Week ending 10-25-20

 We had a great week. We didn't have many plans so we mostly stayed home and got a lot of school work done, read, did housework and yard work, practiced instruments, and hung out together. It was quite a productive week. The weather was in the 60's and 70's all week and this morning we got our first snowfall--just enough to barely cover everything, an inch or less.

Playing the sock game for FHE

Tuesday: Andy took this picture of us doing school. This is the best school year with everyone being able to do school and not having to be taking care of babies. Tilly gets bored and lonely sometimes but luckily she has Ruth next door to play with.

This girl loves to paint and draw all the time.

We spent some more time this week getting the last of the produce out of the garden before the snowy weekend. We made this quiche with 13 eggs we collected from our neighbors' chickens when we were pet sitting plus zucchini, squash, peppers, and tomatoes from our garden and milk from the raw milk farm. I love it when the whole main dish can be made with ingredients my neighbors or I grew ourselves.

We also made apple muffins using apples from our neigbhor's trees. 

Sam and Andy got a bunch of sod from a neighbor ripping his out and they put it under this big evergreen tree. The branches touch the ground so it's fun to crawl under them and it made for a perfect sleeping spot.

All of our pumpkins being picked. Harvest is over.

Saturday: Having a last campfire before it snows.

Waiting for everyone to come to dinner.

All of the pumpkins we grew. We only bought 2 pumpkin plants at the farmers market (and then later found our saved pumpkin seeds but never did plant them) and grew 30 pumpkins from them! A few are still green but the city turned off the irrigation water so there isn't a way to water them even if it stayed warm.

We lined them up from left to right in age order. Almost everyone had 2 pumpkins. A lot of the names didn't get carved deep enough so they scarred funny but we'll know how to do it better next time.

Here are mine, Kylie's, Madalyn's, Spencer's (they each only got 1), and Alexis (she got 3 and so did Kaitlyn but they worked the most in the garden and when they found a pumpkin w/o a name on it they wrote theirs. It was hard to keep track of how many everyone had.)

Here are Thomas', Kaitlyn's, Makenna's, and Samuel's (who wanted McKay on his pumpkins.)

McKay, Andy, and Tilly.

Alexis holds her 3 pumpkins. She is the one who bought the 2 plants and took care of them the most.

Makenna and her 2 pumpkins (she took a braid out right before this picture but the other one is still in.)

Kaitlyn

Tilly/Talea

We took a bunch inside and huddled the rest in the corner for the cold night.

I told Spencer Brooke could only come over and watch the BYU game with us if he let me cut his hair. So here is the before picture.

Week ending 10-18-20

We had a lot of little bad things that happened like losing things, breaking things, spilling things and getting sick. But at the end of the week I feel blessed that we only lost and broke stuff. At least no kids were lost or broke. We still have a nice house, good food, working cars, and each other.

Monday: I took Kaitlyn, Makenna, and Samuel to Park City to ride bikes and hang out together all afternoon. We had a few glitches like losing things and not getting in everything we wanted to do and the park we wanted had a wedding and then it got dark and cold. But otherwise we had a great time together. I'm so glad I could get away from Sandy and enjoy only having 3 kids.

We floated sticks down a creek.

We played whiffle ball with a plastic ball we found.

We had these dirt hills to ourselves.

Selfie at snack time.

Touring the scarecrow festival along the bike path.

Selfie at dinnertime.We enjoyed riding through the mansion neighborhoods then getting a treat at Smiths and heading home when it was too dark and cold.

Tuesday: Another nature school. A chipmunk climbed over my backpack, went inside my plastic bag, and grabbed one of my quinoa chips while I was sitting here watching.

Then it came back for our oragnes.

Andy with his car he made and drove places in.

Samuel with his car.

Time to pull out all the tall flowers and vegetable plants at the Tarbets. It's hard to see, but Spencer and Thomas were already in there working.

Wednesday: Making word flip books.

Thursday: Spencer spilled an 8 qt pot of pumpkin chili he was taking to his cousin's house. Luckily there was still less than half left but last time I only made half a pot and it wasn't enough so I was excited to make more this time.

While the older kids were spending the night with cousins Sam and Andy got a movie party. They ate a whole can of green beans and chicken strips and had a lot of fun.

Friday: Alexis made delicious pretzels. She put smokies in some, cheese in some, cinnamon/sugar on some, and left some plain. They were a tasty snack while we watched the BYU game.