Garden prep/Farm day

Jared is a pretty awesome brother. He's helped us out a lot with our garden. It was fabulous this year! We went up to get a new batch of soil mixture to help the magic continue next year. It's always an entertaining and fun time up on his "farm."

He hooked us up with a batch of wood chips, grass clippings, and we shoveled on mounds and mounds of horse manure. After helping Jared take some hay bales over to repay a friend, they ended up coming back with sand to mix in with it all. Who knew soil was that complex?

It literally went from having a 70 degree day to a cold fall day the next. Welp, I guess fall time is here!

These boys were hard workers raking up piles of poo for us to shovel on.

Jared was a huge help. He's so happy and willing to work hard.

The boys loved seeing their cows.

It was super frightening watching little CJ driving this four wheeler. The blind leading the blind. Fortunately no one was hurt and only almost rolled over twice going up the wood chip hill.

After helping out in the garden we went inside for a yummy lunch with all of Jared's fresh produce. Cucumbers, squash, fresh tomatoes, delicious corn on the cob. So fun to catch up.

Jared helped me learn how to saddle up a horse on my own. (story on that below)

Gavin really had a blast on the horse with me! I was surprised!

We filled up our trailer and Jared and Aaron went to drop off some hay. In the mean time I worked with the boys to fill up Jared's trailer for his garden. CJ and Jaylen were talking about digging to the center of the earth and finding diamonds and coal... which lead to talking about my wedding ring. I said, "It was a pretty awesome choice I made to marry Aaron, huh?" CJ looked at me and said, "Well, you could have found someone with a little more hair.." Oh, it cracked me up. The honesty of a 6 year old.

These two silly boys buried each other in the sand they brought back.

We got our garden poop home, shoveled in and decomposing for next spring! Such a fun day helping out around the farm.

So my story about the horse-

I have a cute little girl in my primary class (11-12 year old girls) who's birthday was recently. She was telling me that she has dreamed about riding a horse. I told her I'd love to take her to ride on my brother's horses to help make her dream come true. We've been trying to work out a time for the last few weeks to make it happen. We finally went up last Friday. We got her, her sisters and her mom on and horse (while Jared and I shared one-ha!) and took off on a ride right as it was getting dark. Long story short- we ended up a sandy trail and her horse kicked his legs out to get his stance and off she went. She cried and Jared had to talk her into getting back on the horse to come down. She had swollen red eyes when I went to say bye to her in her van. She was really good through all of it, but clearly in pain.

I went from feeling like a hero to zero  in 1 minute. Oh, it was sad. She was supposed to play the cello for our primary program the next day and her family ended up taking her to the instacare and finding out she'd broken her clavicle. 5 weeks in a sling. Poor thing. Such a crazy turn of events.

Sweet girl brought me cookies later Sunday night to say thank you for taking her on a horse ride. I feel terrible it happened to her, but glad she'll forgive me for such a crazy experience!  It's a pretty amazing talent to be able to take a little girl's dreams and turn it into a nightmare that quickly! :)

Running/biking to our "special spot"

Saturday morning after Aaron got back from playing basketball Jaylen and I went out for a run/bike ride to explore the new trail that opened up by our house. I love these runs with Jaylen. He talks the entire time and I love having special time with him. He was so into exploring the new trail- I love seeing his excitement and zeal for life.

The new trail connects to the existing one that we've gone to our "special, secret spot." Once we got to it, Jaylen was all excited that we'd found our special spot. He climbed up on our rock and pulled out two treats he'd snuck into the camelback to surprise me with. So, so precious. "Mom, this rock is perfect for us to snuggle on!" I love this kid more than anything.

I ran a route that went through this canyon where we have our special spot yesterday and teared up as I ran by our spot, thinking of my Jaylen. I'm so proud of him. So in awe and grateful that he's mine. He has such a tender heart and is so loving and kind. I love his sweet heart and the gentle manner in which he treats me, Gavin and Aaron. I love him to pieces. I could never put into words adequately how grateful I am to be his mom.

Gavin

Oh my goodness. Have you ever had one of those totally embarrassing moments due to a child? Well today, Gavin gave me a good one.

Jaylen's best friend, Kelson, came to the door with his brother who was asking if he could play. (He'd just gotten back from chemo and radiation in Salt Lake City today). When Gavin saw Kelson, he exclaimed, "It's Kelson and he's not DEAD!!" Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Like really sorry.

