The Barnyard

Kefford and Kelsey bought some property in Emmett a couple of years ago and have been renting the house out to some ladies and renting the land out to a farmer. This year they had a really nice corn crop going on so they decided to build a corn maze for the people of Emmett and named it The Barnyard. They have been working hard at it all summer getting everything ready and I was able to take the kids out one night before they opened to have a look around. I was pretty impressed with everything they had done. They had goats in a pen for people to pet and rabbits in a hutch. 

The people renting the house have a couple of dogs and my girls loved playing with them and holding them. Kenedy especially was loving it and was trying to talk me into buying one of her puppies when she had some. Sorry, not interested. 

We decided to go through the maze and Avynlea thought it would be fun to lead the way with a stalk of corn. It was pretty cute and she was a good leader. 

Kenedy and Avynlea decided they were hungry and needed to eat some of the corn that was on the stalks. Sometimes my kids can be a little strange.

On the Saturday that they opened I took Avynlea and Rylee and Avynlea's friend Rose out to The Barnyard for some corn maze fun. While Rylee and I were waiting in the car for Avy to get her friend we took some cute pictures.

Another fun feature at The Barnyard are the pony rides. A couple of girls from Kelseys ward come and give the kids pony rides. It is a big hit and everyone loves riding around the area. Their is a bigger pony and a smaller pony. All three of the girls said they liked riding the bigger pony best. Riding the little pony felt too awkward for them.

The biggest attraction for little kids is the corn pit. Even my kids love hanging out, sliding into and playing in it. 

We had a good time and hope that the Barnyard is  a big hit!

General Women's Broadcast

Saturday September 24th was the General Women's Broadcast. I was once again so lucky to be able to go to this meeting with my 3 girls. I love that they lowered the age to include all girls 8 and up, it is fun to be able to have this time with just us girls. Some of my girls get a little bit squirmy as the meeting progresses and I am grateful they try to keep it at an hour and a half. I heard some wonderful things and felt the Spirit. I am so glad that we have the opportunity to re-read these talks because I forget a lot and miss a lot. 

At one point during the meeting I had Avynlea and Rylee both draped across my lap. They looked so cute I had to take some pictures.

I love all of my girls and am grateful for the knowledge we have that we can be together forever. 

Life is good!

Free Bread!

I forgot my phone when I went to one of Meridian High's football games. It wasn't that big of a deal to me until I wanted to take some pictures and I couldn't. I was sitting with my friend Deena and she was willing to take a few pictures of my favorite cheerleader for me. 

I was lying in bed super bored one night and took a picture. It gave me something to do for 20 seconds. 

On our second to last Sunday in the Linder Ward we decided to go to our new ward's sacrament meeting. I had looked it up in LDS tools to see what time the Verona Ward met at and it said 11:00. That morning Kefford and I were lounging in bed talking while the kids slept. I decided to check once more on the time and saw that it had been changed to 9:00! It was a little after 8:00 and we flew out of bed and ran around waking up kids and getting ready to go. We made it in time and were able to meet some people such as the RS president, the YW president and afterwards we went up to meet the Bishop. It seemed like a pretty friendly ward and made us excited to be a part of it. During the meeting Rylee drew on the back of the program and I laughed at what she had drawn. Hopefully with time the Sacrament will come to mean a lot more to her then just an opportunity for free bread.

Wendy Chambers was Rylee's Primary teacher in the Linder Ward and these two had a pretty great friendship going on. I think they were both a little sad to be parting ways so they took a cute picture together. 

As we were packing  I found this letter Emily wrote to me while we were at Girls Camp one year. It made me laugh.

Avynlea did not know what to do with her 5th grade PACE project poster so I suggested we take a picture of it and then throw it away. I am pretty sure I have a picture of it in last years collection but one more will not hurt. Now we definitely have record of it!

Crazy People and National Talk Like A Pirate Day

Because sometimes it is fun to climb all over your big sister.

And other times it is nice to sit quietly with your sister and watch TV

But then it makes life more interesting to tuck in your shirt and hike up your pants.

Kenedy and I were matching and she was not happy about me trying to take a picture of us twinning. I looked terrible and she looked beautiful so I am not sure what her problem was.

 September 19th was national talk like a pirate day and Whitney and Mikell like to take their kids to Krispy Kreme for free donuts to all who dress up while all the other kids are in school so that they do not have to fight crowds. I was able to tag along this year and when Kenedy found out what was going on begged me to take her out of school since it was during lunch so she could join in on the fun. I looked on the website to see what we had to wear to qualify for free donuts and for the first time they let you download a picture on snapchat and use their pirate filters instead of coming in actually dressed up. I figured this was the way to go since Kenedy did not have any pirate gear with her and I was not in the mood to search stuff out. 

I think we look like pretty cute pirates!

Maddie, Brooke, Jenna, Sadie, James and Kenedy

Kenedy and I got 2 dozen donuts which was plenty for our family. We love free donuts!

Carnival Fun!

