Fall Break

BYU doesn't have a fall break (or a spring break for that matter), so we were excited at the prospect of a whole week off in the middle of the semester. We thought about going somewhere. We really wanted to go to a National Park, but they were all closed thanks to the government shutdown. Finally we decided to just stay home and have a combination staycation/project week.

The kids loved having dad home to build towers and play hide-and-seek with them. (And I loved having someone to entertain the kids while I got ready for the day!)

 

We fit in lots of fun things.

Monday night we went to the Red Barn with the Petrosinos and the Woods for FHE.



We enjoyed all our favorite activities from past years - the slide...



and the maze...



New this year was tractors to pedal around.



Corbyn searched and searched until he found the perfect pumpkin.



It was a chilly, beautiful night - perfect for enjoying friends and a pumpkin patch!



One afternoon we took the kids to see Planes. It was a cute show.

Another afternoon we went to the duck pond at BYU. The ducks were CRAZY! As soon as we got out the food, they swarmed us. I had to hold Peyton most of the time, so she didn't get eaten alive.



After feeding the ducks, we climbed the stairs and walked around campus for a bit.



Grandma and Grandpa treated us to breakfast at Kneaders and dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe.



On Saturday we watched BYU play Houston. It was a close, high-scoring game. Luckily we pulled out a win, final score 47-46.



Rog got to enjoy a couple games of golf with my dad.

We also worked on a few projects. I ran about a million errands one afternoon kid free. Rog did some maintenance on Meg. We cleaned the garage.

I finally got curtains put up in our bedroom and downstairs. (We've only lived here 3 1/2 years!) I bought them way back in June, but they needed to be hemmed. And I made a tiny set of curtains from the bottoms for the little window in our bedroom.



They are all the light beige Lenda curtains from IKEA. Now we have curtains on all the windows in our house! WOOT!



I also worked on painting my stripes in our downstairs bathroom. I painted the first stripe over a year ago. Hopefully it doesn't take me another year to get to the third stripe!



It was good to get a few projects done and enjoy a relaxing week with Rog home!

Last Week and Homecoming Weekend

Last week I finished my 6th book of the year - Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. Jenny talks about the evolution of family dinnertime at her house. I loved reading (and relating) to each stage. And even more, I loved hearing that someday dinner will get a lot easier. I figured it would, but it was good to hear it!!

Speaking of dinner, Peyton had a good solid week where she just had no appetite at all. I think she had some sort of a virus, but it was a weird one because she didn't really have any other symptoms at all. During that week she decided she was DONE with her booster seat. Her appetite has since returned, but her booster seat strike has continued.



I went on a crazy (and not at all ridiculous) quest for the complete set of Wizard of Oz McDonald's kid's meal toys. (Did you know you can buy kid's meal toys without the kid's meal?!) After going to five McDonald's and calling dozens more, I had all but Dorothy. She was nowhere to be found, so I used reward points to buy her on Amazon. She came today and now my collection is complete! The kids love them (even though they have never seen the Wizard of Oz) and they look pretty cute with this witch printable from the Wood Connection.



Friday afternoon we hiked the Y. Rog carried Peyton in our hiking backpack and Corbyn walked the entire way up by himself. It was definitely hard for him - he kept wanting to stop - but he did it!



He was pretty timid at first, but soon was climbing up and down the Y like it was no big deal. He made us so nervous!



Peyton was done with the carrier and would not get back in for the ride down. She walked a little of it, but mostly rode on my shoulders or insisted I carry her. Corbyn also walked part of the way down and rode the rest of the way on Rog's shoulders.



The sun was setting on our way down and it was beautiful!



Saturday morning we all ran the Cougar Run (except Peyton). Corbyn did the kid's race again. Rog ran it with him this year, but next year we are going to practice and see if we can get him to run it by himself!



I have been training hard and it paid off - I finished in 23:37 which is the closest I've come to my PR of 23:04 (set back in 2007 on the same course).



I was most excited that I placed 2nd in my age group. Last year I placed 3rd - it was fun to place again and even move up one spot!



Rog did awesome for the amount of training he's done (not very much with his long commute) - he finished in 26:29.

After the run we cleaned the church - it was a good week to sign up for because with Conference being the Sunday before, it was basically already clean.

We played Georgia Tech that night. It was such a fun game - full of action and best of all, we won! 38-20!!

We have seats with Bill, Mariah, my dad, and Jared. Every game we kind of play musical chairs. It was the first time I ended up sitting by the Jar. Love this brother of mine!!



We decided to get our yearly cougar tail donut this game rather than waiting until the last game like we usually seem to do. It was a great idea because the donut was soft and delicious. (The last game is cold and the donuts end up being kind of cold and hard.)



On Sunday Jared talked in my parents' new ward along with them as kind of a homecoming - even though he has been home for 4 months now. He gave his official homecoming talk down in St. George, but he did this one for all our family and friends who live up here.

I helped my mom put together 3 different crock pot soups to serve after - beef stew, tomato basil soup, and cream cheese chicken chili. The cream cheese chicken chili was by far the most popular, but that was ok by me (and my dad) because it meant lots of leftover tomato basil soup (our favorite).

After everyone left we had Jared watch Wreck it Ralph with Corbyn. We've been talking about it since he got home - it was about time we actually made it happen!

It was a busy, but fun Homecoming weekend! Go cougs!!

Conference Weekend

Conference weekend, oh how I love you! So many wonderful gems... I can't wait to study the talks and discover even more!

Elder Hales' talk was a perfect way to start out the conference.



