Labor Day

We had a good Labor Day weekend. We did a few fun things today since Mitchell didn't have to go to work. The kids let us sleep in pretty late, which was nice since we usually have early mornings with Mitchell working and going to school. We went and browsed around the mall for a bit and had some lunch in the food court there. We went to a park in the afternoon. The kids had fun playing while Mitchell drew for some assignments and I worked out homeschool lesson plans. We had a nice quiet time and I read a Sherlock Holmes story in my book. We were excited about getting some awesome new Star Wars shirts from Baby Gap with a 30% off code we had, but after not getting the code to apply, we realized that line is excluded from coupons. :(  Later, we took the kids to another park and they had fun playing there. We also did a mini photo shoot to get some pictures for the invitations I want to make for Annabelle's birthday party. That was pretty fun. The kids are so hard to get pictures of because they are either moving around like crazy or they are making really stupid smiley faces. It doesn't help that our camera is TERRIBLE at taking pictures. I was surprised at how many I got. We ended the day by watching new episodes of 2 of our favorites shows, which happen to be cartoons on Cartoon Network. They are Adventure Time and Regular Show; we love watching them together.

Here are a few photos that I really liked:

First Annual Thanksgiving Walk

I decided to start a new tradition for our family this year. I'm calling it our Thanksgiving Walk. The plan is to go somewhere with beautiful, fall colors and walk and talk about what we are grateful for as well as just enjoy the earth Heavenly Father has created for us. I came up with the idea a little too late in the month because most of the pretty colors have faded. It was still nice, though.

Annabelle slept through the whole walk. It was naptime on a Sunday, so she was really tired.

Here is Joseph putting his mittens on. It wasn't cold enough that he needed them, but he likes wearing them.

This was a pretty little waterfall and stream that we saw. We have walked this path up in Provo Canyon many times, but I've never noticed this before. I was wearing my rain boots, so I went and splashed in it just because I could. It was fun.

This is where the little stream splits and goes around a cool looking tree. Hardly any of the trees still had leaves, but it was still a nice walk in a beautiful place.

Halloween 2011

In all the craziness of yesterday, I forgot to take a single picture. I could get the kids dressed up again, but it just doesn't seem the same.

Annabelle was a cute little pumpkin, Joseph was Spiderman, I was an autumn fairy, and Mitchell was Darth Vader.

Joseph had fun trick or treating for a little while. Annabelle had fun, too, but just because she got to see a lot of people.

It was a good night, but very exhausting.

4th of July Weekend

We really had such an awesome 4th of July weekend.

On Friday, I was pretty stressed from school and everything and I was feeling a little disappointed that we didn't have any plans to celebrate, but Mitchell let me know that he had made plans to have dinner with some friends on Sunday night.

Then, on Saturday, Aunt Marianne called and invited us over for 4th of July! And I remembered that Dane's baby blessing was going to be on Sunday. We spent most of Saturday getting homework done so that we would be able to have fun the rest of the weekend. We heard from some friends in the ward that the best place to watch the fireworks was in the stadium's parking lot. We walked down there with the kids. It was so amazing! Mitchell and I covered the kids' ears to protect them from the noise. The explosions were so powerful that we could sometimes feel them! It was just so beautiful. Joseph was totally amazed by it all. Annabelle liked watching it, but then ended up falling asleep.

On Sunday, we drove up to Sandy for the blessing. It was so wonderful to see so much family all together at once. We had a really good time visiting with everyone after sacrament meeting. Joseph really loved playing with all of his cousins and Annabelle had fun, too. We drove straight from Sandy to our friends', the Winwards. We ate dinner and played games and just had a nice visit.

On Monday, we finished up a little bit of homework that we still had left. As we were deciding what to do for lunch, Samantha arrived. We all went out to In and Out Burger together. Joseph and Athena just loved being together. Then we went to Aunt Marianne's and a really fun time with everyone. We even rolled down a hill. Joseph didn't want to leave his cousins when it was finally time to go home and go to bed.

The weekend was so much fun that it was hard to get back into the groove of the school week. We've managed to get all of our stuff done okay, though. I got an 87% on my first Stats exam, but the written portion hasn't been graded and added to that, so I might have done even better. It feels good to be doing well in school. I've been having nightmares for years that I would go to school and be so far behind that they would kick me out. It's nice when the nightmares are proved wrong.

I have two very whiny, cranky children that I need to get to bed now, so I will have to be done. I hope that we can all get some sleep tonight.

Old St. Patrick's Day Pictures

I don't have anything new to post about, so I'll post some old pictures.

Mitchell's St. Patrick's Day milk. He put green food coloring in it.

Joseph in his green shirt with his green milk. It's kinda hard to see, but I let him have green milk all day. He didn't really notice any difference, but it was still fun.

A Posting of Pictures

Joseph loves snuggling his stuffed animals. Those are 2 of his favorites. He woke up and crawled into his room to play. I heard cute little noises coming from there, so I looked in and saw him snuggling his little friends. He makes cute, squeaky noises when he's snuggling them.

My new haircut! It's a weird angle that Mitchell took it from and my face looks greasy, too. But my haircut is amazing! I love it. It's the first haircut I've had in almost 2 years. It was so nice to get all the dead ends cut off. I went to a salon that's really close to our house. When I walked in, about 20 black ladies were staring at me as if to say, "What do you think you're doing in here?" I stayed and ended up getting the best haircut I've ever had. She even curled it for me!

Modeling the yoga pants Mitchell got me for our Anniversary. I love them! I would wear them everywhere if I could.

