Veterans Day Assembly

On the morning of my birthday I went to the Veterans Day Assembly at Avynlea's school. I really love this assembly and was happy to go to watch Avynlea sing. Unfortunately Kenedy tried calling me right in the middle of dead silence and I did not have the sound on my phone turned off. I was so embarrassed and I could see Avynlea up on the stage laughing and shaking her head at me. It was awkward

At the start of the assembly they always invite all the Veterans in the audience to come to the front. Avynlea is shown in the picture on the stage right behind the Veteran in the blue shirt with the black jacket

 I was pleasantly surprised to see our Temple friend walking up to the front during the call out for all Veterans. He is shown to the left of the guy in the red plaid. I take Avynlea every Tuesday to the temple and we have gotten to know the workers there and it was fun to see one outside of the Temple.

 I took this selfie on my way to the DMV to make sure the red lipstick looked ok and that it wasn't smeared all over my face.

Babysitting

Because I live so close to the Temple I periodically get asked by family members if I would babysit their kids so they can go to the Temple. I am usually willing and when Mikell asked me if I would watch her kids so she and Steve could go do a session I was happy to agree. A couple of days later Whitney asked me if I would babysit her kids so she could go. Again I was happy to agree to it. Mikell was planning on going the second week of November but when I found out the Meridian Temple was closed that week I told her to just bring her kids when Whitney was and I would watch all of them while they went. She was a little hesitant to bring her kids at the same time thinking it would be too much for me but I assured her that it was preferable since they could play with each other.

So on Friday morning I had three of Whitney's kids and all five of Mikell's kids. Whitney brought some little paint books for the kids to do and after I painted the girl's nails and they played with toys they gathered around the table to paint and have a snack.

Brooke, Jason, Kinsley, Kelly, Jenna, Sadie and James

Later they wanted to watch a movie so I help baby Laney and watched pixar shorts with the kids.

I had a lot of fun with my little nieces and nephews and decided that I would like to do this a little more often with all of my sisters in law so they can enjoy the Temple and I can play with their kids. 

Trick or Treat

The Trick or Treaters in our household has really dwindled through the years. This year Rylee was the lone ranger trick or treating with me on Halloween night. Ryker hung out with friends and did not dress up at all. Avynlea dressed up as a cute scarecrow and she spent the evening with her friends hanging out and watching a movie. She said they went around to a couple of houses and got some candy but mostly they stayed inside. After going through different ideas of what to dress up as, the most memorable being Robin Hood Dressed as the begger, Rylee decided on being Fionna from Adventure time. She looked really cute and spot on as Fionna but unfortunately most people assumed she was a bunny. Adventure Time is not a hugely popular show with most people I guess.

I had fun hanging out and spending one on one time with Rylee while she did her trick or treating. She doesn't like to spend hours out going door to door collecting all of the candy so we were not out for too long. 

Right before I needed to go pick up Avynlea from her friends house a group text was sent out from a friend saying they had no trick or treaters at all and are left with a big bowl of full size candy bars. She wanted those of us still with kids awake to come and relieve her of some of the candy. So after I picked up Avynlea I took her and Rylee over to the Walkers where they were each given handfuls of full size candy bars. Not too bad on the candy collecting :)

October Life

Paige, Avynlea, Madison and Lauryn

Avynlea went to a Halloween party with her friends in which they dressed up as scarecrows. She looked super cute and had a lot of fun.

I had to take Rylee to the Dr so she could get her seventh grade shots. She was not excited about it but she was a trooper and got it done without complaint. She received 4 shots and after we were done I took her to get some ice cream to help her feel better. She said that she had a hard time sleeping that night because of how sore her arms were, thankfully they felt better the next night and she was able to get some better sleep.

I have been trying to do more activities with my Beehives that involve service and so for our activity on this night we decorated sugar cookies and delivered them to people in our ward. It was loud, semi chaotic and crazy but it was a lot of fun and they managed to decorate all of the cookies and fill 16 plates with cookies which we then went out and delivered. 

Avynlea, Kaitlyn, Tippy, Kate, Lainey, Kelsey, Allie, Hallsey, Brooke, Aubrey, Holland, Aliya. Emily and Sarah

After months of waiting I finally got my new iPhone and I was so excited to try out the new camera I had. It takes such great pictures and I am so happy to finally have a phone that has more storage and a good quality camera. My last phone had 16GB of storage and I had it pretty much wiped empty because I didn't have room for anything, so frustrating. I was tired of the lack of storage and made the decision to spend $50 more dollars and upgrade my new phone to 128GB of storage. Best decision ever!

