Isn't it beautiful the way the leaves die?

So it's been a bit of a tough day today. Levi woke up from his nap after only 40 minutes today just sobbing and would not go back to sleep despite Eric's and my best efforts. And he had a fever again! It's the fourth time he's come down with a fever since he started daycare! It's ridiculous and makes me so sad because he's so miserable. Nothing seems to help him feel comfortable and he's grouchy and crying and I can't make it better. It really makes me wonder if we are doing the right thing by putting him in daycare. I hate seeing him suffer like this and we just can't seem to catch a break! I feel like such a bad mom.

Also, I locked my keys in my car today. And we don't have a spare key because of the whole dropping my keys down that pole in the park incident. So my car is still just chilling at the church. We'll have to call roadside assistance tomorrow morning before Eric goes to work.

I took pictures of the young women today for YW in excellence. Thankfully the girls were good sports about it and most of the pictures turned out pretty good but I have two that are a bit blurry. Not sure what happened with those, I must have been in too much of a hurry and moved or something. Which is super embarrassing and makes me feel like a pretty awful photographer.

With all of this going on, I'm really grateful I got to go to women's conference yesterday. I always feel the spirit there and I leave feeling inspired to do and be better. This time I especially appreciated President Uchtdorf's talk. He talked about how we choose our attitude regardless of our circumstances. He talked about how comparison makes us sad and how we can let go of worrying about how others feel or think and just be ourselves. I have to admit I have let myself feel sad a bit today but even though I feel sad about Levi being sick and my lost keys and the bad pictures, I still am so grateful for my life, my boys and the beautiful fall weather we are finally having! We are blessed beyond measure.

Realized last week that Levi is now big enough for his little track suit. So cute!

This is how we've been spending a lot of our Sundays this month what with Levi being sick! Love my sweet boy snuggles but sad for the circumstances. 

We've got a little fall fashion model on our hands

Seriously the cutest boy

Rain coat season is back!

In other news, I chopped all my hair off! Yay! I feel so liberated. 

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you

So Eric and I have been doing our companionship study by topic over the last several months and this past week we choose peace as our topic. It turned out to be an inspired choice as I feel like the world all around us has been in turmoil lately. What with Hurricane Harvey devastating Houston, wildfires raging all over the US including practically the whole western state of Montana and close to home as well with the Eagle Creek fire which burned so much of our beautiful gorge and blanketed the whole Portland metro with smoke and ash for several days, Hurricane Irma destroying the Carribean and now headed for Florida and just general rumors of wars and unsettlement in the world with Trump making bold statements about North Korea and dismantling DACA. And not just in the world around us but at home as well we've faced things which rocked our peace. My car broke down a week ago and we had to get it towed to a mechanic to get it fixed and while it was there, it got hit by another tow truck and so now we have to figure out that settlement. Levi had his first week of daycare (which he was a rockstar at) but now has come down with a horrible cold/flu from. And the school year started for Newberg which meant a lot of running around for me at work and trying to make sure that all my kiddos on my caseload were taken care of and had what they needed for their first few days of school. There's just been a lot going on which can make me feel not at all peaceful!! But even with all of those things going on, I do have peace and comfort in the Gospel. I find that even though I am worried about things going on around me, or they make me sad, I feel comforted in the knowledge the Heavenly Father oversees all and He is well aware of my needs and the needs of my family and those around me. I find peace in my home as the Spirit is here and I find happiness with my husband and son as we share sweet moments of just laughing and being together, having dance parties, going for walks and enjoying the beauty of nature, and hanging out at the park. I know that my family will be together forever as we honor our covenants and I know that no matter what happens, we can have peace through the Spirit. A quote I read this week as part of our companionship study by Howard W Hunter sums up how I have been feeling: "When we feel the floods are threatening to drown us and the deep is going to swallow up our tossed vessel of faith, I pray we may always hear amid the storm and the darkness that sweet utterance of the Savior of the world, "Be of good cheer, it is I; Be not afraid." While I have moments of trouble, worry, and fear, I am strengthened by prayer and my faith that God will watch out for and protect me and my family. And I have been extra conscious this past week of savoring the little peaceful moments I have with Levi and Eric. These moments mean the world to me.

Levi loves to beg blackberries from Grandpa (an anyone else who will give them to him!)

Berry face!!

Love these boys!!

My mischevious run-away

This sight makes my heart happy. Fresh, ripe golden peaches, mmmmm

We went through our original 10 pounds of fresh-picked peaches so fast that Levi and I got to go again, this time with our friend Shalece and her son Lincoln who is 4 days older than Levi :)

Levi loves the truck park

I love us

Levi and I tried out a fun new splash pad on Labor Day

It looks like the water is spraying out of his head haha

This is how my poor sick baby and I spent pretty much the whole day yesterday: Just snuggling because he felt so crummy and didn't want to be put down or be alone at all.

