general conference

we LOVE general conference! it was such a beautiful weekend and the weeks leading up to it were great too with the general conference talk readathon i participated in, the general women's meeting, and my media fast the week before was refreshing as always. i love getting to hear the words of the prophets with our families in our homes every six months and feel blessed to live in this time of history. all the world can hear the word of the Lord at the same time! 

we continued our tradition of doughnuts (and such- seth and i got a pumpkin muffin =o]) for saturday morning. side note: my kids are and have been for months on a 'wear big t-shirts for pajamas' kick. if i hadn't bought them summer pajamas at the store before they decided this i would have been thrilled, but as it is maybe next summer i will think it is cool. 

after breakfast kent dutifully set up the tent... such a good sport!

ah good times (mostly lol)

here are their general conference notebooks. i'm so grateful the church puts so many cool things on the friend website to help us prepare the kids and get them excited. we watched this behind the scenes movie about the conference center and did several other activities that helped a ton. there were SO MANY good talks!! ...!!! how does it just keep getting better and better? and now that people can speak in their native language, i don't know how they are going to top it but i'm sure it will happen =o]

we updated our 72-hour kits =o] 

kent watched the priesthood session at home that night- i'm looking forward to listening to those talks along with the rest over and over again in the coming months on the gospel app of my phone as i do my chores. doing this has changed my life. seriously, you should try it! 

for sunday morning breakfast kent got cinnamon rolls from costco. despite sitting on the counter overnight, they were the BEST cinnamon rolls i have EVER tasted. full disclosure: i am a recipe snob. i don't order things at restaurants or buy things at the store that i love my recipe for because i will eat it expecting mine and then be disappointed. after those, no cinnamon rolls will ever be the same. this is not an overreaction people. you have got to try them!

for sunday morning we busted out the bingo first thing during music and the spoken word, which we always enjoy. (when we asked jenna what her favorite part of general conference was she said: the choir's pink dresses! lol)

and for the afternoon session we had the treat bowls with pictures drawn for every subject imaginable (they kept trading them out if one wasn't lucrative enough lol) 

and i always forget to take a picture of this, but we circled the pictures of the speakers again, and now that i think of it, the poster is still hanging on the wall in the family room. ha!

the overall feeling i came away with this time was how blessed we are to have a prophet, and how important it is to follow him. the success of our families and our lives depend on it! 

hooray for general conference!!

september

thankfully, this month started with the temple. i love the House of the Lord! kent and i are both teaching this sunday about president uchtdorf's talk "grateful in any circumstance" and practicing gratitude this month has been a blessing as well. oh and for book club this month we all chose our own book and i listened to "daughters in my kingdom". i had read it before, but i swear i must be an audio learner- i get SO MUCH out of listening to the scriptures and talks and manuals available on my phone app. what would we do without the gospel? 

i have this page a day calendar by my sink and i loved this quote so much i took a picture. isn't it so true! i can honestly say i love to work hard and see the fruits of my labor. i am still learning to love work that is immeasurable, when i work hard and little or no progress is visible. but this quote made me redouble my efforts to not let opportunities pass by because they would involve invisible work! one of those that i am working on right now is giving hugs to my family. well, and also just physical contact like a pat on the back, a high five, and kisses too! i had been praying about some things and several days in a row i came across articles or talked about hugs with someone and realized i had my answer right there. did you know that embracing for 20+ seconds has been proven to release oxytocin in your brain which reduces stress and increases your sense of security and happiness? well it has. i also read several studies about the huge benefits of children receiving hugs or the like 8-12 times a day. so 12 hugs x4 children in the roughly 12 hours they are awake means every 15 minutes i should be giving someone a hug. WOW, right? but i figure if i aim for that, even if i don't reach it then there will be a lot more love shown than if i hadn't tried =o] bring it on.  

here we are at service club. LOVE IT! i am going to do this every month for the rest of my life with whoever will do it with me. why not! 'what comes next for willing hands to do?'

we got to go to magic mountain with kent's work! i am so grateful we got to go because i LOVED seeing the look on kent's face as he introduced us to his coworkers and employees. i can't really explain it except that i felt like he was proud of us. and i am also so proud of him! sometimes i forget he has this whole other life almost with so many people depending on him and reporting to him. it was pretty funny actually to hear people call him "mr. mackay". people bring him back presents and stuff when they go on vacations so i knew he was a good boss, but it was fun to see it too =o] and lastly i am so grateful for DISNEYLAND. enough said ;o]

anyway, here is a photo dump from the day:

we didn't have cash to get my favorite treat that i remember eating as a kid whenever we came here with bob or my uncle rodney, so we got ice cream instead.

and here is caleb sobbing after finding out he was a hair too short to ride my favorite roller coaster the "goldrusher". it was a sad day =o[

and here is natalie holding up the traveling bear blossom that she got from her cousin and who we will be passing on soon...

we already decorated for halloween. i didn't mean for it to happen. i told the kids that if we deep cleaned the house we could decorate. they just kept working and working, seriously for day! and then the day came when i realized i was actually going to have to live up to my promise so out came the halloween stuff!

and to be perfectly honest, we have already made these TWICE in the past week lol

oh! and the huge thing this month is that we started school! it has been awesome so far! 

seriously the hardest part is keeping caleb and jenna engaged and happy =o]

there has been less time to just hang out, but when we do it is good times =o]

their favorite thing recently has been "mountain climbing" in our back yard lol

natalie's love of all things magic continues! she actually has a few cool tricks up her sleeves if you ask me =o]

she is still loving karate! and we are learning to adjust to the schedule of evening lessons twice a week. 

caleb continues to make us laugh every day with his photo bombing and face pulling =o]

this is the only random picture of jenna i could find but i am posting it because it shows her NEW BLANKET and sheet. when we went shopping for seth's birthday we found jenna's bedroom set accessories and got her a new sheet (because heaven knows she needs another clean set) and she voluntarily traded her disease-ridden-falling-apart-at-the-seems-gray "baintee" for a new one! i am trying (and failing) to only let her carry around the old one and sleep with the new one and leave it in her bed, but turns out she is not the sentimental type and just wants the"softee baintee" all the time. pick your battles i say!

and then there is seth. our little merry mackay!

we all just adore him! he is becoming more and more a kid and less and less a baby each day! 

 so long september! hello holiday season!!