Abundant Recompense Copy

Let's go on a quick stroll down memory lane, shall we? Back to March of 2011 when we bade farewell to the Ogden temple for a little while while they renovated.  The kids were so little! Since then we've been hauling it to Bountiful or Brigham City to attend the temple. They both seem so far away (I know, I know, I live in Utah and shouldn't complain.) and SO crowded. We waited and waited and watched as the temple was gutted and they discovered a river or something underneath it, prolonging the estimated rebuild time. And now, at long last, we have a dedicated Ogden temple again. What a blessing. We've grown! We went to the open house with Aaron, Trinity and Grandma. The temple is stunningly beautiful. I wasn't a huge fan of the design of the old one, although the "shadow by day, pillar by night" concept is cool. It reminded me of a birthday cake. Grandma got some amazing pictures while we were at the open house. Going inside with the whole family reminds m...

 As a last family hiking hurrah, we went up Farmington Canyon the evening before my foot surgery. Nate's coworker told him about a family-friendly trail along the creek, and it didn't disappoint. It was above the creek for the part we hiked, so we didn't see the water much, but after the first steep, loose-gravelly bit, it was a beautiful hike, and we loved the fall colors.  Toward the beginning was this little cave.   I found this Kelty kid carrier on KSL classifeds and we've already gotten our money's worth! We must find at least one feather every hike. Addison and Bryn took turns as the leader. After some serious fighting about it at first, they got the hang of it.

We've had a long, wonderful autumn this season. A real live Indian summer. As a general rule, I expect snow around October 25th. It's in the fifties today and I'd say that's the coldest weather we've had so far! Here's what we've been up to. Applesauce! We have friends in the ward who are kind enough to let us have all the apples we want off their trees for free! It's so fun to pick apples. I'm excited for our little apple trees to grow big enough to give us a notable yield. As it is, we ate the first ones from our golden delicious tree this year. The honey crisp tree is about a year behind, I think. We canned lots of applesauce. Hopefully six months' worth. Everyone helped - Leah's the only one we got pictures of, though. Nate went all sappy on me and took me on a hot date to a corn maze. Sappy because it reminded us of that fateful day many years ago when we went on our first date to another maze called Hee Haw in American Fork. I liked it....

Asa started solids a couple weeks ago. Squash was the first food and it was a hit. I love Leah's enthusiasm.

Our beautiful babies. This is a must-watch. We toasted marshmallows in our backyard several weeks ago. Nate pulled out his banjo and Addison was SO excited to favor us with a performance of "Red River Valley" accompanied by his father. He's reading it out of a Magic Treehouse book as he sings. I absolutely love it! Love this cheeseball grin. Addison taking care of his sissies on the way to and from the bus stop. Thrilled about a package from Gramps and Grammie and G.G. Waiting for the bus bright and early one morning. In the hamper. Asa has taken the first steps into the realm of crawling. Yikes! Addison has a healthy respect, we'll call it, for the chickens. He gives them their space. I took great pleasure in offering him a dime if he'd pick one up. Half an hour or so and a lot of heebie jeebies later, he earned his dime. Chillin' in the bouncer. We made applesauce oatmeal cookies a few weeks ago. It's one of my faves and an old family recipe. I thought i...