Hill Family: October 2012

What a fun and busy month! We started the month off by celebrating Alora's 6th birthday! I can't believe that she is already six years old! She is becoming very independent (which I love and hate) and really has a wonderful imagination. She loves to sing, play with her stuffed animals, barbies, ponies (anything really) and is an awesome big sister. She is doing great in school and really enjoys learning. She is very smart and has lots of friends. We are so blessed to have her in our family. We love you Alora Lynn and happy birthday!!

A couple of days after Alora's birthday (October 4th, 2012) we were reading scriptures and saying prayers as a family (something we have done almost every night for the past several years) and when we asked Caleb and Emily to read (or rather repeat) a verse...they did it! That was the first time that we have all read a verse each...normally it's just me, Matt, and Alora. Now hopefully we can get through the Book of Mormon a little bit faster! Hurray!

Alora played soccer for the first time this season. I have to say South Weber Recreation's program is totally unorganized, but for her first time playing it worked out totally fine. She had fun, but I'm thinking she would be more interested in gymnastics or ballet...so we will try that next! She did look totally cute in her soccer outfit, though!

In other news...Matt got a new job! Shocked and surprised? (you shouldn't be)! Anyway, things were going fine at Barber Brothers in Morgan. He wasn't very well liked in the shop because he came in and actually worked and therefore took away work from the other technicians, but that didn't bother him very much and even though things were slow, he liked the commute and the shop itself wasn't terrible. Most of what made it good was his manager, Mike. So when Mike came to Matt about a month ago and told him he was leaving Barber Brothers, we got a little nervous. However, Mike told Matt that he was going out to Quality Ford in Tooele (about an hour from our house) and that he wanted Matt to come along. He would be the main diesel technician and get paid $3 more per hour plus gas money, paid vacation right away, and a nice signing bonus. Well, it took us a lot of thought, prayer, and talking to decide that he should go out there. It is definitely farther than we ever thought he would go, but now that he's been working there it's totally worth it! He loves it! He has his own lifts, benches, shop tools, and plenty of support from managment and the owner. We have heard great things about working for the owner (who also owns Willey Ford and Willey Honda) and I truly believe that this is where he is supposed to be. I don't know why things happen, but I do know they happen for a reason and I'm just grateful that things are working out for us. We won't have to worry so much about money anymore and that takes a lot of pressure off Matt, which is especially nice now that he has started school.

Another thing that happened is we finally got the tree completely gone from our front yard! Matt and his dad first cut down the tree in June...then it sat there and started growing back so Matt cut it down further to just the stump...which sat there for another couple of weeks until I finally convinced him to just call a guy and get the whole thing grinded. Anyway, it was totally worth it because now we have a nice front yard with no ugly tree or tree stump! Next spring we will be ready for a beautiful new lawn!

We had a crazy snow storm here, too! We got about 3-4 inches overnight. It was fun, but I'm glad it melted because I'm just not quite ready for winter yet!

We also celebrated Halloween yesterday. Alora was Rapunzel, Caleb was Jake from a tv show called Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Emily was Minnie Mouse. Halloween is my least favorite holiday and it shows by my lack of decorations and the little effort I put into the kids' costumes. It doesn't matter, though. They had a fun time at the ward trunk or treat and then out with Daddy trick or treating. And now we have way too much candy in this house!

And finally...one last happy note...I got an early birthday/Christmas gift from my dad about a week ago. What was it??? It was a digital SLR camera! I am so excited! So now the quality of our pictures will increase dramatically! I am glad he gave it to me early so I can use it to capture all of the many memories we will make during this holiday season.