November 2019

November 2nd we celebrated our baby's 18th birthday at Tucanos.

I refuse to acknowledge that she is now an adult!

On the 10th we celebrated at the grandparents'.




On the 12th Faith did a service project with the Young Women assisting at a women's shelter sorting and stocking donations.




October 20th was book club and I held the meeting at our house.


The book was "The Hiding Place" and took place in the Netherlands. I tried my hand at making oliebollen (I added used dried currents instead of raisins) and they tasted very much like the ones I remember Sue making for New Year's when I was a kid.


On the 22nd I brought the Fun Friday Treat for Riot. These are sweet potato rounds with ricotta, pecans and cranberries.


On the 26th Jonah answered Faith for the Christmas dance:


We had a huge snow storm on the 29th!


On the 30th we were just getting ready to go to a movie when Faith remembered that we were supposed to be at the Nutcracker in Ogden in just fifteen minutes! We made the 30 minute drive in about 20 and just had to wait for an applause break for the deb to seat us. It was not Ballet West, but they had swapped with the Moscow Ballet as a special thing this year. It was good, but not as good as our favorite! I was especially disappointed with their Russian dancers, LOL! Mom gifted the girls another beautiful ornament to add to their collections.

October 2019

On October 2nd we met up with grandma Braegger, Tammy, Chelsea & her family at Gardner Village for some early Halloween fun.






On the 5th I made taste treat delight, just like my dad made my siblings and I on Saturday mornings when I was little.


On the 12th we took a drive up the canyon to Taggart's Grill for the world's best carrot cake and some other treats and were greeted by this peacock.


Later that evening at Smith's, Bud tried on this cool costume.


On the 15th Faith painted this gorgeousness using watercolors:


Here is her first try at watercolor, an assignment for her art class, in a display class at school:


On the 17th, we got this horrific news about our Bishop:

It freaked me out and I had to take an hour off work to cry and hug my kids. Luckily, he had never acted inappropriately around them or anyone's children I'd heard of. Still, it rocked our ward and left a scar we are still trying to heal from many months later.

Took a picture on the 19th since I put the fall leaves above the cabinets this year:


I didn't get a picture of Faith's I.D., but here is her school picture this year:


That night everyone fell asleep early except me.


I looked at the clock, what the heck? Asleep before 8 pm?


On October 22nd Christian's school invited the kids to dress up like tourists for some kind of ribbon week. We later found out not many participated, but Bud certainly killed it!


That afternoon I had taken a few hours off work to babysit Melinda Townsend's baby, Trevor, while she took her toddler to autism therapy. The sign-up in Relief Society filled up so fast! He was so tiny and squishy and smelled so good my ovaries ached!!


On the 25th Christian went to a Halloween dance (what we used to call "stomps"), his first dance ever. He wanted a Captain Kirk costume because he'd been enjoying some OG Star Trek, but for the amount of money I was willing to spend we could only get this Data from TNG (used, off KSL classifieds), which was the same color. We did get him the old school communicator, though. He had a great time!

(Notice that he isn't wearing glasses--because he got contacts! He's doing the daily use ones that you throw away each night so I don't have to worry about him cleaning and storing them properly.)

October 26th I went with Kim & Brandi to Viva La Diva, Trick-or-Treat Diva!













Absolutely AMAZING! We had the best time!!!

On the 31st Faith asked Jonah to the Christmas dance:




She went to school in her Jack Skellington onesie pajamas, so she was all dressed up to hand out candy that night.






I made chili, cornbread muffins and roasted pumpkin seeds.

I didn't get a picture of Buddy, but he wore the costume from the pic above and went trick-or-treating with his friends and hung out with them.

September 2019

Still at the condo, Christian had fun squirrel watching on his birthday September 1st.


Then doing some gift opening,




and cake.


We drove down to Braeggers and the b-day celebration continued.




That night at home, Bud got his highest score ever in Yatzee!


The next day we went bowling as a family birthday party for him


and played in the arcade there.








On September 4th we finally found the source of the screaming we had heard for nearly a week in the weed/reed patch in the back northeast corner of our house. It was a single, tiny abandoned kitten which was so dehydrated it was nearly nonresponsive at first. The animal shelter was already closed, and Christian wanted desperately to try to save the sweet little thing. So I drove him to PetsMart where we bought a kitten bottle and formula.

I told him I was 95% sure that she wouldn't make it, but he cared for her all night, feeding her and helping her potty every few hours. She was just starting to seem better, but then passed away in her sleep. It was a devastating experience for our whole family, but especially my kind hearted boy.

Because his actual birthday weekend is never conducive to friend birthday parties due to Labor Day, we were trying to decide what day to have it when Christian saw that in a few weeks it would be Friday the 13th. He thought that it would be cool to have a party that day! Here is his digital invitation (we just sent it to his friends by text to save us having to drive around, and also they could access it easily and it wouldn't get lost)


On the 6th I pulled a bunch of artwork & pics off our wall decor:
Bud-










Faith-




On the 11th Christian got his school I.D.


Here are some pictures from Bud's party on the 13th:
knife wound cupcakes


Jason on his banner


eyeball deviled eggs, just because they're creepy




gift bags full of candy, especially big bundles of Blow Pops I'd gotten extremely cheap out of a clearance cart at Smith's


They played night games like Fugitive outside, then came in so he could open gifts.

Just three friends stayed to watch Lights Out (I had recorded the original Friday the 13th off t.v. but weren't sure if it was still appropriate for kids, so we went with a horror movie we had seen and which was only PG-13).

August 21st was Brandt's baptism.




Faith & Jonah looking gorgeous for Davis’ homecoming dance on the 28th. He asked her to the dance with a huge stack of paper with only a few words per page, and candy in between. She answered with a printed, "I would be SODA-lighted to go to the dance with you" and took him out to Fizz for a soft drink. They still managed to have fun even though some jerk exploded spoiled chocolate milk in the gym!
















We took Bud school shopping on the 29th and he picked a bunch of fun t-shirts at Target. Here is one of his faves: