Big Girl

This week we decided that Anna was ready to ditch the high chair tray and join us at the table. It has been so much fun having her eat at the table with us. She loves her little plates and is so careful picking up her food.
She just has to eat whatever we are eating. Today she would have nothing to do with her pancake and just wanted to eat raisin bran. Funny kid!

First Trip to Classic Skating

Missy and Briant were down for the weekend and we thought it would be fun to go to the rink to skate and play hockey for a while. My mom was nice enough to let us come while she was doing her normal Saturday morning stuff. It is always fun having the rink to yourself. We had a great time playing hockey. It has been TOO long. I am so out of practice. I played hockey all the time before my mission and I could tell that it has been ten years since I have played. It was still fun though.
I found myself quite distracted because Anna was having so much fun exploring the rink. We brought Anna's walker so she could just go where ever she wanted. When we were little my dad would put us in the walker and then tie skate laces to the walker and just swing us around the skating floor in big circles. The rink floor + a little kid + a walker= so much fun.

We also knew she loved playing with cars, but today we found out how much she likes to drive.

Enjoy the video it is kind of long and very bumpy, but I was on skates so sorry.

Apple Sauce

The Walkers were kind enough to give us a ton of apples. Since Anna LOVES apple sauce we knew that is what we should do with them. Tuesday I made sauce with the red apples and only got 2 pints because the apples had a lot of worm spots. Wednesday I made sauce with the yellow apples and got 6 pints. Thursday night I attacked the green apples thinking I'd get about the same amount. Oh no! They were really good apples, practically perfect. We kept pealing and slicing and filling pot after pot after pot until my stove looked like this.

Luckily my sister had given me a bunch of jars for my birthday. As soon as the apples were all cut and cooking I sent Devin to Macey's to buy more lids. We ended up with 11 pints of sauce.
I really think this might be the end of the canning season. I am SO grateful to all the people who have given us fruits and veggies this year. I have a list on my fridge of everything that I have canned and frozen. It will be fun to see how long it will last. Hopefully I wont have to buy anything on that list for a long long time.

Gardner Village Witches

Anna and I went up to Gardner Village with Jessica, Hayden, and Parker on Thursday afternoon. It was fun to go see all of the crazy witches, without all the crazy people dressed up like witches. The weather was perfect, I didn't even wear a jacket. Anna is really starting to look and point at things. With all the funny witches all over she had plenty to look at and point at. We had fun finding all the witches on the witch scavenger hunt and Anna enjoyed her prize of a free chocolate chip cookie. If you haven't been you really should go. Only one more week of witches.

One Down, Two to Go

I finished Anna's Halloween costume this week. She looks really cute in it! Now we just need to find stuff for mom and dad to wear. We are going to make Devin into the hunter that saves Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma. Devin tells me I should be Little Red's Grandma, but I keep telling him that I'm just going to be her mom. She is part of the story too. :)

Enjoy the pictures! Anna didn't want to stand still or really smile for the pictures.
Please send any suggestions on easy ways to make Devin into the hunter that saves the day.

A Very Good Reason

I have been really slacking in the blogging department lately. But I have a really great reason...Anna.

Anna has really started to discover so much. When she is awake we play and play hard. She has fallen in love with cars. She can't get enough of them. She can even roll them across the floor. (Yes, if you say "cheese" she makes her little cheese face...TOO cute!)

She loves to read books. We spend lots of time reading books.

The kitchen has become a fun and exciting place. I have a drawer just full of stuff she can play with . I love cooking with her as my assistant.

Sometimes we even pull the toys out and just play. We have also been taking advantage of the wonderful warm weather and going for lots of walks.
I'd say that is a really good reason to be really behind on my blogging.

Happy 31st Birthday to Me!

Saturday was my 31st birthday. I really can't believe I'm that old! (yes for some it is old, for some it is young) I know I am older than 21, but I really don't feel much older than 25.
It was a really fun day. Sleeping in...a bit. Waffles. Apple picking. A relaxing afternoon. And a really hot date Saturday night. :)
Devin took me up to Gardener Village. We saw all the hundreds of crazy people dressed up like witches and decided that Red Robin's 5 minute wait sounded better than the 2 to 3 hour wait at Gardener Village. We haven't been on just a normal date in a long time. I love going to the temple with Devin but a normal dinner and a movie date was really fun. We stuffed ourselves with great Red Robin food. Wandered around some stores and went to a movie.
On Sunday we got together with my family and had dinner and cake and stuff.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone. It was a wonderful day.

