Aly's Homecoming

Mid-October, we ventured once again to Arizona to welcome Aly home from her mission in Brazil.

At the Airport

I love this picture for 3 reasons. 1-Such a sweet sister hug. 2-Lydia looking up in excitement at an Aunt who has been an amazing example to her. 3-Dad blubbering in the background ;)

LOVE!!

I was in charge of taking pictures so I grabbed a quick selfie with the RM.

The flight arrived early and word didn't get passed along to Uncle Dan, Aunt Monica, and crew. So though they missed her coming off the flight, they surprised her in the parking garage.

The Arizona skies put on quite the show to welcome Aly home.

Homecoming party

Vertuccio Farm

One of the many fun adventures we did while we were there was spending a day at Vertuccio farm doing all the fun activities they had there

Richardson Family Pictures

Since Robert's family was all together and we never know when the next time that will happen with so many of us living away, we took advantage of the opportunity and got family pictures done.

I can't decide which of these 2 pictures of our little family I like more:

This one because of James' face...

...or this one because of Mary's face :)

The behind-the-scenes work of getting the kiddos to all look at the camera ;)

Other Random Pics

Once upon a time Robert thought he would be able to go to Scout Camp, but it ended up being a week before his birthday so he missed the age cutoff. Robert was super disappointed, so his mom did several merit badge things at home with him including making this stool for the basket weaving merit badge. It's a cherished memory of Robert's, the sentimental value of which has kept this stool around for the past 15 years. Alas, the time had come to dispose of it, so we took a picture of it and bid adieu.

Lydia made this mask and was overjoyed with how it turned out.

The next 2 pictures are not the best quality since it was dark, but I love these pics of the kids and Robert's dad chilling in the grass and looking at the stars.

Painting our Halloween pumpkins

Aly's souvenir for the nephews were soccer jerseys. She also got one for herself so we took a picture of all of them in their matching jerseys.

We are so happy to have Aly back!!! She was an amazing missionary! A great example to her cousins, siblings, and nieces and nephews, but we missed her terribly and are glad to have her sweet spirit with us again.

Preschool Private Pumpkin Patch Party!

Our whole family got to join the girls' preschool for a field trip to the Rodoni private pumpkin patch. It was so much fun with the added plus that we got to take all of our pumpkins home for free.

Within seconds of getting out of the car Mary stepped in a huge mud puddle and sunk to her ankles. When Robert pulled her out the mud sucked her shoes off and completely engulfed them in mud. So she spent the rest of the adventure just in her socks. She seemed okay with it.

James and one of his best buds Baylee got matching bite marks on their cheeks on the same day. Baylee from her twin brother and James from a neighbor friend. This picture is to show off their battle wounds.

The final picks!

And the Rodoni ladies that made it possible. Each family that came went home with at least 4 pumpkins. Some took as many as 10 home, all for free! But I don't know who had more fun: the kids picking their pumpkins or the Rodonis watching the kids have fun. What generous and fun ladies!

We loaded up our pumpkins and hit the road for Arizona straight from the pumpkin patch. Never a dull moment with this little family!

General Conference with Kids

As parents of young kids, our General Conference experience has changed from trying to get as much as we can out of it for ourselves to trying to find ways to get the kids to at least stay quietly in the room for all of the sessions and maybe even get them to listen to each talk, even if it is just for the few seconds of each one.

For April's conference, I found a great general conference folder on Pinterest (http://www.allisonkimball.com/my_weblog/2013/09/conference-is-awesome-folder-free-download.html) where you find the picture of the person talking and put them at the pulpit and then search for pictures of different keywords they say. I decided I'd make 3 of them because that will probably the most kids I'll have at one time that would be at the ages this folder would be good for. Unfortunately, I underestimated how long they would take for me to put together, so I only got a small part of one of them done. But I got all three of them completely done for October's conference.

For Family Home Evening the Monday before conference, I put up the pictures of the First Presidency and quorum of the twelve and got clips of several of the talks from the last conference so we could practice using our new folders.

All my hard work paid off. The girls absolutely loved their folders and couldn't wait to use them the day of.

Though they would lose interest after a few minutes of each person talking, they would get so excited again each time a new person would start. The time in between was spent coloring or doing some epic Lego tower building with Robert.

Rapunzel got the honor of being at the top of the tower.

And it all came tumbling down!

So from the standpoint of trying to keep the kids somewhat engaged through all 4 sessions, I'd say we did our best job yet! But the drawback to this is that Robert and I were not able to get as much out of it in the moment as we maybe could before we had kids. So now it's on us to study it on our own. My goal is to listen to or read through all of the talks 5 times before the next conference in April. So far I've only made it through 2 of the sessions, so I better get cracking!

Instagram Revisited - September

9/1/2014 - So excited! Excuse me while I disappear for the duration of this read. #spiritualgiant #oneofmylifeheroes

9/1/2014 - We've entered the age of dressing ourselves. I have not been looking forward to this daily battle. #ilovemykids

9/2/2014 - This happened today, and they loved it! #ilovemykids

9/2/2014 - Frozen overload! Thanks for the accessories, Grandma Richardson! #ilovemykids

9/2/2014 - Robert challenged my ability to not get a brain freeze. I proceeded to eat this entire Costco frozen yogurt in 3 bites in less than a minute. No brain freeze. Robert just got served! #superpower

9/3/2014 - On the open road... again! To St. George and back in 36 hours. Here we go! Can't wait to see family and celebrate the life of my amazing grandma! #familiesareforever

  

9/10/2014 - The amount of satisfaction I get from laminating leads me to believe I'm definitely OCD. #ocdmuch

9/11/2014 - Robert just submitted his first of many, many, MANY applications for a job post graduation. The process has begun! #theworldisouroyster #ilovemyhubby

9/12/2014 - Are you ready to rock?? Game faces ON! #datenight #bandhero

9/13/2014 - It's been so fun watching these Santa Cruz babies grow together. @hewittfam Another month or two and we'll have 3 toddlers on our hands! #scary Thank you @marinaeyre and @bartonmama5 for the onesies! #ilovemykids #ilovemyfriends

9/17/2014 - We were having an uneventful day. Then the sliding door of our car fell off... #cartroubles #wecantstoplaughing

9/19/2014 - Sometimes you have to ignore everything, sit at the piano, and play and sing at the top of your lungs. #myhappyplace

9/25/2014 - Record of all the games we "threw down the gauntlet" and played 1 on 1 this summer. I am the champion! The Autumn Gauntlet has begun. Will I continue to reign supreme?? Only time will tell #ilovemyhubby

9/27/2014 - Totally did a Color Run this morning. The after picture doesn't do it justice. We were covered! @hewittfam #livinghealthy #friends

9/28/2014 - My view for today. It's that time of year! #headcoldsstink

9/29/2014 - General Conference prep for FHE tonight. What do you do to prep your little kids? #fhe #ldsconf #imamormon

9/30/2014 - This boy! He thinks he's so clever. 10.5 months old, he finally had his 9 month well child check today. Still 100th percentile head (50cm) and 100th percentile height (31.5 inches). He dropped from 98th to 95th percentile weight (24.25 lbs). Clearly, he's on his way to being a featherweight ;) #sarcasm #heishuge #ilovemykids