Birthdays and dances and surgeries, oh my!

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No reason for this photo other than that it is a delight to hear Natalie play.  She's grown a lot as a musician the past year.  I'm grateful for her teacher who is so great!



Kenna decided to homeschool through a local charter school this year.  Thus her back to school photo is just her, in her cozy clothes, ready for another day!


Logan and Jordan were able to attend General Conference this year!







Halloween this year - we had a bunch of kids come over and they went trick or treating in small groups.


Kenna worked at the haunted corn maze for all of October and nearly froze to death one night - but she survived and made some $$$ too!


        Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious



Faith was vampire Cleopatra, a normal Cleopatra AND a normal vampire - three occasions - three costumes.




Natalie was a runaway bride!




HOCO happened.  Natalie went to the dance with a group of her friends and they had such a good time!



Our friends Lance and Karen don't have children of their own, so they've adopted kids from several families in the area.  Karen had the great idea to get all of "their" kids together and take a family photo.  They even had heads made for Logan and two other friends (currently serving missions) who couldn't make it to the family photo.  It was so cute.  We are grateful for friends who are like family.


The other interesting thing that happened in October is that I had surgery!  I don't have any photos of any of that but it was a blessing to get that over and done.  September was an uncomfortable month for me and I was grateful when my surgeon decided that I should be fit in as soon as possible.  It made for a quiet birthday for me, but it was a good birthday gift to get that all taken care of!  Happy 45th Birthday to me!  I had an ultra-large ovarian dermoid cyst removed (and my left ovary), and my uterus removed due to endometriosis.    


JOSHUA turned 50 in October.  My surgery was just four days before his birthday and I had a party scheduled on day three of post-op.  I had good friends who offered to help me with some details to make sure it could still happen.  We surprised him with friends and tacos and had a really pleasant evening visiting.  I was grateful that I could make it - it was touch and go until the afternoon of the event!  We feel blessed to have such great community here of people that we enjoy spending time with.  

I didn't take any photos of the actual event - but here's the birthday boy in the story of his life (surrounded by girls) just a week later.  Oh how we all love this guy!



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