Who Knew that Autumn Could be so Much Fun???

These are old glass bottles from our old dairy down in Utah.

More old glass bottles from our dairy.

Mini pumpkins...Just so you know, I did not go around my whole house and take pictures of all my fall decorations. I only took pictures of most of them. Enjoy!!!

Mini pumpkins with wheat I collected from our farm as we were harvesting.

Mini pumpkins

Here are some more mini-pumpkins.

I went to a girl in my ward's bridal shower and I won this. Isn't it so nice?

Aren't these tiny little pumpkins so cute? They are like baby mini pumpkins.

This is my favorite decor in the house...I got this cute little leaf/ribbon decor with Miriam a year ago when we went shopping together, and there are more leaves around the decor that Ted bought me. But, my favorite parts are, the cute tiny pumpkins, and the old glass milk and cream bottles. This last week when we were down in Utah, we stopped by our old dairy, Country Boy Dairy, and since it is probably one of the last times that we will be down there before the rest of the dairy is dispatched and torn down, I decided to give Ted a tour. As we were going through the different areas of the old milk barn, processing rooms, coolers, corrals, calf pens, etc., we found a few little remaining items from the original dairy. We found these old glass milk bottles, and these old glass cream bottles. They are basically extinct, so we brought them home with us. I was so sad to see the dairy in the shape it was in, because that is where all my childhood memories are. Our home looks like it needs a new owner, someone who actually cares about it, and the dairy is too far gone to be repaired. In fact, my uncle is selling off the corrals, so even they are going down with it. It has been such a hard transition to move up to Idaho, but it is so much better than living down there and watching the dairy get torn to pieces a little at a time. I tried to make the fireplace area a little festive, so I added some leaves and pumpkins.

This little hanging wreath is so fun! It really adds to our outdoor decor.

As you can tell in all of the pictures, we got pumpkins!!! We got these out of our garden.

I found these way cute little people in the Jo-Ann's store in Pocatello a couple months ago. They are seriously the cutest little things! I got one for me and one for Ted, and tried to match our looks with theirs. How did I do?

This is the front part of our house with the decorations I have outside.

Can you believe that this can go to...

This??? We have been working way hard to get our wood storage, as you already know from previous posts. So, we took our 10 pallets of wood, and stacked them inside our grain bin yesterday. It took me, Ted, and my mom, 7 hours to stack all of this wood. Now, it is not just what you see in this picture, it is all around the grain bin, but I figured you could get the idea from one picture. It was way hard work, and Ted and I had some sore muscles last night after all that work. But, we got it done right before the rain storm hit! Yeah! That was our goal...to get the wood inside before it got rained on. Ted is so happy now, because he has some good wood storage!

We have been having a lot of fun out here this last week. We have gotten lots of food from out garden, including, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, carrots, onions, pumpkins, and squash. It has been so much fun reaping all the food! When you first plant the garden in the Spring, and then take care of it throughout the summer, it is a lot of fun watching your hard work and seeing how if you water, weed, and keep the plants growing, they really produce a lot of food. Then, by the time fall rolls around, you get to go out and get a lot of fresh food that took some extra work, but is most definitely worth it!!!

When we were out harvesting our food, my mom and I were talking about how it is so nice to be able to work and reap the benefits. It is good to see how when you work at something and take care of it, how it builds your character and self-confidence. We talked about how it is really sad to see the upcoming generation not having the same work ethic that we have, because they haven't been taught by their parents. It seems that we have gotten so caught up in ourselves and what we want to do and be, that we have forgotten about teaching our children the basic and most important principles about life; such as working, learning, playing, and growing in a wholesome environment. We have seen so many examples where mothers have sat their children in front of the television or computer and let the ways of the world teach them. Then, the parents wonder in a couple years why their children won't listen to them, respect them, or even help out around the house. It is so important to have kids do chores around the house (no matter how small the chore is). It is important to teach you kids from a very young age about life and the things that matter in life (and it is also important to be an example of these things we teach to our children). It is important to teach them values, standards, respect, honesty, value for human life, and how to work hard. It is not a crime against nature to go outside and get dirty, dig up the earth, plant gardens, flowers, trees, etc. It is so good for children to learn how to play outside as well as inside. Take time to play catch with them, this will help them to develop their hand/eye coordination. Most importantly, teach them about their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Have a gospel-centered home. It will be the only stability that they have in this life, and heaven only knows how much they need it. I speak from my heart. I know that I have no real-life experience in this whole world of parenting, but I know that these are some things that are getting looked over. Please parents, love and care for your children. Don't wait until it is too late!