Lily's "friend party"

Holly's kids to get have a birthday party with their friends every other year.  It was that year for Lily.  She didn't want to leave anyone out, so she ended up inviting 17 girls to her party. Ha!  It was a costume party and Miss Lily was Dorothy, complete with ruby slippers.

 

 

 

 Holly and Cody just moved into their new home and the unfinished basement is a perfect place for 18 crazy little girls.

 

 

 Almost all of the girls are in the Chinese immersion program, like Lily is.  While they were eating, they would burst into song - in Mandarin!  It was adorable.  I got it on video, but try as I may, it would not upload onto this blog.

These girls may be a bit hyper, but they sure were a bunch of cuties.  It was fun to get a peek at this party.

Lily's birthday

 

 Our eldest grandchild, Lily, will be turning eight years old next week.  Dave and I will be out of town so we took her on her birthday date a little bit early.  She chose Chinese food for dinner.  She is in her second year of Chinese immersion in school and is really learning the language quickly.  She was even able to read some of the words on the chopsticks wrapper.  The first half of every day is spent speaking only Mandarin Chinese.  They lose points if they speak any English.  They even learn math in Chinese.

Then we took her to pick out her gift.  She chose Polly Pockets, craft lace to make boondoggles with, and a hat and shoes for her American Girl doll.

She will be baptized next month.  We are so blessed to have such a smart, beautiful, amazing granddaughter!  We love you Lils!

Conference time

Of course, we had everyone over for crepes on Sunday morning, before the General Conference broadcast. 

 

 Brigham is getting close to being able to crawl.

 Roo took over the crepe-making so Dave could eat.

The next day Holly went with Lily on her 2nd grade field trip to the zoo.  This is them on the bus.

 I watched Jack and Livie that day.  Check out Olivia's shoes.  She is wearing her Build-a-bear shoes, haha!

 It was a fine day for playing in the leaves.

Indian Summer

Is that title politically correct? 

 

 My three oldest grandsons and I went on a bike ride this week.  It was just too beautiful of a day not to do something outside.

 Then we hung out in the backyard.  The boys filled their little mouths with raspberries from our garden.

Jack climbed the nectarine tree to get at this stray raspberry branch, loaded with berries.

 We played a little kickball.

And soccer.

 Logan kept sneaking back to the berries.

 James couldn't leave the berries alone, either.

Jack was a very kind cousin and pushed Logan in the swing.

It was crazy hair day at school.  Jack wore the afro.  James couldn't go through with wearing a wig and ditched it at the last minute.

 Livie couldn't eat a cupcake so Holly frosted a rice krispy treat for her.

These cheeks were made for kissing.

 

 

 How many 90 year olds do you know that love their i phone 5?  He started Instagram this week and loves it.  He's posted 4 times already.

 

Two Autumn hikes

Alex and I figure we have been going on the powerline trail just north of our house for almost 10 years now.  It's a pretty cool mother/son thing.  This year, however, Alex found a parallel trail that is much more scenic.  The leaves are turning and well. . .

 

 Ben Lomond

Looking south towards Washington Blvd. 

A western view.

 Alex spotted this caterpillar.  We took him home and googled his species.  He will become a
Pale Swallowtail Butterfly.

Our neighbor, Danelle, had this very nice netted cage.  When we put in our caterpillar he climbed to the top and the next morning had spun a cocoon.  The grandkids are so excited about this.  We are all looking forward to our butterfly.

Yesterday we did the hike again so Dave could see our new trails.

He enjoyed the new vistas as well.