Princesses!

Emily and I had a girls night with my family last week. We all went to see the Princesses on Ice at ESA. The girls just loved it. Emily was so excited to see Mickey & Minnie and all the princesses. She was especially thrilled whenever the princes joined the princesses and was in heaven when they kissed and danced. She is such a romantic.
Unfortunately our camera broke and I was relying on my mom's camera to take pictures. I was only able to snap a couple before the batteries died and we didn't have any replacements. So pictures were slim. (But on a side note - hallelujah! We just got our camera back and it works great).

Children's Museum

I've thought about taking Emily to the children's museum several times. But since it's $9 per person, we've never ventured there. I had a couple free passes that expired the end of October so I decided I didn't have anymore excuses. Jenn and her kids met us down there and I'm so glad they came. Emily had a lot more fun with Sara & Ally there. I think the museum was well put together and I'd love to visit more often. But seriously, having to pay full price for me to sit there and watch Emily play is a little much. Not something I'm going to cough up the money for very often.

Playing with all the balls
Loving the market
(Emily's favorite part and where we spent the majority of our time)

Gas'n up the car

Playing with Grace in the baby area

Miscellaneous pics of the girls favorite areas

Halloween

Emily had a halloween party at preschool. They all got to wear their costumes and have a little parade. Then they made fun halloween crafts, sang spooky songs, read scary books and had some great snacks and treats. They ended with "trick-or-treating" with all the treats everyone brought to share. It was really cute and Emily had a blast. I can't believe she's big enough to be in school. It's so fun to see her there. She absolutely loves it.
On Halloween we had dinner at our ward and then did our annual trunk or treat. I took Emily around once and then she refused to go again saying she had already been there. So Jeff decided to go and tried to make another loop with her. She would only go to 2 or 3 more cars before she was adament that she'd already gotten candy from those cars. She then said she was done and went and climbed into the car and buckled up. I don't know if I have a really well mannered child that would only take candy from people once or if she was just really excited to go to Gma & Gpa Holbrook's house.

I'm leaning more towards the wanting to go to Gma's house rather then the extremely well mannered. Mostly because she knew she could see Ella when we got there. We were all excited to have Brad & Heather in town for Halloween this year (that's not usually a holiday they come out for). We snapped a few pics of the girls and then went out for a little bit of trick or treating. The girls just loved being together and laughing. They were so cute in their matching costumes. Emily shared her pom poms with Ella and was so cute when she would jump around and yell "Go Utes!"

Our First Pumpkin Carving

First Snow!

We were thrilled when we had our first snowy day. Emily was so excited and wouldn't keep the door closed. She kept sticking out her tongue and trying to catch the snowflakes. She also got a little confused and kept asking if the baby was coming that day (we've told her not till christmas/winter/snow).

I was in love with the big flakes too.

Fall Traditions

Last Sunday we had our annual Halloween Dinner with my family. My mom's been doing it for over 20 years. It's a fun tradition where we all order 3 courses of food that have been named different things (ie: cat vomit... which is really disgusting and my mom was particularly gross this year). The fun part is that the utinsels, napkin, and drink are all included in the menu. I was fortunate enough to get one utinsel with each course this time. I think my favorite memory was when my brother got a plate of peas, a knife and a napkin ... and no drink. He hates peas.

All the cousins in the costume before dinner

We also celebrated Chris's birthday.

Last week we also went to my brother Matthew's last game (before playoffs anyway). Matthew played the whole game and did awesome. He got the 2nd touchdown of the game ... right after I turned my camera off. So no pics of that unfortunately. It was fun to see him play. It made Jeff miss reffing even more ... although he didn't miss working with sloppy crews. He says the officials that night were horrible with their mechanics. Fortunately, they didn't make bad calls and affect the game however. Skyline beat Murray 59 to 35.

Last Friday my mom and sisters and I had our annual lunch at Gardner Village. It was a lot of fun to be away from kids and be able to carry on a complete conversation without interruption. I'm glad we all live so close to each other and can get together so often - even if it is with the kids sometimes.

