fall hike #2 - september 29

Justin and I started a tradition a couple of years ago where he takes off a day of work (although this time we went early on Saturday), we get someone awesome to watch Adeline (Corbin and Taylor this time), and then we head off into the mountains in Farmington on our four-wheeler. It's one of our favorite things we look forward to. It's so so pretty up there! ♥♥♥ (and I wish we had a picture of the two of us up there)

And technically, we didn't hike. Although I got off the four-wheeler a couple of times because I didn't want to ride down the incredibly steep hill. :)

fall hike #1 - september 22

Number one goal this fall - get into the mountains as much as possible. 

I was talking to a new friend who just moved to Utah. I told her she came at the best time because fall here is so wonderful. I stopped mid-sentence when I remembered that she just moved here from Virginia. I laughed and told her okay, it's a different kind of beauty, but it's SO beautiful in the mountains. 

Our first adventure was a trail near Pineview Reservoir. We didn't have a ton of time and it wasn't the most beautiful, but it was enough to get me excited for more fall hikes!

:: Rudger loved finding lots of variety of leaves, Adeline would pick up any random one she saw :: 

:: where's Corbin? :: 

my list

Last Sunday night, I sat down in bed and wrote out all the things that were in my head for the coming week. I felt super motivated and figured I would get most of the stuff done on Monday. :) At the end of the day on Monday, I had crossed off three things on my list. I was quite disappointed, but I knew I was being overly optimistic. 

By Thursday I was getting annoyed with myself that I had still not crossed much more off my list. I started adding things that I had accomplished to my list, just so that I could cross them off :) 

Justin ended up taking Thursday off and I knew I wouldn't get much of what I wanted to get done that day. I complained about how there is so much to do and I just can't seem to cross anything off my list. Then Justin reminded me of one of my favorite songs. It was the perfect reminder of setting my list to the side and just start living and enjoying life. I reflected on the week and all the happy things that happened, some were on my list and most were not:

Taylor excitedly kept coming home from scouts (which was just a few doors down from our house) and telling me about the best activity and wanted me to come check it out. I'm happy I finally set the grass edger down and walked over. And I was thrilled for him that he was able to walk across that bridge that was a bit too high for my comfort. 

Free chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A

Day date to get a hamburger and buy a jacket for daddy. Adeline was thrilled to tag along.

Buying a fall candle

Re freshening the front porch

Carpet cleaning at least half the basement family room

Admiring three beds that had clean sheets and were made

Also:

Opening the windows every morning to feel the crisp air blow into our home

Cuddling on the couch and listening to Rudger read books

Holding Adeline and having her hug and love me and tell me she loves me. ♥♥

Eating pumpkin chocolate cookies

Reading Peter and the Shadow Thieves nearly every night :) to the three older boys

Climbing into bed and night and watching our Netflix show at the end of the day

Checking out lots and lots of books about fall time at the library

Running 7 miles with Justin!! The most I've ever ran! and I could not have done it without Justin's encouragement! 

I still love a good list and the satisfaction of crossing things off that list, but I'm going to remember that some of the best memories are not on a list.

labor day weekend

Labor day weekend was really good to us. It would have been fun to take off somewhere for one last trip to officially end summer, but we really are such big homebodies. Going out during the day and coming home to cuddle at night is definitely a favorite here. We had a good weekend!

Rudger has been begging to move his mattress to the top bunk so we decided to make it happen. (He's the only one in that room and we have been meaning to sell the bunk bed and get a full size bed instead, but it just hasn't happened.) The kids thought it was the greatest! It made  my heart happy to see our two year old up to our 14 year old all playing together for a solid 20 minutes :)

We forced a family bike ride. It took forever to get all the bikes together and there were several flats that Justin quickly fixed, then we had a couple brothers crash into each other at the beginning, most of them complained most of the way, but we were determined to make this ride happen. 

We watched a movie downstairs (my favorite is watching a movie down there after we have the whole basement perfectly clean ♥♥) I ended up working on primary program stuff during the movie.

Adeline and I pulled out some fall colors for church. These cooler nights make me extremely happy!

Fast Sunday is when we have our typical roast, potato, and rolls dinner. It's one of our favorite days of the month!

Adeline LOVES her daddy right now ♥♥

We forced another bike ride, but this time we went to the school and played wall ball together. They were much much happier this time! :)

Justin and I got up early in the morning on Labor day and tried going on a trail run. It ended up being mostly a hike on the way up and a jog on the way down trying really hard not to fall. It was steep, hard, 6 1/2 miles, and I was ornery at parts. But when we got back to the car, I was so happy we did that together!! Having older kids to stay home and watch our babies so that we can spend some good time together has been so nice. But it is oh so good to get home to all those kids of ours ♥♥♥

We had a very good Labor day.

our august at a glance

 :: these summer days are exhausting when you're two (or 35) ::

 :: pokemon battle ♥♥♥ ::

:: cousin sleepover! :: 

:: I love our garden in August!! :: 

:: Adeline has some pretty amazing big brothers + babysitting two of the sweetest boys and everybody in our family was thrilled about it (the two year old is the son of one of Corbin's young men leader and all the young men love that boy!)  

 :: love these selfies I found :: 

 :: his first lost tooth!! + helping to frost the cupcakes for his party ::

:: cupcakes and donuts ♥♥♥ :: 

 :: swimming at cherry hill ::

 :: there's always a tilt in her head when she poses for the camera + better than Lagoon ::

 :: hiking with daddy is the best!! ::

 :: this is how we feel about public transportation :: 

:: The last Saturday of summer we went to one of my favorite places (eden/liberty area), to see the hot air balloons, with our friends. It was too windy for the balloons, but we saw some booths, played at the playground and left with free icecream cones and popcorn in our hands. So it wasn't a total bust. :: 

:: havenwood days!! (every time we come here it makes me miss our old ward boundaries so so much) ::

 :: full moon at the party + afternoons after school are back ::

:: packer family reunion :: 

 :: I took really close up pictures around town and everyone had to guess where it was (I figured Tyson would rock it...and he did, and so did everyone else!) + cousins forever!! ::

 :: getting excited for fall to get here so we made fall color bows! + ♥♥♥ ::

:: in n out and sweet tooth fairy with two of my favorite women ♥♥ + we found her namesake ♥♥ ::