Mid-October

Betcha didn't think I could do it huh? I am caught up. I did it. I have caught up the blog. This has been hanging over my head for far too long! But I am a pretty determined person.

Besides that - the two things we do EVERY day for homeschooling are music and writing. We have always been pretty good about reading around this house, but we realized Cpc was honestly reading a little too much. He was taking in a lot, but having a hard time with output. So I decided that writing was something we needed to focus on. So I've done the same thing for myself. While the kids are doing their writing for the day, I do as well. It has done wonders for me. It has taught me a lot about how I process things, and writing really helps me to process things better. So, I'm hoping that what I've learned with that will help me to be consistent about keeping up with the blog. I'm also learning how to do it quicker, and even let the kids help. So hopefully it'll all be smooth sailing from here. Right.

Anyway, so far October has been full of it's own ups and downs. We started off the month by attending our final Mission Reunion, as they've decided not to hold them any more after this year. It was such a pleasant evening. We left our kids with Aunt Ace and went kid-free. It was our best reunion so far. It seemed as though we had all matured enough to just enjoy being together and reminiscing and strengthening one another, instead of being concerned by any comparisons and such. We were strengthened by one another's testimonies and uplifted by hearing of one another's trials and successes. I am so grateful to have served a mission with the people I did, in the place that I did. I am so grateful for our mission President and his wife. They were such amazing parents for our mission. President and Sister Cannon were truly "spiritual" parents to me while I served, and continue to be so even now. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures all evening.

Also that weekend, we enjoyed listening to General Conference, and had my friend Ad take some family pictures for us - since our first attempt at pictures back in August was a royal flop. We haven't gotten the edited ones yet because we need to do some choosing, but we will get them posted as soon as we can! I'm so grateful for my beautiful little family and the beautiful place we live!

This last weekend we got to enjoy my cousin Cjew's wedding reception. She and I are 3 years apart, but she's still my closest girl cousin and I'm just so excited for her and her sweetheart.

We also had a huge service project here on the property to clean things up! The Canyon Rim Stake is full of good hardworking men. They really made a big dent in the work that was needed!

 Clearing random pieces of cement pad out of our backyard! Thank you!

 Painting the playground.

 Loading up and hauling the never-ending supply of piles of wood.

 The service project started at 9am with breakfast, this is what the pavilion looked like at 9:23am. Deserted. Aren't those some hard-working, focused men?

 This is after about half the pile had been put through the wood-chippers!

Pmc worked right along with them all morning. I love this man of mine.

After that long Saturday, Pmc spent Sunday morning playing Monopoly with the boys while I snuck in some extra sleep. Cpc has been asking to play for weeks and I just don't have the patience for that game anymore. But Pmc spent a total of about 4 hours that day playing with them.

The sad news is that the reason he was letting me sleep is that I've been really not feeling well lately. I've been pregnant again, and this time around I actually got lots of morning sickness. We were hoping that was a good sign. Unfortunately on Friday I went in for an ultrasound that showed that there was really no development/progress since my last ultrasound the week before. Besides that, it didn't look the week before like I was as far along as I should have been. Then on Sunday night I started to miscarry, so here we are on our 3rd miscarriage in a row. I should have been about 9 weeks, but it seems things only developed about 5 weeks along. I'm getting a little worn out emotionally on this, but on the other hand I'm not super worried about it either. It is helping me to appreciate all the wonderful things we have going. We have 3 beautiful children, a warm house, enough money to provide what we need and many of the things we want. We have support. I get to stay home with the kids. I get to homeschool them, which I love. I love my job. I love my husband. He loves me. We have faith in a Heavenly Father who loves us, and we believe He will help us get through this and understand eventually why everything worked out the way it did. We would love to have another baby join our family, and I believe it's going to happen. But for now I guess it's going on the backburner.

Now I'm all caught up and hope to post weekly, and get our blog books printed too! Maybe I will be able to write more of the details and feelings instead of just pictures now that we're caught up!