Play Time

"Bobbing for Birdie"

Amelia loves to play with her arches. She especially loves to torment the little red bird that hangs from it. The other day I caught her trying to catch it in her mouth, but the silly thing kept elluding her. She was getting so mad at it. I swear she was telling it to just hold still for a minute so she could bite it.

Mia also loves her Jitterbuggy. Since she is doing so well at sitting up, we decided this week to let her test drive the car. She loves to play with the controls. She will pull back the reverse handleand gum on it. The whole time it is going BEEP BEEP BEEP over and over. It is so annoying and so adorable all at the same time. Everything is changing so fast with her. It is so much fun to watch her grow into such a big girl.

I Have My House Back!!

Our home improvements are finally over!!! It's been about one month since we began getting the tile put in the house and completing all the projects that went with it. I am so happy to have my kitchen, bathroom and laundry rooms back. It was not easy living without a kitchen, but it was well worth the wait.

We also had the carpet removed from the entry and tile laid there too. It looks so much nicer and really defines the rooms around it. . Laying the tile on the diagonal was a lot more labor intensive than the workers originally thought, but the outcome is beautiful!! New tile meant new paint in the laundry room as well. The new color is a big departure from the pink that was on the walls. I will miss my cheerful happy room, but this color flows a lot better with the rest of the house.

My New Do

Well, here's the "new" me. I chopped about 5 inches off my hair yesterday. I went to the salon and told Michelle, my "stylist", that I wanted to look like a different person when I left. My motivations were: 1) Not have long hair for Amelia to pull and eat and 2) I had been letting my hair grow since Maddie was born! That's three years of only getting trims. Change was definately needed. How do I look?

Costumed Cuties

Maddie has recently fallen in love with the Angelina Ballerina series, so naturally she was a "Dancing Ballerina" this year. She loves to show us how she dances and does wonderful spins.

Amelia was a little cheerleader. It was so very fun to have her dressed up. Steve carried her around cheering, "Yay! Go BYU! Go Cougars!"

This was actually the first year that we have taken Maddie around door to door for trick or treating. Before we have just gone to the ward trunk or treat and parties at friends houses. She loved it. For her first offical house we took her to Ms. Diane's and then went around a few blocks. I ended up carrying her from house to house, but she did knock on every door herself. She would tell people that she was a dancing ballerina and then she would give a twirl. People adored her! They would say her twirl was worth another candy and then they loaded her bag with more loot. What a deal. She did her trick and got MORE treats! Maddie loved Halloween so much, she is already planning for next year!

Here we are at The Farm

For our ward playgroup we all met at Old MacDonalds Farm. It is this neat place that had so much for kids to do. There is an incredible amount of animals to pet and meet up close, "wild" deer, pony rides, a humongous sand pile, a hay loft, swings, play structures and a choo-choo train. You could easily spend hours there.

The first thing we did when we arrived was pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. Maddie sorted through big ones and little bitty ones until she found her perfect pumpkin. I am glad it wasn't a huge one because I had to carry it around the rest of the day! Next we went to pet the sheep and goats and then we headed over to an open field full of deer napping in the shade. These were the most tame deer. They hardly batted a lash while Maddie and her friend Brenna pet them. While we were with the deer Maddie saw the horses and she was off running to them. She got to ride Joey around the arena twice and then we were off again. We pet the cows, pot-belly pigs, llamas, and rabbits. Maddie also chased some turkeys around with her friend Isaac. We did many more things and then had lunch.

Before we could leave we had to ride the train. It was one of those kind that is pulled by a tractor and I thought for sure it wasn't going to make it all the way around the park. It reminded me of the little engine that could... I think I can, I think I can. Both the girls had a great time and were asleep before we even made it out of the parking lot. HOORAY FOR THE FARM!!!