October started out with Lucy transforming into a teenager on the 1st.

Love this girl so much!

And within days of her birthday she earned her Young Women medallion award (Personal Progress)…with the help of her best-church-leader-ever who is also her friend (and mine too):

(and also all her Book of Mormon listening this last summer)

She was pretty excited to beat out all her sisters on completing the requirements for that award the very youngest in our family.

I love personal Progress. And love that all my girls got to do that. It’s changing to a new dealio in January for the youth in our church and I’m excited for that too (all the details on that HERE).

We did volleyball pictures at our house before a pre-tournament banquet:

(More of those pictures from that night at the end of this volleyball post back HERE.)

It was “shadow-your-student” day at the Junior High

And hug your volleyball player day too. Ha! I think this must have been when we went out to lunch or something:

We finally re-planted our poor dead cactus in our living room:

(Using “we” liberally…as you can see, Lucy was a LOT of help with that thing 🙂

She had a huge social studies Civil War project and we stayed up really late one night to finish off that sucker since she had to go to Wisconsin for doctor appointments before it was due:

Oh we had put a LOT of work into it before. It’s interesting doing projects like this with Lucy. She is fiercely independent and I LOVE that. Her teachers suggested she type it up rather than write it in her cursive she loves since neatness was a big part of the grade and her beautiful handwriting has become much more difficult to read. It’s interesting to find that balance with everything she’s doing in school. But I will say she was mighty proud of that thing!

Then we took off to have her first time at General Conference actually in the conference center. Loved this experience I wrote about back HERE so much!

It was Fall Break, and I freaked out about all that gorgeousness up in Utah:

…even found a heart-shaped leaf to show my love 🙂

Hiked with these sisters through so much beauty:

This was a tiny fraction of my photos on my phone:

Yeah, I’m crazy.

Got to hang with these two, and Lu had a happy date with them:

Meanwhile Grace’s friends went to visit her in Hawaii, and they about had heart-attacks with the amount of excitement seeping out of this video I took a screenshot of:

Fun times in Hawaii 🙂

Meanwhile Claire went to California with her friend (she missed all the conference and leaf-loving hoopla in Utah):

We went and met up with her and eeked out a little family time there…and even got my brother Josh to meet up with us this time:

Randomly met up with some sweet friends:

A little shopping date with this girl with a stop for my fav. cookies:

Beach fire with friends:

My paddleboard buddy:

My almost-as-tall-as-me buddy:

My number one buddy:

This girl maneuvers life so beautifully. Every once in a while I get a little overcome with how brave and good she is.

HAVE to get bonzai bowls (above) and HAVE to do our beach bonfire tinfoil dinners every time we’re in California:

Loved trying to do some night photography with Josh on the roof one night:

Once again, so impressed by this girl:

That picture was going into church where she insisted we stay the whole two hours so she could go to young women.

My BBS friend was doing her annual BBS fundraiser and we wished we could go to support her! Since we couldn’t get away we sent a video instead. Here’s an outtake:

Volleyball, volleyball, and more volleyball…got a crowd of Claire-fans one of the days:

Activity Days celebrating birthdays with a couple loaves of pumpkin bread:

More volleyball back HERE.

Good friends:

We tried our hand at having our own “Cookie Friday” like my sister Saydi does. She just bakes a whole slew of cookies and all the neighbors/friends come over every Friday. Wish I had that idea when my kids were younger. It was fun to have Lucy’s friends all show up, and we had fun. But I realized we really are just in a different stage. More on to pizookie nights. This is the only picture I got of that afternoon:

Dave and I went to a couple football games to support some friends whose kids play. Our team did so well this year which is exciting since we haven’t been so hot in the past.

Dave’s Uncle passed away after a battle with Alzheimers. Three of his kids (Dave’s cousins) live here (two in our very same church congregation) and we tried so share a little love with each of them with some treats and hearts:

Got to gather here for a memorial (funeral was in Utah) and it was so good to be with these good people to celebrate that man’s wonderful life.

Other October stuff…Legos, my Aunt & Uncle came through for a wedding, we studied up to go to Hamilton, more volleyball and October bday celebration with cousins:

This is kind of a long story (below), but Lucy was able to switch over from a special needs PE class to a regular 7th grade PE class and she was over the moon about it. Sometimes her teacher sends me pictures (left below) and sometimes I send her some (right below…studying for her test):

80’s day at the high school:

LOVED this art of Lucy’s I found sitting around:

It represents one of my dad’s “Grandfather’s Secrets” about how “you are unique and foreordained. Find your place and grow into all you can be.” He takes them to where this single tree is growing up on a mountainside with nothing else around it.

I adore my dad.

And I adore Lucy’s art too.

Pumpkin carving for a church activity:

Volleyball stuff…making our balloon arch:

(All about that and senior night back HERE).

We were in the middle of this class…I loved it so much!

One night we had a family movie night and Lucy decided we needed to make popcorn in honor of Grace (Grace always makes popcorn). So she got everything out and took this picture herself to send on our group family text:

Loved it so much!

Dave’s friend came to town with FRONT ROW basketball tickets for his son, nephew, and for Dave:

Dave was on cloud-nine about that…pretty great times. This was the picture he sent from his perch:

Neighborhood “Fall Festival” which gets bigger and more elaborate every year:

My parents came for Claire’s last volleyball game, which happened to be right next to my Dad’s birthday. So we celebrated. And this picture is such a great depiction of those parents of mine who I adore:

Lots of good stuff happened while they were here:

More on that back HERE.

Children for Children Concert prep with our neighbors:

Last volleyball game of the season:

(Then they went into the state games in November.)

Bo comes with me lots of days to pick up Lucy from school on the bike. I love how she waits anxiously for Lucy to come out that door:

…and so does Lucy of course. She comes out glowing when she sees that dog of hers wagging away for her.

We “boo’d” the members of our bishopric for an Activity Days thing…dropped off signs like this with some little treats:

Max and Abby around Halloween:

Our friend had a big birthday on Halloween. Luckily we are WAY younger than him. Ha!

My friend gave Lucy a little Halloween goodie bag and this is how she felt about it:

All that Halloween hoopla is back HERE.

And that’s a wrap for October!

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7 Comments

    1. Sounds like that would be right down Lucy’s alley 😉 We’ll see if she likes it if it’s not Friends Legos. Ha!

  1. I always love your monthly “little things” posts! Two questions: Where are the shoes from you wore to the beach? (sneaker booties) and what beach do you visit when in California?

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