Saturday Sampler #3

Here they are, more blocks!

Here are all the blocks I have done so far.  They look neat together.

Highway to Hale

We are always looking for fun runs. We heard about a new race that the Hale Center Theater was putting on called The Highway to Hale. You could run a 5k or a 10k and costumes were highly recommended. The part that got us to run is that not only did you get a running shirt, but you also got tickets to see the first play next year. We love going to see plays so we were sold.

It was a cold morning and we got all bundled up. When we got to the Hale Center we couldn't believe how many people were dressed up, REALLY dressed up. There were superheros, animals of sorts, kings and queens, bikers all decked out in leather, and our favorite a full bridal party, bride, flower girl, brides maids, groom, priest, the whole group...We felt weird not having costumes on, though Devin did wear his jester hat.

By the time the race started the sun was up and it was a perfect day for a race. The course wasn't bad, minus running up the HUGE hill on 4th North. It was not my best 5k race of the year :(. But, because it was such a small race I still ended up taking 3rd place in my age group and 5th in women over all. It was that small of a race. Devin even took 15th in mens....and was the first stroller to come in. Most importantly Devin beat the bridal party.

After the race they had a drawing for more prizes and a costume contest. We were glad that the bridal party won. We ended up winning a day pass to the Quarry for rock climbing.
I would have to say this was one of the most fun races I've run all year. We got: 2 running shirts, tickets to a play in January, free pizza, and a day pass for rock climbing.
We'll be there next year. Next year we will wear costumes.

Rain, Mud, Family, & Fun

We had a huge sandbox when I was a kid. One of our favorite things to do in the summer was to build cool cities in the sandbox and then flood them with the hose. We would basically fill the whole sandbox up until it was more of a mud-box than a sandbox. Playing in the mud has always been fun. At the end of September we made the journey up to Idaho for Pam's birthday party. We have heard about her parties for a long time. She plans lots of games with points and lots of just fun stuff. We decided we just didn't want to miss another fun family time.
We drove up Tuesday night and made it to Honeyville where our car got ripped up by some metal spool that got dropped off of someone's truck. Lucky for us Emily and my mom came to save the day and we spent the night at Peter and Emily's house. The next morning we talk to our insurance people and were able to get a rental car and were on our way up to Idaho by about 1pm.
The day we left our AC was running, by the time we got to Idaho it was cold and raining. We got to Pam's house just as the party was starting.
Raining, yes.
Cold, yes.
Were we still going to have fun? HECK YES!
Some of the games or things we had to do to get points were:
1. Digging up potatoes.
2. Picking plums.
3. Finding a pumpkin in the patch with a certain letter on it.
4. Picking veggies to make a fresh salad.
5. Bowling with pumpkins.
6. Making a fall center piece with stuff you collect outside.
7. Small games that you had to time yourself to see how fast you could do it.
8. Matching flowers and their names.
.....that is all I can remember.
It was so much fun! We lugged Anna around with us until the mother in me said she had better stay inside because she was getting really wet. Pam watched Anna and we were able to finish the rest of our games outside. By the time were were done we were so wet and muddy. It was fantastic!
We had a great time. Devin's family is so fun to hang out with. We are glad we made the trip.
Go to Pam's blog to get all the details and more pictures.
***Side note, we did win the game. Thanks to all of you who helped us win, we couldn't have done it without you.***

Anna's First Steps

Anna took her first real steps today while Devin was at work. After dinner we tried it out again to see if we could get it on tape. She is really getting it. She just needs to calm down, take it slow, and balance a little more. She is definitely on her way to walking. We are really excited for her.

Peter's Fountain

My mom found these great pictures of my little brother 15 years ago in front of his treasured fountain in my mom's backyard.

Peter loved this fountain. He has always had a fascination with fountains. Anywhere we went if there was a fountain he would spend way too much time looking at it and trying to figure out how it worked. He was delighted when my mom put a fountain in the back corner of her yard. He now had his own fountain to play with.

Fast-forward 15 years. It is not a surprise that the fountain has been a little neglected over the years. Peter's family lived at my mom's house over the summer, and Peter was determined to resurrect his beloved fountain. Working full time didn't stop him from finding time to work on his fountain. The crazy kid was out there working on it until all weird hours of the night. He may be old and bigger, but he still loves his fountain and now he has cool toys to help him work...like construction lights to make working until 11pm possible.

He worked his tail off and was able to get the fountain finished just before they moved back up to Logan. He did an amazing job.

Now his son Zach can fall in love with fountains too.