I taught preschool this week.  We were learning to write the letter H so we talked about Hats.  It was great fun.  We even made hats out of the bottoms of milk cartons.  They liked that.  They're doing really well and learning a lot!  They are a great group of kids.  I like teaching them.  :)
 

Benjamin has taken an interest in a couple of train shows on TV before, but this week, his interest in Chuggington morphed into full-blown obsession.  Wednesday thru Friday, I think we watched Chuggington 20 times.  That's like ten hours, just so you know.  As soon as it was over, he'd pull me back into the TV room and demand that I turn it back on.  Then when the title song played, he'd yell, "YAY!  Trains!  YAY!" When Friday rolled around and Kevin and I were out for our weekly night on the town, we went to the toy store.  My only hope to get the kid off the TV was to buy him some trains for himself.  It seemed to work.  He has carried them around and taken them to bed.  We will buy more for Christmas, but for now he needed something!  We have boxes of dolls and ponies and Barbies . . . it's not really a wonder that he gets bored.  Poor kid!  I guess that calls for buying him some things even when it is not Christmas or his birthday.

Our biggest news of the week is that our sweet Cheyenne FINALLY got to get her cast off!  Yay!  Yay!  Yay!  She has been such a good sport.  With this second cast, she did not complain at all even though I know it was more painful and I know she was already tired of the inconvenience by the time her first cast came off six weeks ago.  What a little soldier we have discovered that she can be!  I have been very impressed.  When they took off the cast, they also took new x-rays and everything looks straight.  Now, she just has to figure out how to use it again!  We are so happy to be on the last leg of this journey with our sweet Cheyenne.

 Savannah had her Cross Country banquet this week.  She had to work that night, though, so she drove over during her dinner break.  She got a nice certificate that says she has lettered two years in a row.  Letterman jackets aren't a big deal at her school, though, so I don't get to dress her up.  :(  She got a cool picture of her team, though!

Saturday was a big day for Savannah, too.  She took the ACT!  Yikes!  College applications are just next year!  She took it at BYU even which is where she wants to go, so that was pretty fun.  Well, pretty fun for Kevin and I.  Hee, hee.

So while I picked up Savannah (Kevin dropped her off four hours earlier), Kevin and Megan and Mariah and Benjamin undertook our first leaf raking of the year.  It won't be the last!

Later that day, Bethany had her first dance recital!  It was such fun!  The little girls did their dance three times for each group of parents and we had cookies.  It was the most perfect dance recital ever.  There was no time for anyone to get bored!  We got to watch our favorite ballerina the whole time!  I'll include a video so you can watch her, too, if you want.  I took one in front, too, but she was behind everybody, so the video of her back is actually the best.  Funny that!

Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came too!

Saturday night there was a big church dance -- with a Halloween theme, of course.  Sarah and Savannah both went and Savannah drove!  Yay!  I didn't have to stay up that late (although I did)!  They had a good time.  What fun!

Beth and I made dinner together this week.  For a little while.  Until her sister turned on the show she was wanting to watch.  We owe this picture to Sarah whose pictures I love because we get more of our daily life taken in them!

I took this awesome picture, though.  Four kids doing homework at the kitchen table.  (I don't know what Ben is doing . . . probably looking for his car.)  I asked just now, "What did we do this week you guys?"  They said, "The Gillespie's came!"  (More of that later).  I said, "Yes, but what did we do before that?"  Savannah said, "Did a lot of studying!"  She said this in her groan voice.  When I took this picture she was probably at the table in the front room.  What a very industrious moment in the Skinner household!  They do indeed do a lot of homework.  Especially my three oldest.  I'm proud of them for staying on top of it.

So . . . the Gillespies (my sister Maggie's family) did not have to do a lot of studying this week because they had fall break on Thursday and Friday.  They decided to go to Lagoon and stay a few nights at the Skinner house.  Yay!!

While the Gillespies were at Lagoon on Friday, the Skinners still went to school.  That night the junior high and high school choirs did a preview concert together.  That meant that Sarah and Savannah sang in the same concert.  What a treat!  They both looked so beautiful in their choir dresses and sang so well and their choirs sounded so good.  How fun to have girls who like to sing!

On Saturday, we wanted to play with the Gillespies, but we were scheduled to help clean the church building and we also had to be there for the primary program practice in the morning.  We decided to do both at the same time so we would be free in the afternoon.  Talk about multi-tasking!  The Gillespies even helped us out!  It was awesome!

That afternoon we went up to Bridal Veil Falls.  It was beautiful with all the leaves yellow.  It was warm, too.  Nice!

