The Thatchers: October :)

We have new neighbors! I love that we have sheep and baby goats that the kids can see and play with through the fence every day.

My future lacrosse stars. Warms my heart.

Rockin out at Uncle Loren's house.

Anne now goes to vision therapy which is helping with her eyes, motor skills, and depth perception, and many other things. She loves it, especially when she gets to wear these goofy glasses and play with the fun bouncy balls. We've already seen improvement in her reading.

The Farms at Thanksgiving Point.

The girls' big BYU Homecoming kids races. Sarah was so excited to be able to run this year. So she and Rachel were in the 1-4 year old group running the 200 meters. Anne advanced to the next older group than last year so she ran the 800 meters.

Speedy little Rachel won her race again :)

Sarah had so much fun and ran the entire race with Aunt Jennifer :)

And Anne ran strong in her long race and ran the entire 800 meters!

I love this picture of Zac with his girls.

Getting ready for the big Homecoming game.

Waiting for the game to start.

This was such a fun experience. The girls had a blast, our little cougar fans. We thought they would only last till half time or the 4th quarter. Nope, it was such a close, fun game they lasted all the way till the end (about 9:30) (except Sarah as you'll see below) and cheered the entire game.

Victory fireworks after the game.

Just funny.

My very thoughtful father gave us the riding lawn mower that was my Grandpa Russell's. It's as old as I am and needed a little bit of work. But thanks to my very handy mechanic brother, Loren, it is up and running and works great! I'm not going to lie, it's so much fun :)

Little reader.

We are now trying as a family to "ponderize" a scripture each week. So we try to memorize, think, and talk about it. This was our first one.

Anne's adorable querky 1st grade picture :)

For Zac's birthday, I got us really good seats to a BYU football game. Soooo nice.

Our new toy. Comes in very handy for sucking up leaves as well.

For Fall Break we went up to Jordanelle to take the girls fishing. There was absolutely nobody there which was so nice. Shizzie was able to run around and explore.

She loves the BOB books, just like her sisters. She pretends to read them all the time.

Halloween art projecting.

Just enjoying some pears.

I told the girls I would give them a penny for every brick they got out of the garden.

Anne found a snail and claimed it as her pet.

Carving pumpkins.

Isn't this such a cool picture?? It is our last big burn of the year trying to get rid of that tree line in the back field. It was awesome.

Results from a pie making class.

Rachel's fall leaf art project.

Anne's Halloween costume parade at school.

Halloween breakfast (those are pumpkin pecan pancakes :)

Halloween dinner. The Mac and Cheese was supposed to be Halloween shapes but it cooked too long and got all mushed up. Oh well.

Carmel, chocolate, candy apples.

Anne's 3rd costume of the week. She wanted to go trick-or-treating as a doctor. But not just any doctor, her pediatrician, Dr. Anderson. I gave him a print of this picture and he was touched.

Snow White

Zarina from the Tinkerbell movie "Pirate Fairy". Turned out so cute.

With another pirate and a Winnie the Pooh. The girls had so much fun trick-or-treating really for the first time. Provo was not a happening trick or treating place. It was fun to go around the neighborhood and the girls could see people they knew. Our house did not get frequented because it was known as the street with the older folks who were probably asleep. It's also pretty dark. We'll try to figure something out for next year.

The next day was my birthday. I looooved having my birthday on a Sunday. I got to sleep in. Zac was home all day. We got to go to Church. We had a family dinner with my brothers and sister. I wish it could be on Sunday every year. Zac made me breakfast in bed. He also made me one of my favorites for dinner, lasagna. And for dessert he made a super yummy oreo cheesecake with cherries on top. It was so fun being with and talking to all the family. I felt very loved and blessed. :)

Uncle Loren made the girls Lego jello jigglers. Rachel was a big fan.

Testing out the wagon for Rachel's birthday party.

After an entire summer of not wanting to play in the playhouse we cleaned out for them because it had flies in it, they finally started playing in it (probably cause the flies are gone cause it's too cold).

Anne is learning about "ancient Egypt" (as she always says). She has also been learning about the systems in the body as well as the planets and moon. We are loving Lincoln Academy.

I got to chaperone one of Anne's field trips to go see the "James and the Giant Peach" play at Scera Theater. Anne loved it and still asks if we can go see it again. Her teacher is reading them the story in class each day.

Rachel's birthday cakes. She also wanted a party this year, which I agreed to since we are new here and it would be a good way to make friends for all of us. She was very particular about the cake she would like (the one on the right). She saw it in a Sheriff Calie episode. It was a carrot cake with white and orange frosting, carrot candles (we just used orange ones), with cherries on top. She has good taste, it was yummy. The other cake was to make sure we had enough for everybody and was a chocolate bundt cake with chocolate frosting and cherries.

Rachel's Party! We are so glad so many of our friends could come and celebrate little Rachel's big day! Rachel was on cloud nine.

Rachel's pinata that she designed entirely by herself. It was a robot.

Her present from us was a Kinex set. She is such a creative builder and thinker, we thought this would be right up her alley. Daddy and Uncle Loren were happy to help :)

She put together one of her lego presents entirely by herself just from looking at the instructions.

Rachel is still a ball of fun energy. She loves to run, flip. climb, jump, bounce, and cartwheel all over the house. She is loving our big back yard and the friends that live just through our back gate and two houses down. She impresses everybody with her ability to remember....everything and is steam rolling ahead with her homeschool preschool. She is about halfway through her 1st grade workbook and is soooo excited to start kindergarten in the fall. She is a super big help around the house and loves to help her sisters. Though her spitfire personality does come with some sparks and tantrums, I wouldn't trade her for the world :) We love our little firecracker, Rachel America.

Zac's Phone

Cool.

Taken by Rachel.

Ditto.

Fall Break Fishing trip. The Reeses Pieces got blown over and spilled. They had no problem cleaning them up.

Me and my boy fishing ;-)

This picture is so gross and funny. So I got a call from Anne's school one day saying that Anne had stuck a bead up her nose. I didn't believe them at first. Anne had never stuck anything up her nose before. She doesn't even pick her nose! But sure enough I got there and it was stuck up there pretty good. So we headed to the pediatrician and picked up Zac on the way. He told her to plug one side and blow and thankfully it came out. Why he kept it and took a picture of it is beyond me, this makes me gag, but it was a funny, weird experience. Oh kids.