Don't Stop Believin'

Special Olympics fall games was this past weekend. For the last 3 or 4 years Jeff and I have been saying that we're done being on the committee - yet we've always gone back and done it. This year when we knew I'd be 7 months pregnant and Jeff would be on crutches we decided we were finally done. However as the games got closer and closer Jeff started working harder and harder to try and convince me that we should do it again. One of my good friends was the director again this year so I finally just told her that if we wouldn't be a hinderance in our current condition we'd be up for another year. Mal said to come - So we spent Friday and Saturday up on campus.

Emily absolutely loved it. Mal made Emily her own credentials this year so she was an official member of the GOC (even if she didn't get a t-shirt for the 4th year in a row). Friday she helped hand out lunches and just had a blast doing it. She loved just being involved and helping out.
Emily sees Mallory quite often and was excited to see her this weekend. Actually, excited might be an understatement. She absolutely loved her and was always wanting to play and dance with her. Emily also got to know a lot of the other GOC members and by the end of the weekend was running around playing with them.

This year's Miss Utah was there again so we got another picture. Emily also met Miss Legacy and got a jazz ball from the Bear.

One thing Emily wanted to do all weekend was play bocce. So as soon as the competition was over we pulled out the bocce balls and played a few games. She loved it (and of course won everytime).

Olympic Town had an AMAZING face painter this year. She did the most elaborte painting and was so quick. Emily has never liked having her face painted and at first wouldn't even consider it. I finally told her I was going to do it and asked her if she'd like to too. She reluctantly agreed and after waiting in line (that never ended because she was so good) Emily got more and more excited. As she watched the woman paint she not only decided she couldn't wait to have her face painted, but she had to do it before me. She said she wanted a pink and blue butterfly. I got a red and purple butterfly. Isn't it amazing??

Friday night after the opening ceremonies there was a dance. Emily was very excited for it. She told Jeff that he had to dance with just her. When he asked who I was going to dance with she promptly said I could just watch - then later added that I could dance with Jacob (aka: her brother). I love the 2nd video where she wanted to dance alone. You can't hear it really well, but after a few seconds Jeff tells her to shake it and I love how her dancing changes. (And sorry they're so dark. There usually isn't a lot of lighting at dances).

It was a long weekend and we were all completely worn out afterwards. But we were all extremely glad we went back "for on more year." Actaully, one thing we learned from this past weekend was to not try and predict the future. This was the 7th time we've geen on the GOC and like I mentioned before, we've been saying we were done for the last 4 years. At first it was because we had baby and then because Jeff graduated from school. But we've always made it work and still been involved. Next year we'll have a 9 month old running around and who knows what else may be going on. SOUT staff kept saying see you next year and they made Emily promise to come back. But - we'll see ... it might have been our last year.

Pumpkins

On Sunday we went on our annual trip to my dad's friend's pumpkin patch. Emily was the only grandkid able to go this year. But she still had a blast picking out pumpkins and running around outside.
I made a comment to Jeff earlier in the week about how we don't have any pregnant pictures of me. I had refused to have any taken when I was pregnant with Emily and looking back on it I wished I had at least a couple. So Jeff took it upon himself to snap several pictures of my oh so lovely stomach.

Thursday was Emily's first field trip with her preschool class. We went to a cute little nursery to pick out pumpkins. The kids got to sit inside a tee pee and sing Halloween songs and read spooky stories. Then they each got to pick out a pumpkin. Emily had a blast running around with all her friends.

Family, Family, & More Family

We have had night after night of family activities. Jeff's youngest brother, Stan, and his family came into town conference weekend. We spent a lot of time with the Holbrooks the past week watching conference, playing games, and of course, eating. Emily loved playing with baby Heidi and making her smile. She also loved being chased by Stan. We're glad Jeff's brothers have been in town the past month to chase Emily around - she hasn't been getting that lately with Jeff being on crutches and you could tell she'd missed it. Thursday my family got together to watch my brother's football game. With a cripple, a pregnant woman, and a 3 year old, we weren't able to get out the door as quickly as we'd hoped and we only got to see the last couple of minutes of the game. However we were able to be there long enough for Emily to be satisfied, Jeff to be completely unimpressed with the officiating, and to see Matthew intercept the ball.
Emily sure loves going to Matthew's games and was disappointed we weren't there very long. But she was quite happy when she discovered we were going to Gma's after for dinner and she could keep playing with her cousins. The girls had a blast jumping on the tramp (and having Gpa "get them"). The boys however were in short supply that night - Sam didn't come, Jackson was sick, and we didn't think it was a good idea to put baby Cameron on the tramp.

