mom and grandma, peeling fruit and bottling up some of the best fruit of the season to be enjoyed later when the snow hits.  I know I sound like a pioneer woman - but that's kind-of how I feel.  I love doing the work and then sitting back to look at what I have accomplished.  Those sealed jars gleaming in the sun make me proud.  It is such a satisfying feeling.

This year someone in our stake announced that he had honey crisp apples for .50 cents per lbs!  That is an insane price!  Normally they go for close to $3.00/lbs. in the store.  I happily grabbed a box and got to work.  These apples were huge!

 A friend of mine owns this little contraption.  I don't even know what it's called but I LOVE it!  You place the soft apples in the top.  Turn the crank, and ...

Apple-mush comes out one side and all the peel, core and seeds come out the other end.  Surprise!

 The final product!  I made 11 quarts and 8 pints of applesauce and 4 quarts of apple cider!  It is so delicious!

Last month I did peaches with mom.  That woman knows how to keep it clean and organized.  We spent 4+ hours together canning the most beautiful peaches.  Now when I stack my applesauce next to my peaches, I stand back and look at my work and think how thankful I am to have been taught such an important craft that is becoming more and more uncommon these days.  Next month I plan to do salsa and be done for the season.  

Birthdays by Mail

Nana and Papa were so sweet to send us these!  Everyone celebrated their birthdays one more time as we all openned presents!  The kids loved their gifts and immediately began playing while we skyped. 

Grandma Day Quote

Braden "I am Jesus' son."

Brooklynn "I am Santa's son."

  (Prounced "san-tuss- suzz" son)

Ha ha ha!  Gotta love these little sibling rivalries.