Colors

Although I don't appreciate Fall's cold weather, or the early sunsets, every year I do marvel at the colors of Fall. The world is so beautiful!




Buddy's favorite thing to do while Lulu is in preschool is to walk around collecting treasures. Mostly he picks dandelions, but our yard is pretty much out of them lately because he's picked them all. He also enjoys picking flowers and picking up sticks and wood chips, while trying to avoid the neighbor's abandoned cat that won't leave us alone. Dang cat. He pushes Buddy over, and bites and scratches him. Granted Buddy may have done something like pull his tail that warranted a scratch, but I don't think that was the case this time. Buddy used to love him. He'd pet him and play with him. Now he has been avoiding the cat, just minding his own business and the cat won't leave him alone. The cat has been stepped on many times because he just jumps right in your way. So annoying. Ollie says he will dispose of the cat soon. I told him to be humane about it. Maybe he can somehow get him to a shelter. Here he is eating some food another neighbor left out because she felt bad for him:





















Anyway, Buddy is enjoying the colors of Fall too!

Grandpa

My mom is a cute little grandma. She was happy to hear all the details of my pregnancies and now shares stories of raising her own kids with me. She loves her little ones, it's obvious.

But my Dad, he's almost obsessed with being Grandpa.

My Dad was so excited to be a grandpa. Excited doesn't seem the right word here. Ecstatic maybe? I gave him his first grandchild, and boy was it exciting. I will never forget it. He would call and ask how the baby was, when she was still inside of me and just the size of an apple. He would then call when Lulu was born and was so happy to hear any sort of noise through the phone: a whimper, a cry, or even better a giggle!

He never bores of Lulu's rambling and often unintelligible conversations. He thinks the funny things they do are THE funniest things he's ever heard. He thinks they are the cutest babies he's ever seen.

But he doesn't get to cherish his grand-babies as much as he wishes; he has had to settle with listening through the phone and visiting once or twice a year. See, they lived in far away Chile. Now they live much closer, in Mexico. So we get to see them more often. Oh the joy. You should see Grandpa's face when he plays with his "babies" and you can see how much they love him too.
Grandma and Grandpa were here at the beginning of the month, and we will be able to go and visit them in Mexico soon! Then, they are coming home for Christmas. Wow, we aren't used to this. We'll soak in all the time we can get.

Here are Lulu and Grandpa the last time they were together this month:Grandpa has a thing with giving people pig noses... don't ask. Lulu loves it, cuz it's from Grandpa.
And so, the love affair continues. And I can't accurately describe the joy it brings me to witness it.

Her Drawing Skills

Lulu made these two pictures the other day. She pointed out some of the details in the pictures that were a little harder to recognize, so I have labeled them for you.
Enjoy!

Lulu's self-portrait:


How Lulu pictures Buddy:

Our Busy Busy Day

Last Monday was one of those days where we just packed everything in. It was (mostly) all fun stuff too! So that was awesome. Here's how the day played out:

8:15 Run on the treadmill, shower
8:45 Breakfast, get ready
9:00 Lulu goes to preschool
9:15 Clean up (dishes, sweep, vacuum) and check internet
10:00 Our favorite new friends come over to our house to play and we decided to make Halloween cards for the old folk's home in our neighborhood. We will delive them another time.
11:00 Pick up Lulu from school, keep playing and making cards at home:
11:30 Lunch
12:00 Buddy's nap
2:00 Lulu's Dance class
3:00 Drive downtown and then pick up Dad
3:40 Meet Grandma at her hotel and go swimming
4:15 Bathe the kids and get dressed again
4:30 Run through hurricane-esque weather to meet Grandpa at temple square. It was blowing so hard we were almost lifted off the ground by our umbrellas. Then my umbrella flipped inside out and broke. And it was a rental from the hotel. Nice. I basically fixed it though, so it's all good.
4:45 Tour the South visitor's center

and the North Visitor's Center. It was my kids' first time to see the Christus statue:

5:30 Go back to the hotel to get our car, and check it out, blue skies on the walk back!:

6:00 Meet Jen and Brent at Cowboy Grub for family party

7:00 Jen and Brent leave, but the rest of us stay to finish eating and chat:

My Nana and her husband Scott, and my hubby:

My Mom and Dad, Dad's brother Allen and my Aunt Kari, and my cousin Spencer, who had just sneezed 3 times as I counted down for the picture. My Buddy loved sitting on Grandpa's lap and helping him eat his rice and beans:

Cowboy Grub has the cutest play room for kids to use while you are waiting for your food. Cousin Amy and Lulu were playing in there when I took the above pics. Lulu loved the bucking bronco. Buddy, not so much. He stayed by the train table:

7:30 Drive home, keep the kids awake and happy

8:10 Get ready for bed

8:45 All is quiet!

Thanks everyone for an awesome day! We loved it!

Saturday Traditions

I just love traditions. It makes the hoilday, or event, so much more exciting! Conference weekend is one of those times. (When the prophet and his apostles all get to speak and it's transmitted over the TV so we stay home and watch 8 hours worth of speakers, broken in to 4 parts. It's lovely, it really is. I look forward to it for months)
We used to have all the girls on my mom's side go out to dinner. That has sorta fizzled as we've all grown older and moved away. So, now it's up to me to start some new traditions for my own little family. For some reason all of our traditions are on Saturday. Sunday I guess we just need to settle down and listen to the messages. Well the conference tent stays up for Sunday too, so that counts. Maybe we should have a special dinner Sunday evening to end it all. I'll think about that and add it next year.
For this year, here are our Saturday Traditions:

1. I wake up early and make cinnamon rolls from scratch! Delicious. See here for the recipe.
2. Daddy sets up the conference tent! (A cute tent Lulu got for her last birthday that we only use for conference weekend).
3. Lulu, not Buddy, played in it a lot. Buddy was a little worried until Sunday evening that it would collapse on him.
4. Open up our 72 hour emergency kits and make an inventory. We take out the things that have or will expire soon and replace them with new food. This makes lots of treats for us to enjoy while we listen.
5. Go outside between sessions and play in the leaves!
6. Find the Fall beauty around us.
7. If the weather is fine, go to the park while Daddy is at his priesthood session! If the weather is not fine, go out to a special store to get a treat. We made our own smoothies after the park this time.
8. Buddy was a little worried about the slide.
9. Lulu was not.

All in all it was an excellent weekend, but it's a good thing that the talks come out in print for two reasons: 1. With kids running around I only hear a portion. and 2. I have the worst memory. I only remember a few things from all 8 hours.

Zoo highlights

We like to go the zoo whenever my mom is here. Or just whenever the weather is perfect and we are up for it. Or all of the above, as it happened last Friday. Everyone else in Northern Utah had the same idea it seemed. But we had a great time.
Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for getting us in!
Here are the highlights:

The merry-go-round, a cute photo in a wooden chair at the entrance waiting for Aunt Jen and Uncle Moose, the elephants, the giraffe staring right at us for an eternity, and my Buddy sniffing like a rabbit that he could see through the glass.
Good times.