Abundant Recompense Copy

An auspicious day for this cutie!

This year has been a lean one as far as available time and money go for our little family. Moving is the main culprit, in my opinion, for several reasons. I think Nate and I have grown as a result. We've attempted to stretch every penny and every minute as far as they could possibly go. It has been excruciating, in all honesty. But I think the effort has been well-spent, and will pay off in the long run. Having a garden was one of those things we didn't really have the time or the money to do this year, but we both felt strongly that a garden was worth investing in. So we worked really hard and got a couple raised beds put in and filled them with soil that turned out to be pretty crummy, and a modest crop of little plants. I feel like there was so little time available to spend on the garden this time around. Asa and I were the main caretakers, as a result. I remember spending what seemed like forever out there trying to get the plants well-watered every couple of days. It was ...

While Halloween is not my very favorite holiday, I love to watch the kids get excited about it. They have such a great time dressing up and anticipating trick-or-treating.  My mom made the cutest trick-or-treat bags for the kids! What a fun surprise to get in the mailbox! They all slept with them and carried various assortments of things around in them in the days leading up to Halloween. Thanks, Mom! This year our ward had a trunk-or-treat and chili dinner that we got to attend. We came really close to missing it because Leah had been sick, but she rallied just in time and we got to go. It was pretty much insane, as is any dinner time with four children. But the kids had a good time and got to do some fun activities and trick-or-treat. Leah was so full of sass as she rode her stick horse across the gym during the costume parade. She felt like a million bucks, and it showed. I was so proud of Addison for totally taking charge of his costume this year. He was a  bandit at the t...

A couple months ago I found myself with a real need for a project. Linda happened to be around at the time and got me kick-started on this little quilt for a soon-to-be-born nephew, Abbey's first. I love the way it turned out, and it was really fun to make. I learned to applique and hand quilt on this bad boy, so I figured I'd better record it in great detail for posterity. Or really just for me. Ta-dah! Here's the front view. It uses a block called a drunkard's path. I did it a cheater way so I didn't have to sew on the curve. My friend Holli taught me the hand quilting. It was way more time-consuming than I'd planned, but it was fun, too. I liked being able to design each animal just the way I wanted it. I'm putting pictures of the fronts and backs of each of the animals so I can remember how I quilted them. Thanks to Holli and Natalie for helping out! And how exciting to learn a new skill! Blue butterfly Squirrel Hedgehog Porcupine I went with little spik...

Well, still catching up, here's an explosion of things that happened during September. Nate turned 34! And really what's not to love, here? We had Jenna here for a few weeks while she got ready for BYU-I. We did all kinds of stuff and it was really fun to have her! Bri and Mason were here for about a week too at the same time. We hiked up at Snow Basin. Painted our front door. It used to be just plain white. (I LOVE it!) And made beautiful artwork for our wall. Also we made a billion freezer meals for Jenna, and canned salsa. Jenna and I drove up to Rexburg to get her all settled into her apartment. In a crazy turn of events, she lives in the very apartment, the very room, and the very bed that Megan had when she went there! What are the odds!? I'm so excited for this college journey for her! We've had a couple really fun preschools. One day I got brave and took the little guys hiking myself. We made nature bracelets out of masking tape. They got to stick beautiful thin...