Mitchell with his Anniversary present from me. It's a towel. He laughed so hard when he opened it. It's the perfect gift for him. We use very unconventional terms of endearment for each other, including Butt Face. Mitchell's family hates it, and the funny thing is I don't remember why we started doing it, but we have fun with each other and it works for us. We're starting to stop, though, because we don't want Joseph to think it's okay to use those names with other people. I know it's weird. We ARE weird.

Triple Threat

Yesterday was Easter, General Conference, and our 2nd Anniversary! Mitchell said it was a triple threat. I'm going to separate each part to make it easier.

Easter:

Mitchell had a basket set outside the bedroom door and eggs and things hidden around the room for Joseph when he woke up. He had a great time finding the eggs. He was shaking them and then figured out how to open and started throwing the candy around. Later in the afternoon, I fell asleep without picking up all the candy and he figured out how to eat it, so all evening he was on a major sugar high and crawling around the house like a maniac. I had to give him a bath because he was so sticky. We had lunch with Mitchell's mom and sister between sessions and it was really nice. It was a really good Easter. One of the things we got Joseph is a board book of the first Easter. It's really beautiful and it will be wonderful to read every year.

Coming out to find his sheep and basket.

Finding his Easter book.

His first egg.

Trying to pose with the monkey that Grandma Pyle gave him.

2 more eggs.

General Conference:

We went to the church to watch the first session. It was so wonderful. I think my favorite talk was President Uchtdorf's. I also noticed that many talks over the weekend included a lot about the importance of families, teaching your children, and being a good parent. I liked that. My family is the most important thing to me. We had to leave towards the beginning of President Monson's talk because I suddenly started having a really bad allergy attack and my throat was swelling up. I still don't really know what caused it. The 2 Benadryl I had to take kicked in when the second session started, so I unintentionally slept through the whole thing. We'll watch the talks we missed as FHE lessons.

Anniversary:

We like to follow the gift list for anniversaries just because it makes it fun. The 2nd anniversary is cotton. So Mitchell got me 2 pairs of Victoria's Secret yoga pants that I've been wanting. They are black with a color on the waistband; one pair is hot pink and the other is purple leopard print. I love them, I'm even wearing a pair right now. They are so comfortable, too. For some reason, the gift I got him wasn't shipped until 3 days after I bought it, so it's not here yet. I'm annoyed because I payed extra so it would get here in time. I'm probably going to call and get my money back. I'll post of picture of it after he gets it, in case he saw my blog beforehand. We broke the Sabbath and went out to eat dinner together. We went to Yukon Steakhouse, which is a place his dad used to take them on some Sundays when he had them for the weekend. We had a good time and I was glad I didn't have to cook because I was still out of it from the Benadryl. We watched a movie together when we got home. It was a really good anniversary. We always have so much fun buying each other gifts. I know we'll have fun next year, too. And maybe our anniversary won't be on a Sunday.

I'm Getting Too Distracted...

Okay, I've been doing an awful job of posting. And it's so funny because I'm actually having exciting things happening in my life. Mitchell finally started at Chick-Fil-A this morning, so I'm going to try to post in the mornings while I eat breakfast because the computer will be free and I tend to eat breakfast in front of the computer anyways (partly because the desk is our only table-like surface).

Here's a quick update of some of the things that have happened:

• We were able to have dinner with Aunt Becky and Uncle Clyde on St. Patrick's Day. It was really fun. Later in the evening, Mitchell insisted on going somewhere Irish to drink root beer because we don't drink real beer. The place he wanted to go to (Keagan's) had a line starting to wrap around the block. So we went to Kelly's Tavern and he ate a horrible Reuben with soggy french fries and I didn't eat my cheesecake because it was too disgusting.
• The weather turned BEAUTIFUL. It's been in the high 70s and low 80s the past few days, so we've spent a lot of time outside.
• Mitchell was accepted to BYU-Provo for the Fall semester!!! We are VERY excited. I can't wait to get out near family again.
• I started spring cleaning and got my desk cleaned and organized for the first time since we moved in. The rest of the house is a disaster, though. Mitchell says the house was cleaner before I started spring cleaning.
• I'm approximately 8 weeks pregnant and I have my first appointment this week. I'm still morning sick, but haven't thrown up for a while. I've had a few scares, though. I almost puked all over our tables at Logan's Roadhouse, Chick-Fil-A, and my mother-in-law's table when guests were over (these were all different days). Luckily, I kept it all in.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to try REALLY hard to post tomorrow.

Halloween 2009

Well, it was Joseph's first Halloween and I think it went pretty well. This is basically just going to be pictures with explanations. We did go to the Trunk or Treat. Mitchell passed out candy and Joseph and I walked around to show off our costumes and see the costumes of everyone else. We got some candy in the process.

That's right, we're Trekkies. We loved the show (the first season with William Shatner) when we watched it earlier this year and then the movie came out. We aren't the nerdy Trekkies, though. We've only watched the first season and I don't think we'll ever get into all the other versions. Mitchell was Scotty and even did the accent when he was handing out candy. I was Uhura. And Joseph was Captain Kirk.

Captain Kirk. I made his shirt. It came out so well.
Mitchell tried taking a picture of Joseph's little hair-do that he did. It was supposed to stick up a little like Kirk's does. It only lasted for about 20 minutes.

Uncle John and Aunt Sara, Mitchell's brother and sister.

Joseph's reaction after seeing Uncle John and Aunt Sara. It was so cute and so sad at the same time. He got really scared and started crying when Sara started laughing at John's costume.

So, that's our Halloween. It was good. Now I'm going to try to get back into everyday life after spending the past week trying to do costumes and things.