 

After that, we stopped at the Provo Beach Resort to watch the surfers.  Did you know we have indoor surfing in Provo?  Pretty cool, huh?  We also browsed the uber cool toy store and stopped on our way home for ice cream.

That evening we had a ward party, so we brought the Gillespies along!  We had lots of soup and chili and carrot cake!  Bethany introduced all of her girlfriends to Dylan (age 7) and they chased him relentlessly!  Poor kid!  Bethany and her friends had tons of fun, though!  Ben, too, would ask me (not just at the ward party), "Where's Dylan??"  Aw, to have another boy around!

The Gillespies stayed for church today so their twins could see their friends they made at camp.  AND today was the primary program during sacrament meeting.  How fortuitous!  Mariah, Cheyenne, Calianne, and Beth all had even more special people for whom to perform in the congregation.  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came, too!  It was sweet to hear their testimonies and hear them sing.  They did awesome!

We had a great weekend!  Yay for visits from the Gillespies!  Yay for great weather!  Yay for church and family!

We've had another busy week around here!  On Tuesday night, we went to the tennis team's end-of-season banquet.  It was really nice.  They showed a slide show of pictures from the season.  Sarah had tons of fun.  We're so glad that she decided to participate in that.  It has been a great experience for her!

On Wednesday, Bethany's preschool group went to the pumpkin patch.  Benjamin and I came, too.  They had a petting zoo and a maze and a bin full of corn in which to play.  We also went on a hay ride and picked out a pumpkin.  The pumpkin was the only thing that cost us anything.  We had tons of fun!

Yes, Ben liked the tractor best of all.

Thursday and Friday of this week, all the girls were out of school for Fall Break.  Kevin couldn't come, so the rest of us packed up and went to Antelope Island.  We chose a wonderful time to visit the Great Salt Lake for the first time.  In October, it is beautiful and cool and almost bug-free.  We had a great time!

Gorgeous, right?  The view and the girl!

Aw, brother - sister love.

We had our picnic at the beach!

Yay for Pringles!

It was a hike to the water!

Ben's not into family photos.  Not like he is when a tractor is present.

Does this count for swimming in the Great Salt Lake?

We saw hundreds of buffalo!

And a coyote!

We visited the old ranch on the island, too!

Here horsie, horsie, horsie!

Watch out for Megan and her lasso!

Oldest and youngest sharing a moment.

Mariah loves finding new trees to climb.

On our way back we zoomed over to another famous spot on the Great Salt Lake, of particular interest to our family.  I finally got to visit Saltair, the dance hall where my Grandma and Grandpa Elton met and fell in love!  There is absolutely nothing around that place.  It is a castle on the edge of the lake in the middle of nowhere, well, except for the interstate which is handy.  It is all locked up since it is just used for rock concerts occasionally on the weekends now.  Still, we agreed that it would be a very romantic place for a dance, especially with the balcony out back that looks out on the lake.

We couldn't stay long because Kevin, Savannah, Sarah, and I had tickets to see the BYU Spectacular that night at the Marriott Center.  We were exhausted, but Kevin had KFC waiting for us when we got home and that recharged us.  It was a fun concert.  Kevin and I love sharing our alma mater with our kids, so that's something, too!

Friday was rainy and cold!  So we went to see a movie.  We got a babysitter for Ben and we all finally got to go see BRAVE!!  We loved it.  Before the move we watched a preview for a new Monsters, Inc movie.  It started by showing a closed door and saying in a deep voice, "From the days of the very first bedtime, children have known that there were monsters behind their closet doors . . . " Pause . . . Then Beth, "See Mom?  I TOLD you!"  It was so funny.

That night the girls spent the night at Grandma's house.  Yay!  Fun for the girls!  Fun for mom and dad!  Savannah had to return to work, though, so she was home and Ben, of course.  Those who went had a great time with Grandma.

Saturday was rainy most of the day again, but it cleared up enough for us to have family pictures taken up the canyon that afternoon.  It was gorgeous up there -- color everywhere!   Hopefully they turned out well! 

Tuesday was the high school junior varsity tennis tournament.  Sarah got to participate as Springville High School's JV 4th Doubles.  (If you don't understand all that, ask me and I'll explain.  Tennis is a whole new thing!)  Her usual partner couldn't come, so another teammate, Aubrey jumped into the spot.  They had a great day winning both of their first matches and qualifying for the championship match -- which I got to watch!  There they lost, but that still earned them 2nd place.  Awesome!  Go SHS!  Go Sarah!

So, Sarah spent all day outside at that tennis tournament.  I drove her home and we got back around 6.  At seven, we needed to go to Young Women in Excellence!

