Fall Beginnings

This was Dallin's first day of home school! He is loving it still.

Carter bonked into Tanner and had this funky lip bruise for his first week of Kindergarten!

Lukey turned 2! We had a family dinner and party. He loves the happy birthday song although you wouldn't know it by his reaction.  Opening presents was pretty exciting too.

My friend brought me some fun new baby things.  That made it a little more real.  Although I think I am in some kind of denial at the moment of this happening so soon now.

Our ward put on a great end of summer BBQ.  The kids got to decorate their bikes and do a bike parade.  I think that was their favorite.  They also got to play lots of other fun outside games and eat tons of food.

Lily rode her trike almost the whole time. The rest of the time she was busy being social.

Peter had all the kids engrossed in a book one night.  It is so cute when they all get involved.

General Conference was our best yet this time! I decided to shake things up and do it completely differently.  I printed some Conference Bucks from a website I found on Pinterest and had the kids cut them out for me.  Then I went a little dollar store crazy and found a bunch of things that the kids would like and keep their little hands busy.  Shopping for 6 kids ages and different interests is quite a feat.  On conference morning I set up this little store in my room and locked the door. 

We gave the kids 2 conference bucks and showed them the store and explained the prices.  We told them we would pause conference after each talk and if they were listening and reverent during the talk they would get 2 more "bucks". We would open the store for 2 minutes and they could shop before getting back to the next talk.  If they needed some warnings they got one "buck" or no "bucks" depending on how they did. 

Once the kids saw the store and had things in mind they were totally excited about it.  They had extra motivation to buy what they wanted before someone else did. For the most part, everyone bought exactly what I had picked out for that specific person and everyone was happy. 

We put out a bunch of white paper and MARKERS (which was a real treat instead of crayons) during the session as well so they were allowed to color to their hearts content.

I could not believe that we kept all 6 of them quietly busy and in the room for every session (minus the one we were at Larry's house for)  Peter and I even got to sit and listen for the most part and just give gentle reminders as the sessions went on.  It was amazing! The kids loved it and it was fun to spend so much of the weekend in one room together learning and enjoying one another. I loved all the cuddle time too.  We will definitely make this our new tradition every conference.

Dallin was running around outside and got this nice bit of road rash one day.  Poor guy was in a lot of pain for a few days over it. He couldn't wear pants and was even limping because it hurt a bit to walk.  There was a lot of gravel in it so we had him take a lot of baths with Epsom salts and we made of large homemade bandages to cover it. He got some gnarly scabs once it dried out and started to heal. He is the king of not picking owies though so after one week, it was fresh pink new skin.