We have some girls that are starting to turn 14 and leave Beehives forever which is sad for us but fun for them. This was our last Sunday with this group before the older ones start leaving and I wanted to get a picture with our group before the change. 

standing: Jeni Lindley, Emily, Angela Laing, Hallsey, Kate, Tippy, Brooke, Kelsey, Avynlea, Kaitlyn and Elizabeth Peterson
Kneeling: Holland, Sarah, Allie, Lainey, Hope and Aliya

We went to the Bishops office after church because Avynlea was being set apart as first counselor in the Beehive presidency. The Bishop has the names and pictures of all the youth in our ward up on his white board and I had to laugh when I saw Rykers picture.

Pumpkin Carving

This year we did our pumpkin carving in the garage, Kefford laid out the paint drop cloth and the kids got to work. They had picked out their perfect pumpkins at the barnyard and were excited to start carving the perfect jack o'lantern.

Rylee decided to keep her classic this year and it turned out amazing!

It took RYker a little bit to muster up the "right mood" for carving but once he did he did an amazing job of carving out Jack Skellingtons face. With the white pumpkin he chose it was a perfect match!

Avynlea made the cutest little vampire and even had word bubbles for him. I love her creativity!

While we were carving we got a text from the Ricks asking us if we wanted to come over to roast s'mores, um yes please! We had a good time sitting around the fire visiting with our friends. I am so grateful for good friends in our lives!

End of October

Sunday was the sad day all of our company had to leave. After church we hung out in the kitchen visiting until they left.

Avynlea brought out her bucket of slime and taught Andrew and Maddie how to properly play with slime.

Kenedy wanted one last picture with me before Trista came to pick her and Alyssa up and take them back to Rexburg. It was sad to see everyone go but we made the most of the weekend and had a great time with our visitors.

I managed to talk Kefford, Avynlea and Rylee into playing a game of skip-bo with me. It is my favorite card game and no-one ever wants to play so I get really excited when I manage to get anyone to play a round with me.

I wanted to try out the portrait setting on my new phone and found two very beautiful and willing subjects.

While at the Barnyard I got some pictures of Avynlea and Rylee goofing around and being fun!

5th Annual Peterson Halloween Party

I love my traditional Peterson Halloween party and I love that everyone else also loves it and are always excited to come! We did soups and bread bowls again this year and the food was good but the company was better. Bob came with Alison and a couple of minutes after he arrived he asked me if it would be ok if he went to the sporting store down the road for a little bit. I didn't mind and so off he went with Dustin. When they got back a couple of hours later they got a pretty good chewing out from their wives saying how rude it was to me that they did that. Bob tried to defend himself by saying that he asked me and I said it was ok and I replied that he did ask me, that I did say it was ok, and then since everyone in the room could hear the conversation I also said that he told me I was his favorite ;), that got a good chuckle from everyone and we finished the party. As everyone was starting to leave Bob came over to me in the kitchen gave me a hug and thanked me for the party. He then told me that I really am his favorite, I replied that I knew that and then said I wouldn't tell anyone else.  He makes me smile.

Once again we gathered all the kids for a group picture and this year was the first year all of the kids cooperated and we did not have any criers, it was a Halloween miracle!

Rylee: Fiona, Hazel: Snow White, Qiana: Lune Lovegood, Brielle: Hermione Granger, Tayvia:Belle, Asher: Harry Potter, Madison: Tiger, Brooke: Panda Bear, Laney: a Baby, Avynlea: Scarecrow, Jenna: Koala Bear, Amelia: Groot, Ally: Reaper, James: Construction Worker, Kelly: Owl, Jason: Cow, Sadie: Butterfly, Kinsley: LadyBug, Caleb: Pikachu and Xander: Captain America

After I took a couple of pictures of the kids I then turned and took a picture of the paparazzi Moms

Everyone played with each other and had a good time. At one point i looked out the window and I saw Kenedy directing her cousins in some sort of game. She was telling them different animals and they were acting them out on the lawn. It was so cute and the littles were having so much fun!

Andrew, Maddie and Alyssa were in town for our party and they hung back from the crowd and played fun games.

Kenedy and Madison have a special relationship and love to be together. I thought the pictures i found on my phone of the two of them were so cute.

Then more phot shoots happened with all of these cute cousins.