HOUSEWORK MAKES YOU UGLY

Proof.

Next time, I'm making Phil sweep up the leaves.

A NEW CROWD

For the past year

I've been the Young Women's President in our ward

Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time with them

And we have lots of fun

Cooking 

Dancing 

 Playing games

Talking about boys 

and just being silly 

 And I'm still loving almost every minute of it!

Who wouldn't?

SCROOGE

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a huge Halloween "fanatic."

My mom never liked it, so it was never a big deal at home

and once we turned 12 we weren't allowed to trick or treat anymore

So it never really did anything for me.

For example, my freshman year at BYU in the dorms

Part of the party, but never dressed up.

Then I married into the Leue family,

which loves Halloween more than Christmas, it seems.

So I've had to shrug off my apathy a little bit

and get into the "holiday spirit"

 So I dyed and decorated some pumpkins.

And dressed up as PB&J with my hubby 

 complete with Kool-Aid and Milk mustaches

(cuz Phil likes PB&J with Kool-Aid, apparently)

and pieces of bread taped to our backs to make a sandwich.

 The family party was a blast,

complete with donuts-on-a-string, 

 bobbing for apples,

(Dane tried for about half an hour to get two at a time),

 and a "haunted alley" in the basement that was pretty legit!

Awesome party.

Awesome family.

Okay holiday.

Sue me.

MY AFTERNOON PROJECT

I was walking home from a neighbor's house,

and saw a bunch of fallen leaves.

So I picked them up

I looked online for ways to preserve leaves, and got this

Iron leaves between wax paper for a few minutes on each side.

I unwrapped them from the wax 

And pulled this from my craft room

 Just a wood frame I found a long time ago at DI 

and couldn't find anything to use it for.

I painted two white pieces of paper with gold spray paint,

covered the "latte" cover, and got this

I LOVE IT!

SOUTHWESTERN EGGROLLS

EVERY TIME we go to Chili's,

I always get the Southwestern Eggrolls.

I try to get something different, but I never do.

So I wanted to try making them myself!

(Complete with Avocado Ranch)

They looked good, they tasted good

but not as good as the original.

Maybe I'll try making them again sometime.

NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE

The day before General Conference

Phil's last mission president held a mission reunion.

 We quickly realized that, since Phil was one of his first missionaries,

most people there were MUCH more recently returned that he was.

Meaning...he didn't really know anyone there.

 But we managed to find his tie from the piles and piles

Of course, Phil.

But we finally, towards the end, found some buddies.

One of Phil's old best friends, Tammy, her husband, and daughter.

 Who I obviously love.

Kind of an awkward night until the end,

but it was nice to finally meet Phil's mission president

and put faces to a few stories I'd heard.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Harvest

Days like this, I love having a garden.

But I hate having to do the dishes.

CROQUET

Quite possibly our greatest find from D.I.

 Phil and I played in our backyard a few times

and then we had a 5-man challenge with some of Phil's family

in between sessions during conference.

Croquet is my new favorite outdoor hobby.

I WILL GO, I WILL DO

Our Bishop extended a Book of Mormon Reading Challenge -

to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year.

So, to create some enthusiasm and "real-life application",

we decided to have a combined YM/YW activity each month

 that applies to the chapters they should be reading

based on the estimated reading schedule.

So for our first activity, naturally,

we built boats.

Each young woman picked the young man

they wanted as their partner. 

and they went to town. 

 They were only allowed one small strip of duct tape
and as much newspaper and sticks as they wanted

 and each one turned out so differently!

And we got a little silly, of course 

 They only had thirty minutes to build,

which sounds like a long time, but it went by so fast!

 So when we were all done building

We had to see whose could float down the river the farthest

and our little deacon/beehive 

piece-of-wood-with-a-sail won! 

It was hilarious watching them float 

or...crash into pieces.

Hopefully they learned something.

TEMPLE TRIP!

For Mutual we went to the Provo temple to do baptisms.

I was able to print out about twenty family names

and the girls helped me get them done!

 These girls really are the best

And I love them!