And Elder Holland and President Uchtdorf really hit it out of the park. (They always do.)



images via here and here

I made this set of magnet pages for Corbyn to play with while we watched. (He liked them ok, but he liked the alphabet set I made more.)



Aside from the actual watching of conference...

On Saturday in between sessions we did a dessert exchange with a few families in our ward. I made mini pumpkin cupcakes. It was fun to see friends while we dropped them off and we ended up with a great selection of delicious treats!

While the men went off to Priesthood, my mom and I took the kids to a nearby park. (We call it the chicken park because one of the yards close to the park has a chicken coop.)



We had the Ririe Waffle Breakfast at my parent's house - nice because we didn't have to drive all the way up to Salt Lake, but we still got to see the Riries!

On Sunday in between sessions I finally got around to making this witch I got at the Wood Connection back in 2011!



It was a pretty great weekend!

17 Months

PJ at 17 months:

*Says so many words it's already getting hard for me to keep track. To name a few, bow, cereal, owl, ow (like ouch without the ch), down, thank you, rella (for Cinderella, but she says it for any princess), Jessie, Buzz, Papa (grandpa), grandma, fishy, dolly, love you, got you, milk, ice, two (when we are counting with Corbyn), and too (when she wants to do something Corbyn is doing).

*Puts words together.



*Makes mmm noises while eating.

*Loves apples.



*Wants to be just like Corbyn.

*Likes to look through books.



*Will finally drink milk sometimes.

*Is to the age where if she takes even a 2-minute nap in the car, she will not take another nap. Sometimes I can transfer her to her crib, but it's better if I can just not go anywhere near naptime.



*Shakes her finger and says, "no, no, no" when we read Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.

*Holds up 1 finger when you ask how old she is.



*Tries so hard to jump, but can't quite figure it out.

*Likes to hold my hand and "jump" off steps.



*Can climb our tall kitchen chairs.

*Fights being put in her booster seat sometimes.



*Is starting to be entertained by movies for small amounts of time.

*Gets excited when she sees anything Mickey and Minnie. Most days she watches a Minnie's Bow-Toons clip from disneyjunior.com while I do her hair.



*Loves to play with the dolls at Grandma's house.

Five on Friday

1. McKenzie and Irving welcomed Mason Michael Perez into the world last Saturday morning (September 28th) at 8:19 am. He was 7 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches long. We seriously can't wait to meet him! (I hope Dixie is enjoying this flood of new babies. Unless Rex and Edda are planning on having another one soon, she's going to have a serious drought after Taylor and Martha have their baby girl in January.)



2. It was my week to host joy school. We learned about the letter D and the number 3 with dinosaurs and ducks. We made a D dinosaur and a feathered duck, ate dinosaur chicken nuggets and donut holes, stomped around to We Are The Dinosaurs, and played Duck, Duck, Goose. (I don't know how moms did joy school before Pinterest.) I think it was a successful first week. Many thanks to my mom for watching Peyton while I taught!



3. We got back our family photos. Here is that one perfect picture I asked for. Love.



4. Today Peyton took the longest nap of her entire life - over 3 hours! It was good timing because I had a lot to get done this afternoon. I just hope it doesn't mean she's getting sick!

5. Tonight we watched BYU beat Utah State 31-14. It means a lot more now that Utah State is the real deal and beating them isn't a given. We got to enjoy the first half on my parent's new giant tv before coming home to put the kids to bed - reason #569 that we love having them live near us!

Last Week

On Monday I canned peaches with my mom. It was so nice to be able to do it during the day and not finish at 1:00 am like in years past!



I got my bi-yearly haircut (that I was seriously overdue for). It was only $3 because of a promotion Great Clips does during BYU football games. She kind of went crazy with the layers, but it'll do.

We bought a team for the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay next year! I'm so incredibly excited and also a little bit nervous, but mostly excited! Our team will be made up of a lot of my Ririe cousins (our name is Riries Take on Ragnar), but we have a few open spots, so let me know if you want to join us.

We had a great time watching Stockton and Brynn Goodrich Thursday morning. It worked out well because Corbyn's joy school was canceled due to the Howard kids being sick. We made a fort with the couch cushions and dressed up like superheroes.



Our outdoor viewing of the Hunger Games got rained out again. I guess we'll just have to hope for better luck next year!

Friday night was the BYU vs. Middle Tennessee game. On our way to the game, I got what is probably my favorite video ever of PJ.



I made Pumpkin Whoopie Pies for the tailgate.



Corbyn's Cosmo's Kids Club membership included 2 tickets to this game, so the whole family got to go!



Grandma Lori came too and took the kids home when they got tired partway through the 2nd quarter. (It was a late game starting at 7:00 pm.)



We didn't have the best start, but ended up beating them 37-10!

Saturday morning I ran the Color Me Rad 5K - think Festival of Colors combined with a 5K. Rog was on a temple trip with the youth of our ward in Manti, so my parents came and watched the kids while I ran. There was a family fair going on at the same time, so they took them over to that while I was running. They were big fans of the popcorn!



It wasn't a timed run which was a shame because I felt like I did awesome!



My friend Leanna invited me to sign up with her. I didn't actually run with her because I'm a jerk like that - just ask Rog he'll tell you. (I ditched everyone on the Electric Run too.) Her whole family was sick with colds, so she drove with us and we had a great time hanging out before/after. I'm so glad she told me about it - it was one of my favorite runs I've ever done!



That night I got to go the Relief Society Broadcast with my mom. Her stake was having a light dinner before, so we went there. I think that was the first time we've ever been together. It's so fun having them live so close!