Endings are beginning....

 

On October 29, Jena and I attended an excellent YW in Excellence program at our ward.  While there, I realized that this is the last YW in Excellence program I will attend with a daughter (and maybe ever again in my life.)  With the way my three daughters are spaced, I never attended with two of them at one time but have attended them continuously since Jessica was 12 (Now we may have missed one due to illness or other conflict, I can't say that for sure.).  That means that I have been going for 19 years.  Pretty good for three daughters! 

With Jena being a senior, there are the normal endings for parents--and when it is your last one going through these ends, it causes a bit of heart tugging.  How quickly they have all grown!  How much I adore the five of them and now the additional family members which they are bringing into our lives. We are so lucky.

The Halloween Party season......

Wednesday--Ward Trunk or Treat

 

 

 

Friday--UDSF-Best Buddies Halloween Dance in Provo

Saturday--Special Olympics Comet Party

You can see that Jena has already started the Halloween celebrating and she has three more parties this week.

She was actually invited to another one on Tuesday put on by a ward in Syracuse.  I had gotten the invite by email at the first of the month and in the middle of my very sick time and decided not to worry about it since it was going to be on Tuesday.  At that time, Jena was working on Tuesdays and I had class.  I didn't even open the invite attachment.  I found out last night that it was one of the wards in my stake.  Darn, Jena would have loved that so much and she could have gone because she is working on Thursday nights now.  I was so disappointed that I hadn't followed through on that.

Simple experience but it reminded me of something that Bishop Watson used to talk about--As we make choices to do things and choices not to do other things, we need to make sure we are doing the right things.  We can't go back and attend or do something that we missed.  How true that is.  Life matches forward without stopping and we need to make careful choices of what we do with our time.

Have a Happy Halloween, my family and friends.  Boo, from Syracuse!

Fall Leaves revisited

Wednesday Gary blew up all of our leaves from our two maple trees in front of our house into a huge pile and asked me to invite a neighborhood friends down for some leaf fun.  We also called Aliyah and Halle (my niece's children who live around the corner from us).

They had a great time.  Leaves were flying everywhere as they ran and jumped and kicked the leaves.  From time to time Gary would blow the leaves back into a pile so they could start the process all over again.

Halle and Aliyah

Halle, Aliyah, Brody and Jared

Scarlett got to watch for a little bit.  Next year at this time, she can kick some leaves herself.  That's why I planted maple trees--for my grandchildren.  I hope one day they are big enough to support a swing.  I think tree swings are awesome.

Wednesday was the big day this week...

Chantel started back to work and Scarlett got to spend her day at our house with Grandma Hall (and Grandpa, Uncle Ben and Aunt Jena were there for parts of the time too.)  This was the first time that she was here without her parents (who we love dearly, too, of course).  It was so fun.

In getting ready for Scarlett's arrival, I had gotten a changing pad and diaper wipes and a couple of new rattles.  In addition, I washed these toys which I have been saving since Jena was a baby (Gary teased me about cleaning so many toys). No, we didn't have a chance to play with all of them.

But Scarlett loved looking at herself in the mirror...


Tummy Time

Uncle Ben played with her for about 25 minutes before her first nap and kept checking on her all day.

 

We played with toys, we read books including her new "Mouse's First Halloween", and rocked on the rocking chair outside on the deck.

Scarlett is one sweet baby and when it was time for her first nap, I wrapped her in her swaddle cloth, tucked her in our play-pak crib, gave her the binky and she went right to sleep.  About 30 minutes later, she started fussing so I went in to put her binky back in like Chantel had told me.  Scarlett was supposed to sleep about an hour.  However when  I walked in, she flashed the biggest smile ever at me.  She was cooing and smiling so much that there was no way to put the binky back in.  Nap over! I put her on the twin bed and she kept babbling and smiling away.

Would you put this baby back to sleep?
I don't think so.

Later in the day she went down for her afternoon nap.  Around that time I got a text from Chantel to see if she was doing okay and sleeping for me.  I sent her this cute picture of a sleeping baby.

 

Jena was excited that Scarlett was still there when she got home from school.  Jena took the picture of me with Jena and I took the one of her.

We loved spending our day with you, Scarlett, and we can't wait for you to come back again next Wednesday.  Scarlett has been having a special week as her Great-Grandparent Berenyi flew in to town from Florida for their first visit with Scarlett.  They are having lots of fun.