I'm a Mean Old Witch

Yes, I know it is still September and I did not mean for this to happen before October came around, but we get into the Holidays at our house and are a little anxious. I guess it turns out that our daughter got those genes from us because she is the one that got it all going this time. It all started when we got the play dough out to play with. She wanted to play with black and she wanted me to play with orange. First she asked for help to cut out a pumpkin with one of the cookie cutters (which is actually an apple cookie cutter). Then she said she was making a witch and wanted some help. So of course I could not resist. I started teaching her this song. She caught on about the third time and could sing it all the way through by herself. If you notice, she is a little distracted doing the actions of the song with the play dough witch, so she needed little promptings from me. She is my music child. I am told that she knows all the songs at Nursery and sings the loudest. This does not surprise me because I know she LOVES IT at home and has been that way sense she went into Nursery in Cedar City at 16 months (I was one of the Nursery Leaders).
So here we are in September making Halloween characters and singing Halloween songs. What the heck! Here is a preview of Kaven's costume while we are at it!Let's get the holidays rolling. Once you start it is just too hard to stop! :) Happy Halloween Everyone! :D

Block Party

Last weekend our housing held a block party. Kind of a back to school party for all us University Students! It was a very fun party (that didn't cost us a thing) and to top it off we won one of the prizes. We got tickets to This is the Place Heritage Park Little Haunts Fest! Don't worry I am sure there will another post on that when it happens! :) We had a great time.....
at the bounce houses,
(That as what Emery was most excited about, but when we got there she was too scared to go in. She ended up just watching it most the time fascinated).
eating cotton candy,

fishing for treasure at the fish pond,

(which she won a pretty necklace)
eating ice-cream,

(we actually had popcorn and then pizza for lunch but I was a little embarrased to post more pictures of junk food. :)
shooting off rockets that we made,

and just hanging out,

Baby Zuri

There is a new baby Elephant at the zoo. Her name is Zuri and she is ADORABLE! We sat and watched her most of the time we were there and I could have watched her longer. She is all over the place, wants to touch and experience EVERYTHING! She was even sitting on big balls and stuff.
Emery had even more fun at the zoo this time. Right when we got there she and Hannah had their maps and she was doing her 'I'm so cool' swagger walk. Or 'I own this place' walk. I think it is because she had just been there before and she knew what to expect this time.
We had so much fun again. Thanks for taking us Shannon!

TINA'S HERE!!!

Hip Hip Hooray! Tina is in Utah right now and we were lucky enough to see her and Nathan! We had so much fun with them and the Leeflangs. It was SO GOOD to get back together again even though we missed some of our other friends that we lived in Cedar City with. We loved it in Cedar City and made great friends that will last a life time.
We had Homemade Costa Vida for dinner and Worms and Dirt for dessert. The kids sure thought it was crazy! Nathan had a hard time dipping in and eating until he found the worms and Emery went to town eating it until she found a gummy worm and then was DONE!
.
Thanks for fitting us in your Utah trip Tina and Nathan. We had a great time with you.

To Build or Not to Build?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BUILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the type of question I ask myself on a regular occasion with my 2 year old. "Is it worth the work and time to do it and then clean it up when she is done?" As you see I say YES to this one.

Emery and I had a great time building her a "Castle" the other day. She has been reading books, watching movies, making food in it, off and on for the last few days. The only problem is, I did not consider that she would want me in it with her ALL THE TIME! Don't get me wrong. I love spending time with her and I find any excuse to find fun active things to do with her, but when the dishes and laundry are piling up and the house is getting messy, it is time to come back into reality and get to work. So the Castle had to come down today. I thought I would pay tribute to it by putting a post of it. Good-bye Castle. We had lots of fun but don't worry I am sure there will be more castles and huts in the future, especially when Kaven gets a little bigger so Emery will have someone to play with inside.

Feed the Birds

I was actually thinking of the song from Mary Poppins when I wrote this title, so now I have the song in my head. It is a part of the movie that I ALWAYS fast forward through like Cheer up Charlie on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So don't ask me how I know the song if I always fast forwarded through it. :)
Anyway....
I am actually writing about our visit to Sugar house Park with the Leeflangs a few days ago. They have a really fun park there that the kids had a blast going to some super long slides and running down big hills. But after the park we went to feed the ducks on the pond. I have been wanting to do this with Emery sense we moved here but just need a little nudge from the Leeflangs to get us going. So I wanted to post some pictures of us feeding the ducks. The funny thing is I don't think there is a single duck in any of the pictures. They are there I promise, and there were quite a few of them but right when I snapped the pictures they must of been swimming right behind our bodies. Just Kidding, I just found one out of like the 10 I took.

Just Not the Same

Labor Day Weekend is ALWAYS set aside for the infamous Day Family Reunion. It is the highlight of Tim's year (maybe even over Christmas!!) So we headed up the Canyon once again for the fun festivities and Camping.
This year was a little different though. The older generation that usually runs it
decided they were too old and tired to do it, so a younger generation decided they would take over. They did an excellent job but did not get the support from everyone. There was a lot of complaining about someone forgetting the BINGO, there were no group meals this year and so forth. Also there was not a very good turnout maybe because of these things. Emery had a little bit of a hard time too because she did not fit in very well with the other kids, maybe it is because they didn't know her very well or were just used to playing with each other, without her being there. (Thanks for being sweet to her Hannah).
BUT...
we made the best of it,
Emery had fun trying to escape into the wilderness by herself, and playing with Brady and Grandma Paula. Tim set up an awesome Tent to share with Brady. They put a tarp over a tent with blow up rafts on the side. They said it was the best they have ever slept camping. He also went boating/fishing with Brady, and played all day in the volleyball tournament. Kaven was VERY good even with his lack of sleep. He enjoyed tasting a pine cone and watching all the action. I had a great time visiting with everyone and was so appreciative of all of Paulas help with my kids. I really enjoyed her company this year.
Tim and I talked about it and decided that it was not the lack of people, the forgotten BINGO, the lack of group meals that made it not as great but it was
********JUST NOT THE SAME********
without Brett, Jennie, Sadie and Trace!!!! We missed you guys SO much. We missed Bretts strong fun presence and his funny comments. We missed Jennies laugh and fun conversations. We missed Sadie and Emery running around chasing each other giggling and squealing like little girls and following each other everywhere they go. And we missed looking at and talking to cute Trace. We know you are where you are suppose to be and are doing great at it but it doesn't mean we don't miss you when you are not here. Keep up the good work guys, we look forward to the next time we get to see you.
(I took this picture from Jennie's blog)