Another Marathon

As previously mentioned Brad & Heather came into town with their two girls a couple weeks ago. We were able to see them their first night here (and see cute baby Maggie for the first time), but then we didn't see them again for another week till we watched the U game together. A couple nights later we got together again and had dinner. Both of those times I totally spaced to bring my camera. I don't know if it's the forgetful pregnant gene that is constantly plaguing me or if it's a sign of what's to come ... we'll have a million pictures of Emily and our poor boy will be lucky to have a couple of pictures to show his posterity. Hopefully it's my pregnant mind and not that I'm getting burned out with taking pictures. I did happen to remember it when we went to the zoo with the Holbrooks on the 23rd though. So this post isn't completely devoid of pictures (and if you haven't noticed, I got better as the week went on).

Jeff's work had their 5th anniversary last week. To celebrate they had a big open house where family and past patients were able to attend. They provided dinner - an amazing spread of prime rib, chicken, veggies, rice, and potatoes. And of course the desserts were amazing too. There must have been at least 5 different kinds of cake, a dozen different finger desserts, and of course, a chocolate fountain. Since half of Jeff's family also work at Aspen Ridge they were there to enjoy it all with us. Emily and Ella also got one last time to play. And boy did they have fun...

After eating we ended up going into the therapy gym where the girls had a blast. Emily LOVES visiting her dad at work and she was more than willing to show Ella all the things she likes to do.

After playing with the balloons they soon discovered how much fun the tables were.

These girls just laughed and laughed that night. I can't wait till Brad & Heather are out here again and can stay for two whole months! The girls are going to love it.

After the open house we went up to my parents' house. My dad has been out of town for the past 5 1/2 weeks and had just gotten home the night before. Emily was so excited to see Gpa Newman again. She kept giving him hugs and following him around the house. It was so cute. We are all SO glad to have him back home. We missed you dad!!!

For our birthdays this year Jeff's parents treated us to an overnight retreat at Aspen Grove. The mountains were gorgeous! I couldn't get over all the bright colors. It was just beautiful. The retreat was focused on marriage and Scott Anderson from the Sandy Institute taught several lectures. It was amazing! He was so hilarious and kept your attention so well and could really bring the spirit into the room. It was one of those things that I just didn't want to have end. Thank you mom & dad for taking Emily overnight so we could enjoy a night away!

We raced home from Aspen Grove to get ready for the U vs Louisville game. We'd forgotten how much fun it is to be AT the game instead of just watching it. It'd been a long time. Of course having the Utes win made it even more fun. Emily was really good the whole time. A big thanks to Dave for bringing his binoculars - they entertained Emily for a lot of the time. She also learned how to shell peanuts and that kept her attention for a while. Towards the end she really got into it and was screaming and yelling "GO UTES!"

Thanks for the great weekend Dave & Arline!

After having such a busy week last week, it was nice to not have anything going on this week. Of course that doesn't mean I didn't do anything. I've spent the majority of my time cleaning out and re-organizing all of our closets and cupboards. Emily was a big helper ... some of the time. Here she is cleaning her kitchen while I worked on the linen closet.
We decided to brave the crowds and go to Tracy Aviary today. Emily was thrilled to see all of her cousins and play with them again. It'd been about a month since they'd all been together and they were all so excited to see each other. Emily loved watching the pelicans and was ok with the eagles and flamingos, but mostly she just wanted to be with Jackson & Sara.

Gma let them choose one ride to go on at the park. We were all a little surprised when they chose the airplanes over the carousel. But they loved it.

After the ride we went over to the playground to play for a bit and have lunch.

PS Sorry for the marathon post. I know my last several posts have been this way. When I have free time and can check peoples blogs it always bugs me when they're not updated for several weeks. And here I am, doing just that. So to those of you that are like me, I'm sorry. I completely admit I am a hypocrite. Hopefully things are calming down now and I can do better at blogging. But let's be realistic, I still have a 5 page to do list before this kids arrives and christmas shopping and the primary program trump blogging.