On Friday the 16th Chaparral had it's back to school fundraising carnival. I decided I would take Ryker, Avynlea and Rylee to it, Kefford was in Baker working and Kenedy was getting ready to cheer at a game. In hindsight I really wish I hadn't bothered taking them. It was hot, crowded and not that much fun. I feel like I wasted the money I spent on it. Although it was a fundraiser so I can help myself feel better about the money I spent by thinking it is helping the school. I don't have my kids participate in the other fundraisers so I guess this was good. We ate dinner at the school and since I have invisalign I take them out to eat but then have to put them back in right after. It feels gross to not brush before I put them back in so I packed my toothbrush and toothpaste so I could brush my t

teeth after we ate. I was in the girls bathroom brushing and I felt weird and awkward and I was trying to hurry before anyone came in and saw me, but first let me take a selfie! :) Hahaha

The next day I took the kids to settlers park for a customer appreciation party we were invited to from the guys who we do financial stuff through. This is the major reason why in hindsight I wish I hadn't bothered with the school carnival, because this carnival was so fun and amazing! They had food and games and prizes. Everything was free and there were not a lot of people so we had no waiting in lines. It was great!

The kids had fun playing in the bounce house, and really liked jumping for pictures.

 The girls got their faces painted and I liked Rylee's ladybug and Avy's Owl but thought the nighttime scene surrounding the owl a bit much on a little girls face. 

Popcorn, snow cones, nachos, soda and soft serve were all delicious foods we got to eat for free. I think the snow cones were the favorite

A caricature artist was on hand to draw faces and Ryker and Rylee both sat for a drawing. The guy took a really long time doing his drawings and when he was done both Ryker and Rylee were less then thrilled with their caricatures. I made them let me take a picture with their papers before we threw them in the garbage. We understand that caricatures are meant to be exaggerated renditions of the subject but we felt that these were particularly bad and not worthy of being kept. 

As a customer I felt very appreciated by this carnival and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my kids. Once again Kenedy couldn't be with us because of cheer and Kefford was in Emmett working at the Barnyard.

Homecoming

We went to Emmett for Hazel's baby blessing and our bench was pretty popular with the younger cousins. I thought it was cute seeing them all seated with us and snapped a couple of pictures.

I got a text from the Mother of one of Kenedy's guy friends who used to be in our ward, Tray Hallenberger, asking if Kenedy had been asked to Homecoming because he wanted to ask her. I told her that she hadn't been asked yet and she made plans for them to come over that week while she was in school to leave something for her. I had been over at Mikell's the day before helping her move and it inspired me that I really needed to start packing things up to get ready for our own move. So I was busy packing up boxes when they came over but I made sure to tidy up her room a bit so that it wasn't too embarrassing.  He made a really cute poster for her and left hershey kisses all over the floor. I was so busy packing boxes that morning that I hadn't eaten anything and those kisses looked so good to me but I refrained and did not touch them. I was not at home when Kenedy got home so I texted her and made her promise she would not go into her room until I got their. When I got home with the girls I went up into her room and started recording and then had her come up. She was pretty excited and is looking forward to going.

Kenedy had cheer pictures taken and while I was at one of the Homecoming craft nights with all of the cheer parents Hannah's Mom came up to me and handed me some magnets saying they ordered magnets with Hannah's name but when they got them they had Kenedy's picture with Hannah's name. She said she contacted the picture company and they were going to fix it but in the meantime she was giving us the magnets with Kenedy's picture. 

Kenedy looked on Pinterest for some ideas on how to answer Trey for Homecoming and found one that was pretty cute and simple. I bought her the M&M's and divided the yellow, green and red ones out for her. She counted them and it ended up being more green to start with so that was lucky! She took them to school with her and left them on his desk in the seminary room. 

Boise State Game

The guys who are building our new home offered us to use their season tickets to a Boise State game. I told Kefford I would be willing as long as it was a game in September. The last and only other time we went to was November and way too cold. We were able to go the the game on the 10th and they were playing the Washington State Cougars. In addition to having the season seats we were able to get their parking pass as well. When we got their, about an hour before kickoff, we found the parking lot totally packed with people tailgating. I have seen tailgating on TV but have never experienced it in real life and after seeing it in real life I am good to never be a part of it. I think it could be fun for an hour or so but not as an all day event. We had to wait for people to clear out of our spot and they informed us the rules of tailgating: if you don't come by 4:30 then don't come at all. Good to know, thanks. Once we got through that mass of confusion we waiting in line to go through security and get in. Kefford had his pocket knife in his pocket and had to give it up to security. Kefford did not want to go all the way back to the car to put it away so he lost it. But don't worry the next week he called the athletic director to see if they had it so we could go and pick it up and they did. Ryker had a Dr's appt in downtown Boise and after it we stopped at BSU to get his knife. It was a cheap $5 knife but it was sentimental to him and we got it back. 

We had great seats but not as great as the first ones we sat in. We were a little confused by the seating and sat in some super comfy seats we thought were ours but when the guy in the seats next to us got there he informed us that we were sitting in someone else's season seats. We were in the right seats just the wrong section. We moved one section over to our right seats and they did not have the comfy seats the other seats had. 

It was a fun game and I really enjoyed watching it and not freezing to death. Football games in September are definitely the way to go. I loved being able to go with Kefford and we had a really great time together! The final score was 31-2, BSU wins!

I left my phone at home for the kids to use if they needed to get a hold of us and I found some pictures that were taken by Avynlea.