Better than one post, it’s a bunch of mini-posts!

Busy, Busy.

I’ve got a BUNCH of pictures that I meant to do blog posts around, but instead, I’m going to just lump them all together and tell you a little bit about them. Think of it of a bunch of mini-posts!

My good friend Lisa just posted about our fun time at Witches Night out last weekend. Since she used my pictures, I feel perfectly justified in sending you over to her blog to read about it. So, go HERE for the fun details.

Natalie finished up her volleyball season. They even had a tournament this year.

This is my favorite picture. She’s the one ducking away from the ball. Love it! But in her defense, that was just one time. She’s actually pretty good, and she’s got a wicked serve.

This one is a little dark and kind of blurry, but she JUST bumped it. Can you see that blur that is the ball there?

The girls and I went to see Thriller by the Odyssey Dance Theater. It was, as usual, AMAZING! I enjoy it more every time I see it!

I spent a day with my parents making and bottling applesauce. They have the apples, the know-how, and all the proper equipment, so it was much easier to go to their house and do the work with them, than to bring the apples here and do it myself.

They’ve got the operation down to a science, and it’s all set up outside! Which keeps your kitchen from getting totally stickified from apple juice and sauce. Jenna was home from school that day, so she even helped. Here she is with my dad.

I ended up with 26 quarts of applesauce and about 13 quarts of apple juice. Yum!

Every where you drive in Utah County, there is construction.

And every road that gets to my house is torn up. My friend Tammy wrote about the ongoing headache or the construction on her blog HERE.

My kids have been working on entries for their schools’ reflections contests. “Together we can” is the theme.

I’m relieved to NOT be in charge of our school’s reflections program this year. I have scrounged around and gotten prizes, but I’m not in charge. Happy Dance!!! But the kids are still entering, and since they are due today, we got 6 entry forms, 6 media release forms, and 6 entries ready last night (and this morning. Who am I kidding?)

We picked up our Japanese exchange student, Kuzuki, on Tuesday night.
(Sorry about the sideways picture-erg. — Fixed)
He seems like a nice kid. Yesterday he went to a farm with his school group, then had sloppy joes (we want to give him the American Experience, right?) and then played Wii with the kids. Tonight we plan on taking him out to dinner. We’ve also got carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating on the agenda. He won’t be here long, so we’re trying to make his stay enjoyable. Too bad it got so flippin COLD here all of a sudden! He and the other boys were playing in the snow yesterday, so I guess they don’t mind.

This picture just does my heart good. For any of you who have had little boys who hate reading, you’ll understand my frustration. All of my other kids are very advanced readers, and were reading well by the end of kindergarten. Two of them were reading before Kindergarten, actually. Then, my youngest is all boy, with no interest in reading or any of that school stuff. But he’s finally getting it. He can actually put words together and he told me the other day “I love reading, Mom!” Thank you Mrs. Barker!

Do you ever feel like you are “up to your neck”? Well, here’s John in the sand.
He let his sister and some random boy bury him while at Thanksgiving Point’s Dino museum the other day.

So, there you have it. A bunch of random mini posts! Stay tuned for pictures and the run down of all of our fun Halloween activities!