There, Savannah, Sarah, Megan, and Mariah did a musical number.  Sarah played piano, Megan played violin, and Megan and Mariah sang.  They did "I Am a Child of God."  Don't you wish you were there??  It was really neat to see them work together on that and pull it off so beautifully.  That night Savannah earned two more personal progress ribbons, Sarah earned four ribbons, Megan earned two ribbons, and they even gave a couple of ribbons to me!  Yay!  We are making progress on our Personal Progress!

Actually, Sarah says she didn't mean to and she doesn't know how it happened . . . regardless, Sarah is now the proud owner of her Personal Progress Award.

The necklace she has on is the symbol of her award and she is standing with our Young Women president.

We are so proud of her.  She says she doesn't know how it happened, but what did happen is that she just kept working on it -- doing a little bit at a time but doing it consistently, and then suddenly it was done.  We think she is pretty cool.  We like her a lot.

On Wednesday was Mariah's last soccer game!  They scored in the first few minutes of the game and pretty much had control of the ball the whole rest of the game.  Mariah had this awesome shot on goal that went over everyone's head clustered around the goal and hit the top pole of the goal!  So Close!!!  It was awesome to watch even if it didn't go in.  Her team had a great season and I know Mariah will miss it!

Their team name was "Skittles," suggested by Mariah herself.

I made this cookie for the team at Mariah's request!

On Thursday, because of Mariah's position on student council, she got to attend a Student Council Conference at BYU with hundreds of kids from other student councils across Utah.  It was a cool experience for her.  She came back with some pretty inspiring quotes that she had written down herself.  I was impressed.  Plus, she got to wear her new student council sweatshirt that even has her name on it!  Too cool!

Friday Megan got to participate in the junior high JV tennis tournament.  She played as Springville Jr. High's 2nd JV singles.  Bethany, Benjamin, and I watched the end of one match and all of another one.  It was a beautiful day and she played great.  She played in six matches and won four of them!  This earned her second place!  Yay!  Go SJHS!  Go Megan!

Saturday Savannah ran in her final race for this cross country season in the Regionals Cross Country Race at Kiwanis Park in Provo.  Kevin and I went to watch her race.  In the words of Savannah's coach, their region is "just insane!"  Meaning, the schools in their region (of which their are eight), are insanely good.  The varsity race runs every school's top seven runners and Savannah came in dead last.  We thought, "Wow!  What is going on?"  But, it turned out that she ran her best time of the whole season  22:41!!  It takes umpah to keep pushing yourself when everyone's ahead of you, and Savannah's got it!  We think she is so cool!  Yay!  Go SHS!  Go Savannah!

Cheering with her team before the race!

The exciting beginning!

Go Savannah!!

The twins still live here as do Ben and Beth.  Cali and Cheyenne are both doing well.  Chey can do an amazing lot of things one-handed.  In fact, she still does everything she used to do, I only notice now and then that she is doing these things with one hand.  She practices piano in the bass cleff.  She does her homework with her left hand.  She hauls things and opens and manages everything just fine.  Sometimes it is awkward, but she does it all without complaint.  She has been a model of enjoying life no matter how it comes.  Still, we are all looking forward to when she gets the cast off because we are excited for her to be done!

Calianne is super excited for Halloween and has drawn some twenty pictures and taped them up in our front windows.  We have ghosts and pumpkins and haunted houses.  She also got out our plastic pumpkins and decorated our porch.  We look very festive thanks to Calianne's industriousness!  She loves a good holiday!

Bethany had preschool (pumpkins!) and dance class and invited friends over as much as she possibly could for dress-up and tea parties and make-believe.  After preschool on Monday, she wanted to go to the library to get Halloween books.  We found a whole bunch and she loves them, even reading them to herself when no one is available.

Ben wants to be doing what everyone else is doing, sitting in laps, climbing into the car, inserting himself into every situation he finds of interest around him!  He chases Beth and her friends, "ROAR!" and then when they're scared and lock themselves into a room, he cries and comes to get me because they won't let him play.  Silly kid.  He loves popcorn and carries it around in it's microwave bag from room to room, chomping as he goes.  We no longer keep the knobs on our stovetop.  They're safely out of reach.

We were given a large box of Granny Smith apples from a neighbor.  She recommended them for apple pie filling rather than applesauce, so I decided to give that a go.  They turned out really pretty!

Hopefully, we'll like them, because I made a lot!  I finished out the box by mixing them with some other apples and making some applesauce.  That means this season, I've done tomatoes, peaches, apple pie filling, and applesauce.  Yay for a good harvest (from my neighbors who share!)!!  Yay!