It's over...

It had to happen sometime I guess. Farewell bold blue skies, lush yellow leaves and crisp fall air. You have been so beautiful.  Hello to the comfortable sight of snow dusting the ground and the tops of trees and the familiar crunch of it underfoot, the deep darkness urging me to hibernate, hibernate hibernate.

 I can't hibernate.

This is me enjoying fall weather. It was a warm day and I went to school to pick up the kids. I just lay on the earth and soaked in the sun, listening to my kids play and feeling incredibly blessed and happy with life. Call me a wacko but I think when I lay on the earth, or walk barefoot on grass, I get some kind good energy from the earth. I have wrinkles and freckles thanks to you Sun, but I love you.

The year we moved here 6 years ago Brad said he would run the Harvest Half Marathon, which starts right outside our house on the same weekend every year. I know because it's Conference weekend. Then he said it every year after until finally this year, he did it! I was so proud of him. He had a great time despite getting low blood sugar toward the end of the race. He's a natural runner. He works so hard every day and to accomplish this on top of everything else, well, I feel very lucky to have him. My Mom came to watch which meant a lot! He was finished by 9:30am and we didn't even miss one session of General Conference. Later that day we headed to Nana's for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. What a glorious day. 

Post-dinner fun at Nana's house

Thanksgiving fun at Grandpa Bates's

Thanksgiving bike ride at Grandma Gough's

Afton waiting for her brother and sister to come home and play. 

Halloween came and things were still fall-like

We watched Legend of Sleepy Hollow, carved pumpkins, went to the Halloween Dance and trick or treated all night long! My favourite part of this Halloween was Jesse's haunted  room. He'd had it set up for a while, spent his own money at the dollar store to decorate it and on Halloween night I walked in there to find it perfectly laid out- eyeballs scattered about, werewolf head lying on the bed with glowing eyes,  gruesome picture hung, fan blowing the clothes, snake emerging from the radiator. He was so excited to show it to the trick or treaters. I couldn't break it to him that no one would be comfortable coming in to see it-my heart was breaking! LUCKILY, he had quite a few admirers! The friends across the alley came by, a few of the trick or treaters he knew from school came in to see it, and our old friends the Christensens came by for a visit. He would hide behind the door and jump out when people entered. It was awesome.

We handed out cans of pop this year and my second favourite part of this halloween was when on kid said "awesome, a can of pop!" I thought of my sister Rachel and knew in my heart that she would be proud.

Okay guys, so I'm not a fun Mom. I try and I want to be, but frankly I spend WAY too much time shuffling kids and ordering kids and organizing and cleaning and cooking and doing the daily stuff to be fun. But every once in a while, when everything is caught up and we have a free day, which is not often, I spend some time just being with the kids. NO nagging, or worrying, or saying no. Just enjoying life and loving them. This day did happen a couple of weeks ago thanks to a fairy godmother day when my Mom came and thanks to some good daily work on my part, and we went for a long walk. It felt so good. Seriously, why can't I just have a housekeeper so I can do more of this? But I know I have so much to be grateful for, I really can't complain.  So Jesse climbed trees, which he does now, and I love it. I worry maybe a tiny bit but mostly I just love it!!! Can you spot him in the green?

We stopped at this park for a long time. It's a little park but you can make anything fun, and we did. Then we walked across to Fish Creek park to the roller coaster hill as we call it and held hands and ran up and down it and realized, this is more fun on a bike. 

This is my amazing husband Brad doing pottery with our girls. He is my hero you know. He's really saved me and plus he adores me. He loves the kids and works hard for us and takes care of us. I just had to take a picture when I saw this  because it made me happy.

One day I was driving home from a workout class and was feeling a little crazy. If there is one thing in the world I HATE it's people talking about me behind my back because dang it, just like you I'm doing my best!! I am very authentic about who I am and I really wish people would say things to my face. I'm so much better with that. At least I could defend myself. I wish I didn't care but I do, and I let it bother me. So this one thing one girl I'm friends with on Facebook said got in my head and I started wondering if everyone was judging everything I said and did and I couldn't handle it anymore. So I made this video, posted it on Facebook, immediately regretted it, but it was too late, then I deleted Facebook, it was long overdue. But this is definitely a side of me, and every once in a while it makes an appearance so here is a clip of it :)