The day before Halloween was filled with:

 

cupcakes for Audrey's class party

 

jack-o-lantern carving:

 



 

halloween drawings: (love the witch, and pumpkin and spiders!)

 



 

evening walks

 



 

then Halloween came. Miss Ariel was beautiful. You should have seen the primping.

 



 

The plan was for David to be this darling pumpkin. But there was a freak-out which included lots and lots of screaming and crying about the fluffy costume being too close to his face. I persuaded him to let us get one picture, then we abandoned the poor pumpkin. Luckily there was a fireman's hat and a red jacket nearby.

 



 

When I sit my kids down for a posed picture here's what I get from Audrey:

angel.

 and here's what I get from Davy: not so angelic

 but we finally ended up with this one and I'm okay with it.

 

 

then trick-or-treating happened.

(call me a scrooge but I'm not a fan of the trunk-or-treat so we didn't go this year)

 

and the results:

 



 

 

the end.

first day of school

 

It's happened. I blinked and now she's in kindergarten.

Her dad gave her a blessing the night before and while I sat on the couch listening to him pray over her this thought kept coming to my mind: "She is special. Take good care of her, she is so special."

Justin was in tears when he was done and I know he felt it too.

 

She loves school. There was no fear, just excitement. She loves her teacher and is eager to learn.

I know she's going to do great.

 

When Davy and I picked her up we snapped these pictures and then I heard about every detail of her day.

 

She's pretty proud of herself. And she's not the only one.

onward

Summer has been driving me crazy.


It's never been my favorite season (I'm just not built for this heat!) but this year has been the worst.

Despite my previous fears, we came to love Audrey's school. And she loved it more than we did. She thrived, made friends, and was full of new discoveries every day when I picked her up. She blossomed with the structure of it. And now the long, slow days that are too hot to go to the park leave her anxious and rowdy, bored and grouchy.

Justin and I are pretty grouchy ourselves. It's no secret that we're not really happy with our present situation here, but it's bearable as long as we're moving forward. Since we started this process over a year ago there's never really been any down-time. Now with Justin's first semester off it's surprisingly frustrating for both of us to feel as if we're just spinning our wheels for three months when there's so much to be done. Justin's working at the university and getting a lot of good experience but we kind of want to just get on with things already.

Last Sunday after church and dinner we packed up the kids and drove into the hills above Pocatello. It was good to get out of the blasted heat and we rolled down the windows of the car to feel the breeze and smell the sagebrush and pine tree smell. The views were beautiful. We snapped some pictures. We saw some wild turkeys. We talked about the future. It's so easy right now to get caught up in the small details of daily living. The tenants, and the broken air conditioners, the 3 credit classes and the ugly carpet in the living room. When I look at things like that, caught down in the thick of things where I can't see the whole picture it is slow and tedious and depressing. Driving up to the mountains that day was a reminder to look at the big picture. That all those small tiresome tedious details that drive me crazy on a daily basis are just a part of our bigger goal. That when we get done it will all be worth it.

And then, on the way back down Audrey exclaimed, "Mom! Look at that tree, it's turning yellow!" And sure enough, it was. We spotted a few more before we made it to the bottom- small trees with a few yellow and red leaves mixed into the branches of bright green. It got us excited. Apparently, even when it doesn't feel like it, time does indeed march on. And so here we go.

On to fall. On to school and learning, progressing. On to graduation, and then on to grad school. On to the next thing.

goodbye fall

Right now outside my living room window it is snowing and blowing and I am a little annoyed. I love the snow, but we were still really enjoying our beautiful fall here and winter just keeps cutting in line. So, in protest, here's a quick post with pictures of my cute kids sitting on fall leaves taken a few weeks ago.

how lucky am I?

Justin walked in the door after work last night (looking especially handsome in his shirt and tie) with his arms full: papers, a folder from The Weekly, the mail, and a loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread from Great Harvest just for me. That wonderful guy had read my blog yesterday and made a special trip to pick up what I've been craving for weeks.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why he is the best husband on the planet.

The first weekend in September

- was full of lovely, chilly, digging-through-the-closet-trying-to-find-our-jackets weather

- included the first BYU game of the season. Justin was too excited to sit down for the whole three hours

- and when we went downtown on Saturday I spotted this on a tree outside of Justin's office:

Can you feel it too? Fall is coming. And I'm excited.

Autumn

Our stake here in Nampa and the surrounding area owns 350 acres of orchards. They provide a lot of the fruit for the church's welfare system. This year alone they harvested over 300,000 pallets of peaches and sent them to Salt Lake. It's a great program and they rely heavily on the members here to keep it going. So last night, Justin and Audrey and I went and picked apples.

The orchards are just 20 minutes or so from our house and they're so beautiful.

It felt good to provide service for the church, especially since we feel like we've been on the receiving end of such service and blessings for a while now. It was good to give back. And we all had fun- especially Audrey.

Plus- it was the first day of October, and there was a little chill in the air. It was the perfect night, especially when Justin suggested that we go to Dairy Queen for cookie jar blizzards afterwards.

It was a great way to welcome fall.

a fond farewell

Yesterday was the first day of fall, which we're very excited about here in the Vipperman household. However as we've said goodbye to summer, (sort of) we've also said goodbye to summer softball this week. Justin played his last game on Monday and I was able to snap a few pictures.

We'll be saying goodbye to weekly trips to the Willow Lane softball park.

(and their playground)

Goodbye to Audrey cheering for her Dad and me getting all hot and bothered while I watch him field balls, make plays, and even pitch once in awhile.

Goodbye to gigantic ice pops that dribble all over Audrey's shirts and are way too huge for her to eat herself so I end up eating half of them while pretending to only be "helping" Audrey so the other Mom's won't laugh at me.

Goodbye softball. See you next year.