Home is where the heart is

Today we officially own a home in Rexburg.......
and we've never actually seen it in person!!!!! Looks cute though doesn't it?

I've been trying to plan all the moving details and get over my denial that we really are leaving Bloomington in a matter of weeks. It was such a beautiful fall day today that the thought of leaving brought me to tears several times, especially while I was driving the kids home from a mall trip with Sally and her kids, and Mckenna kept saying "we're moving to Idaho, we will miss our friends." Maybe it is that we've been saying we are leaving for so long, because we originally had planned to leave in August, that it seems like it's never really going to happen. And though I am very excited in many ways and know that change is important and inevitable and necessary and promotes growth, right now it's been hard for me to think about.....hard to gear up for packing everything again, hard feeling like things are winding down here and I don't have much purpose, hard being alone with the kids so much because Nate is working more hours to finish what he needs to get done, hard feeling like I really don't have anything to look forward to the coming month, just hard saying good-bye to this place and our friends here and all that we know and are familiar with. Ahh, sorry for feeling sorry for myself. I just can't believe how much I've come to love this place. It is home and home is always hard to leave.

IU campus Fall Pictures

We had a friend take some family pictures for us so I thought I would share a few....I know it looks more like summer than fall .........but it really was fall time!

October

Pumpkin Carving and Trick-or-treating!

As an adult I'm really not into Halloween all that much. In fact I think it is such a weird holiday. Knocking on random people's doors and asking for candy? And doing it dressed up in crazy costumes??? But as a kid I remember not being able to think about much else other than what I was going to be for Halloween and trick-or-treating for at least a week before Halloween. I mean what could be better to a kid than dressing up and everyone giving you free candy???

For pumpkin carving, we opened the tops of the pumpkins and let the girls dig into all the slimy messy inside. They loved it! Nate and I really just wanted the seeds. Yum. We drew a couple faces on a piece of paper and let the girls choose which ones they liked best for us to carve. Baylee wanted a "mean pumpkin" and Mckenna wanted a "silly face." We ended up with 2 mean faced pumpkins, and one silly faced.

We went Friday night to our our ward Halloween party. I am always amazed at how many people come to this and how many of them (entire families) are fully decked out in costumes. In fact, I was in the minority of adults not having a costume on. Almost embarrassing. Here are the only pictures I took of the kids in their costumes. Sorry Grandmas. I meant to take more the next night before trick-or-treating but Nate ended up working late so I took the kids trick-or-treating by myself and totally forgot about pictures. I will say they looked pretty cute, Baylee was a pink poodle, Mckenna a purple dragon, and Preston a lion, "Raaaaaaar."

Mckenna had way too much fun roaring and chasing people trying to scare them because she was a dragon. I finally had to tell her to stop.

I wish he had his lion hood on.........he has now picked up on roaring when asked what a lion says.

13 Articles of Faith

The girls both passed off their final article of faith to our Primary President last week. They got to go into Primary to get a big chocolate bar. I was surprised how they ran right up in front of all the kids to get them, not scared at all. They were so excited.

Fall is come and almost gone.

We took a Sunday drive to see the fall colors and hiked to the top of the old fireman's tower. It seemed a lot higher looking down from the top than I had realized on the ground, especially with all the kids with us!!! Nate and I both kept clinging to their hands the whole time. Wow, what a view...