Oreclipse 2017

So some of you may have heard, there was an eclipse here last week! Apparently, people were really stoked about it and came from all over the country to see it here. Fortunately for us, some of those swarms of people happened to be some of my favorite people on the planet including Katie, my parents and Natachia! I had just planned on working that day and stepping outside for a minute when it was actually happening to see it, but the district offices were closed on Monday due to fears of horrible traffic! So Eric and I both worked from home that day. My parents and sister had driven south to be in the zone of totality so I just walked Levi over to a park near our house and watched the eclipse from there while he ran around completely oblivious to the fact that an awesome astronomical event was unfolding right before us. Here in Tualatin the sun was like 98% eclipsed and I was super surprised how light it stayed the whole time! It was way lighter outside than I had expected with only 2% of the sun visible! And it was actually really eery. The birds stopped chirping, the insects came out and the whole earth was bathed in this super golden light. It was almost like looking at the world as a sepia tinted photograph. Very weird. And there were little crescent shadows all over the ground under the trees. It was definitely a unique experience but I wouldn't say that I got at all emotional about it. I have heard some people talking about what a spiritual experience it was for them to see the eclipse and I don't know if it's just because I wasn't in the zone of totality and didn't see the corona or what but I didn't have anything like that. Still, it was cool.

Anyway, as I said, my family came up here for the eclipse so our house was pretty full last weekend! My parents stayed with us the first two nights before they could check into their AirBnb and Katie, her two friends and Natachia stayed at Katie's new apartment. I am soooo excited for her to move up here officially in just a couple weeks! But yeah, I am definitely not used to feeding 10 people at a time! We blew through our food so fast! Haha. But it was so fun to all be together, although we were definitely missing Eric. We went peach picking on Saturday and got some delicious peaches which Katie's friends used some of to make some AMAZING peach cupcakes. I love how Oregon has so many u-pick farms close by. The produce is just so much better when you get to pick it at the peak of ripeness! And I love being able to support local farms.

Anyway, the eclipse and family visiting is the big news around here. But I also started my new job last week! It has been good so far! I really like my co-workers. Lori is the OT I'll be working with and Ha is the other PT who I am job sharing with and so far we get along really well. I think they'll be a great team. I've finally made it through reviewing all of my student's charts and IEPs and I spent a good deal of time of Friday tracking down equipment so this next week I will get to dive into actually starting some training and meeting some of my more involved kiddos. Then school starts the week after next!

Friday was Emily's last day. It was weird saying goodbye to her. I think it's still a little surreal to me, like I expect to just see her and Arlo again tomorrow. Arlo and Levi have gotten so cute together, I wonder if they'll miss each other. Levi doesn't start day care till next week though so we have our back-up nanny, Sonja, covering for us this week. I'm nervous for Levi to start daycare. I'm worried about how his first day will go, how it will affect his nap schedule (which is so great right now, he sleeps 2 1/5 to 3 hours in the pm, I love it!), and how it will affect his behavior in the evenings on Wed and Thurs. I'm worried that daycare will just totally wear him out so he will be a total grouch when he's home with us those evenings. But I think it will be a beneficial switch for our family overall. We'll be saving a lot of money and Eric will get to come home earlier in the evenings which is a huge bonus.

Another thing that happened recently was some weird health stuff. First, Levi came down with a funky rash all over his body! It looked awful but did not appear to itch or bother him at all and he had literally no other symptoms! But it moved around! It would be on his legs and back and then move to his arms and belly. It was super weird but then within 24 hours it was gone.

Then yesterday, I came down with a horrible UTI. I had never had one before and this one was like baptism by fire. And it came on when we were at the temple, right at the start of the session! And guess who was the witness couple? Yep, this girl and her man. So yeah, sitting through that session was literally one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was almost as distracting as being in labor! Sooo bad. So immediately after the session, Eric took me to urgent care. Only urgent care is not so urgent on Saturdays, there was a 2 and a half hour wait! So ridiculous! But thankfully they got me sent over to the lab sooner than that. I've never given a urine sample that looked like kool-ade before. There was so much blood. It was disgusting! But yeah, while I did that, Eric went and got me some Azo which took a whole hour to kick in, but after it did I felt so much better. And now I'm on antibiotics and feeling almost completely back to normal. Crazy.

So yeah, that's been our crazy life lately. I was realizing as I got the pictures for the last couple of weeks off of my phone, that we didn't get any pictures from the eclipse or from the family visit. Which is a bummer, but here are some other random pictures I did take!

Levi's curls on point. Love them so much!!

Eric and I took Levi to the OMSI again the other day and he loved it even more than last time! He had a wonderful time throwing the balls into the water tornado! 

Blackberries are in season right now and we have a ton of wild ones growing right around our house! Levi has loved eating them straight off the vine. When we go outside he points to the path where they are and asks for them with "ba?"

Levi just chilling and surveying his domain.

We went to this awesome icecream place with my parents in Portland on Thursday. They are all locally sourced and delicious. I had Oregon blackberry crumble in between two butterscotch cookies and it was amazing.