Trip to Flagstaff

Thanks to Abby and Chris for letting us invade their apartment Saturday night! They let us crash at their place in Flagstaff after we rode on the Polar Express. Our stay was not very long, but we had so much fun with them! Abby made us a tasty dinner and we watched a movie and hung out. Their apartment is so cute. And, they watched Ella for us so we could just take Luke on the train. Thanks guys! Can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving.

Luke and Ella are champs in the car. Any time Ella starts to get fussy, we just roll the windows down and she LOVES it! Here they are on the ride home this morning. Car rides are always more comfy in pjs!

We Love Grandma Sherry and Grandpa Rick!

Jake's parents came to visit this past week and it was nice to have them here! Luke was excited to take them to see the volcano at MGM, and we walked down the strip to see the Bellagio's fountains. Went to the Atomic Testing Museum (pretty interesting! Oh, and did you know that there is a Miss Atomic Bomb?! I didn't either.) and tried a new BBQ restaurant. We spent quite a bit of time just hanging out and watching the kids at the park. It's been nice outside! Oh, and Veterans/Active Duty Military got free lunch at Applebees on Veterans Day, so Jake and Rick took advantage of that! Thanks for coming Rick and Sherry! Come back soon :)

Kind of a tangent, but I'm starting to really take advantage of all the military discounts out there! Old Navy has been giving 30% off for military, so we got some warm coats for the kiddos (and I saved way more then I paid since they were on sale + 30% off!) Can't beat that. Not that they will need warm coats around here very often, but we're planning on making some trips this winter to the snow. Yeah for discounts! :)

Unexpected Visitor!

We didn't know that Daniel (Jake's younger brother) was going to be in Vegas this past weekend to hang out with one of his college buddies, so it was fun when he stopped by for a couple of hours on Sunday! Good to see you Boon! And, you might want to know that Luke told me after you left that you are better at making Lego planes then me.

And Sherry, these are for you. I'm finally getting these pictures up! Here's Ella in her cute birthday clothes! Thank you!!

(Apparently the cute polka dot shoes were meant for skinny baby feet... so we had to make a switch) :(

Trunk Or Treat

After a month of playing in costumes, the kids finally got to trick or treat! We went to the stake trunk or treat Halloween night. There were so many kids!! We bought a lot more candy then we usually do, and still ran out early! Luke was excited to trick or treat, but after walking around for about fifteen minutes he started wheezing and feeling sick. He told us that he already had enough candy and just wanted to sit in the car. Poor kid! It's taken him a couple of days, but he's feeling a lot better now.

Here's Luke right before the trick or treating started.

Ella was loving the treats..

They were making me laugh walking around the house before we went!

In my last post I was going to put this picture on because it's the only one of Ella without lollipop all over her face, but I forgot. So, for the next blog book's sake, here's the clean face butterfly!...

Oh, and pumpkin painting... Luke painted both he and Ella's pumpkins while she sat and colored. Serious pumpkin painting skills :)

Bring on Halloween!

We are excited about Halloween around here! Took the little cuties to the park and let them play around in their costumes this weekend. Got to enjoy the costumes while they can! :) Check out the cutest bugs ever!

I told the kids (well, Luke mainly) that if they would sit still for some pictures, they could have a lollipop. Ella rather enjoyed hers. Luke thought it was pretty cool for a bit, but was soon DONE with photos and peaced out to play frisbee with dad.

And, I wanted to blog about last week. It was kind of rough!
Jake was at work from six in the morning until midnight or later a few days. (Jenni, you are so awesome to do that all the time!)
I had a tire blow out on 1-15 (Where it's really scary and under construction and there is not a shoulder and the lanes are super narrow and Jake was at work and couldn't help)
We missed swimming on the tire issue day.
Someone stole our cute fall wreath that was on the front door.
Ella has been teething and grumpy (went from having 4 top teeth and two on the bottom to five (almost six) on top and four on the bottom!)
This same cute little grumpy pooped in the tub a couple of nights ago. Now that is fun to fish out of the tub after a long day (in sick green water her brother has splashed all over the bathroom). Disinfecting all the bath toys was even more of a party.
Another day she escaped from me during a diaper change and peed on the floor.
Luke freaked out at play group at the park Friday because it was "hot" (it wasn't) and we left early.
I made poppy seed muffins and was excited to eat them. Turns out the seeds I used were super old, expired, and nasty.
Just one of those weeks. I hope this next one is better! With a cute spider and butterfly around though, how could it not be?

Wild Things, Pumpas and Soup.

Friday night we loaded the kids and a bunch of blankets, pillows and snacks in the car and headed over to the drive-in theater. It was fun! I hadn't been to a drive-in since I was a kid. We saw Where the Wild Things Are. It didn't live up to the high expectations I had and was kind of long, but the characters were cute and Luke seemed to like it.
Saturday we made a visit to the pumpkin patch. It's tradition now! I hope the next place we move has one too. :)

Ella loved all of the "pumpas!!" Whenever I was carrying her she would be squirming to get down and touch them. They had big piles of various kinds of squash too. She was having fun!

Checking out the animals...

