Collecting Leaves.

I love fall time! Once Caity collected more than "Just three leaves"she brought them inside- a vaccum's worst  nightmare! I started to pick them up the next day an put them in the trash and Caity was instantly hysterical. "My friends! My leave friends! You thrown them away? Baaaaah!" 

Still a touchy subject.

Either I need to be nicer to Caity's leaf friends or I need to get that girl signed up for soccer or preschool or someplace where her friends can talk back to her.

Under the sea...

RIGHT now, as I type this...John is:

SCUBA DIVING!!

 ...except it probably looks a little more like this:

John is going is currently training to be scuba certified! I am pretty excited for him, he has been wanting to be for a really long time so hopefully it is everything he dreamed! (and hopefully he doesn't get eaten by a shark.)(and die.)

Gifts.

For John's birthday I got him a new pair of Basketball shoes, he plays three times a week at like 5:30am, and his old shoes were pretty pathetic.  I thought these pictures showed them off well:

 (no, our bed isn't messy, its your imagination. its running wild, catch it.)

And get this- shoes CAN make all the difference! John can officially dunk now! I don't think he has been able to since high school, so he is pretty happy about that.

 Now, MY gift, I mentioned before John proposed to me again- well, here is the ring! (not so good picture...but you get the idea!) I still think it is romantic when I look down at my hand!

And Monday night, John brought me home a dead one of these:

 Just kidding, it was more like this:

minus the antlers...

But, really- looks like we are going to be serving deer for dinner throughout winter. idea of it makes me a little queasy, but I from what I heard, it was quite the shot- and I am pretty happy for him! And I am pretty grateful for the money we will be saving from the meat.  

So...not your typical roses...but, hey- it is what it is.

Sheep falls

Well, John and I made a goal last week that we would be done with ALL our homework by Friday at 5:00pm so we could spend time together as a family.  And it was seriously the best weekend!  Friday night we went on a date on campus to watch a comedian- it was pretty funny- I especially liked that John lined up the babysitter and everything! (I don't know why that stresses me out)
On Saturday we went on a hike to sheep falls, probably our favorite place in East Idaho.  There was still snow from October's schizo weather, but it was so refreshing!

Caity was so excited when she found out she would be able to use the fishing pole she got for her birthday.

 Johnny boy and I shared some quality Man2Mama time on the hike

 You can't see it, but they are both holding their fishing poles, Caity made a point to let me know fishing was "her and daddy's thing" but I could watch.

 The top of the falls (I didn't get an actual picture of Sheep falls because my battery died. Lame.)

 Well...Caity started out walking....wrapped around her finger, I'm tellin' ya!

 Scopin' the river bank.

The picture that killed my battery...berries...why?

 Of course they ended up choosing a cliff! Crazies. We got this picture on our phone, and I am glad we did- it was so cute seeing those two spend time together.

It was pretty cold by the time we headed home.  We watched a movie and had pizza (my favorite!) that night. It was so much fun just to hang out together. 

Sundays are always nice- especially when this happens after church:

He's not sleeping, just reading.

 And pretty much every day you will fine my kids doing this:

I don't know why I think it is so cute, but I love walking in on them just playing with the kitchen together- you know, Johnny playing with potentially-hazardous-choking-objects and Caity cooking a "grocery bad for lunch, it will be delicious! and Yummy for my health and body!"  Seriously, just seeing them as playmates is a nice moment for a mother.

So here we are in my all time favorite time of year! Things are so busy I am doing everything in my power to enjoy every second of fall until winter scares it away.  John and I are both going to school and that is probably what we find to be the most time consuming.  This is John's last semester! Yay!  Whereas I have....well, forever, for some reason.  Some of our high classes: John's major authors course is focusing on C.S. Lewis, who, is amazing! I am kind of jealous- but mostly just excited for him.  My favorite classes are my drawing class and my marriage course (I just changed my minor to Marriage and Family studies.) As far as drawing goes, I have always wanted to be an illustrator, but lack the basics of portions and volume and shadows and things, it has been a great class to help me get better footing or what not.  I have a class at 8 every morning and one Thursday night and besides that am home pretty much all day with my kids- I feel so grateful.  School is harder to balance but I feel like Caity and Johnny are handling things a lot better- which is kind of a peace of mind for me!

Speaking of thing 1 and thing 2- they bring such life to our home!  Johnny who was once literally petrified of Caity is now her biggest fan.  He just loves her and follows her everywhere (oh yeah, he is crawling now!).  There is nothing like hearing their giggles in the next room.  Johnny loves playing peek a boo with my scarfs, giving high fives and reading books. He is still so sweet- I am so grateful to have that little boy.

Caity is just my little girlfriend. I am always surprised at how much I count on her help with the little things, whether its entertaining her brother or helping me with dinner- she is my little helper.  Our family is reading Mosiah lately and Caity loves King Benjamen, almost as much as Santa Clause. She also has it out for King Noah and tells me she is giong to "kill him."  This worries me a little bit since her cousin's name is Noah- we will have to pull out the Old Testament stat.

Strangely my highlights so far this school year have been getting the kids cleaned up and in their pajamas and headed up to the school to do homework.  Johnny sleeps in his car seat and Caity will just wobble up there with her little backpack and do her homework with us.  We have a good time in that empty computar lab.
I also love just playing in the front yard waiting for John to get home from school and playing catch and drawing pictures on the sidewalk and collecting pretty leaves.

Hopefully we can make some Caramel apples for FHE tonight- oooo, that would be nice! I am excited to enjoy this october with the most important people in my life.  I love being a part of this family.