October 2018

Benton's cute school picture.

 We had a record breaking amount of rain in October.

 With how seldom we get rain, it was exciting to walk to school in the rain, and miraculous that I was able to find the umbrellas.

 YW game night.

 I went running a few times in the cooler weather and loved the beautiful scenery.

 I had a meeting with deputy directors of the Parks Department at the City to look into getting the park in our neighborhood built.  They have an amazing view from their conference room.

 Voting for my neighbor and school district.

 Trip 12 to Wet N Wild, getting really cold!

 Our family tradition of floating toys down the drainage lives on!

 Benton bought Mastermind and The Oregon Trail with his birthday money, both games I played as a kid.

 We got Benton a pass to the AZ Science Center for his birthday.

 The Spauldings joined us for one trip there.

 Asher and Lily picked up their relationship quickly!

 Asher got his soccer socks and wore them for a few days straight.

 Last October Mike and I hiked in Sedona and the leaves had all changed beautifully.  I checked ahead of time and read that the leaves had changed, so the boys and I went up over Fall Break.  There were patches of color, but most were still green.  We hiked West Fork which was 6.5-7 miles round trip with close to 30 water crossings.  I was amazed how well they all did!

 Soccer season started with a super stormy day.  Asher's game was first and only had some sprinking.  Benton's game got really windy and rainy.  We had to hold the canopy down until half way through the game was cancelled.

 Drenched, we went home, not sure if Ethan was going to get to play.

 I sat on the porch, enjoying some soup.  We got mixed messages about whether Ethan's game would happen, so he didn't get to play.

 We had tickets for a Taco Festival and got in the middle of some crazy flooding on the freeway and surface roads.  We did eventually make it over to enjoy some great tacos.

 There was also a funny wrestling show.

 For Ethan's birthday, we got him tickets to a BYU home game while he would be there visiting Grandma Abegg.

 

 He was very excited to get Monopoly Cheater's Edition...

 and an ATM!

 We always love a reason to get the Costco chocolate cake!

Because of Asher's love of his soccer socks, when we saw a pack of silly tall socks at Costco, we brought them home.  He LOVES the pineapple socks he is wearing here.  Here he is riding his bike to Benton's parent teacher conference.  Notice the striped shirt, plaid shorts, pineapple socks, and Keens.  He loves colorful "beautiful" clothes.  He says that being a boy is boring and he wants to be a girl (I think because he likes all the fun colorful things girls get to wear, so we try to get him colorful things, too).  At the conferences, he could yell to anyone he saw on campus, "Look! I'm have pineapple socks!"  Even during the conference he put his foot up on the table and excitedly told the teachers about them.

 Nana got Ethan  passes to Uptown Jungle.  I made it a goal to try and facilitate Ethan's school friendships to stretch to home and it has been awesome.  Jacque, Cohen, and LJ (and their families) have been a great addition to our circle.

 Preschool continues with our cute kiddos.  They can sing about the calendar in English and Spanish.

 Asher brought his blanket grocery shopping and said he was cold.  He ended up sleeping all afternoon.

 After falling asleep at lunch.

 I ran a Margarita Madness race with coworkers.  It was at 4pm and was over 90*.  No water was provided and I forgot my headphones, so it was not my favorite race.

 More rain!  We were training for the Turkey Trot and didn't realize it was raining until I got everyone out the door, so we ran anyway.

 Crazy hair day!  Ethan said it had fallen by the time he got to school.

 Back at the AZ Science Center.

 While Mike and Ethan were in Utah for Jil's birthday, we had soccer and then went to a pumpkin patch at a local farm.  It was nice to not have to drive far and to look for pumpkins in a shady orchard instead of in the desert.

 We also had our ward Halloween party. 

 Meanwhile, Mike and Ethan had a great time in Utah.

 Ethan with Elizabeth and Grandma's house.

I did a Halloween bootcamp.  Every station had monster themed exercises or pumpkins instead of weights (real and weighted jack-o-lanterns).

 We had a Halloween playdate.  It worked out great having a half day, but ended up being at least 25 people throughout the day and pretty exhausting.  We started by making costumes for stuffed animals and having a stuffed animal parade.

 We made a "laser maze" and had a pumpkin toss game out back.  Families came over for dinner before trick-or-treating, but I under planned on food and forgot to ask Mike to come home early, so we didn't end up going out with friends, but I was ready to go around the block and then come home and collapse!

Coaching four year olds was really fun this season.  We organized teams that all practiced at the same time and place to make life easier.  It was great to have multiple families all there to help each other though crazy soccer schedules.  Ethan couldn't be a part of the co-op, but after the first practice, his was moved to our closest park and was able to ride his bike to and from practice on his own.

 Asher was doing writing practice and wrote to Nana about his socks.

 McKenzie did a fun Halloween preschool.

I've been wanting to do this costume for a long time and the boys were nice enough to agree.  I should have made mine a circle because no one could figure it out, but it was easier, more comfortable and worked for my exercise classes this way.  I wore Ms. Pacman for Cycle and put ghosts and fruit on my handle bars.  For Bootcamp I wore all black and a witch's hat.

 I liked this costume idea because I relate so much to Ms. Pacman.  The ghosts are always swarming me, no matter where I run.