This big peacock flew up right next to Jake! It was huge and creepy.

Hay maze...

The pumpkin Luke picked out! He picked one for Ella too, but we don't know what happened to hers. Mysteriously disappeared from the car on the way home.

And one last thing.

We tried a new soup recipe last week. It's from this fun Halloween book that my grandparents gave to Luke and is pretty tasty! Looks really festive too in the pumpkin. You should try it.

Extra Good Alphabet Soup in a Pumpkin

Slice off top of 1 medium size pumpkin; clean out inside of pumpkin and set aside. Saute 4 cut-up chicken breasts in 3 tablespoons of butter until golden. Remove and saute 3 sliced carrots, 2 sliced celery stalks, and 1/2 cup scallions. Add 1 can each of cream of chicken soup, cream of celery soup, and chicken alphabet soup. Stir in 1 can water, 1/3 cup sour cream, and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. Mix well and pour into hollow pumpkin. Top with pumpkin top. Place on baking sheet and bake in a 350 oven for 90 minutes. Scrape pumpkin sides when serving (the best part!) Makes 8 servings.

Cutie Walker

Ella has been getting better at walking over the last couple of weeks, and now she's pretty much a pro. I love one year olds! Such a fun age. Hearing their cute little voices start to talk and watching them lose their wobbliness is so much fun. Today was perfect outside. Breezy, cool, and just right for playing at the park. Check out my cute walker!

I guess she didn't want Luke holding her hand...
Yeah for kites!
Luke wanted to take some pictures, and I think this one he took of his feet actually turned out kind of fun!

Rise and Shout

Jake and I went on a date last night to the BYU vs UNLV football game! I'm not a huge football buff, but when BYU is playing I love to go! It's the superfan in me I guess. Haha. (By the way, old BYU roomies, you'll appreciate that I still have my superfan t-shirt. Good times!)
We won 59 to 21. Go Cougars!!

We had some good seats! First row at the 40 yard line. Kind of on the wrong side of the field though! Haha. Luckily a few cougar fans were sitting on the other side of Jake so we weren't completely surrounded by red. (And, Jake could talk some serious football talk with them since I'm not the most up to date person when it comes to football stats and details) Since we were right behind the Rebel players, I was entertained by all of their comments each time BYU made a touchdown and their cool hair-dos.

Thanks Jake for a fun night! :)

Gingerbread Haunted House

Last year, we made one of these gingerbread haunted houses and Luke didn't want to part with it after Halloween. He would look at it every day and tell me that Bony Legs lived there, and we would talk about how scary it was. I finally threw the dusty thing away in December one day while he was napping. Anyway, it was a big hit, so we got the same kit again and he decorated it last night. So proud of himself. I helped him gob on the frosting on the roof and then he did the rest. (BTW, I think 3 year olds make much scarier haunted houses then the ones pictured on the Wilton kit box)

He wanted me to take a picture of his purple tongue.

ThE GOod, ThE BaD, and ThE UgLY....

Good stuff from this past week...

It's October! Yay, I love October. The weather has been great. FINALLY not unbearably hot around here. We've been able to go to the park during the day which really beats waiting until the sun is going down to go outside! And, this was conference weekend. All the talks were especially good this time around.

Ella is almost an official walker! She's been taking quite a few steps since Sept 25, and is just about there. I think she'll really take off any time.

Made quite a bit of progress on my health and aging class!

Luke is loving swimming lessons now. Phew! Here he is with his teacher this past week...


Also, I put him in a class at a gymnastics gym a month or so ago. The class is just for three-year-olds and they do a lot of obstacle course type things, climb ropes and ladders, and jump on trampolines. Jake got off early enough to come watch this past week so Luke was excited to show him his "tricks."

We found a good Mexican restaurant here! Seems like everywhere around Vegas is a pizza joint, so this is good news :)

Went to enrichment and learned how to make lots of new yummy things. Can't wait to try making them at home!

The bad...

I was really hoping that when we moved away from TX, Luke's asthma problems wouldn't follow us. I had heard that a lot of people have breathing issues there, and then they go away after leaving (something about the weather patterns or air in S.A... I don't exactly remember what the doc said). Well, Luke hadn't had any problems here until this past week. We've been up in the middle of the nights again for breathing treatments. He's been kind of sick with a cold, so I think that's what brought it on. Poor kid.

Somebody at our house got a speeding ticket. (wasn't me)

This same somebody came soooo close to running over a pedestrian. Really, it's a miracle he didn't hit the guy. People, if you have black skin and it's dark outside, DONT WEAR ALL BLACK CLOTHES. Thanks.

My leg still isn't up to running and it's been a month since I hurt it. SO annoying. At least it lets me do most other things at the gym without hurting now.

Ella added "Poo Poo" and "POOP" to her vocabulary. MY ONE YEAR OLD IS SAYING POOP. What a nice brother to teach her these types of things...

The Ugly...

Not my husband (I happen to think he's a hottie). And not his friends. It's the mustaches that I think are gross. Jake and the other guys in his AEGD program decided it would be fun to grow out staches for the week. Eew.
Luckily they shaved them off on Friday.