The Williams Family: October 2016

Pumpkin Trail

I took the kids to the pumpkin trail yesterday. They always like seeing the decorations and carved pumpkins. It would have been better to see the jack-o-lanterns at night but then you miss the other displays and it's a lot busier.

I thought each kid picked an appropriate emoji here. (Brooke didn't come- she didn't get her chores done in time.)

Austin took this picture of us. We need to work on his photography skills.

Date Night

Friday night was our PFP date night. We had a groupon for a driving range so we decided to try it. Becky, Jacob and I had never done anything but mini golf before so it was new experience.

It was actually really fun but I did tear up a lot of grass.

After hitting 3 buckets of balls we got frozen yogurt. It was a fun date night but we missed the other half of our group that moved away!

Grandparent time

The kids didn't have school on Monday so we took grandma and grandpa to the Science Spectrum and a park.

That evening Kaylee planned our family home evening lesson. It was a jeopardy game complete with illustrations and questions- "What is happening?"

Tuesday the kids had school so I got my parents to help me with some house projects. My mom and I started putting in new flooring in the bathroom. It used to be two different levels with two different surfaces (there was carpet in half the room when we first moved in.) I'm grateful for her help. I wanted to take care of some of these things for a long time. I'm just not motivated to do them alone and Jake is always so busy. We got it halfway done and Jake finished the rest. My dad washed and waxed our van.

It was so fun to have them here. The kids were really sad they had to leave. This is the only picture I got of them while they were here.

Brooke's Baptism

Last weekend Brooke was baptized! Both sets of grandparents were able to make it out to Lubbock for her special day. We also had many of our dear friends from Lubbock join us.

Another girl from our ward -Addi got baptized the same time. I'm good friends with her mom Jillian. We both picked out the same baptism invitations without even knowing it. :)

I made lavender cupcakes for the occasion.

We took a few pictures before the baptism but failed to get any with the grandparents.

We had several friends come that are members of other churches come. Kelsey has been Brooke's friend since kindergarten. It was really sweet of her to come.

My mom spoke about the Holy Ghost. She compared it to a traffic light. The spirit can tell us to stop and repent (red light), warn of danger (yellow light), or teach, testify, and prompt (green light).

Jake baptized Brooke and confirmed her.

After the baptism we had refreshments. The kids went a little crazy on the treats and they were all gone- many of the adults didn't get any.

After we cleaned up we went to lunch at Olive Garden- Brooke's choice. After lunch everyone changed and we went to the Ranching Heritage Center. I neglected to take more than one picture there. We also went swimming at the hotel that both grandparents were staying at before dinner.

We hosted everyone for dinner at our house. Oma and Papa gave Brooke her very own scriptures. This is the only picture I got of them all weekend. They flew home the next morning. It was a short visit but we were glad they came. My parents were able to stay a few more days.

General Conference

I love General Conference weekend. I love staying home with the family and listening to the words of the prophets. It was really hard to listen most of the time. We did get one round of conference bingo in but most of the time it was hard to hear.

I really love Conference naps. Kaylee almost never falls asleep.

I was painting Emma's nails and she decided she wanted to paint dad's toenails. I was surprised he let her.

Jake decided he would never let her do it again after he realized how hard it was to get the paint off!

I didn't hear a lot of the talks but of what I did hear was a several talks about prayer and reading the Book of Mormon. They are such small simple things but really make a difference. I know I need to be better at each. One quote I remember in particular was "Are you really praying or just saying your prayers?" I think too often I do just "say my prayers" and not stop and think enough.