At dinner last night, Gavin was eating his food, looked at the bowl, and asked if he could have more after he was done. Aaron told him he could. Gavin said "GREAT!" just like Aaron would do. It made us bust up laughing.

Gavin says squirrel so cute. We love hearing him talking like a big boy. His words crack us up.

He's so into playing pretend lately. He's got two voices he does and can play for a very long time, playing by himself using legos or animals to talk to each other. It's really adorable to listen to what his little brain comes up with.
 
Gavin is starting to show a sweeter side. He's more into snuggling (possibly influenced by wanting to be like his big buppy!) and today he saw a Minnie mouse blanket, grabbed it and got so excited because Olivia would love something like that. It was cute that he noticed!

A cute story about Gavin lately-
We were going to meet my friend Holly and Olivia at the park for tennis. Holly and Olivia didn't end up being able to go till later, so I told Gavin we could either go to the park now without friends or go later when Olivia would be there to play. He said, "It's okay if we go to the park now without friends, Mom. We don't need friends, we just need each other." Seriously made my heart melt. We ran around that playground pretending to be Mario and Luigi all afternoon, just the two of us. It made my day complete.

Halloween FHE

We carved our pumpkins and bobbed for apples for family night on Sunday. It was so fun. Bobbing for apples is pretty dang hilarious. I hadn't done that for years! The boys giggled and giggled trying to get the apples while sinking their face into the water. It was priceless.

The boys were so proud of their pumpkins! They could sit and watch them glow forever!

Aaron did a great job demonstrating the proper technique..

Halloween 2014

When we found a Luigi costume at Walmart, Gavin about lost it. He was so excited to be matching Buppy. (a nickname we LOVE that he still uses).

They played ALL DAY in their costumes. They wouldn't take them off!

Oh, I love that face. My sweet boy!

The sunset was amazing!! It was in the low 70s while we were walking around- such a perfect night. LOVE LOVE ST GEORGE!

Gavin and Olivia

One of the highlights was going to Kelson's house. Jaylen had dropped him off a gift a few days before and he was gone for radiation and chemo. His grandpa said he'd be back on Halloween and be watching trick or treaters out his window. When we got there, Jaylen opened his bag of candy and told Kelson to pick out his favorite kinds. My heart melted. Kelson was feeling pretty good, so his mom let him go with us to trick or treat a few homes. I was so happy to see them catch up, playing around and getting to be together. Jaylen misses seeing him at school and being able to play with him. Kelson eventually said he felt sick and needed to go home so we dropped him off. So proud of my Jaylen being a good friend. My heart breaks for Kelson and his family.

This house had a semi blocking the street, had a movie playing on their house, were serving up food and drinks, had a bounce house and tables set out. Seriously amazing.

Wow, did we have candy. Which lasted a week... we have NO self control over here!

Such a fun day going to the mall to trick or treat, making our way to the Cluff's for their ridiculously good homemade donuts, and trick or treating throughout our neighborhood. Fun, good memories for sure. I love this sweet family of mine.

Staheli Farms

We love the Staheli farm pumpkin patch. Especially having it less than a mile away and having it be amazingly warm and pleasant. The kids had a blast!

Cow train!

Grand Witches Council neighborhood party

Our neighborhood does this amazing party the weekend before Halloween. "Witches" send out email invites, we get put on teams and we come up with our name, costumes and go on a crazy scavenger hunt all through the town, following clues through QR codes. It's seriously FANTASTIC. We were the team captains for CREEPY CARROTS this year and we had a great team!

Aaron trying on a neighbors wig. Oh man, such a Edgley face with all that hair. Reminded me of pictures of Scott and Brett.

We began with dinner before the clues started coming in!

Aaron went around with Christian Bateman and Chris Fitzgerald to prank some of the teams the night before with these.

Team White Trash pranked us SO good. A blown up flamingo, trash and signs in our yard. It was seriously priceless when I walked outside. Of course, my friend Stephanie was totally involved with this!

We pranked the other teams by pulling up a bunch of our carrots from our garden, steaking them, drilling holes through them and hanging them from trees, putting them in yards and all over peoples light fixtures. Such a fun night.. The couple on the right are our new back neighbors who just moved in from CO. They have 2 adorable boys! So glad they're neighbors!

We love our neighborhood. So many fun, silly people. We look forward to the Grand Witches Council every year. So amazing.

At the end, as the teams all come in, the witches reveal themselves and pass the "golden broomstick" to the winners.