Fall

I found Malachi asleep in the bottom of the linen closet one morning while going to wake up the kids for morning devotional.  It freaked me out when I discovered he wasn't in his or Betsy's bed, but luckily it didn't take me long to discover where he was.  

Malachi and Caleb couldn't resist playing in this big pile of leaves we found just outside the post office 

Malachi staring at Joseph to make sure he was being good.  (I asked him to watch Joseph and make sure he was being good.  He took me seriously and stared at him  the whole time, while I was getting him his breakfast)

Joseph, happy to have Malachi watching him to make sure he was being good.  

Malachi was being a silly boy.

This week we've started feeling the cooler weather.  We've still had a few very nice days in the low 70s or upper 60s during the day, but we've have several cold nights as well.  I've been frustrated with Joseph refusing to ride his bike to seminary in the cold. (30s or low 40s)  I keep telling him that it's okay to be cold, that he will thaw out after he gets back inside.  I told him about having a paper route, and riding my bike doing that in the early morning hours throughout the winter in Oregon.  Even when I refused to drive him, he just skipped seminary, and took the bus to school.  So, rather than have him miss seminary again, I drove him the next cold day.  I did make him leave to ride his bike, but he just turned around and came back home, telling me he was already too cold.(I've sent him out with coat, gloves, and a balaclava (but he left it at school or lost it).    I guess he won that battle, but I want it on record that I think he is being a wuss.  Anyway, Joseph and Samuel were both grounded until Wednesday this week, because they hadn't done their chores from Saturday, they finally did them Tuesday night, and got ungrounded.  We were going to go have fun on Wednesday, but I got sick so we ended up staying home all day.  I've had a bad sore throat, headache, fevers, and cough, runny nose since Wednesday.  I finally didn't have a fever yesterday, so I hoping I'll keep getting better.  I also hired a lady to clean the house every week for the next 4 weeks until my mom gets here.  I haven't been able to get some things done that I need to before the baby gets here, because I'm too busy cleaning up after everybody.  So, she came on Thursday and got some cleaning done.  So, I was able to make a bunch of muffins and waffles and freeze them for when the baby comes.  I'm still not feeling well, so I haven't made any progress other than that.  Again we didn't do anything this weekend due to my still not feeling well.  But, at least I got everyone to do their chores, even though Samuel and Joseph took all day to finally get it done.  I also took Samuel with me to pick up our bountiful basket, and went to the grocery store, so we have lots of good food to eat now.  We had our pizza and movie night, which everyone enjoyed.  Travis has also come down with a cold in Jordan, but otherwise seems to be doing fine.  They did have an incident where some Americans were killed, but Travis and his unit were not involved.  My Grandma Hardy's funeral was on Tuesday, and I wasn't able to attend, but the rest of my siblings and parents were,  She was a wonderful woman, I'm glad she is in heaven with her sweetheart again.  There were also some terrorist attacks in Paris, that are very sad.  We also had our house in Colorado have the main sewer pipe back up, so we're dealing with that too.  We've still been working on finding something to be grateful for each day, which is helpful to staying positive.  I'm glad the kids haven't gotten sick, that is a blessing.