folding party at my house

I took a week off of laundry...not a good idea.

Any good movies you've seen lately?

All tuckered out...

 After such a busy weekend, everyone crashed after Stake Conference. It was so fun to have Tyler home on a Sunday afternoon, even if he was asleep :)

Kalia didn't even finish lunch before her nap.

Four-Day Weekend!

Tyler loves driving in the car, taking in the beauties of fall, and I prefer hiking or wandering around in unique shops, so when we had a four day weekend, we decided to take a drive on "The Great River Road", complete with lots of stops to explore along the way. It was the perfect combination of our loves. Tyler even downloaded an audio tour that we listened to as we drove through each little town. The kids couldn't get enough of the audio tour (do you detect a hint of sarcasm?)

Just to the left of the fam you can see an area carved out of the trees--Archeologists think it might be a bow and arrow or bird that indians formed years ago. Or maybe some trees just died in that spot, who knows.

We stopped at a famous pie shop along the way-delicious! My fav was the triple chocolate pecan pie.

Grant and Garrett at the Amish furniture shop

Learning about the Locks and Dams along the Mississippi. I couldn't believe how fast the water drained to get the level down so the boats could enter.

Gorgeous views, good food and fun stops made for a fun family day.

I don't think we could have any car-family-together-time without at least one selfie of the kids. 

Thanks, Garrett!

Later that night Grant got to play flag football at the halftime of the Varsity Football game.

He was so fast running onto the field!

Grant is the secret weapon--he is so small compared to the others, but man can he run! (Grant is on the far right in the pic)

Getting ready for Halloween with a dress-up birthday party. Grant will be Mario, Kalia will be Cinderella, Shayla wants to be a Minnion (from Despicable Me), but not sure about everyone else.

When Tyler found out Kalia was going to be Cinderella he suggested we all go as the 7 Dwarfs. hmmmm, I think he got his fairy tales mixed up :)

We also had a fun morning at the pumpkin patch on Thursday

Feeding the chickens-Kalia kind of liked it

Choosing the perfect pumpkin

It was such a beautiful fall weekend--fun time with the kids, and Tyler and I got to attend parent teacher conferences and then sneak off to see Wicked. We LOVED it!! So entertaining and fun.

5K

We ran a 5K as a family, with our good friends the Searle's. It was a brisk, early morning, but such a great experience. The kids all did great--I was so proud of them!

 Ty came in second overall, with a time of 19:48, Shayla and Tyler came in at 30:57, Garrett at 25:05, and Grant, Kalia, Miya and I finished at 34:54. It was such a great feeling!

 Kalia was such a good sport--I woke her at 6am and she and Miya rode in the jogging stroller the whole way.

 After the 5K the kids lined up for the fun run--I made them do it because they said they were handing out medals to all the kids. I thought a medal would be a great souvenir for their amazing race and i was pretty excited for them. Well, the medals turned out to be the cheap plastic kind that you buy at the dollar store. We had a pretty good laugh over that, but hey, the kids did awesome on the fun run :)

The kids with their medals, and the superheroes who chased them on the race.