September 30 - October 6

Monday: School for everyone today! I got to study for a nice long while after my class got out before I picked up the kids. My second test was a week away, and I was starting to be nervous. It was a really lovely day (hi fall!!)  so we played outside all afternoon with Bronx, who was so excited he ran in circles around us for the first ten minutes. He goes all aerodynamic and his inner shepherd comes out and he starts to "herd" the kids like sheep. Its pretty hilarious to watch :)

Tuesday: Doomsday for Tyler! This was the dreaded day to get his two bottom front teeth pulled. I made McKay take him, and it was as bad as I thought it would be. In McKay's words: 

I took Tyler to Dr. Harris’s (dentist) office to get 2 teeth pulled. From his explanation, the roots in these teeth didn’t dissolve, which was causing the adult teeth to come in crooked. He said that this can be caused by trauma, like when Tyler smashed his teeth in my knee 2-3 years ago. Anyway, he screamed the whole time Dr. Harris was applying the anesthetic, but once he was numb, each tooth took about 2 seconds to pull. They just popped right out. He put the teeth in these little tooth sized treasure chests, which was pretty exciting.

While they were gone, Jamie and I experimented with microwave mug recipes.

 This was a super delicious apple crisp!  Tyler was so dejected afterwards that we let him just stay home from school the rest of the day. He perked up after a few hours of rest, and I thought a family outing would be fun. I tried my best to get everyone to clean their rooms so we could visit Legoland, but I couldn't get anyone to clean their rooms, so we stayed home. :( McKay took Tyler to run errands, and he also started building a clubhouse with Tyler and Jamie in the back yard with leftover wood pallets I had collected for a project.

Wednesday: Jamie and I made a menu chalkboard for the kitchen, and she was gleefully unhelpful :) I set up a paint station for her own artistic expression, but she really wanted to help me with mine :) After school, both kids were so grumpy. I could not pull them out of it! We even made mug chocolate chip cookies, which were happily devoured, but even that only lasted a few minutes before they were fighting again. I could tell we needed an outing just to escape the house. After McKay got home we swung by panda express to pick up yummy honey chicken bowls, and then we took them to the lake near the airport. It was a beautiful evening, so everyone else in West Dallas seemed to have the same idea! The park was full of joggers, rowers, and families feeding the nutria. These guys are scary! They have huge orange teeth and are disturbingly aggressive about getting food. When they started hissing and charging us, we decided we were done :)

Thursday: Jamie and I went on a price matching adventure at Walmart with all our Meximart grocery ads in hand. I felt like I was sort of cheating, but 5 lbs of onions for $1 is hard to pass up. McKay kept sending me links to different gross people of Walmart pictures the whole time because he knows I don't like Walmart or its people. I can happily report that at 8 am, the gross people are not out yet. Your retinas are safe.

Friday: I studied all morning for the upcoming test, and that night my lovely husband took me on a date to see Gravity at North Park Mall with yummy gelato after. I had to do my hair in the car and i was taking pictures to see the back of my head. Someone photo bombed me and then the pictures just got silly... 

The movie was so stressful, I was exhausted at the end. It was really good though, and we had a nice night out together.

Sat: General Conference began this morning, but since McKay was working, I didn't try real hard to make myself and the kids tune in today. I listened to part of the first one before we headed out. First stop: the Home Depot workshop! In the 1.5 mile ride to the store, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, from mid 70s to the mid 50s. We were so surprised when we jumped out of the car! We had a really fun time building airplanes and talking to Linda, the lady who runs the workshop here.  

Cute , cute kids, I had to get a picture before we left.

And before the sillies took over.

Lovely girl :)

Then we went to Old Navy to try to find Jamie a nice coat, but didn't find anything I loved. We braved the chill up at North Park to see the first of the Parktober celebration, but it was just too cold. We're still acclimating! We got home just ad McKay was finishing, and I needed to hurry up with my studying. McKay took the kids to the dollar theater to see Monsters University in 3D. It absolutely POURED while they were gone. I made some hot cocoa and listened to the rain while I read. It was so cozy. I just love it when summer is over!  I listened to the priesthood session while I studied, which was available online for the first time ever. I also followed the OW event happening at the priesthood session that night. I don't really know my feelings about their goals, but I agree that there is inequality in the culture if the church that needs to be addressed. I may not fully agree with OW's end goal, but I can understand their motivation. I felt so sad with them when they weren't let in.

Their pictures are so poignant, you can see clearly there is pain, that this isn't just stirring up trouble or causing bad PR for the church. These are faithful women who are hurting, and they are our sisters who we've covenanted to mourn with, even if their pain isn't our pain. *End soapbox*

Sun: Actually got to watch the sessions today, although I may have turned off the live feed during Elder Oaks and Elder Christofferson's talks. We made our traditional GC breakfast, biscuits and gravy. Jamie helped me put the dishes away after:

 McKay made a batch pf chocolate cookies, and after the last session we headed up to Plano for dinner at Kevin and Cindy's. I was a social hermit the whole night with my flashcards for the test the next morning. When we got home, both kids were totally out, hilariously sprawled across the back seat.

Jamie chose not to participate...

...she was busy elsewhere.

Tyler is always sure to grab one of these beauties at Grandma's.

Funny things:

• Tyler keeps calling cantaloupe "envelope".
• Jamie's has been called movies "woovies", and the "woovie feeter".
• While watching the oil being changed on the car, Tyler observed the oil dripping out of the raised carans asked "Is that the car's pee?".

See you next week!