November

My mom came and visited at the beginning of November while Dad went on a hunting trip with Devin.

Happy 4th Birthday, Annie!!

We ate at Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch with some friends, then came home and partied some more.  It was a Trolls party :D

 David took Mason and Kate ice skating one afternoon.  They did great!!  We took Annie and Julie to the zoo to make things even.

 Mason started up basketball season.

 David took the kids out for dinner one day.  He's also been cooking a lot of dinners at home, thanks to Blue Apron!  Here he is making a pie for Thanksgiving.  We ate with some neighbors, and the girls made cute name cards for everyone's seat.  I made a fraction of what I usually do, so it was a very stress-free holiday.  Halloween was stress-free too, come to think of it.  Maybe I'm just getting better at juggling my time, maybe it's just because I'm not pregnant, maybe I'm getting older, but I am a lot more chilled out this season.  It's probably because David is cooking more dinners, ha!

During Thanksgiving break, we went bowling and had some little friends come with us.  We went to WinterFest at Worlds of Fun and went ice skating, saw some shows, and got hot chocolate.  We also went to Branson and saw the Dixie Stampede, went on trail hikes, played games with friends, and David and some kids went to a cool gym called Fritz's (Mason and Kate were brave and did the ropes course, and Mason had fun running up the warped wall), and I took Annie and Kate to see the "Miracle of Christmas" at the Sight and Sound Theatre.  Mason has been building a lot of Lego sets, too.

 

October

In October, David and Mason flew to UT for BYU's Homecoming.  We were all planning on going, but Garrett and Kate got married two weeks later, so we saved our plane ticket money for that :)

 

 

A stroll down memory lane: Freshman Academy where we met, my old apartment where David would meet me every morning to walk together to campus, Grandpa Theron Yates' old house, David's childhood house.

 

While Mason and David were gone, we had two friends come stay with us for the weekend, Macky and Mo, while their parents were out of town.  We went to the gymnasium, a pumpkin patch/birthday party, church, watched movies, and made lots and lots of treats!

 

 

 

 

 Garrett's Wedding!  So beautiful, so happy for the handsome couple, and so fun to be there to celebrate with family.

 

 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

 

 

Other fun things: We went to the Fun Farm pumpkin patch a few times as a family, and they had a giant corn pit, a corn maze, pumpkin donuts, carnival games (Mason and David were awesome at the sledgehammer challenge!), playgrounds, a big stage, a carousel, etc.  Kate learned how to ride her bike without training wheels!  David and his partner, Matt Russel, had a fall party at the Russel's farm and the kids got to ride a mule.  Mason participated in flag football, and he liked it well enough.  His coach would yell quite a bit, but Mason learned a lot about the game and played with his friend, Keaton.  We also did the Halloween activities and trick or treating at Worlds of Fun.