October Birthdays!

We have four birthdays in October on my side of the family.
My mom, Evan, Seth and Ellie.

Evan has started decorating for Halloween.

Aubree was showing me the glow in the dark spiderweb.



This is what being the Gospel Doctrine teacher looks like...
even at your birthday party

Shaylyn got some tickles from Grandpa

Ellie, who is turning 3, was pretty excited by the stuffed dog one of my tutoring families brought me from Taiwan. It's supposed to hold a cell phone, which is just perfect for Ellie. She also was pretty into the AppleJacks necklace Uncle Kurt made her.

Lisa made change-your-life-good BBQ chicken pizza all on the BBQ.

It was amazing!

Yummy salad from Aunt Patty

And a fruit pizza by Grandma Donna.

This is the first year Ellie has been into birthdays.

She was pretty excited that her name was on the cake.

Aubree took these next two pictures.

She's pretty skilled with the camera!

Ellie modeling her new Rapunzel dress that came with
her new Rapunzel doll from Grandma.
She's still holding the cell phone dog.

When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday all she would say was "blue crackers".
Luckily, she didn't mind that we just wrote blue crackers on this package of Goldfish.

A sneak peak for Halloween...

Ellie will be going as a gnome from 'Gnomeo & Juliet'.

She's excited.

A-Z

Hockey Season has started. That means that Kurt and I will continue on with our quest to get each letter of the alphebet in the background of our pictures from the rows at The Pond. So far we have:

"J"

and

"P"

It's important to have goals.

This Week in Primary

We talked about Temples. We're lucky that our ward meets at the Bonita Canyon building. Plus, we only had four of our little ones that day instead of our usual eight. Brother Baron was making them laugh in this picture. "Everyone say cheeseburgers and fries and soda...!"

 The sun was a little bright.

Then we all went inside and drew a temple on the chalkboard.

Before class we have sharing time with the Sunbeams and the 4 year old class too. Here was part of the conversation:

Primary President: Why do we have temples?

Answer:We go to church.

A: Or Jesus wouldn't be alive.

A: To get healthy.

A: To teach People.

Q:What happens in the temple?

A: Feel the Holy Spirit.

Q:How do we prepare to go to the temple?

A: My mom first went to the temple when she was 22.

Q: How do you make good choices?

A: I share my ball.

A: I have watches, not my legos.

A man in the ward made the Bountiful Temple from legos. He said it took about 13,000 pieces. The kids got to walk around and touch it if they wanted to.

Then we sang.

It was nice Sunday.

Hello, September...

School has started! I've been reassigned a new student to work with this year. I have been with the same boy from 2nd-4th grade. Now I'm working in a 6th grade Gate class. Sixth graders are a whole different beast compared to little lower graders. I prefer the little kiddos.

Kurt's Fall quarter started. He's taking:

Thermodynamics 2

Fluid Mechanics 2

Modeling and Simulation of Dynamic Systems

Ya. His classes are no joke. I went with him to Cal Poly over the summer.

This is the campus's famous pointy building.

The koi pond. It's a pretty campus.

Studying Kurt... notice the stuff at the corner of the window?

It's gummy bears, on the second story of the engineering building. The window doesn't open either. Oh those engineering students.

Building 17: where a lot of Kurt's classes are.

Kurt likes school much more than I ever did. He's a diligent and conscientious student. I slightly dreaded new quarters beginning. Kurt started studying for his classes before school started! I remember some woman speaking while I was at BYU. She told the girls: "Nerds make the best husbands." I would have to agree.

This is the rose garden on campus.

Apparently, when the founder of the school, a Mr. Kellog, moved to California from Michigan, his wife was very sad about leaving her rose garden. So, he had this made for her. At least, that's what Kurt told me.

E-L-I-Z-A!

Eliza turned 21 this summer. We're eight years apart. I remember being so excited to be a big sister. She doesn't look too thrilled about it in this picture.

My mom remembers how she would hate not doing all the things the big kids were doing. If we walked passed her while she was on the ground she would let us know she was not pleased.

I don't know what's going on in this picture but I like it.

Mom & Eliza Christmas morning.

First day of first or second grade.

Pretty Eliza, Happy Birthday!