September Scrapbook

Stewarts Marketplace did a back to school carnival where we enjoyed a free hotdog lunch and carnival games.  Amara's best friend. Sarah came with us.

Steve and I agreed to do a photography class in our community after being approached by several homeschooling parents requesting it.

Amara is one creative puppy.  She used watercolor pencils to transform herself into a canine.

Selfies with fun new phone filters are lots of fun.

More phone filter fun.

Steve and I hiked the flume trail one weekend for a date.  I snapped a few photos to test some of the photography fun I'd be introducing in our upcoming class.

I took this photo because I liked the play of light and shadow coupled with the textures of this rock.  I also like that a plant seemed to be growing straight out of the rock.

After a technology free summer and earning money selling our vegetables at the farmers market, it was time to start shopping for a puppy.  This little guy was cute, but had way too much energy for an indoor dog.

Puppy shopping: We ended up finding a listing on KSL for a "dorkie." The puppy was in Orem, so we drove out to meet and pick out the puppy we wanted.

After an hour of playing with 5 week old puppies in the dark, we chose the yellow-collared male dorkie.

A dorkie is a yorkie mixed with a dauschund.  His mom was 1/2 dauchund-1/2 yorkie mix, and the father was a silver yorkie.

We picked the second to smallest one.  He looked like he might have yorkie hair, which we were hoping for since that would mean he would not "shed" in the traditional doggie sense and leave dog hair everywhere.

My friend Arlene made these cute paper towel dolls as an example for our upcoming Relief Society activity.

This is what a typical set up looked like for us at the weekly Roosevelt Farmer's market.  It was hard work.

We started our first photography class at the Cynthia Center.

Micah, Mandy and their family came to visit! We loved having them over.  They arrived Friday 8/13 at 8:30pm and brought us yummy peaches they canned and pie fililng and jam.  I made (w/Lily's help) a big insta-pot of Chili Verde w/ all those tomatillos from our garden.

We ventured with Micah's family out to Ouray to Fantasy Canyon.  The kids had fun climbing to the top of the world.

We had snacks in the shade before heading back home.

In the evening, we went to the Pride of Neola Orchards to pick some delicious bubblegum plums.  They were so good that the trees were almost completely harvested clean.  The orchard master directed us to the trees and showed us all the plums on the ground that had fallen when people were picking, so we actually gathered the plums from the ground and collected a good amount.

Kids running through the orchard

Alexa had her very own daddy-ladder!  And Micah had the cutest picker on the planet!

We found more than plums.  There were tons of different apple varieties as well.  Going to the apple orchard to help pick apples for the church farms is one of the things I loved doing every fall when I was little. The orchards were sold off as I got older, but now I found an orchard practically down the street that brings back all those good memories of spending time as a family among the fruitful trees.  I'm so glad I got to share this time with my brother and his family!

I got to be my mom's date at this beautiful fall picnic that was hosted by the coordinators for her temple shift for all of the workers that serve in the temple with her.  The location was at the coordinators' amazing property with a duck pond, lots of green grass and trees, and a large timber pavillion.  The food was also amazing: parmesan bread twists, toasted french bread rounds with artichoke dip, pickled okra, fancy cheeses, crackers, meats, shrimp cocktail, grapes, fruit and veggie platter, pulled pork sandwiches w/ homemade buns, coleslaw, pasta salads, red velvet cookies and cupcakes, homemade oreos, hummingbird cake, rootbeer floats, almond roca, lindt truffles, and carrot cake! 

A look at the pavillion going the other way. The pavillion had a little closable kitchen built into one end of it!

Amara apparently took a TACO SELFIE with my phone!  Wait! That's a Taco Bell Chalupa.

My Uncle Bob who lives in California made the choice to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in September.  I was thrilled for him.  It turns out that his baptism day was also the day I was asked to speak at a baptism for one of the little girls in our ward that I was a ministering sister to their mother.  In my talk, I mentioned my Uncle Bob and the amazing covenant he was entering into that day, the same covenant the 8 year old girl was entering into.

Uncle Bob made these amazing works of art using perler beads for the sister missionaries that taught him the gospel.

I shared this picture of me and my dad when I was about the age that I got baptized.

These are the scriptures I shared about how baptism is entering into the gate that has the path that leads back to God's presence.

April and her family were sweet angels to come up and bring us our new puppy.  We took them to Allred's Garden Center for their first ever swap meet.  The gorilla is at Allred's.  We also went to China Star and toured a creepy single-wide (Tommy recognized that place was scary).

We welcomed our sweet puppy home.

Isn't he cute?

Mom, the girls, and I took April to Ladie's Night Out at Stewart's Grocery Store.  They had a craft for us to do, sugar cookies decorated like buttons, and fruit and veggies.

Amara enjoying her botton cookie.

How cute is that? Steve napping with the puppy on the floor.

Devon really wanted to eat a carrot from the garden.  He discovered he doesn't really like them.

Pippin is front heavy and falls forward when he goes to eat his food.

Pippin chewing on Lily's braid

Lily loving her sweet lil Pip.

My paper towel lady turned out cute!  I gave it to one of the sisters I minister to.

We got lots of playing time in with our puppy!

I got to take charge of April's boys while she and Spencer went on a week long anniversary to Maui.  I took the boys to Grandpa Jim's for general conference and it was so nice because they could play with cousins or with toys or on the playset outside.

Bridger never really had much of an appetite unless the food was dessert.

I got to send Devon off to school in the morning and watch him walk to the bus stop.  He's a good boy.

Tommy and Bridger always said goodbye to their brother as he headed off to school.  Bridger sometimes wanted to go too.